Page 20 of Knot Their Soldier: Part One
Blood Lust had finally claimed me.
It’s my time. I’ll die from the infection destroying me from the inside or I’d be given the sweet mercy of a bullet. Yet, if I could save my team, it’d make my death worth it.
The memories after are flashes of blood and rage. The thundering need to not merely kill, but maim and cause harm to everyone and anything that crossed my manic path. My hands were slick with the blood of countless humans. The ones who had been lucky enough to escape my fury with only a flesh wound had left with fear so deep it would haunt them forever.
I was a monster. A beast. An animal unleashed, and it would not be caged again.
And then she came.
Her soft voice cut through the haze in my mind, calling to me, and somehow I was able to hear her through the buzzing in my ears. My body shook with the need to attack, the urge to destroy anyone who might be a threat to my Omega. And then she touched me.
The fog receded enough for her to penetrate the endless rage. I was a wild animal, crazed and dangerous, but her body was so soft, and the sound of her voice so sweet. It soothed me, calming my frayed nerves enough that I refocused the pulsing energy to something more appealing – the Omega.
A heavy warmth shifting on my chest jolts me back to reality, disrupting my patched-together memories. I blink blearily downat a mass of chocolate brown hair. The scent hits me next. Lavender and something electric, like the crackling air after a lightning storm.
Omega.
The word cuts through my delirium and I can feel myself come back to life. My limbs are heavy and weak, so I don’t move, but I stare down at the creature sleeping on my chest. She’s so small and delicate, it’s hard to believe she somehow tamed my Blood Lust – an affliction thought to have no treatment or cure.
She looks like I’ve always imagined Omegas to look. Soft and pretty. Her hair waves in a cascade of curls. Her pale pink lips are parted and she breathes deeply in her sleep.
How is she asleep when she saw the beast within me? Isn’t she afraid? Isn’t she concerned about her safety?
I have no doubt I didn’t hurt only our enemies in my rage. Blood Lust doesn’t discriminate. I’d have torn my brothers-in-arms limb from limb without a thought, mindless in my desperation to protect them but blind to who I battled.
A stab of grief hits me hard. I pray to the old gods that they are alive. It will be some terrible twist of fate if I murdered my found family only to survive.
I look down at my body, stripped of clothes except for my underwear. I’m tinged red everywhere, streaked with brown dried blood. Some of the blood is mine, but most isn’t. I’m coated in it and it stinks.
I count fresh scars scattered over my flesh. Slashes and gunshot wounds, shiny pink from being rapidly healed mere moments after their arrival. If only the pain inside my heart could be so easily repaired.
The movement stirs the little Omega on my chest, and I freeze. She whimpers but doesn’t wake, instead shifting to nuzzle into my chest hair. My heart squeezes at the show of affection and trust.
Why did this little creature save me? I was supposed to be put down like a rabid animal. It was time. I was ready.
A knock at the door has the Omega grumbling in her sleep. I wait for her to wake, but she licks her lips and continues sleeping, small puffs of her hot breath fluttering over my chest.
The door cracks open and Beta Specialist Shade enters.
My teammate. My brother-in-arms. My blood brother.
Relief spills from me, causing strands of brown hair to dance wildly in my exhale. I didn’t kill him.
“Viper,” he whispers, his eyes fixed on the sleeping Omega.
He doesn’t have to say anything else. I know I have to leave. My time with the sweetest and bravest creature I’ve ever crossed paths with is over. I don’t allow myself to be sad. This is more than I’ve ever hoped to experience with an Omega, and I’ll have this memory to hold close until the next time Blood Lust drags me under and I finally meet my maker.
I stare down at the Omega to memorize every detail about her.
“She’s a beauty.” Shade’s keen eyes track the rise and fall of her chest.
He remains silent for an extended period, his expression inscrutable, his mind a mystery. I can see the gears in his mind turning, the questing eyes searching her neck for signs of a bite to her mating gland.
I don’t know why my crazed Alpha didn’t claim her as his. I certainly have the compulsion even with a clearer head, but he didn’t. Her gland is a soft pale pink, slightly swollen and wholly untouched.
I feel a twinge of disappointment, and my lip curls into a snarl, but Shade doesn’t react.
“She’s either really brave or stupid,” he finally exhales.
