Page 196 of Knot Their Soldier: Part One
“Fuck, Knox. Stop treating her like she’s the enemy,” Blaze calls.
“If she wants to leave, let her,” Viper says with venom, and my heart clenches. My big guy has given up on me.
Knox snarls and grabs my arms, squeezing my biceps, and stares into my eyes.“You will not disobey your Prime Alpha, Omega Sparks.”
The compulsion to obey is overwhelming, threatening to drag me to my knees so I can prostate myself in submission.
The shimmering energy beneath my skin flares in a violent surge.
“Let. Me. Go.”
He staggers back, each word a punch to his gut.
His expression breaks and emotion spills out. “I can’t. I can’t let you go. You belong to us, don’t you understand?”
My heart melts for a moment, letting his words wash over me. They’re almost sweet. But he said… I belong to them. Not with them.Tothem.
I rip away from his grasp. “I don’t belong to anyone, you jerk!”
The Alpha Command shatters, and despite my feet feeling like lead, I start walking away again.
“Wait, wait, Halley!” Blaze shouts, jogging up beside me.
“Stop, Blaze,”I say with finality, and his feet root to the ground immediately.
I pause and turn, not wanting to look back, but unable to leave them with nothing. Blaze is looking at me with big, mournful eyes.
“Don’t,” my voice quivers, and I swallow down my emotion. I point to him, my vision blurring with unshed tears. “Don’t ask me to go to the military with you, Blaze. Because I can’t. My friends need me and I’m not going to abandon them.”
“We need you,” he says in a pained voice.
“No, you don’t. You want me. It’s different.”
“You feel it too. I know you do. We’re your Pack! And you’re our Omega!” he shouts, his fists bunched up at his sides, but his feet are bolted to the ground.
“It was just a dream.” I smile weakly, and sigh. “A nice one, but a dream nonetheless.”
I let myself look at the others, their feet planted firmly. Viper isn’t looking at me, betrayal vibrating through his hunched shoulders. I want to run to him, to burrow my face into his chest, the safest place I’ve ever known, and tell him it’ll be okay. But it’s not okay. It was never going to be okay.
They can’t see it because they don’t have all the information. I haven’t told them the truth.
I inhale deeply and look up. Wispy, white clouds race across the blue sky, the afternoon sun illuminating the branches at thetippy-top of the trees. The leaves, caught up in the wind, rustle and rage, making the forest feel alive with their hum.
Exhaling, I look back at them and know this will be the last time they look at me with wanting.
“I can’t be your Omega because I’m defective.” I fix my gaze on Knox. He’s the one who will understand. He’ll make the decision for the squad and hold them to it.
I open my mouth to utter the words, but a raspy sound escapes instead. It’s been so long since I’ve said it out loud. My deepest shame. The reason I was denied a mate. The reason I was branded defective.
“I’m infertile.”
I don’t let them speak. I plow on, needing to get this confession out before it burns a hole in my chest.
“I’m a broken Omega. I can’t do the one thing I was born to do. They wouldn’t give me a mate. They wanted to send me to the capital as a whore, shared around for the pleasure of Alphas without the strings attached.”
I screw my eyes up and shake my head emphatically, the one loose strand of hair whipping against my face. “I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.”
“Halley—” Shade begins to say, his voice soft and understanding. I can’t let him speak. He’ll talk me down, and I can’t afford to be drawn in by his allure.
