Page 77 of Shattered Omega: Part Two

I got to my feet in an instant and tugged the shirt from around her neck. There were no marks there, but the necklace was gone.

I wasn’t expecting how much that cut, seeing the arbitrary symbol of the claim the academy handed us, taken by another.

I pressed her against the wall by her neck, gently but firmly. She grappled with my arms, wild eyes losing their humanity again, but I wouldn’t let her run this time. “There is nothing I love that hasn’t been broken and put back together. That someone hasn’t tried to take. You are mine, Shatter, and there is no bite on this planet that can change that.”

Tears wet her cheeks as she shivered, each breath wracking her whole body. She just shook her head, expression so broken.

“Show me.”My command was absolute, and she did what I asked, fumbling with the last of the buttons as tears dripped from the chin to the floor.

Fuck—

I saw her skin at last.

A low growl of fury tore from my chest, making her jump.

Her eyes met mine, her whole body freezing as if ripped from a daze. She tried to pull the shirt closed in desperation, but I caught her wrists.

The Lincoln pack hadn’t just left a mark on her skin, they’d brutalised her.

Each bite was clearly visible, a dozen, at least. Even through the mess of blood and blackness. They weren’t dark bonds, but Shatterherselfhad—I placed my hands on the vanity, needing to steady myself.

This went beyond a claim or a prank.

Bite after bite marred her skin and torso and arms, and the wounds were angry, covered in thick lines of black ink—scribbles that covered most of her skin, all made by a sharpie.

She’ddone that, I realised. In the time in which I’d left her alone. I’d seen the sharpie laying on the floor of the closet.

She’d made each dark stroke in a desperate moment of panic, trying to hide the marks beneath sharpie as if that might erase what had happened.

It was denial. Self hatred.

Hatred they’d given her.

And I had failed her.

She was fading again, and I looked back up at her, cupping her neck once more, getting myself under control.

“Nothing has changed,” I whispered.

She couldn’t understand me, I saw it in her eyes.

I tugged my shirt off and led us to the shower, but before we got in, I gently removed her contacts. She didn’t fight me. Instead, she went deathly still as I turned the water on, waiting for a comfortable temperature. Those wounds were fresh and angry and would need healing, but I wouldn’t allow another second to pass with their scents on her.

Not after what they’d done.

She shivered in my arms as the warm water streamed over us. I was gentle using the soap, trying to avoid her wounds as I freed her of their scents.

My pulse was erratic as I worked, alpha instincts trying to rip me apart as I saw, again and again, their marks. But those instincts had been long warped, overwritten by drugs and madness, and none worked the way they should—the way the Lincoln pack wished they might.

I wiped her face again with the cloth, the word across her forehead was faint now, but I needed it gone.

I saw the other message left for me. Almost entirely scribbled over beneath her collarbone.

‘Dusk’s little whore’

It was the last confirmation I needed. This went beyond a vendetta. Brutalising her like this? It wasn’t a calculated prank, it was the sharp edge of insanity I recognised. Obsession and hatred.

Arrogant, entitled alphas twisted by a draw they felt but could not understand.

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