5. King
King
Istand against the sink, staring out the window, my hands in the soapy suds of the water.
I’ve completely forgotten what I’m supposed to be doing.
All I can do is watch Rolly and Dove run around the backyard.
There’s a coffee cup in my hands that I’m holding onto for dear life because if I let go, I might just explode, shatter, break into a million pieces. I don’t want to do that.
I’m happy I’m here. I am.
It’s just…her back, what that monster did.
The photo that Rolly snapped of her back flashes in my mind, and the cup shatters, disappearing into the water like sharp little gifts I have to fish out. Roseland hisses and takes my hand, probing at the small cut I can’t even feel.
“Her back was mangled,” I murmur, watching his face carefully.
“Not the first time either.”
I close my eyes and breathe through my nose, trying hard to calm the rage.
“Kestrel has the pain? How does that work? How is it possible?”
“As far as we can figure out, they can take the pain. Dove doesn’t feel anything, but the others are gone and the pain with them.
There have been stories of people not feeling broken bones or tendons, walking with stab wounds or gunshot wounds.
The human body and mind is an amazingly complex beast. Someone has her pain, but I haven’t seen a peep of them, not a flicker.
” Roseland dries my hands carefully and applies some antibacterial ointment.
My stomach churns. Dove is gorgeous; she is like a kid sister I didn’t know I wanted. A sister I want to protect and look after. Of course, I want her around, but Merle is missing. And Kestrel…and if they are injured. What could be so bad that Raptor would be hiding?
Her back flashes in my mind. I keep seeing it.
I pick up the shards of the mug and put them in the bin, draining the sink of water. Feeling like my life is going down with the dishwater.
“How are we going to get her to come back?”
“We aren’t. She will come back when she’s ready. They will come back,” Roseland says and sniffs. He sits heavily on the chair and leans over his knees.
“You look exhausted still. Why don’t you go back to bed? We can watch her,” I suggest.
“She needs me.”
“She needs us,” I protest, reaching out and tangling our fingers together. “You’re not alone anymore. We’re all doing this together. Our omegas, our alphas. One family. One pack.”
Aaron Roseland looks terrified at the thought, so terrified that I find myself chortling and wanting to kiss him, which is new and interesting.
“Go and sleep, Roseland,” Blaze says and brushes past him. “I will keep everyone safe for a few hours.”
In the face of two alphas telling him to go, he gives in gracefully, slumps in the chair like getting up is too hard, but nods.
I pull him up and watch as he stumbles away to the bedroom, where he collapses on the bed.
I walk to the door and watch him for a moment.
He looks like he’s already asleep, so I pull the door shut, plunging him into the dark.
“How is he, really?” I ask, turning to Pix, who is sitting on the counter, his arms around one knee. He looks wrecked, too.
Pix looks up with haunted eyes. “It was hard. He knew her from before. He’ll have nightmares. We both have nightmares.”
Sage pushes up from where he is sitting and walks into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
Pix glances out the front of the house, looking at the child in our omega’s body.
“And her?” I ask cautiously, watching Blaze watch him from out of his line of sight.
“Dove is…traumatised. She has nightmares; she screams. You can’t say certain words around her, but we don’t know which ones will set her off until we say them.
She’s terrified of strangers and hates it when we go out of sight.
She struggles to eat, occasionally has accidents, stutters, lacks basic communication skills, and completely shuts down when triggered.
In short, she is a damaged, hurt child who just needs to feel safe in a world that has given her all the evidence to say that she can’t. ”
I blow out my breath, puffing out my cheeks. “In a world which is about to get a whole lot worse.”
“Exactly,” Pix says, sliding off the counter. He pulls open the fridge. He glares, then closes it again, but when he turns, Blaze is holding out a packet of chips that is a flavour he liked to eat a lot.
For some reason, this hits the omega hard, and I wonder if anyone has been taking care of him. I think perhaps Pix might cry, but he just takes the chips and leans against Blaze. That act alone shows me how bad things have gotten.
Two damaged omegas and an alpha who is borderline. Okay, we can do this.
“We couldn’t wait for you. We had to get her safe,” Pix says as he leans against him. He starts to cry. I stare, my eyes wide open. “There was blood everywhere, and Rose kept looking out the windows. It hurt. It hurt the bonds so much to keep driving. I was shaking and sobbing, but I kept going.”
Blaze wraps him in his arms, completely enfolding him.
“You did the right thing,” Blaze murmurs. “Absolutely the right thing. I’m sorry we weren’t there. You are my bonded omega. I was always going to find you. I’m sorry it took so long.”
Pix shudders, then turns so he’s leaning sideways, his head on Blaze’s shoulder. He opens the chips and starts eating. Blaze wraps himself around our omega, holding him tight. Like a silent promise not to let go.
The cottage is small, with three bedrooms. One is Dove’s. One has a bed that is where Pix and Rose have been taking turns to sleep. The third bedroom has a bed, but it’s been unclaimed. No one wants to be that far away from Dove.
The kitchen is tiny when we’re all in here, even when half of us are in here. The cupboards are pink, and the walls have peeling wallpaper with rose and green vines all over the wall.
It’s quaint and old and clearly belonged to some old lady once upon a time. It doesn’t suit us at all and, to be honest, after living that long in the bunker, I hate how unprotected it is.
I want Dove and Pix back hidden underground with all Blaze’s traps and Sage’s weapons everywhere.
I want us protected.
This isn’t protection.
Dove runs away squealing and laughing, Rolly pretending to be a monster as he chases after her, his hands in the air.
“He is surprising,” Blaze says.
“No,” I murmur. “He’s not. This is him. You just didn’t see it.
” The bond warms, and he stops, looking through the window at me and gives me one of those smiles.
For a second, we just stare at each other, saying without words everything that needs saying.
I am here. I’m with you. We got this. I’m yours.
I bite my lip, torn between smiling and the explosion that is still threatening. I want to take my pack somewhere safe.
“Okay, so what is our plan? Can we stay here? Are we safe?” I say shortly. “I hate it here; it doesn’t feel right.”
“No, we should leave,” Pix says reluctantly. “We’ve just been waiting for her to recover a little, especially with her back, but it’s been too long. We need to move. It’s not safe to stay.”
“We’ll wait one more night and then move,” Blaze says. “Rose needs to sleep. You need to sleep. Then we can head out.” Blaze looks at me, and I realise he’s asking me. Getting my opinion. I nod in approval of his plan.
“Where?” Pix asks.
“I have some places, but I think it might be better if we go off-grid again, just for a little while,” Blaze strokes Pix’s back and kisses his shoulder. “How do you feel about another camping trip?”
Pix is silent, staring at the wall for so long that the hairs on my arms lift.
“There is one other complication.”
I turn back, away from the window. “What’s that?”
“I think she’s going into heat. Not Dove, but every now and then, when she’s sleeping, I catch a hint of scorched earth and iris in the summer. One of the omegas or all of them is heading towards a heat, and it’s pushing me towards mine.”
“Shit,” I say, drawing the word out and palming my face.
“So, find somewhere for that disaster.”
“We’ve got it handled,” Blaze says confidently. “Eat and go crash.”
Pix finishes his food, then creeps into the bedroom. Sage stays in there, but I go and grab the maps I bought from the car and spread them over the table, looking at the rugged terrain.
Blaze points down at a spot. “Here, cabin, water source, town-”
“No, it’s too close to people.” I study the markings until I find a spot that is almost perfect for what we need. “This place.”
“There’s no cabin there.”
“We’re going to use tents.”
“King, I really-”
“Stop thinking so much and consider this: our omega has been hurt badly, and she’s going to be thinking like a wounded animal.
She’s going to want to run, to want space.
Being locked up? Unthinkable. Instincts, urges, and trauma.
That’s what we are contending with. So, we need supplies, tents, camping gear, lots of shitty food, bags to carry it all in, sleeping bags, first aid kits.
There’s a river there, so we’ll be all right for water and fresh food.
Surrounded on three sides, so no surprises sneaking up on us, but there’s a back way out. ”
Blaze leans over, really studying it. “This is Bonnie’s map.”
“I know, I stole it.”
Blaze chortles. “It’s on her route.”
“Which she isn’t doing anymore because she’s in hiding. We need a week or two to get there. The rafts are waiting for us; the cabin will have a whole heap of what we need. We can stock up before we leave and be deep in the middle of nowhere by tomorrow.”
“All right, say we do this, how do you know this is going to work and we don’t end up with a fucked-up omega on our hands who can’t access her alters?”
“I don’t know that, not for certain, but I do know that they are all fighters, and Merle would come back to us if she could.”
“You really love her, don’t you?”
“I think I really love all of them. But Merle is the one I understand the best. She needs us. Merle needs her alphas. So, she will come back.”