Chapter Twenty
NIGHT
A muscle in my jaw ticked when the door slammed.
I didn’t bother turning around.
Daze was… gone.
Thankfully, he’d taken the fucking beta woman with him.
Arina.
I’d disliked her from the first time Daze uttered her name, but seeing her in the flesh had cemented my contempt.
For the briefest second when I opened the door, I’d panicked.
Seeing her standing there made me think my psychotic ex had returned to finish what she started. That she’d come back to kill me.
It wasn’t Arina’s fault that she looked like my ex-mate. No. With her dark hair, pouty lips, and petite, curvy physique, she only vaguely resembled Erika. But her face had brought up horrible memories, nevertheless. Ones I’d spent the last few years trying to bury. To forget.
Erika leading me on for months while planning my murder… Erika slipping poison into my food… Erika grabbing a knife and coming toward me as I struggled to drag myself off the floor…
My chest had clenched, and my stomach dropped.
Everything slammed to a stop, the blood draining from my face as I watched the woman and Daze in my trailer.
A beat later, I remembered why it was impossible for my ex-mate to be here…
She was dead—by my hand.
She was never coming back.
By the time I realized that Arina wasn’t a horrific ghost from my past, the damage was done. All the hatred and fear and shame I’d managed to keep locked up since I joined the Knotty Sideshow exploded, consuming my mind.
It all morphed into rage.
Pure, unfettered rage that bled through my thoughts, and I saw red.
I’d needed her gone before I could do something dangerous. Daze, too.
Neither of them was safe.
The hurt in Daze’s eyes when I told him to leave was obvious, but if I let go of my last thread of restraint, it wouldn’t end well for anyone. He needed to get far away from me, and I’d made sure of it, regardless of how much it hurt him.
He could cry or yell about it later.
He could even hate me.
But this is the way it needs to be.
Heat consumed me, and I couldn’t get my shirt off fast enough. My fingers fumbled over the buttons, and sweat made the material stick to me. I tossed it aside, not caring where it landed. The only thing I could focus on was the fire blazing through me, threatening to incinerate my insides.
I blinked and took a shaky breath, reaching for my belt with trembling hands.
If I didn’t get naked right fucking now , I was going to combust. I knew it.
After fumbling a bit more, I managed to strip out of my boots and pants. I stood in the middle of the trailer, fighting the haze creeping over my thoughts.
I was losing control, the way I had before.
I need to get ahold of myself .
The air grew thicker, making it more difficult to breathe, and I couldn’t seem to fill my lungs.
The mask.
The thought pierced through my jumbled brain, and I hastily ripped off the metal face piece and threw it aside. It landed with a thunk on the floor, and I choked down a desperate breath with my eyes clenched shut. It helped a tiny bit with my clarity but not enough.
I was slipping, and even though I recognized what was happening, I was helpless to stop it.
Stumbling over to the window, I peered outside through the open blinds. I could just make out Daze and Arina trekking across the parking lot, slowly fading into the distance.
An unsettling feeling gripped me, and a growl vibrated in my chest. The longer I watched them, the more intense my conflicting feelings grew. In a flash of fury, I grabbed the blinds and ripped them off the window, tossing them aside in a cacophony of noise.
My mind hazed over, and I took a deep breath, knowing I wasn’t far from going rogue.
No one wanted that.
I especially didn’t want that.
If I succumbed to the darkness buried inside me from my broken mate bond, I would be a danger to everyone. If I slipped into the feral haze always lurking at the edge of my mind, I’d become someone I didn’t recognize. Someone I couldn’t tame.
I watched until Daze and Arina faded into the darkness, and even then, I remained in front of the window. Looking without seeing. Focusing on my breathing. Fighting the fog encroaching on my mind.
I need ? —
—get a grip ? —
Breathe slow ? —
—danger—
—to everyone.
Fuck. I groaned as pain crawled through my skull.
My head swam, and another growl vibrated up my throat.
I spun, my eyes landing on the cluttered dining table.
In another flash of rage, I swiped my arm over the surface.
Everything that had been sitting there a second before flew across the trailer.
It relieved the anger coursing through my veins like adrenaline… for a second.
Then it was replaced by another wave.
I huffed and staggered to the couch. Plopping down, I left one leg draped off the side. I stared up at the ceiling, willing the familiar sight to stay in place while I took slow, deep breaths.
I couldn’t lose my grip.
I can’t ? —
—need to ? —
—stay calm.
Since meeting Daze, he had always been the force that grounded me, kept me sane. When he was near, I could always find my way back from the brink of insanity. I could center myself, claw my way back to reality.
Now?
Now I’d run him off to keep distance between us, and it was splintering my control.
But truthfully, he couldn’t help me. Not in any way that mattered. Not really.
He was just a beta, and regardless of my feelings for him, he would never be able to solve my biggest issue.
There was only one cure for a rogue alpha—a mate bond—and with how few omegas were left to claim, it was as good as a death sentence.
Ever since my last bond broke, when my ex-mate tried to murder me and I had to kill them instead, my soul had been seeking stability. Searching, hopelessly, for the one thing I truly needed.
I needed a mate.
Daze could never be that for me.
He could comfort me, talk me off the ledge, be there for me in my moments of darkness, but he couldn’t cure me. Eventually, I would lose the fight, and the rogue haze would swallow me.
I would have to face that reality sooner or later.
Hopefully not before I found an omega…
At the thought of an omega, every muscle in my body clenched, and red washed across my vision. I gripped the back of the couch, and over the steady pound of blood in my ears, I heard the material rip.
I had to get my mind off the feral instincts seeping through my system like venom, intent on poisoning my mind.
Pain burst in my temples, and I growled.
Shit.
Would anyone hear me?
Maybe…
But what could they do? What could anyone do?
If I lost control, if I went rogue, I would hurt everyone around me.
And I could feel myself slipping more with every second that passed.