19. King
King
They’ve gone, and I am relieved. It was too crowded, and I can see that Merle’s struggling with her memories.
I’m not sure if it’s because she feels safe or because she feels threatened.
But she’s pale and is struggling to hold down her food.
Her sleep is disrupted and almost non-existent.
She keeps sneaking out of the tent at night, thinking she’s being so crafty, not realising that we’re all awake, listening for anything she might need from us.
The issue isn’t coming from her exactly, though perhaps she is a catalyst. It’s Roseland and Pix. The two of them are skating further and further away from us. Roseland is on the verge of leaving. He’s shut the door on us.
Pix, too, has given up. His eyes flash with want, with pain, but he’s been using the Prince Pack as a shield to keep his distance from us.
Now it’s just us. The darkness has descended; she’s asleep in Blaze’s arms, where I know she’s safe, so I roll to my feet and slip out of the tent, deliberately going in hunt of the two that are causing the mayhem.
I find them together.
I almost wish they were kissing. Or fucking.
Instead, Pix has his hand around Roseland’s throat, and he’s crying. I can see the tears glinting on his cheeks.
“You can’t leave me.”
“It was never going to work out between us. You know that. You are you, and I am me. There’s nothing that could change that. We are fundamentally different people.”
“You don’t mean that,” Pix whispers. “Please, Roseland.”
Roseland grabs Pix’s fingers and peels them off his neck. “You need to let go. Get a grip and realise that I’m not the one.”
Pix stands there shuddering, and there’s something about him being so broken in the moonlight that breaks something inside of me.
He whirls and disappears, vanishing into the dark forest, where I’d have no hope of finding him.
“You’re leaving?” I say in a growl.
“Yes, tonight.”
“Can’t you stay a while longer?”
Roseland turns, and I see the cold, hard mask of the detective. “No, I’ve been gone too long. I need to return to my job. My purpose.”
I have this flash of feeling, like I might have to kill him, and I don’t want to. Please don’t make me.
“And us?”
“We won’t run into each other again,” he says confidently. “I’ve asked for a transfer. I’ll be going a long way away.”
He’s lying. Why is he lying?
I stare at him. “They need you. You’re hurting our omegas.”
“They’ll survive and be better for it.”
“And her? What if what hurt her comes back?”
Roseland pauses and turns to face me. “He can’t. He’s dead.”
The relief of that statement has me sagging.
“Are you going to say goodbye?”
He stands up taller, inhaling and looking like a knight from a fairy tale. “No, I’m not going to say goodbye. It will only hurt everyone. You tell him…no, don’t tell Daega anything. He knows. Tell her to love that new life. To live it right to the edge. I’m just a bad dream.”
I grind my teeth and advance on him, grabbing his wrist, stopping him from leaving.
“And me?”
He looks surprised and searches my eyes. “We’re strangers. You’ll forget me soon enough.”
“Rose, don’t go.”
He smiles. “Thank you for saying so, but I have to go back, and you have to give those omegas a happy ending.”
He pulls free of me, turns, and disappears into the forest.
Sage appears beside me, his lips pressed in a straight line.
“We’ll see about that,” he mutters.
“You’re not going to let him go?”
“He doesn’t know it yet, but that alpha is wearing my leash. He can go only as far as I let him.”
If I had to bet against anyone, it would never be Sage. He’s always five steps ahead and playing a game no one even realises he’s playing.
I grin at him, and we turn back, finding a distraught Pix staring into the fire, pretending everything is fine. Sage picks him up, ignoring his protests, and pulls him into the tent, where Rolly rolls onto the omega and buries his nose in his hair.
“Daega,” Rolly purrs in his sleep. “You smell so pretty.”
The omega growls, but immediately silences himself when Merle whimpers.
I zip up the tent and wander the perimeter of our camp, listening and assessing the dangers. I don’t like this spot, we’re too high up and on a ridge. Tomorrow, we’re going down into the valley and heading in a different direction.
What Merle doesn’t know is that the Prince Pack and Meg and Desi have gone in different directions as a trap for whoever is hunting her.
Perhaps we should have let Roseland in on the fact that someone was coming after her. Would that have changed his mind? Yes. Would it have compromised his job? Yes. I don’t trust him yet, and I’m not sure how far his clemency stretches between his job and his devotion to his omegas.
The truth is I don’t want to test it.
The sun rises far too quickly, and without a word, the pack is up and breaking camp. I kick out the fire, watching the last of the smoke disappear.
Merle looks around expectantly, and guilt stabs at me. I glance at Blaze, but he frowns and presses his lips together. No one wants to be the one to tell her about Roseland.
I walk over to her and gesture for her to get on my back. She climbs up without a word of protest, but I can feel the tension in her.
“He left last night. He has a job and a life, and he couldn’t avoid it forever.”
I hesitate, hating the way her fingernails sink into my skin, and she goes tense.
“He said to say goodbye to you both.”
Pix growls, the sound deep and full of pain. “Don’t lie for him. He did not say goodbye.”
“He said you’d know what he’d say.”
Pix makes a sound of pure agony and plunges down the side of the ridge. The others follow him, and I try to ignore the hot tears that drip onto the back of my neck and the guilt that stabs because of them.
Maybe I will go back and kill this moron just because.
Every step we take is a step away from him, and every single one of us feels it. He fit in with us, not perfectly, but if he wasn’t holding back, it would have been a perfect fit.
The whole day passes like a thick cloud has landed heavily on us and is weighing us all down. Pix doesn’t disappear like he normally does; he sits listlessly. Merle has withdrawn deep into herself.
Rolly watches them, his jaw flexing, his temper barely concealed. Blaze is a silent wall of some kind of energy that is making me all kinds of nervous, while Sage is ignoring the whole situation and just getting on with our plans.
It’s just…these are not the plans I’m good at. I’m more of a dead body kinda plan guy. A swing and chop. A scream and slice. I’m not sure what to do to lift the mood or bring them all back.
I corner Sage against a tree.
“What do we do?”
“We let them feel it.”
“But they are upset!” I say in a low voice, emphasizing the word upset.
“Yes, they will be.”
I stare at him like he’s stupid. “We need to fix it.”
“There’s nothing we can do. It’s just one of those things-”
“Give me a body, I’ll string it up, Pix will go stabby, and we can go back to normal.”
Sage blinks, and a smile blooms across his damn sensual lips. “What about her? We’re pretending we aren’t homicidal maniacs, remember.”
I huff.
I’d forgotten that. I mean, I shouldn’t have, but everything’s all muddled with my instincts screaming at me to fix the thing that is upsetting our omegas. Fix it, kill it, repair it, destroy it.
I rub my temples and glower at him.
“Why are you so calm?”
“Because this is just a reprieve. Let him run. Give him his freedom, it will taste all the better when he’s kneeling at my feet, begging my forgiveness.”
I stare at the alpha. “You are so dark.”
Sage startles out of his fantasy and laughs. “I have plans for Aaron Roseland, and they are all very delicious.”
I am tempted to ask for more detail, but then I catch sight of Pix standing up. He goes into the forest.
“I’ve got it,” I say to Sage and follow him.
He gets to a clearing and sits on a fallen tree, putting his head in his hands.
“What’s wrong with me?” he whispers.
My chest tightens and twists painfully. I want to tell him there’s nothing wrong with him; he’s perfect, but Pix has remained aloof from the rest of us.
Protecting and caring for Merle has been easy because her pain was obvious, but it’s clear as day that this one needs us, too.
But what does he need?
I stalk into the clearing, stopping before him.
He stands up and swings at me, and the answer becomes painfully, deliciously clear.
I dance around with him, letting his fists connect with me.
The pain sends my hunger spiraling. I shove him back, watching as his eyes widen as he slams into the trunk of a tree.
“My turn now,” I whisper, and I’m on him, yanking his hands up and pinning them above his head; before he can protest, I kiss him.
It’s like I’ve never kissed anyone before. Kissing my omega is my biology coming online and screaming that this is perfect, this is water, this is food, this is what I need. He melts into me. I lean into him, devouring him, tasting him, lost in the sensation of his strong body pressed to mine.
“Get off me,” he growls, tearing his mouth free.
I growl back, and he subsides, trembling. He’s not afraid, no, he’s fighting how much he wants me. I think that is what scares him. It scares me.
“I’m not yours,” Pix snarls.
I pull back enough that he has to look up into my eyes. I lick the taste of him off my lips and smile.
“You are clearly mine, and now that I’ve tasted that…well, little omega, I’m not the kind of alpha who walks away.”
His pupils turn to saucers, raspberry jam blooming into the air despite the suppressant patch he stole. I stroke my thumb over the pulse in his throat.
“Whatever this is, we’ll figure it all out.”
“Omegas,” he hisses, “don’t share.”
“Normal omegas don’t. But you and Merle are a different breed, and you create your own paths. Has it occurred to you that everything you’re looking for from Roseland you might find in that broken omega?”
Pix stares at me. “It would never work. I’d kill her. She’s too pure for this world.”
In that, he’s right. Merle is so innocent.
“She’s running from monsters, Pix. Who better to protect her?”
I step back, letting him go. He stares at me like I’m weird, like I’m strange. I am. But I’m also willing to do whatever it takes to keep the shards of this broken pack together.
Wow, it’s like I’m growing up.