Chapter Fifty-Four
Viper
My broken rifle slaps into my back as I run through the tree line.
I stride straight past the dead Alpha, not allowing myself to look at his face, afraid of feeling a kinship with the Blood Lust victim. In another life, that would’ve been me.
Blaze is double checking that it’s actually dead. The last thing we need is for a zombie situation to happen.
In front of the tent, Shade remains on guard, his eyes squinted in a permanent wince and blood on the side of his face.
“Shade?” I call, jogging over to my teammate, concern in every fiber of my being. He looks like shit, his face purpling and swollen. “Oh fuck, man. You okay? What happened?”
I can sense Halley inside the tent. She doesn’t smell hurt.
“We have to go, our location’s compromised,” Shade says to me, his dark eyes intense but unfocused.
Yeah, definitely concussed.
I sigh. We all know what has to happen. When a black site is compromised, we grab essentials and disappear.
It’s not so easy this time. We have precious cargo.
“We can’t. Halley is… She’s not…” I don’t have the words, my brain already feeling like cotton in her proximity.
Blaze appears beside me, blood coating his lower face and soaked into his shirt. Little bastard’s nose has always been a bleeder.
“Don’t worry about Halley.” Shade snorts in mirthless humor. “Trust me, she can handle it.”
“Shade—” I begin, but he holds up his bloody hand and waves it at the dead body.
“I didn’t do this, Viper. She did.”
“What?”
“And, your dead man down the hill? Yeah, that was her too.”
Knox flashes in with impressive speed, his eyes burning with intensity as he listens to Shade explain.
“I don’t know what you taught her, Viper, but she’s one hell of a shot.”
My mind races.
Halley shot the Blood Lust Alpha.
Both of them.
“Is she okay?” I ask Shade, my gaze already flicking towards the bunkhouse. I can’t smell any of her blood, nor the sour scent of an Omega in distress. That doesn’t mean she’s not hurting.
“She’s in her nest. She dipped into O-space afterwards.” Shade shrugs and winces. “Think she needed some time to cope.”
I don’t enjoy seeing our Beta so banged up, but I’m not seeing any permanent damage. Shade isn’t a front-line warrior, he’s our support crew, but he’s tough and will be right as rain in a few days’ time.
“I have to see her,” Knox demands.
Shade peers at us, a gaggle of Alphas with wide pupils and desperate expressions. We’re high off the fight and our adrenaline is still pumping.
He nods, but doesn’t take his eyes off us, watching carefully for signs of aggression. He pulls back the flap of the tent and reveals the hottest, sweetest sight I’ve ever seen.
In the center of the tent, our Omega has made herself a nest out of our bedding and clothes. She’s strategically piled every available soft object in the tent on top of our combined mattresses.
My pillow is stacked on top of Knox’s blanket. Blaze’s shirt is tangled in Shade’s underwear.
Blaze lets out a loud whine of longing.
The pile moves as our little Omega stirs. A single, delicate hand pushes a sheet off her body.
The effect is immediate and visceral, as though someone has just punched me in the stomach.
She’s gorgeous.
“She’s nesting with our scents,” Blaze says in wonder, his eyes darting around like he’s trying to burn the image of our Omega nesting into his brain.
When our team was under attack, she didn’t cower and hide. No, our warrior queen slung a gun over her shoulder and took out two Blood Lust feral Alphas.
My Alpha roars with possessive pride.
She’s perfect. If the universe created an Omega just for us, it would be Halley.
“Ours,” I say, firm and true.
Blaze locks eyes with me and nods. “Ours.”
Shade smiles adoringly at the sweet Omega breathing heavily in her sleep, and sighs as if in resignation. “Yeah. Ours.”
We look at Knox. Our Prime Alpha. Our leader.
He keeps his bright red eyes fixed on Omega Halley Sparks, his jaw clenched tight.
Seconds tick by.
And then he exhales and nods.
“Ours. She’s ours.”
“Fucking finally!”
“Shut up, Blaze,” we grunt in chorus.