Page 91 of Unhinged Omega

Even unconscious, he radiates heat like a furnace. His skin burns wherever I touch it, fever raging through his massive frame. It's like being near a campfire. Good for me, I guess, but bad news for him.

I sit back on my heels, surveying my handiwork. The makeshift bandages aren't a long-term solution, but they might buy him some time. Though for what, I'm not sure. It's not like I can drag him anywhere. He must weigh as much as a car with his massive height and all that metal grafted to him.

And even if I could move him, where would I take him?

Back to Nikolai's compound?

Into the wilderness to die slowly instead of quickly?

A distant explosion makes me jump. The sound carries across the water, reminding me that chaos still reigns beyond the forest.

Sooner or later, someone will come looking. Whether it's Nikolai's men, that pretty blond alpha and his tank-driving friend, or someone else entirely, I can't stay here.

But I can't seem to make myself leave, either.

I press my palm against the Knight's forehead, or what I can reach of it around the mask. At least his fever seems marginally better after I managed to get some of the feverfew tincture into him, though getting anything past those razor teeth was terrifying. But his breathing has grown more labored, each exhale ending in a wet rattle that can't be good.

"Don't you dare die on me," I find myself muttering. "Not now. Not when I finally have a chance to understand what's happening between us."

He doesn't respond, of course. But something shifts in his breathing—becomes less ragged, more even.

Like even unconscious, he heard me.

Like he's trying to do what I ask.

I gather fallen branches and start constructing a crude shrine near us, weaving dried grasses and herbs into a small doll. It's a poor offering to the moon goddess my mother taught me to pray to, but it's all I have.

"Please," I murmur in Vrissian, bending toward the doll on my palms and knees and pressing my forehead to the cold earth. "Please protect us both. Guide us through this night."

The words feel strange on my tongue after so long. Father forbade us from practicing our old ways, and the consequences for disobeying him were always dire. But out here, with death breathing down our necks, propriety seems meaningless.

A howl echoes in the distance. Whether from a wolf or something worse, I can't tell. The Knight's metal arm twitches at the sound. Even unconscious, he's ready to fight.

To protect.

The thought startles me.

When the hell did I start thinking of him as a protector rather than a threat?

Another violent shiver racks my body as the last rays of sunlight fade. The moon rises, full and bright, casting everything in silver. Including him. The light catches on his mask, on the metal grafted to his flesh, making him look almost beautiful in a tragic way.

I have no choice. I'm going to freeze to death if I don't get warm soon.

"Don't eat me," I mutter as I carefully wedge myself between his massive arm and his fever-hot side. "I just got done patching you up. It would be rude."

His skin burns against mine through what little is left of my robe. This close, I can smell him. Metal and blood and wilderness, like a wounded and armored wolf.

And alpha.

It's strangely familiar, but not in a nightmarish way. I don't remember catching his scent in my dreams. Then again, they never ended this way. Never ended with me curled up against him.

But as his warmth seeps into my frozen limbs and his massive frame blocks the bitter wind, I feel safe, somehow.

Protected.

Like nothing in this wasteland would dare come near us.

The last thing I notice before I finally succumb to exhaustion is a bright star I've never noticed before twinkling in the night sky, outshone only by the silver light of the moon.

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