Chapter Twelve
Halley
I wake with a start, my heart pounding, and my breath a jagged mess of panic. A shadow stands over me, looming large and imposing.
For a terrifying second, I think I’m still on the battlefield. That I’m lying in a ditch, and this silhouette is the enemy soldier raising a rifle to put a bullet through my skull.
But as my vision adjusts to the darkness, dread spreads through me in a slow, sick crawl.
Pale eyes glow in the dim light.
“Blaze,” I whisper, voice trembling. “What are you... how are you here?”
His face is a mask of shadows and new scars. There are dozens of them, raw and silver, carved like grief into his skin.
Are they from the war, or did he… do it to himself? I shudder at the idea of my sweet, special Alpha digging his knife into his wounds so they'd leave a permanent mark.
Three months. That’s all it took to turn him into this.
He stares down at me with cold, detached eyes.
"Blaze?" I try again, softer. Hoping the name alone will pull him back to me.
He doesn’t speak. Just stares, hollow and unblinking. It’s the silence that guts me most. Blaze was never silent. He talked like it was his job to share every disjointed thought that popped into his head.
I reach out, hand shaking. I just want to touch him. Just want proof he’s really here and not some fever-dream specter my guilt conjured up.
He steps back.
Then snarls, his upper lip curling, teeth bared like a cornered beast.
"You left.”
It’s an accusation. His voice is gravelly and deep, so unlike the jovial Alpha I knew. This is not the Alpha who called me Sparkles and made me laugh until I cried tears of mirth.
“I had to,” I say, but my voice is pathetic. Small. I don’t believe it anymore, not the way I used to.
He crouches beside me, his gaze drilling into mine.
"Why?"
"I had to help my family."
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe.
"We are your family," he says, nostrils flaring. There’s a tremor beneath the words, something sharp and trembling.
"I know." The admission cuts deep. "But they were my family first."
I hang my head, tears threatening to fall from my eyes. Who is this Alpha? I don't see Blaze anywhere inside him.
The air between us is thick with tension. He doesn’t move. Just watches. He doesn't seem to want to hear any more explanations, but he’s looking for something and I don’t know what.
“I’m sorry, Blaze,” I whisper, afraid to speak louder in case it triggers the tension vibrating through the Alpha to detonate. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
“You showed me the light,” he says, voice cracking around the edges. “And then dumped me back in the dark.”
“I don’t understand, Blaze. What light?”
“You!” he shouts, startling me. “You kept me in the light. You… made the dark tolerable. And then you left. And it’s worse now. So much worse.”
That lands like a punch. The pain in his voice, it’s unbearable.
A sudden, crushing weight slams into my chest.
Not mine.
His.
I gasp, clutching at my breastbone. It’s as if there is a phantom hand in my chest, ripping and squeezing.
His anguish is pouring through the flimsy bond flickering between us.
This is just a weak impression of what his ‘darkness’ feels like, and it’s drowning me.
“Oh, Blaze…” My voice breaks. I reach for him, instinct overriding fear. “I didn’t know. I didn’t realize—”
He moves.
Fast.
A glint of metal is my only warning. Cold steel grazes my face. I flinch, and my sharp movement causes the blade to slice my skin. A drop of crimson blood rolls down the edge, over the handle, and onto Blaze's thumb.
He lifts it. Laps at it with his tongue.
A shiver runs down my spine. Horror floods every vein.
He’s going to kill me.
Oh, rut-damn. He’s actually going to kill me.
He studies me with a strange hunger. His lips are stained with my blood.
"How can someone so cruel taste so sweet?" he murmurs. It's not a compliment. It's a curse.
"Blaze… you're scaring me."
He laughs. A hollow, broken thing with no warmth in it. I've never heard him make that sound before, and goosebumps prickle my skin.
"Oh, Sparkles," he spits my pet name like it’s poison, tainting its memory. "I've barely even started haunting you."
And then he’s gone. Leaving only the scent of smoke, charcoal, and scorched steel burned into the air, into my lungs, into me.
I curl into the couch, holding my knees to my chest, but it doesn’t help. The ache is inside. A hollow behind my ribs that yawns open and swallows every breath, every beat, every shred of peace.
What have I done?
I broke him.
My sweet Blaze is now a monster, and it’s all my fault.