Chapter Eight
Halley
It takes a moment for my brain to catch up. At first it’s just the shock. The pain doesn’t register as anything but pressure and heat in my thigh.
I stare stupidly at the spreading red.
Then the burn hits.
It knifes up my leg, sharp and sudden, and a sound saws out of me in a ragged, pitiful whimper.
I drop to a knee.
So much for being an unstoppable power.
Something massive barrels into me, knocking the air from my lungs and driving me into the pavement so fast I don’t even get to scream.
A weight crashes down over me. Heavy. Solid. Alpha.
A fresh hail of bullets screams overhead.
I can’t breathe. Can’t see.
The body on top of mine jolts. Once. Twice. Over and over.
Hot blood splashes across my cheeks, slides down my neck, and slips beneath my bite collar.
It takes a second too long for my brain to catch up. And then it hits.
An Alpha is taking bullets for me.
Oh frack, oh frack, oh frack.
The barrage goes on and on, relentless and deafening.
My savior is an Alpha and they’re built to take damage. Built to outlast. But not this much.
Finally. Mercifully. A different sound cuts through the chaos.
A volley of clean, practiced bursts of gunfire comes from somewhere to the left.
The body on top of me grunts as another bullet rips through his ear and a splatter of blood sprays over my face, hot and sticky.
The assault ends.
He doesn’t move and, for a second, I’m worried I’m laying underneath a corpse.
I gasp in relief when the Alpha shifts, groaning low in his chest like someone gutted him and then asked him to run a mile.
My head’s spinning, the sky’s tilted sideways, and I still can’t breathe right. But the weight lifts enough for me to twist my neck and look up.
And I freeze.
Not because I’m in pain. Which I am.
Or because we’re under fire. Which we are.
Not even because I’m still bleeding. Which I definitely am.
I freeze because I know that face.
Blood-streaked. Dirt-smeared. A little more worn than the last time I saw it. But it’s him.
Knox.
Scorch Squad’s Prime Alpha.
My Prime Alpha.
The one who made me a bespoke uniform from his own clothes, even though he pretended not to care. Who pushed me to the edge of who I was, then shoved me off the cliff to become something more. The Alpha who I thought hated me, but actually loved me just as fiercely as the others.
And now he’s here, chest heaving, and bleeding out.
He protected me with his body. Took bullets meant for me.
My heart rate, already beating so hard it might bruise my ribs, kicks up.
I think I say his name. He’s heavy, so I’m not sure if it comes out as more than a whisper. Maybe he hears it. Maybe he’s too busy trying to keep his lifeblood from spilling out. But his eyes are open, wild and red, and he’s looking at me like he’s just found something he thought was gone forever.
Another sound escapes me, a strangled squeak.
Because if Knox is here… then—
My hands start to shake, and my teeth chatter.
There’s shouting. A voice barking orders like a blunt-force weapon.
“Covering fire!”
It’s deep and resonant, like it’s coming from someone enormous.
Viper?
No.
It can’t be.
Maybe this isn’t real.
How do I know what’s true anymore? My internal compass feels like it’s been ripped out by the roots.
My mind is playing tricks, because apparently that is what it does now. It deceives me. Makes me feel, say, and do things I don’t understand.
“Knox, you glorious idiot. You still alive?”
That sounds an awful lot like Shade.
“Oi! Fuckers! Who taught you to shoot? Ya nana?”
Blaze.
No one else would heckle something so ridiculous on a battlefield.
They’re here.
Scorch Squad is here.
My Pack.
I want to laugh. Or scream. Or sob. Maybe all three at once.
Somehow, against every impossibility, they’re here. In this burning town, in the middle of a war, with bullets flying, and death closing in.
My Pack came for me.
Knox shifts again, dragging himself upright with a snarl. His blood-slick hand plants beside my ribs as he braces himself, his other arm cradling his side as if he’s trying to keep his insides from spilling out.
I try to sit up.
“Don’t,” he growls, and it’s the exact same tone he used the day I almost broke my hand during an evasion drill. Only now, there’s a tremble in it. Raw, feral desperation trying to wear the skin of authority.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
He looks down at me, then at my leg.
His pupils blow wide, and something snaps.
The Alpha mask shatters, and what’s left underneath is just Knox. Not a Prime Alpha or a soldier.
Just Knox who is bleeding, broken, furious, and terrified… for me.
I look down at my thigh to see what he’s so rattled by.
The fabric around the bullet wound is soaked through, clinging to my skin, the blood dark and glossy and very much still coming.
His hoarse voice punches out of him. “Fuck.”
“I’m fine,” I whisper again, but even I can hear the tremble. “You’re the one who got turned into a pincushion.”
He’s hit in every part of his body, multiple times in the same spot. Other than a bullet to the head, repeated trauma is one of the few ways to kill an Alpha. They bleed out before they can heal.
He doesn’t answer. Just presses his palm to my thigh, right on the wound, like he can stop the bleeding with sheer Alpha willpower. Blood oozes through his fingers.
“You’re hurt worse,” I protest, pushing at his shoulder. “You need to—”
“Stop, Halley.”
He said my name. He never says my first name. It’s always Omega Sparks. Or… or Princess.
Knox adjusts his grip on my thigh, and for one stupid second, I think he’s going to give me a hug.
Instead, he moves.
Fast.
Fierce.
His arm slides under my knees, the other behind my back, and he lifts me in one brutal motion that makes my breath hitch.
“Knox,” I protest, trying to twist away. “You’re really hurt. You shouldn’t—”
“Shut up,” he grits out, voice pitched so low I feel it in my ribs. “You’re not walking.”
“But—”
“Not. One. Step.”
He’s shaking. I can feel it through his arms, his chest, his breath. But he holds me like I weigh nothing, as though his body isn’t a roadmap of shredded muscle and bullet holes.
I give into my begging instincts and bury my face against his neck.
He smells like blood and sweat and that impossible, aching thing that once felt like it could be home. My fingers curl into the torn fabric of his shirt, and I hate how badly I need to touch him right now. To make sure he’s real.
Because I still don’t know if this is a dream or a hallucination or the final mercy of a dying brain.
But he’s warm, and he’s breathing.
Knox’s steps are uneven and limping, but unfaltering, as though every stagger forward is a statement. Mine to carry, mine to protect.
Gunfire crackles behind us, and I clench, bracing for impact.
Another burst of noise erupts from beside us. It’s controlled and focused. A series of crisp, deadly bursts ripple through the air like a percussion line. It’s a familiar cadence of tactical precision.
Viper’s covering fire.
“Two o’clock, upper window!” Shade’s voice cuts, clipped and sharp, followed by the rap of gunfire.
Knox doesn’t pause, just keeps moving with me in his arms like he’s not got his back turned to an army of savage hostiles. He trusts his team to cover him faultlessly.
Viper materializes at our side, weapon raised, eyes sweeping. There’s blood at his throat, dirt streaking his jaw, and his flak jacket torn.
His gaze lands on me, sharp and pointed, like a missile locking onto its target.
This time I flinch.
He’s in Blood Lust. The spidery veins at his temple frame his wild expression.
He grunts at my reaction, his brow pulling in dissatisfaction, and it wordlessly tells me a whole story with just his sullen face.
He’s not deranged or out of control. Somehow, by a miracle, he’s lucid and not overcome by violent compulsions. How?
“Status?” he barks.
“She’s hit,” Knox says, and it sounds like gravel and glass. “Thigh. Bleeding hard.”
Viper’s nostrils flare. For a moment, he looks ready to tear the town apart brick by brick for being the place I’ve been hurt.
I swallow.
It’s been a while since I’ve been the subject of such intensity.
There’s a shout behind us and then Blaze skids around a corner, laughing like a lunatic as he fires over his shoulder, somehow still hitting his mark perfectly.
“Fuck me, Sparkles is still alive,” he shouts, ducking behind Viper to glance at my thigh and sighs. “Ah, rookie error. How did they miss nicking the femoral artery?”
I blanch. Why does it sound like he’s disappointed?
He darts off again, his gun cackling at the same cadence as his unhinged laugh.
Shade appears at our other side and freezes mid-shot. The staunch, battle-focused expression drains off his face like a switch got flipped. He stares at me with deep concern.
“Shit.” His voice wavers. “Shit, is she—”
“I’m fine,” I croak, trying not to sound like I’m dying in Knox’s arms, even though that might be exactly what’s happening.
I’m feeling lightheaded, black splotches growing in the corner of my eyes.
Viper and Shade close in around us like soldiers protecting an asset, or… or maybe like a Pack defending its Omega.
They move like a single organism. They’re tight, lethal, and utterly relentless.
My breath stutters. I’m wrapped in arms I’ve dreamed about for months, flanked by men who once made me feel like I mattered. And even though they’re bleeding and battered, they’re here, fighting for me.
I suck in a breath, but it gets caught halfway.
It’s too much.
The pain. The shock. The blood loss. The scent of them. The way Knox is carrying me like I’m something precious instead of a half-shattered girl who left him and his brothers on the side of a road like trash.
Something inside me buckles.
A strangled noise claws up my throat. A sob, maybe. Or a laugh. I don’t know anymore.
Then I whisper the burning question.
“Why? After what I did…”
Knox’s jaw flexes, and his hold tightens, but he doesn’t answer. Although, something flickers across his face, as if he’s hiding a hurt bullets didn’t cause.
Shade’s expression twists. His voice is rough when he says, “Because you’re still ours and Scorch Squad looks out for its own.”
I can’t hold it together anymore.
The tears come hot and fast, slicing down my cheeks. My whole body shakes as the grief and guilt and longing pour out of me in waves that won’t stop.
I hide my face against Knox’s throat and sob into the crook of his neck.
I don’t know what that means. Do they forgive me? Are they just saving me out of duty?
It’s too much to deal with right now.
We keep moving through the dilapidated streets of Rheamont, hounded by the Humans following our trail like bloodhounds.
Knox still doesn’t falter. He just moves, one dragging step after another, with me in his arms.
His breath is a rasp. His body is shaking. And I feel every drop of blood soaking through his clothes onto mine.
He’s healing alarmingly quick. I’ve watched the hole in his shoulder stitch itself back together faster than Viper can empty his rifle’s magazine. He might not be at risk of bleeding to death anymore, but the effort to heal is taking a heavy toll on his body.
“Knox—”
“Don’t,” he cuts in. Not mean. Just final.
Shade leads the retreat, reading a map on his tablet and checking the camera of the drone still hovering above with quick flicks of his eyes between covering fire. Every motion is clinical as he guides our path forward.
“Movement on the west flank,” he snaps. “They’re repositioning. Go.”
Blaze dashes off into a side street. There is a burst of gunfire, followed by screams, then… silence.
Viper appears beside us, emerging from the smoke like the grim reaper’s less sociable brother.
“You’re fading,” he says to Knox, glancing at the blood pouring from his ribs. “You’ll drop her.”
Knox bares his teeth. “It’s handled.”
“You’ll both go down.”
“I won’t drop her.”
His answer is so achingly Prime Alpha Knox. Stubborn and hardheaded in his duty.
Viper’s nostrils flare. His fingers twitch like they want to rip Knox’s jaw off and reset it. But he nods once. Respecting the chain of command. And he peels away again to watch our rear.
My head rests against Knox’s shoulder. It feels like trespassing. I don’t pull away.
I open my mouth. I want to say thank you. Or sorry. Or please, please, please don’t hate me before I die.
Nothing comes out.
The enemy’s attack seems to be waning. Perhaps they’ve decided to let us retreat so Blaze will stop doing… whatever he is doing that makes them scream like they’re being hunted by a rabid monster.
Shade’s voice cuts across the static of my thoughts. “There. Our truck. Behind the yard.”
A junkyard yawns ahead of us, rusted metal twisted like bones.
Viper moves first, sweeping through with terrifying ease, clearing it of any potential hostiles.
He whistles once. Sharp.
Knox stumbles, his boot catching on a rock, and we careen to the side. He twists just in time to catch his shoulder on a decaying car, but it lands right on a still-open wound.
A raw, agonized howl, bursts from his chest and echoes off the ruined walls around us.
It’s the sound of agony he’s been keeping inside. And like he’s given me permission, I can’t help but add my own sob of pain.
Viper appears before us and says, “Give her.”
This time, Knox doesn’t protest.
I’m lifted from one set of muscled arms into another.
Viper carries me differently. Not worse or wrong. Just different. But it’s not how I remember his touch, which was always warm and gentle. Now it’s colder and detached.
I look up.
His jaw is set. His face unreadable.
He doesn’t speak.
Not until he lays me gently into the back of the truck and pulls away like he touched fire.
“We’ll patch you up,” he says, looking me right in the eye.
It’s all there. The betrayal, the fury, the ache so loud it doesn’t need words.
“Then we talk.”
The truck door slams shut behind him.