Chapter Three
Halley
On the cold, hard bench outside the intimidating door, a sense of déjà vu hits me as I remember the first time I sat in a waiting room to see the General. It seems a lifetime ago when I was sent for training with a squad of super soldiers who later became my…
No. I won’t keep thinking about them.
I can't.
The office smells like the rest of Blackgate Fortress, damp stone, old mold, a rot that clings to everything. Yet beneath that, threading through the air like a siren’s whisper, is the subtle tang of paper and ink. Clean and sharp. My breath catches.
Ink and spice.
Knox.
It’s not him. It’s just a stack of handwritten notes sitting atop a rusting filing cabinet.
But the scent snakes up my nose and lodges behind my eyes.
My body reacts before my brain can drag me back to reason.
My thighs press together, instinctively trying to ease the throb radiating from my core.
My mating gland pulses from beneath my bite collar.
It’s not him.
But my body doesn’t care.
Heat crawls across my skin. My lips part on a sharp inhale, my chest tightening. This isn’t just memory, it’s muscle memory. My body remembers how it feels to be near him. How his scent filled the air right before he kissed me at that glorious waterfall.
The ache splits me open from the inside, my desire wrapped in grief. Every part of me is starved for him. For them. For what I threw away.
My palms sweat. My gland swells with stupid hope.
How weak.
One whiff of ink and my whole body betrays me.
"You can go in now," says the young Beta soldier beside the door, tapping away at the tablet, engrossed in the data. He reminds me of Shade and I swallow the spit that suddenly feels thick in my mouth.
I miss him and our talks.
Even the stupid discussions about what caffeine ratio was optimal for maximum alertness to endure one of Knox’s lengthy combat theory lessons. We settled on two cups, enough to stay awake but not enough to induce jitters which would draw the Prime Alpha’s ire.
I stand up on shaky legs and push open the door, revealing the spacious chamber inside. A large table takes up most of the space and is covered in maps, charts, and stacks of datapads. The air in this room feels heavy with decisions that aren’t mine to make.
General Stone turns from a roaring fire to face me. The flames make his weathered skin appear leathery, and the light casts deep shadows across his eyes.
"Ah, Omega Sparks. Thank you for joining me," he greets, beckoning me to enter.
Time spent with the General is never a pleasant experience. Every negative event that followed my meeting Viper in the hospital can be linked to this Alpha and his plotting. He’s used me like a plaything, shifting me around a chessboard to suit his whims.
He threatened me with the closure of The Omega Division, risking the lives of those I love, and set me an impossible task. He wanted to ‘increase an Omegas value to the military’. To find a way to validate the ongoing enlistment of unmateable, defective Omegas.
It was all a lie. A manipulation of the truth.
Besides, the purpose of my initial mission is irrelevant now that the whole fracking country imploded, and he’s no longer associated with the military.
The most unforgivable part of his betrayal is that he kidnapped my friends. And despite declaring that he only wants to protect them, he refuses to tell me where my loved ones are!
Everlyn is right. General Stone is an asshat.
He likes manipulating the vulnerable, twisting us as if we’re dolls for his amusement.
I scowl. “Unless you’re ready to tell me what you did with my friends, we have nothing to discuss.”
"Now, now, don't be like that." Despite the early hour, he pours himself a crystal glass of something amber. I wrinkle my nose and exhale sharply to expel the scent of alcohol that burns my nostrils.
"I’m not being like anything, sir,” I say with a mocking intonation, my words dripping with false sweetness.
He chuckles, like I told a funny joke, and takes a sip of his drink.
"Take a seat." He gestures to one of the chairs in front of the desk as he sits behind it.
I sit reluctantly. Maybe he’s changed his mind. Maybe today he’ll finally give me the information I need and make my sacrifices all worthwhile.
He doesn't speak and I become more uncomfortable with each passing minute, shifting awkwardly as I watch him finish his drink.
“You know, you surprised me at every turn,” he finally says, cocking his head as if he can examine my insides with only a pointed stare. “Just when I thought it was going to work the way I planned, you’d do something unexpected.”
"Is that why you wanted to see me? To berate me for spoiling your plan?"
“So hostile.” He clicks his tongue and swirls his glass, the amber liquid glinting as it catches the light from the fireplace. “I suppose an Omega with a fractured bond would become hysterical.”
I swallow hard, my hands clenching the fabric of my trousers, and look away.
“You were supposed to bond with them, make them a Pack, and unlock the abilities lying beneath. Instead, you appear before me, alone and wielding only a fraction of your true potential and the elite squad of soldiers I spent years mentoring are in the wind.”
That’s what he cares about — the wasted potential. The power. He doesn’t care that now I’ve had a taste of Pack life, I’m forever doomed to crave something I’ll never have.
I pick at the skin around my thumb. The cold weather has made it dry and my fingers ache when they flex. These days, all my joints hurt.
Without the squad’s presence, I feel physically and emotionally weaker, as if my soul is withering away and my body deteriorating. The force I felt growing within me like a wildfire has diminished to a flickering ember.
He sighs heavily. “Where did it go wrong?”
My eyes flick to the door. I'm not a prisoner, but I can’t leave until he tells me where he has hidden the others. For now, I have to stay and listen to this dickbag wax poetic and it feels like a form of punishment.
“Tell me where Dazz, Ember, and Flicker are and I’ll tell you what happened.”
He laughs at me and takes another sip, watching me over the rim.
We’ve tangled in this dance before. I demand information, he deflects, I get angry, he calls me hysterical. Except this time, a glint sparkles behind his cunning eyes.
Not good.
He clicks his tongue and cocks his head as if he’s about to do me a great favor. “I tell you what, Omega Sparks. You do something for me, and I’ll tell you what I know about your Omega friends.”
It’s too good to be true. I feel like a mouse tempted by cheese in a trap.
"Prime Alpha Knox kept me up to date with all your developments, and Beta Specialist Shade's data has been very insightful.”
I knew Knox and Shade were reporting back to General Stone, but the time we spent together felt almost… intimate. Sacred. The thought of them sharing that with the General makes my stomach churn, like a betrayal of a deeply held secret.
“In particular, I’m interested to see this Omega Command in action."
My stomach drops.
Not that. Anything but that.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s gone.” I shake my head, my mouth suddenly dry. “I’m not… whole anymore.”
The unspoken is clear.
I’m not whole without them.
General Stone sighs, rubbing his face with a hand. He looks older in that moment, tired. “We need that power, Omega Sparks. Enemies are coming at us from all angles, and in our current state, we will lose.”
He doesn’t seem to understand what I’m saying.
My Omega Command is gone.
After long months of my powers fading away, I’ve been left with an undeniable truth.
The Omega Command wasn’t mine alone. It was a product of our resonance, our bond.
It only unlocked and grew because of our connection, and when I snapped that tether, the power slowly slipped back into my hindbrain, becoming dormant once more.
Besides, even if I could, I won’t. I’m still wracked with shame and guilt about Commanding them and forcing them to watch me walk away.
It was wrong. It went against every moral I hold.
Besides that, the vicious physical toll the Command takes is nothing compared to how it twists me into the cruelest version of myself.
For those reasons, I won’t let it get a foothold ever again.
“Saving the world isn’t my responsibility.”
He scoffs like I’m a disobedient child who doesn’t understand how silly they’re being.
“It’s all of our responsibility because, if we don’t step up, Demi-humans will be wiped from the face of this planet. Your precious Omegas too. Everyone will die. We need every advantage we can get if we're going to win this.”
“I just want to find my friends,” I weakly respond, speaking mostly to myself.
I didn’t ask for any of this. Not the bond, not the war, not the rut-damned gland that lights up at the scent of paperwork.
I clench my hands, stopping them from trembling.
“I’m sending you to a Beta town about to be decimated by the enemy forces.”
He’s deploying me? To the front lines? Of war?
Fear wraps a skeletal hand around my throat and squeezes.
“You…You don’t need me for that. I never completed training, I’m not a soldier and I’ll just get in the way.” I protest, shaking my head and fighting back tears of panic.
“I need you to evacuate the more reluctant civilians. They’re under the false pretense the enemy is on their side.”
"And how am I supposed to do that?" I ask softly, my voice quivering.
He pins me with a withering look.
"Use your Omega Command."
I grit my teeth. Did he not hear me?
“I. can’t. It won’t work.”
His gaze hardens. He picks up a file. The light blue folder is familiar. It’s the same one Everlyn uses to record my daily medical examination results.
“I’ve read your medical reports and monitored your blood work daily.
Your pheromones are lowering, but there’s nothing wrong with you.
You’re destabilized. The brain adjusts to Pack bonding like it does to narcotics: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, all optimized.
Then you ripped the source away, stupid girl.
The withdrawal mimics chronic illness, but the power’s still in there. ”
How does he know this?
Horror fills me.
How many other Omegas has he tested his theories on?
The tremble in my arms grows into a full-body shake, and I grip the armrests of the chair, my nails digging into the chipped varnish.
“It’s not going to work.”
My O-space hasn’t made an appearance during my time at Blackgate Fortress.
It sits in the back of my mind like a coiled snake, asleep and rotting.
The one time I tried to summon it, curious if it was still a part of me, I was struck by unimaginable pain.
I collapsed from the strain, my nose bleeding, pulse racing, and my body temperature spiked like I was going into heat.
My O-space isn’t just asleep — it’s broken and angry.
“I’m betting it’ll wake up when you’re under real pressure.”
Real pressure?
I grit my teeth. He’s sending me to the front lines as some twisted experiment.
“I won’t go.”
He steeples his hands, looking like the villain he is, and his mustache twitches. Is he amused by my protests? Does it give him some twisted kind of pleasure?
“I’m giving you a chance to matter,” he replies. “You do this and succeed? You’ll be the hero our people desperately deserve.”
“You’re sending me to die,” I whisper.
He hums to himself and then sighs. “Fine. Let’s give you an incentive not to get yourself killed. If you make it back to Blackgate, I’ll personally arrange for you to have contact with them.”
My heart rate kicks up. He’s dangling my hopes like meat over a pit.
“I don’t trust you.” Not a single word out of his mouth is ever what it seems. He twists words and makes them fit his agenda.
But frack. This is what I came to do. What I sacrificed everything to achieve. I can see them again. Hold them!
“You want to find your friends? Earn it.”
The whole thing stinks of lies and deception. It’s a farce for him to get his own way.
But the worse part?
I’m going to do it.