Page 81 of Beta Lies and Cursed Lives
I’m vaguely aware of the growing audience around me, no one but my pack daring to get closer.
Then I find it. His secret.
I knew he had one the moment I first saw him. I didn’t have the power to find it then, but when I grasp it now, a roar escapes my chest, all fury and rage. He screams in his throat, mouth forced shut like I’ve sewn it, and I make him see. Seeher.Over and over again, the Cursed Omega he’d loved, the one who hated what he’d become, the one who spurned him for another when he joined the Council, the one he locked up after murdering her lover in front of her. The one he would visit again and again in the night, pumped full of chemicals, and force himself on whenever he pleased. Until she ended it by taking her life in a rare moment of clarity.
He’d seen the surveillance footage, how her dull eyes looked straight into the camera, and she whispered a message just for him before slicing her throat.
My hand whips out and grasps his neck, squeezing hard enough to elicit more panic, but not hard enough to end him.
I pull her voice from his mind. “Ya bolshe nikogda ne budu tvoei.”
I will never again be yours.
It repeats over and over, and his pulse quickens as I send images into his psyche from his buried memories. From the first time they met to the brutal aftermath. The first time he saw her dance, the day he murdered her lover in front of her. The day he smiled to himself as she drew laughter from the children around her by creating a rainbow of tiny fireworks in the sky, the day she looked into the camera as an unrecognizable woman, and ended it all.
I draw out his pain and even guilt. There’s remorse for what he did hidden deep within the confines of his mind, but instead of this changing his ways, he quadrupled-down on evil, murderous hate.
I burn these memories into his mind, the images and her last words echoing on a loop until his body convulses, foam seeping from the corner of his mouth, and he collapses.
Death would be too good for this one. So I make sure he’ll live, comatose, locked in his memories for all time.
Forever isn’t long enough, but it will have to do.
Miranda
Colt was...magnificent.
I don’t know if he did it on purpose, but I saw everything he pulled from that Beta asshole’s mind.
Fucking monster.
And I know Rai and Aubrey saw it all, too, because my hands are still held tightly in theirs as we all stare at Colt with awe and admiration.
When he turns to us, I leap at him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and squeezing, kissing his neck as I whisper how much I love him. Then Aubrey and Rai are at my back, their arms around us both, natural and loving.
But there’s still more to do as we separate and pass through the small crowd that had amassed around us, and head into the academy. Most of the crowd follows when a voice calls out, “What do we do with him?”
When I turn, I see a young man I don’t recognize pointing at the Beta Councilman, who twitches on the ground every so often.
“Leave him,” Colt tells him, and we turn back to the academy.
Inside, Willow and Caius are in the center of the foyer. Around them are several Beta soldiers I recognize, their uniform badges and patches torn off in defiance, some wounded by obvious gunfire.
“Yarr,” Aubrey calls and rushes to the combat instructor, who’s leaning against the wall, breathing heavily. There’s blood on his torso, and I think it’s coming from a wound in his shoulder.
“I’ll be fine, Modumo,” he replies with effort. Then he looks at him quizzically. “You’re talking.”
Aubrey shakes his head. “And you’re bleeding.”
The older man laughs, then groans in pain.
A woman I don’t recognize approaches from the back of the small crowd and crouches in front of Yarr. “I’ll help,” she says quietly.
“Mira!”
I turn toward the chorus of cries to find Nyx and Arlowe running at me just before they wrap me tight in their arms.
“I knew you’d make it back,” Nyx whispers, emotion welling in her tone.
