Page 167 of Shattered Omega: Part Two

My blood turned to ice.

He remembered?

It was the greatest enigma—our survival when there were only two of us left in the bond. “How did the pack survive?”

“I think, because the bond registered a third member, even an unconventional one.”

“What does that mean?”

“Your pack was born of theirs.”

“It was…what?”

“They used your blood and a twisted binding. Not like usual bonds between alphas. But even then, as unnatural as it was, you still had to accept it. Do you remember the moment you connected? A moment of desperation to save your pack when there was nothing else?”

“I…” I trailed off, memories clawing their way back violently.

I had always known there was something wrong with that moment.

The bullet shredded more than just flesh. As 31’s heart stopped, each one tore through our pack bond. Enough, by all laws of the universe, to destroy it.

No…

If the pack broke, I couldn’t protect Dusk.

We wouldn’t be of use to them anymore.

I flared my aura, reaching out desperately in the dark. Somehow, I found something to hold onto. Intangible and impossible, the energy was an anchor enough that I could hold on, even though it scorched me to the soul, unnatural and agonising.

I shuddered, cracks rippling through the very essence that made me an alpha; wounds that didn’t feel as if they would ever heal.

“I… did this?” I asked, ripping myself from the vision before it pulled me from reality completely.

But… I had been right all this time.

Thiswasmy fault.

“You could not conceive of the power you handed to them when you did that,” Vandle said. “The relationship was not symbiotic by design.”

“Not… what?”

“They’re feeding on you, 66. On you and 68. On your auras. A parasite draining you dry. A slow poison to wither you to nothing as you rot behind the bars of a cage.”

A parasite?

“Once they knew you were going to succeed, he just had to take three injections of a serum with your blood, and the bond was sealed.”

“That’s what was in the briefcase?”

That’s what this was? This sickness creeping in, devouring me.

The Lincoln pack… What they’d stolen they werestillstealing.

“They needed powerful auras to handle the demand of that bond, and even then, only the strongest alphas survived the process.”

“Is that why… When Dusk touched one of them—” I cut off as Vandle’s eyes went wide.

“Youwhat?” he asked. “Dr. Wren had theories about what might happen if contact was made.”

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