Page 2 of Unhinged Omega

Instead, a strange numbness has settled over me, dulling everything to a distant ache, and it's not just in my physical body. It's not that I think whoever bought me can't be any worse than Monty. I'm not that naive.

It canalwaysbe worse.

Always.

But without Azarel...

My chest constricts painfully at the thought of him.

My alpha. My protector.

No… not mine. He didn't even tell me he has a brother. A brother who belongs to the Ghosts, the most notorious pack of special ops alphas in Reinmich. There's no other explanation for the resemblance they share, except the one I met a few days ago isn't quite as jacked.

Four years, and I guess I still don't really know him. No, not mine at all.

But a girl can dream, can't she?

The possibility that I won't ever see him again—that this cramped, dank room is just the first stop on a journey taking me further and further from him—threatens to shatter the fragile composure I'm clinging to.

I close my eyes, digging my sharpened nails into my palms until I feel the blood pool at the surface. It's all I can reach. Ilet out a slow, steady breath as the haze fades and the world sharpens to those five little points of pain.

Crying changes nothing, mylita.

My mom's voice echoes across the dank stone walls as clearly as if she were here, her Vrissian accent soft and soothing.

My father wouldn't let her speak her mother tongue at home, but she made sure I learned anyway. Each bruise and mark on her smooth skin was proof of her insistence that her daughter remain connected to the world she was ripped away from at barely the age of sixteen.

Everywhere but her beautiful face.

Never the face.

We look so much alike. I inherited her long silver hair that falls in waves down the length of my back. Her violet eyes, her full lips, her heart-shaped face. Sometimes, if I stare in the mirror long enough and lose focus, I can pretend it's her staring back at me. And sometimes, if I watch her for too long, another face appears.

The monster’s.

Guess it's only fair to be haunted by both a devil and an angel.

I used to wake up screaming, terrified of those iron claws gripping my soft body, his jaws full of gleaming razor-sharp teeth parting to devour me, long tongue snaking out.

Now? If I can't escape, if I never see Azarel again… at least I know there's an end in sight. Without Azarel's protection, the monster I have endless nightmares aboutwillfind me eventually. He's out there somewhere, even now, hunting me. I can feel his approach in my very bones.

With any luck, he'll take out my new captors in the process.

The creak of a distant door snaps me out of my morbid thoughts. The thump of heavy boots echo down what sounds like a long corridor, growing louder with each passing second. Mymuscles tense involuntarily, fight-or-flight instincts kicking in despite my body's sluggish response.

A face appears in the small window of the cell door. Scarred. Alpha. Female. But gender doesn't matter. All alphas are the same.

All but the one I might never see again.

The lock clicks and the door swings open. I manage to scoot back on the cot, my limbs finally cooperating enough to put some distance between us. It's not nearly enough.

The alpha strides in with a metal tray. She's wearing a battered black leather trench coat that brushes the tops of her steel-toed boots, and the leather is faded in patches as if someone tried to bleach stains out of it over the years. And succeeded, but at what cost?

"Well, well, well," the alpha drawls. "If it isn't sleeping beauty looking all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."

I glare at her, willing my eyes to burn holes through her face. And judging from the looks of those jagged scars extending from either side of her smirking lips all the way up to her ears, someone else has already given it a respectable attempt. The smell of whatever slop is on that tray makes my empty stomach churn even more than her awful alpha scent.

Burned motor oil.

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