Chapter Five
Viper
Waking feels like dragging myself out of a frontline trench after ten days of rain, the mud so thick it congeals on your boots and tries to suck you down into its sinking depths.
I force my heavy, gritty eyelids to open only to squeeze them shut at the harsh glare of bright overhead lights. Everything is white.
I take deep breaths to keep the panic under wraps. I don’t know where I am or how I got here. The last thing I remember is the battle at Dunefold Fortress. The human forces had broken our ranks, infiltrating the fortress and silently killing our troops as they slept like gutless snakes.
A cloying smell of blood woke me from my sleep, the coppery tang in the air unmistakable and triggering. I don’t feel fear often, but I felt it as I gasped awake. My brothers weren’t in their bedrolls beside me and all I could think was ‘my team is bleeding out.’
Horror-filled images of Shade with his throat slit, rivers of blood spilling down his chest as he gurgled for my help.
Knox with his hands bound, and his permanent snarling scowl etched into his lifeless face. A bullet hole right between his eyes.
Blaze being consumed by his namesake, flames bubbling his skin and burning away his cheeky grin forever.
And as if I’d opened the front door to my mind, the red fog rolled in. A haze spread through me and sparked like an electrical storm, biting with electric anger.
I had a brief moment of acceptance before it took control.
Blood Lust had finally claimed me.
It’s my time. I’ll die from the infection destroying me from the inside or I’d be given the sweet mercy of a bullet. Yet, if I could save my team, it’d make my death worth it.
The memories after are flashes of blood and rage.
The thundering need to not merely kill, but maim and cause harm to everyone and anything that crossed my manic path.
My hands were slick with the blood of countless humans.
The ones who had been lucky enough to escape my fury with only a flesh wound had left with fear so deep it would haunt them forever.
I was a monster. A beast. An animal unleashed, and it would not be caged again.
And then she came.
Her soft voice cut through the haze in my mind, calling to me, and somehow I was able to hear her through the buzzing in my ears. My body shook with the need to attack, the urge to destroy anyone who might be a threat to my Omega. And then she touched me.
The fog receded enough for her to penetrate the endless rage. I was a wild animal, crazed and dangerous, but her body was so soft, and the sound of her voice so sweet. It soothed me, calming my frayed nerves enough that I refocused the pulsing energy to something more appealing – the Omega.
A heavy warmth shifting on my chest jolts me back to reality, disrupting my patched-together memories. I blink blearily down at a mass of chocolate brown hair. The scent hits me next. Lavender and something electric, like the crackling air after a lightning storm.
Omega.
The word cuts through my delirium and I can feel myself come back to life.
My limbs are heavy and weak, so I don’t move, but I stare down at the creature sleeping on my chest. She’s so small and delicate, it’s hard to believe she somehow tamed my Blood Lust – an affliction thought to have no treatment or cure.
She looks like I’ve always imagined Omegas to look. Soft and pretty. Her hair waves in a cascade of curls. Her pale pink lips are parted and she breathes deeply in her sleep.
How is she asleep when she saw the beast within me? Isn’t she afraid? Isn’t she concerned about her safety?
I have no doubt I didn’t hurt only our enemies in my rage. Blood Lust doesn’t discriminate. I’d have torn my brothers-in-arms limb from limb without a thought, mindless in my desperation to protect them but blind to who I battled.
A stab of grief hits me hard. I pray to the old gods that they are alive. It will be some terrible twist of fate if I murdered my found family only to survive.
I look down at my body, stripped of clothes except for my underwear. I’m tinged red everywhere, streaked with brown dried blood. Some of the blood is mine, but most isn’t. I’m coated in it and it stinks.
I count fresh scars scattered over my flesh. Slashes and gunshot wounds, shiny pink from being rapidly healed mere moments after their arrival. If only the pain inside my heart could be so easily repaired.
The movement stirs the little Omega on my chest, and I freeze. She whimpers but doesn’t wake, instead shifting to nuzzle into my chest hair. My heart squeezes at the show of affection and trust.
Why did this little creature save me? I was supposed to be put down like a rabid animal. It was time. I was ready.
A knock at the door has the Omega grumbling in her sleep. I wait for her to wake, but she licks her lips and continues sleeping, small puffs of her hot breath fluttering over my chest.
The door cracks open and Beta Specialist Shade enters.
My teammate. My brother-in-arms. My blood brother.
Relief spills from me, causing strands of brown hair to dance wildly in my exhale. I didn’t kill him.
“Viper,” he whispers, his eyes fixed on the sleeping Omega.
He doesn’t have to say anything else. I know I have to leave.
My time with the sweetest and bravest creature I’ve ever crossed paths with is over.
I don’t allow myself to be sad. This is more than I’ve ever hoped to experience with an Omega, and I’ll have this memory to hold close until the next time Blood Lust drags me under and I finally meet my maker.
I stare down at the Omega to memorize every detail about her.
“She’s a beauty.” Shade’s keen eyes track the rise and fall of her chest.
He remains silent for an extended period, his expression inscrutable, his mind a mystery. I can see the gears in his mind turning, the questing eyes searching her neck for signs of a bite to her mating gland.
I don’t know why my crazed Alpha didn’t claim her as his. I certainly have the compulsion even with a clearer head, but he didn’t. Her gland is a soft pale pink, slightly swollen and wholly untouched.
I feel a twinge of disappointment, and my lip curls into a snarl, but Shade doesn’t react.
“She’s either really brave or stupid,” he finally exhales.
I want to tell him that she purred for me, that her voice, body, and song calmed me enough to keep me in the right state of mind to avoid killing anyone else. I can’t speak. All of my willpower is going towards leaving her.
Shade allows me a few more moments of bliss before offering me his hand.
I stare at his outstretched hand.
Shade is a Beta with the heart of an Alpha.
He is loyal and protective and smart. Our team would be lost without his stabilizing influence.
I trust him explicitly. If he’s saying it’s time to go, I’ll go.
Even if all of my instincts are screaming to never leave the Omega.
Her warmth has seeped into my very bones, and I know I’ll never feel the same heat again.
Carefully, I lift her and place her on her side; the paper covering the examination table is stained in the blood coating my skin. She sighs and curls in on herself but doesn’t wake. It’s a blessing. I’m not sure if I could handle meeting her after what I did.
I take one last look at the little Omega, lingering near the door and sucking in her sweet scent to imprint it on my mind. I’ll never forget her, but I hope she’ll forget me. I’m nothing but a dead man walking. She was my stay of execution, but it’s only a matter of time.
“Thank you, Omega,” I whisper softly as I click the door closed.