Page 113 of Shattered Omega

“Barely. We managed to contain him before he hurt anyone. You had fled to the gardens, thankfully—Lauren didn’t want you to know. She believed you had suffered enough.”

My mind raced with that information, processing it all, filing it away, trying to find something of use in it for my pack.

Blood was sharp in the air, and I tried to pretend it was tangled with wolfsbane. The world was still pitch black, my eyes squeezed shut as my nails dug into the table.

Another gunshot echoed, making me jump violently.

A savage snarl tore through the air.

The poison was taking hold. Poison Umbra and Dusk had already survived for their willingness to die for each other. Poison the Lincoln pack would not live through.

I couldn’t look, not until I heard the violent pounding on the window. It was the only thing that gave me the strength to open my eyes. Their absence was a void in my chest, and I needed them.

The world spun as I looked around, unable to avoid the fight before me.

“Fuck—!” Flynn was clutching his side, holding himself up against the wall. Gareth had Eric pinned to the ground by his neck. Eric’s eyes were wide as he fought, and for one, strange moment they met mine.

I saw his terror and confusion, but all I felt was dread.

Gareth looked mad, pupils constricted as poison tore through his veins as he strangled his own pack mate, succumbing to the very drug he’d watched given to others all those years ago.

Eric’s face was ruddy and he struggled between reaching for the gun and throwing Gareth off. I tried, again, to drag my eyes from the way Eric’s movements became weaker with each second.

I took a breath, chin quivering.

Dusk was right there.

Why couldn’t I look at him?

Tears wet my cheeks, pulse thready in my veins.

“This…” I whispered, trying to drag my eyes away from the fighting alphas. They were dying, and I hadn’t… I swallowed. I had never wanted anyone to die.

In my periphery, I saw movement stop, the choked, gurgles cutting off at a dull crack that shook me to the core.

I felt the loss of one of the alphas in this vile bond with me like a knife to the heart.

Eric was gone.

That was… that as forever. Unchangeable. I shook.

“This is a lot, you know?” I released the desk, fingers tangling together tightly enough that the pain distracted me for just the briefest of seconds.

I had to look up.

To look away from what was before me.

To see who I was protecting.

It would help… right?

“Uncle?” I asked. “I have one more question. It’s about aura contracting. There are a few times when one alpha or pack is obliged to surrender a bond for it to pass from one pack to the next.”

“Like when a pack negotiates for their scent match from a dark bond?” he asked.

I nodded. Just like that. It wasn’t what I was asking about, but it was the closest thing I’d heard of that mirrored what Flynn had over the Lincoln pack: the bond he had to surrender in order to free Umbra and Dusk.

“If those negotiations began, and the pack with the dark bond destroyed themselves before a resolution, would that constitute a surrender?” I asked.

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