8. Raptor
Raptor
Ishove away from Sage, snatching up my clothes and pulling them on.
“Are you angry?”
I freeze, my shoulders stiffening as I stare at the forest in front of me. We’re in the middle of nowhere, and I could kill him. Maybe.
Maybe I want him to hurt me.
“No, not angry. Not at you.”
And it’s true. I’m furious at myself, furious at us for being so dumb, for going to that place and getting hurt again, even when we all knew better.
I close my eyes, thinking about him again.
Those familiar eyes, the way he’d looked at us like we were just things, just objects.
That we had no chance of besting him. It wore us down.
There was a long time, many, many years, where we did his bidding with no hope of escape, with no dreams of freedom.
“Do you know how it works with Father?” I ask Sage in sharp, bitter tones.
“No. I don’t.”
“Why hasn’t anyone asked?”
“Because no one wanted to drag you back into those memories. We care too much to do that.”
I peek at him, then look away, snowed under by the shame and guilt that has my anger burning stronger than a pyre.
“Father trains a person and makes them a killer. He is prolific because Father is not a single entity but many. He hires people who become as devoted to him as cultists. He calls them his Flock.”
Sage’s eyes widen.
“Everyone answers to The Father, but we are all a limb, a finger, a muscle. That’s what I am, nothing but a part of him. How can I be anything else?”
He grabs my shoulders and shakes me hard enough to make my teeth rattle. “You were and always will be more than what he made you.”
I stare at him, the words silencing the anger, leaving me feeling hollow and empty.
“Sage,” I whisper.
“He’s a monster. But monsters can be killed. He’s human, despite what he’s made you believe, despite how unstoppable he appears, Father is human, and if we can get close, we can make him bleed, and if he can bleed, well, my dearest love, he can bleed out.”
I can feel a bubble of anxiety that can only be from Merle. The others are pillars of strength and rage, different variations of it, but we’re all in agreement. We hate Father, and we want him dead. It’s the only way we will ever be free, ever be able to mend and be whole.
Sage is right.
He is human. He can be killed.
“It’s not your fault,” Sage says and puts his hands on my shoulders. “Just in case you need to hear it, what that monster did to you and made you do is not your fault.”
Pain drives anger. Fear pushes rage.
I throw him off, whirling on him and lashing out. He shoves my arm to the side so my blow doesn’t land, but that just pisses me off more.
“It is my fault,” I hiss. “It’s our fault. It’s mine, Merle’s, Raven’s, Jay’s, and Kestrel’s. Dove was left to save us again. Every time we get that weak, she’s the one that has to deal with us.”
“When did it happen before?” Sage asks, dodging another blow.
“Years ago. When we escaped. When we declared war on him.” I snarl, baring my teeth.
I move with a ferocity of violence that can’t be reasoned with, driving him backwards and around the clearing. When he trips and falls, I’m on him in an instant, wrapping a hand around his throat and straddling his chest.
I don’t want to kill him. That in and of itself surprises me. I slam my fist into the ground beside his head, my chest heavy, teeth gritted so hard they ache.
“Damn you for making me care, damn you for making me weak.”
He lifts his hand and cups my cheek. I don’t pull away, I just stare at him, wondering what I am if I’m not Raptor the killer. What role do I function as in our system if I can’t be the one that destroys the threats?
“I don’t make you weak, Raptor, I am the other half; I bring the skills to level us up. We will be unstoppable. I won’t ask you to be less than who you are, I’ll help you do it better.”
I fist his hair, watching him ignore the pain, and then I slam our mouths together, ignoring the way it hurts, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling and angle I’m in. I just need to taste him.
“Promise me.”
“I promise I will only ever lift you up. I will never hold you back.”
He sits up, pulling me against him so I’m straddling his lap.
“You are beautiful the way you are, and not a single one of us wants to change you.”
I tense, staring into his eyes, waiting for the inevitable but…it just doesn’t come.
I want to ask about my other alters, but I’m not ready to hear it, so I don’t say anything. I just try to struggle up away from him. To his credit, he lets me go.
The way this alpha has a hold on me is all kinds of wrong. Rolly appears in the treeline and walks straight towards me. He doesn’t hesitate when I tense and when I lash out, he takes the blow and uses my movement to get even closer to me.
“Hello, baby.”
“I’m not your baby.”
“Oh, but I think you are,” he says and nuzzles my throat. “A gorgeous, lovely, sexy killer.”
Oh, so, he does know who I am. A part of me melts.
I don’t want to melt. I want to be an iceberg.
That’s safer than having feelings, but there is a connection, a biological one, that is pulling me towards these alphas, and I have to admit that I do like them.
I get to see the memories the other alters share, and I like them.
I really don’t want to.
I am infected with limerance. My whole body, all six of us, are infatuated with these alphas.
“Gah!” I hiss and pull myself free of his octopus arms. “Hands off me, Rolly.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I snarl, and he bounces back when I lash out at him.
“Don’t hurt me.”
“You’ll like it, I promise,” I purr before I can stop myself. I pull up short. “What the hell was that? Ew. I don’t say things like that!” I say, aghast.
Rolly and Sage smile at each other, then me.
“No!” I say, pointing at them. “This is not right. I am not happy. I am…disgruntled, furious, murdery.”
Sage covers his mouth and nods, but he looks anything but convinced.
I turn away, throwing my hands up in disgust.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“To kill something and get rid of this bubbly, horrible feeling of happy that has poisoned my brain.”
The two of them laugh, I leave them to it. Really, I run as fast as I can, or I would if I thought that wouldn’t make them laugh harder. How humiliating.
My mind springs back into familiar patterns, and then I see him. He’s got his back to me, and I can tell from the line of how he’s standing that he’s unhappy.
Leave it alone.
Walk away.
I can’t.
My silence isn’t silent enough, he hears me when I get within ten steps and turns, his eyes cold and hard. Dangerous. I see the flicker of light reflecting off a sharp blade before it disappears.
Daega.
No, this is Pix. The hard, deadly version of himself. The one that has infatuated every one of us. We should be avoiding him. Two omegas in one pack? Impossible.
Yet, when I look at him, I feel possessive. I want to remove the fingers of anyone who thinks they can touch him. Anyone who thinks that he belongs to anyone else but me.
“Why are you hiding out here?”
He turns back to his view, and I approach, finding a break in the trees that perfectly frames a visage of the mountains in the distance. The world looks wild. There’s enough space out there for us to disappear and be safe from him. I’m sure of it. I could walk into that picture and never return.
Except…I can’t do that.
The pain of that steals the air from my lungs.
“I’m not hiding. This is home. These mountains are my playground, these forests are my house, the wild is my family.”
I smirk. “You sound like a wolf.”
“Yes, maybe I am. This wasn’t supposed to work. Two of us in one pack, and yet, no matter how hard I try to pull away, I’m reeled back in. Connections forming with everyone. Strong enough that I can’t just leave. That I’m frozen here, unable to walk.”
His words mimic my own thoughts so clearly.
“Would you leave me or them?”
“No,” he says before I can properly get the question out. “I couldn’t. I am compelled to see this out now. To bleed the one who hurt you dry. To see what happens with this pack, with my Rose…with you.”
He turns and steps towards me. His eyes are frigid honey-coloured stones that burn, and I am afraid. Not that he will hurt me, but that he will consume me. I am losing myself and falling apart.
His hands snap out and grip my shoulders, yanking me back so we’re almost touching.
“You are in my brain. My broken bird. So many surprises, so many devious and contradictory intentions. You lie to us. I can feel it. There’s something you are holding back. Tell me what it is.”
He shakes me, and my jaw snaps shut, narrowly missing my tongue. I’m scared, not of him but of what he means.
“Raven,” he whispers. “You can’t hide in there forever; we need to talk.”
My eyes widen as the alters panic, twisting, but Raven is resolute. She sits in the darkness in my mind on the throne, her eyes closed, refusing to speak, refusing to acknowledge his command.
His fingers bite into my shoulder. “Shall I tell them?”
“Tell us what?”
Pix snarls, and abruptly, his hold gentles, and he drags the pad of his thumb down my cheek, leaving shivers and tingles in his wake.
“Raptor?”
I blink up at him.
“For all that you kill, you are innocent and pure in your fury. You don’t have to be strong all the time.”
What is going on here?
“I…”
Pix tilts my chin up and kisses me softly. I stare at him, refusing to close my eyes; our gazes connect and hold. I am naked, stripped raw. He understands exactly who I am, and he is telling me it’s okay.
I shove myself free of him and wipe my lips with my arm, trying to erase the taste of him and the desperate confusion that he has dragged out of me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shout.
He laughs and then doubles over, collapsing to his knees, hissing.
“Pix?” I ask, creeping closer.
“Just a little bit of biology fucking with me,” he chuckles.
I snarl and grab his arm, pulling him up.
His scent hits me like a freight train. My mouth waters, my scent mixes with his. I lose myself for a long time and come back with my face buried in his throat, my hand clenching his jacket.
He’s a drug.
That’s what an omega is.
That’s what’s coming for me. Except I’m too angry. I grab that rage, pulling it around me, using it to clear my head. I drag Pix up, grunting under the sheer weight of him.
“Stronger than you look, aren’t you?”
“It’s all the carrying around of bodies and burying them. Builds muscle.”
Pix laughs, a real, deep, honest laugh. I like it. It gives me a warm feeling and this horrible desire to find a way to make him do it again.
I carry him back to the others.
Pix doesn’t see, but it’s Roseland who is the first to reach him, pulling him out of my arms, checking him over. He doesn’t even look at me.
His worry flavours the air.
They all do.
Blaze puts a hand on my head and slides it down my back. “You did well, Omega.”
“Raptor.”
He turns to me with one of those practiced smiles that makes you feel like he’s laughing at the whole world.
“You’re still an omega, Raptor.”
I stare at him, unwilling to admit that I’ve been avoiding that label forever. King looks at me and takes a step, but I let out a squeak and turn away.
The feelings Merle has for King have infected all of us.
Or…I turn back, and he’s right there. His hand reaches out and cups my cheek. Heat screams through me. No, not yet. Please.
“Raptor.”
I like the way he says my name. I want to stay.
But it’s not my time.
“King,” I whisper back, my head spins and aches viciously as the other alter pushes to the front.
I lose my grip and slip back, giving up control.