We waited for an age until the sounds died down.
Finally, and almost suddenly, the auras were gone. The silence was ringing. Vandle and Karma had both contained theirs, I noticed, as if even they knew the danger.
I held my hand up to Karma, then I peered back around the boiler.
My hand clamped over my mouth.
JesusChrist.
There were bodies everywhere. Limbs strewn. I saw a disembodied jaw. Innards spilling from someone’s stomach… I’d never seen anything like it.
And, seated with his back pressed against the wall, the omega had somehow survived. His chest was heaving, blood soaking his body. Even from here, I could see his arms shaking as he looked down at his palms, eyes wide with shock.
The alphas… they’d killed each other, and he’d survived.
My instincts told me to go to him.
To see if he was hurt.
I was about to do it, when the door flung open.
Damn.
That was the West pack allies.
Holden was their pack lead. Not dwellers, but well connected. And we were just three unbonded nobodies.
“A… pack brawl?” I heard him saying to one of the alphas behind him.
I watched as he looked around, muttering something else as he took in the destruction, his eyes finally landing on Sin. The huge pack lead had cruel, dark eyes that were dancing with victory, as if he’d just stumbled in to find an unexpected prize. He barely spared a glance for the bodies.
Fear and fatigue were written all over the omega's face, and for a moment, I wondered if he might pass out. Sin shook his head weakly, still trembling, eyes flickering across the new pack that was entering.
“Looks like we’re in luck,” Holden said. “Next in line, shall we say? We get an omega—and we aren’t even dwellers yet.”
I flinched as Holden kicked Sin, sending him sprawling. “Why don’t you run, omega. Make this fun.”
There was a beat, and then Sin managed to drag himself up, desperation clear in his eyes as he tried to run.
Something in me broke as I locked eyes with Karma, who had moved to see.
He’d survived all of that, only to lose his freedom here…?
Present
I woke with a start in a dim room, my whole body aching.
I blinked, trying to figure out where I was.
My pack… Sin…
The year and a half that had passed since the foggy dream had happened, it all rushed in.
Crescent…
We had even more to protect since the day we’d been reckless enough—three unbonded, half-feral alphas—to challenge Holden’s pack to protect an omega we had no claim over.
We hadn’t even been trying to form a pack, or bite him. And that might be why he’d trusted us after that.