Another Alpha.
Hers, but…nothers. Not in the bond.
I silenced the nightmares still trying to drown me. Instead, I focused on what I knew.
Knox Wilde.
Ex-slave—and all the power he had in this life, he owed to me.
I contained my fury—my hatred of the Omega who was lodged in me from bond to soul—as I tilted my head upjustslightly to look at the Alpha waiting.
“I said get up.”
At his words, I still didn’t move, instead drawing him into focus.
Pain split my cheek as he moved, boot colliding with my face. The world blurred, and I lost myself, my snarl echoing between us.
Before I knew it, I gave in to those instincts again—the same nightmare and instability I was trying to shake.
I launched at him, and this time the pain that exploded at my temple was worse. I crashed into the wall again before I crumpled to the stone floor. I felt—through the wildness and spinning world—something close around my neck.
My chest heaved, madness flickering in and out.
I tried to fight it. My fingers curled around the stiff metal of a rod as the world began to make sense once more.
I realised what it was: I was locked into a metal collar attached to a solid rod as he stood over me.
“You think I don’t know how to deal with vermin?” Knox asked, his voice a laugh. “You left me with one.”
I grappled with my sanity again, a vile hatred rising in my chest at the idea I couldn’t maintain control.
I wouldnotbe this weak.
I rolled onto my back, tasting iron, a laugh shuddering in my chest as I stared at the cracks along the ceiling, and found my voice at last. “You arenobody.” My words were cracked and vicious.
The world was wrong about power.
I’d always known that, but now I had my proof. It wasn’t money, or weapons, or strength.
It was knowledge.
And that was the only reason I was awake.
Thistle had tried to destroy me, but this was one of the two Alphas she’d chosen.
Both, it seemed, loved her—caredfor her.
And that was weakness.
If Thistle thought this was the end—that she hadwon—she was so very mistaken.
I felt my hormones rising again, getting the better of me as I heard Knox’s laugh. He was watching, waiting for me to lose it again, as if he knew it would happen.
I couldn’t afford these nightmares taking control once more. So I did what made me sick, and reached, at last, for thethingin this pack that would stabilise me.
Even far away, I could feel it. Just opening up the bond was enough for a flood of calm as I allowed it in.
An undeniable cure.