He snorted, letting go, and she clutched her throat, taking deep breaths.
Above us, through the haze, I heard the faint buzz of the intercom.
“Karma Thomas. Your appeal has arrived. Proceed to the waiting room with your pack.”
My blood chilled as our time dwindled.
The second call of three.
Holden paused, eyes flickering to me, a grin on his face. “Looks like I get to claim your omega, your bond,andyour freedom.”
Crescent’s eyes met mine, fear and sorrow in them, but I felt his aura flare and my hair stood on end.
“HOLDEN!”
His eyes darted toward me, amusement in them as I threw my weight again against the chains. “We’re going to make this bitch beg even while we’re breaking her.”
She’d never looked so small as she did now, beside a huge alpha with his aura out.
He struck her with such force that she crashed to the floor a foot before me, a whimper coming loose from her chest.
My heart missed a beat, then another as the whole ocean roared in my ears, drowning the world and my sanity with it.
Wrong.
A violation of all that was natural.
I shattered into a thousand pieces.
Something snapped in the air. A violent energy that burned through my veins, from flesh to bone.The cuffs were gone, dissolving like sugar in water.
I didn't have time to process that every alpha in the room had gone still. That Holden had turned from Crescent, his eyes wide as he faced a monster.
There was no time to process thatIwas that monster as the world moved strangely around me, everyone else reacting so slowly it seemed almost impossible.
I finally understood the bone-deep hatred I had for this alpha, even beyond everything he’d done to my pack.
He’d tried to claimme.
Instincts burned, lava seeping through my veins as I stared at him.
My pack is whatIclaimed.
Never the other way around.
Her frightened golden eyes were like beacons, shining through a haze of crimson rage, and they were beacons to a call like I'd never felt. To balance a force so uncontained that there was no other answer than payment in blood.
51
CRESCENT
Sin turned into an angel right before my eyes—a real-life angel.
I didn't know how or where it had come from, but he was the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen. His eyes glowed dully in the dim cell, pinpricks of red.
The Ascendants had their Chosen, those who were so holy that their actions forged the law instead of being bound by it.
The idea of it had always frightened me, but now, I think I understood. Not in those they chose, but him. There was something…rightabout him.