Knot the Soldiers' Pack

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Blaze

My Sparkles is dead.

My Alpha doesn’t understand that.

It keeps searching for her pulse, her scent, her bond, the sweet Omega-thread that should be wrapped around my ribs and showing me the light.

There’s nothing there.

Blaise is dead too.

I wait for him to argue with me. He was always the one who softened when her scent would sour. The one who melted when she purred, who wanted to curl around her in the nest and be good because she made goodness feel possible.

I wait for that gentle, useless voice to tell me to stop and be better for her.

Nothing answers.

There’s only me now.

I hate it.

I hate it so much that my hands and skin feel wrong. The whole world feels wrong because she’s supposed to be in it, and she isn’t. Blaise is supposed to be in my head whining about mercy and restraint and how Sparkles wouldn’t want this, but he isn’t here either.

Fine.

Fantastic.

The pain needs somewhere to go, and I’ve found it somewhere to live.

The Beta harpy who killed my everything stares up at me from the dirt, shaking, bleeding, and somehow still breathing when my Sparkles isn’t. Her mouth opens. She says something. Begs, maybe. Explains, maybe. I don’t hear it.

She wants death, I think. She wants us to kill her quick and easy.

That’s adorable.

My Omega didn’t get quick or easy.

She got blood in her throat and our bond tearing out of me while my Alpha clawed at the inside of my skin, trying to get to her too late and too slow.

Sparkles wanted to live, and she didn’t get what she wanted. And I wanted her to live, and I didn't get what I wanted. So nobody gets what they want tonight.

I cock my pistol, aim it at her foot, and shoot. Blood sprays into the air, pretty red droplets splattering across my face.

She screams, and my ears ring.

I wait for the good part. The little fizz behind my ribs when someone screams just right. The click in my head that says there, better.

Nothing comes.

It's all just bitterness and consuming despair.

I frown down at her, offended on principle because screaming is supposed to help. Blood is supposed to help. Fear is supposed to make the world line up into neat little pieces again, one body, one blade, one problem, one solution at a time.

It doesn’t.

The pain stays right where it is.

My eyes flick back to my Omega.

Mistake.

Viper has her wrapped in his arms, his whole body hunched around her like he can still keep the world away if he holds on tight enough. Shade is beside them, careful fingers lowering her eyelids, hiding the purple I’ll never see again.

Such pretty, pretty purple.

I forget to breathe until my throat burns, and I have to look away before the pain drowns me.

The murderer still has eyes.

I can work with that.

I swallow the grief down. It claws back up, ugly and wet and too big for my chest. I shove anger over it with both hands.

Only anger. Only anger. Only anger.

See? Easy.

I’m fine!

I’m going to rip the world open with my teeth, but I’m fine.

It’s good that Shade closed her eyes. That was smart of him. Sweet of him. Good boy, Shade. Sparkles doesn’t need to see this. She’d get upset, and then she’d look at me with those big, sad, disappointed eyes, and I can’t have that right now.

I grab the murderer by the back of her jacket and drag her across the dirt, hunting for somewhere private. Somewhere away from my Omega’s body.

This filth doesn’t get to bleed beside her.

The woman makes a broken noise when her injured foot catches on a rock.

I look down at her. "Careful, sweetheart. You’ll hurt yourself."

She sobs harder.

That almost makes me smile.

Almost. It comes out as a sneer instead.

A big red cross is painted on the side of the nearest tent. A medic tent, helpfully declaring itself a place of healing, which is deeply inaccurate, considering what I’m about to do inside it.

The soldiers within scatter before I say a word. One of them drops a tray of instruments, and metal clatters across the floor.

My reputation is doing the talking for me, which is good because my mouth is busy trying not to scream my Omega's name.

I throw the murderer onto the nearest cot.

What was I doing?

Protect.

The word comes fast and on instinct, but it's too late for that. There's nothing left to protect.

My Alpha no longer knows that word.

My fingers twitch around the pistol grip.

Right.

Vengeance.

I shoot her hand next. The same one that held the gun and pulled the trigger. I aim carefully because ruining things too quickly is amateur work, and I am nothing if not a professional.

She screams again.

Still nothing.

My chest stays hollow. My head stays quiet. Blaise stays gone.

I tilt my head, studying her. "You’re really bad at this."

She sobs something through chattering teeth.

"No, see, if you’re going to scream, you need to mean it. Commit to the performance."

Prime Alpha is with me, quiet and pale with shaking hands. He kneels beside her, bandaging the wound in her foot, then her hand, methodical and grim.

Keeping the blood inside.

That is good.

He understands the game. She doesn’t get to leave early.

She doesn’t get an easy exit, or mercy, or the soft, quiet nothing she handed to my Omega.

Because Sparkles didn’t get to choose.

Sparkles didn’t get to call for her Pack.

Sparkles didn’t get to—

No.

I don’t like that sentence.

I grab a fistful of the murderer’s hair and yank her head back until her throat arches. Her pulse jumps under the skin, frantic and alive and insulting.

Alive.

Still alive.

"What was I doing?" I whisper.

Prime Alpha’s head turns toward me. His eyes are red-rimmed, but he says nothing.

I grin at him.

He doesn’t grin back. He doesn’t say anything either. He just looks lost, confused, and torn from the inside out.

Right.

Punishment.

The murderer’s eyes flick toward the tent flap, toward the camp beyond it, toward freedom or help or death. I don’t know which one she’s hoping for anymore.

Wrong answer, whichever it is.

"You killed her," I say, and the words come out too calm and flat for the agony splitting me right down the middle. Maybe they belong to someone else. Maybe I’m Blaise standing two feet to the left of my own body, watching Blaze do what Blaze does best.

Because Blaise really is dead, and that’s for the best. He'd only hold me back.

My knife is still in its sheath. I feel the weight, steady and patient against my thigh. My favorite little problem solver.

The Beta sees my hand drift toward it, and she starts shaking her head.

Oh, now she wants to communicate.

I crouch beside her, close enough that I can smell her rancid, thin terror beneath all the blood.

"Don’t look so scared," I tell her. "I’m not doing this to you. You did this to me."

Her lips move.

I lean in. "What was that?"

"Please," she whispers.

I blink at her.

Then I laugh.

It bursts out of me wrong, too loud in the medical tent, bouncing off canvas and metal and Prime Alpha’s silence. It doesn’t feel like laughter. It feels like a wound making noise.

"Please," I say in a falsetto, mimicking her pitiful words, delighted, furious, and sick down to the marrow. "That’s precious. Really. But you can do better than that."

Prime Alpha is staring at her without blinking. He's barely breathing, just staring. It makes me feel as if I'm alone. But that's not right, because with the bond, I'm never alone in the darkness anymore.

Except the bond is gone, just a sucking hole in my chest where light and love used to live.

I close my eyes and imagine her purple eyes watching me from the dark.

I try to imagine her scent with it. The lavender, ozone, and warm Omega sweetness that used to sink claws into the worst parts of me and drag them back.

I can picture her standing there with her hands on her hips, calling me a cockwomble and telling me, 'For fuck's sake, Blaze. Stop being dramatic.'

I open my eyes.

She isn’t there.

Of course she isn’t there.

My Sparkles is dead.

My pretty, brave, ridiculous Omega is dead, and the bond is gone. Shattered and torn from my chest. My stupid Alpha keeps reaching for it anyway. Again and again, like a stray dog returning to an empty bowl with hope despite all evidence to the contrary.

I press my thumb into the fresh bandage on the murderer’s hand.

She screams.

Still nothing.

Still nothing.

Still fucking nothing.

"Why isn’t this working?" I ask her.

She can’t answer through all the hyperventilating. So inconsiderate.

My pulse is hammering. I turn to pace, trying to think of a way to make it work. To make the pain break.

I grasp at my hair, my fist pulling as if it will make my thoughts stop skipping, catching, and skipping again.

Gunshot. Blood. Purple eyes. Silence. Blaise. Sparkles. Bond. Scent. Pulse. Mate. Gone. Red cross. Wrong place for healing. Good place for screaming. Don’t look at her. Don’t say dead. Don’t stop moving.

If I stop, I’ll know.

If I know, I’ll break.

So I don’t stop.

I pull my blade from my belt.

The metal catches the light.

I wait one more second for Blaise to tell me no.

Silence answers.

A smile pulls at my mouth.

Beautiful.

If I don't get to leave this waking nightmare.

No one does.