Page 115 of Shattered Omega

My breathing was short and sharp, the scent of blood strong in the room. Too strong.

Blood and death, caused by me…

All of this…

My palm remained on the glass, Dusk’s eyes holding mine for… I don’t know how long. Then blood tangled with wolfsbane.

“Nightshade…” Umbra’s voice was low as his touch soothed my terror and I was drawn away from the glass as huge arms enveloped me. He pulled me against his chest and I clutched him, trembling violently, relief shattering my fear at last, and blackness seeped in.

He was back.

My alpha was back.

Tethered to me by the strongest bond in the world; to a princess bond that made my pack whole at last.

FORTY-ONE

DUSK

I clutched Shatter to my chest as I carried her to the cabin.

Decebal had driven, but she’d been between Umbra and Ransom. None of them were awake, but Ransom had laced his fingers into hers.

Ransom was vacant, the fury of his feral spiral having died to catatonia.

Umbra had collapsed after he’d pulled Shatter into his arms in that room.

Both would survive because of her.

I was still in shock.

She’d succeeded where we’d failed. The omega who had made my pack whole. She hadn’t just saved us—she’d found a miracle within an ocean of darkness.

Because the princess bond had defaulted back to us when the Lincoln pack had died.

The most powerful bond in the world.

An anchor like no other, tethering Umbra and healing Ransom. She was more than I’d ever dared dream. More than I could have conceived of the day I’d first seen her. And she’d found a way to accomplish what I’d been fighting for ever since we’d escaped that facility.

I reached the spare room and sat on the bed, holding her close, unable to imagine letting her go again.

Her terror was impossible to shake.

The moment Flynn had died, I’d felt her through the bond. She’d broken, teeth clenched, tears tracking her face. And that made what she’d done so much more powerful. Born of fury and violence, to me, vengeance was a gift.

For her, I realised, it was a nightmare.

And she’d done it, anyway.

I lay her down in bed and tucked her in, helping Decebal bring in Ransom. He was half with it, taking a few tired steps, but he curled up next to her in a moment, clutching her close. Thankfully, we had Decebal’s massive pack mate, Bane, to help haul Umbra into the cabin. Kai had stayed behind to clean up the mess we’d left.

I sank down onto the couch so I could see them all, still in shock.

“He’ll be alright?” I asked.

The pack had all but disintegrated beneath us, and Ransom had needed this bond to become stable in the first place. “I think so,” Decebal said as we tucked Ransom in beside Shatter. “The pack is whole. He’ll be okay with some rest.”

Umbra sat beside the bed, holding her hand, his usually rich skin, ashen. I was still in shock, not something I was used to. Experiments had scorched my being from most human responses to fear or challenge. But this—being so close to losing the only good thing we’d ever found—it had torn back a thousand charred layers.

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