Page 2 of Shattered Omega

A gun trembled in his grip, but he lowered it, piercing green eyes widening as he saw us.

“Umbra.”

At Dusk’s voice, the vision died, and I glanced toward the door of Shatter’s nest. He was leaning against the doorframe, and I wondered how long he had been there. The faint scent of midnight opium, dark vanilla with sharp ambers, was grounding and familiar.

And… I blinked… how long had my aura been out?

…Not yours…

I shoved away that thought.

“Why aren’t you with her?” My voice was a barely audible rasp.

The thought shook me from my daze, and I went tense, about to go to her. She was in Roxy’s apartment tonight.

“Ransom can keep her safe,” Dusk said quietly.

The unspoken other half of that sentence was like a cruel taunt in the silence.

Better than either of us…

A simple touch from Flynn, and that might be the end for me. We were, I realised, perhaps the only alphas in the world who were completely debilitated when it came to protecting her from the Lincoln pack.

“You should be with her, too,” he said as he entered. I caught the shift in his scent, the bitter edges of midnight opium becoming sharp as he stepped over torn paper and wreckage.

I didn’t answer as he sat on the bed at my side.

“I checked out,” I said, voice quiet. “I let this happen.”

“You didn’t check out,” he replied, and I opened my mouth, but he got there first. “You needed to heal?—”

“I—”

“Or I wouldn’t have had anyone left.” His words shook with something beyond irritation. That was fear I felt from him in the bond.

I clenched my jaw, taking another deep breath. “Well. I’m out of time.”

For healing…? Is that what I had done, anyway? As I’d slowly carved a painting across my body, one scar at a time?

A painting that was, after all of this, useless.

I had become weak, and maybe it hadn’t mattered before, but now Ransom was back. Now we had her…

My little Nightshade, gentle and sweet.

She didn’t deserve this… Not the person I had turned into. A person who should never have been allowed to be. Pushed by Dusk to change—when this nightmare had been going on the whole time.

When had I become fool enough to believe I deserved that?

Shatter needed better.

And I knew Dusk wasn’t ready to do what had to be done if it came to it—to protect her, like we had so far failed to do.

He couldn’t.

He wasn’t the one at the epicentre.

Not like I was.

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