Chapter 5
The room is silent except for the gasping, panting breath of my husband’s mistress, pushed to the point of anger by jealousy. Her eyes are wide as she opens and closes her hands, her stance wide in challenge.
“Look at me, damn it,” she demands, acting very different from the demure omega from before.
It takes Max a few moments to realize the
television is no longer transmitting a signal and a few minutes more for him to notice she is still in the room. Slowly he turns, his body tense with anger.
“Why did you do that?” he barks, spittle flying from his lips as he froths around the mouth. “Why are you still here? Get out!”
“No,” Phoebe hisses as she takes a bold step forward. “You don‘ t get to ignore me. Not after last night. You claimed me as your luna and now you pretend not to
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know.”
She bears her neck where a fresh mark lays in the shape of his teeth, barely healed, her Omega status making the process take longer than it would if she had been born with Alpha blood.
“That was a mistake,” He grumbles. “That should have never happened. You took advantage of my…”
“How dare you!,” She takes an accusatory step forward, her fingers pressed into his chest. “You did this, and now you try to blame me. You act as if you love me and then you toss me aside.”
She grabs the necklace he draped over her shoulders the night before, the beautiful strand of pearls that were once his finest gift to me, and snaps it. I duck as the pearls go flying, even though they cannot hurt my body anymore.
Although it does hurt my heart.
Max reaches forward, grasping what he can
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of my broken pearls strands, tightening them around her neck. “You will pick up every single pearl. When you are done, you will clean yourself and head back to the omega floor. If you ever step foot in my room again, I’ll remove you from the pack and you can spend the rest of your life as a rogue.”
Her lip quivers. “Alpha, please, I’m your Luna! I’m your…”
Roughly pulling the necklace up and over her head he shoves her aside. “Do not be
here when I get back, “he demands as he storms out of the room, the remains of my necklace still tightly clenched in his fist.
He doesn’t bother cleaning himself. Instead he throws on a pair of pants and a shirt from the pack‘ s spare clothing and texts Dexter for the location of my body.
“Meet me at the morgue,” I read over Max’s shoulder as he sends a reply. “I need to see her one last time.”
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Watching him leave the packhouse, there is
a sharp pain where my heart should be as my body flickers out of existence. I am losing myself. Soon, I won‘ t be here
anymore.
My vision flickers. Phoebe is on her hands and knees cursing my name as she picks up my pearls one by one.
Everything flickers again and I feel even less substantial as I blink out of existence.
It is dark in the void. There is nothing here. No sound, no light.
I’m not ready to go, damn it. I can’t leave yet.
The darkness fades and I flicker back into
reality within a harshly lit room.
This isn’t the packhouse.
Where am I? Why did I materialize here in
a place I’ve never seen before?
Lying beneath me I see the reason I was called away. Even hidden I’d know that
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shape by the way my soul resonates with the same frequency.
It is my body, lying stiffly on a cold, metal slab covered in a simple, white sheet.
“So this is how it ends,” I say to myself as I look down at what is left of me. I seem so small, reduced to a few broken limbs.
Quiet voices in deep conversation stop just outside the door to this room. Focusing my attention outward, I can make out what they are saying, but it takes too much concentration and I am barely more than a wisp.
The door opens with a small squeak and Max and Dexter enter the room, their faces drawn and solemn. As they approach my body, there is a reverence in their
movements as they walk into a space reserved for the dead.
“The mortician did the best he could,” Dex explains as he gently removes the sheet just enough to show my face and
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shoulders. “But the damage was too
extensive.”
Gasping, Max bites his knuckle to keep from crying out. The rogues spared no part of me when they attacked, tearing across my face and body with long, vicious
strokes.
Max reaches out to touch my face. Falling to his knees, he places his head on the slab and weeps. Dex quietly leaves, giving Max privacy as he mourns.
“This is all my fault,” he confesses as he slams his fist into the slab. “All of it.”
