Page 64 of Shattered Omega: Part Three

“You will not hurt her—!” Dusk began, but Umbra cut him off, letting go of me and seizing him.

“I will not survive the day when she is gone because I was too weak to face this now!”

Dusk sounded unnerved. “Umbra?—!”

“Leave.” I was shocked at how steady my voice was as I turned to Dusk.

“Shatter—!”

I shoved between them, turning on Ransom in fury when he tried to pull me back. “Leave us!”

Something changed in the room. I don’t know what it was, which meant it was probably me. Umbra’s aura was gone and Dusk stepped back, yellow eyes wide as he glanced between the two of us. I looked at Ransom, who was staring at me in shock.

I didn’t know anything in that moment but pure instinct. I grabbed Umbra and shoved him back toward the bed. “Sit. Down.”

He just stared at me for a moment, unsure, but my hand snapped up and closed around his neck. “I said, sit.”

He did almost instantly, and I sank against him, breathing settling only when I felt his hands rest at my waist. My fingers tangled in his sandy blond hair and I tugged his head back. His grip on me tightened as I sank my teeth into his neck.

A temporary bond between us flared and my pulse settled.

That was until I heard one of the others shift behind me.

A vicious growl rose in my chest and my grip on Umbra’s hair was unfairly tight until the door shut and their scents were gone. I shut my eyes, releasing him, and winding my arms around his chest.

Then I did something I’d never done in my life.

I sought out my first memory.

The flashing ERROR.

The rising scent of death around me.

But more than that, the bone-shaking agony that had torn through my body for endless second after endless second.

Umbra’s grip tightened, but I didn’t let it go, sinking so far into those memories that I became them. Letting him feel them through the two-way bond.

I needed him to know it wasn’t just agony I’d endured. It was agony I’d been born into.

Pain wasn’t what I feared.

It was what had happened after that… The months and months that slipped away in silence at the Estate. Becoming nothing… losing who I was.

That was worse.

The place he had been when I’d walked into his room moments ago.

I don’t know how long had passed.

When I opened my eyes at last, we were laying on his bed. He was holding me tight, an unsettled purr in his chest.

I looked up at him cupping his cheek, and I could see the relief in his sandstorm eyes.

“I’m…” He scrunched up his nose voice thick. “I’m sorry.”

“You aren’t allowed to leave me,” I whispered. “Not like that. Not again. You mean too much to me.”

“You can’t give yourself up for us.”

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