I lay awkwardly on the cramped floor of the sports car, with Sadie sprawled flush across me.
A soft hum shook through her chest, a cross between a light snore and a low growl.
She was alpha-purring.
As soon as we’d collapsed into the car, she’d closed her eyes and slept.
Now, heart rattling in my chest, I tightened my arms across her delicate back. My face twitched, and I didn’t know if I wanted to smile or pull out my knives and snarl.
Because every time I looked down at Sadie purring softly against my chest, I wanted to murder someone.
Her delicate golden skin was mottled with hideous black, blue, and green bruises. Both her gorgeous red eyes were puffy and swollen shut.
Dried blood that hadn’t washed away in the rain still streaked down the sides of her face and neck.
Softly, I patted her wet hair and pressed my lips to her forehead, the only part of her body that wasn’t openly bleeding.
My chest pinched with agony, and I wanted to scream at someone.
I didn’t remember what had happened after Spike had stabbed me with a needle. Everything was a blur of fear and pain.
But I couldn’t forget what had happened after.
When I’d come back to consciousness, the first thing I’d seen was Sadie’s beaten body swinging from the rope beside me.
I’d never felt such devastation.
However, Sadie hadn’t been crying or freaking out like I would have expected. Nope, the little alpha had fucking smiled at me encouragingly and asked if I was okay.
Like we hadn’t both been tortured.
Like I wasn’t almost three times her size and covered in muscles.
Like I wasn’t older and more experienced.
As Sadie had looked at me with worry, my omega instincts had melted in my chest.
For the first time in my entire fucking life, I understood what it meant to be taken care of by an alpha.
I understood why omegas fawned over an alpha’s attention.
There was nowhere I wouldn’t go, nothing I wouldn’t do, if it meant Sadie would stare at me with concern like I was her entire world.
Her priority.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the moment she’d fucking asked me if I was all right. She’d worried about me above her own needs.
It was everything.
It also pissed me the fuck off.
Sure, in that moment, my heart had melted in my chest as my omega instincts had preened. A part of me wanted to cuddle in my nest and let her tuck me in. Let her care for me.
However, I was still a fucking warrior.
A larger part of me wanted to scream at her for putting herself in danger.
Biology be damned. She was the small, weak one, and I was going to take care of her.
She needed me more than I needed her. Which meant I needed to do better. I needed to be there for her.
I needed to fucking protect her.
Sadie might be an alpha, but I was in charge.
If I could growl like an alpha, I had no doubt a roar would have ripped from my chest as I thought about her abused state.
My forearms tightened across her back, and she murmured contentedly.
Sadie had already been through so much.
I could never forget the awful scars that covered her chest and back. An enchantment might conceal them, but that didn’t erase the past. The past that was apparent with every sinful rasp from her lips.
She’d been beaten so badly as a child her vocal cords were shredded.
Yet after being tortured physically, for the sun god knew how long, she’d worried about me.
I couldn’t even put into words how much my heart had broken at that moment.
When the words of concern had left her lips, something had shifted inside me.
It was more than my suppressed omega instincts.
It went beyond biology.
For the first time, I understood completely where Cobra was coming from.
She was mine.
It was as simple as that.
I rested my cheek against her forehead and inhaled her sweet cranberry scent. How, after so much pain and abuse, did she still smell like sweet sunshine?
My gut cramped.
Sadie had been through so much pain in her short life that it didn’t even affect her anymore. Didn’t affect her like it should.
I wanted to wrap her up in a soft blanket and tuck her into my nest.
My gut cramped for a different reason as I thought about where we were. Back in the fucking beast realm.
Vision blurring, I dragged in ragged breaths. Sadie mumbled, as I squeezed her too tightly.
With extreme effort, I unlocked my frozen muscles.
The problem was, I wasn’t a sweet omega, a perfect little breeder, calm enough to soothe an alpha’s aggressive tendencies.
I was a bundle of barely controlled violence. And now I was back in the same realm as them. The Black Wolves, the alphas that had nearly destroyed me.
It hadn’t escaped my memory that beasts prowled the glittering city streets. That dark, rainy corners hid men with even darker souls.
Once again, I was among them.
Softly, I dragged my hand across Sadie’s forehead and reassured myself that she would be safe in my home.
I hadn’t been lying when I said my house was big enough for all of us. I’d said it was an apartment out of habit. Years of downplaying my wealth so people wouldn’t treat me differently.
I’d grown up with a beta mother and a father who’d been absent, but still an elite member of society. My family had old ABO money.
When I’d found out my father had been an omega, our wealth had made even more sense.
Omegas were rare jewels in Serpentine City, lavished with gifts and money from alphas who courted them. Status symbols.
Not that I’d ever experienced the process.
The wealth and prestige had always been a shackle that kept me from training with my blades all day.
But for the first time in my life, I was glad my family had wealth, because I could provide for Sadie and give us all a place to stay. It gave me a role.
The little voice in the back of my head reminded me I couldn’t even keep myself safe.
I pushed the dark thoughts away.
My priority was Sadie.
The other alphas were fine men—the only other alphas I’d met that I didn’t hate—but what I felt for them was friendship.
What I felt for the small, beaten woman purring in my arms was fucking soul consuming.
I’d fight beside the men, but I’d gut myself on my own knives for her.
I just had to prove myself to her.
If it weren’t for the fact that Sadie liked the other alphas, I’d probably be kidnapping her away from them right now.
I took a deep breath and reminded myself that we were safer together. My emotions might be running high, but I wasn’t a fucking idiot.
Three alphas protecting Sadie was more than I could do by myself. The more people who cared for her, the higher the chances she stayed safe.
That was all that mattered.
I also couldn’t take her away because of her sister. Only an idiot couldn’t see that Lucinda was Sadie’s entire world.
She hadn’t stopped staring at her, or touching her, since they’d been reunited.
It scared me because I’d recognized immediately that Sadie’s happiness depended on her sister saying safe. Her sister, who was just as small as Sadie but without the edge of violence in her eyes.
Lucinda was a softer version of her older sister, which meant she was even more vulnerable and, therefore, needed even more protection.
I took a deep breath as my stomach coiled with anxiety.
Jax’s, Cobra’s, and Ascher’s scents of chestnuts, frost, and pine were a woodsy musk that balanced Sadie’s sweet cranberry scent.
I wasn’t alone; the other men would help protect the girls.
“Girls” plural because Sadie also smiled and laughed at everything Jax’s sisters did, like just being around them made her blissfully happy.
Thinking about Jinx made the corners of my mouth pull into a smile. One thing was for sure: that little girl was going to make an amazing soldier.
Competence and leadership practically wafted off her.
In contrast, Jess, with her bright-green-streaked hair, practically radiated with energy and mischief that was going to get her in trouble. And Jala was sweet in a way that also spelled trouble.
As did the fact that all the girls had huddled around Lucinda like she was already one of them.
Four teenage girls, each of whom my Sadie cared about, and only one of them, Jinx, was cold enough to protect herself.
Any trained soldier would see that keeping them safe in the beast realm was going to be a logistical nightmare.
My whole life, I’d been a lone soldier.
Even before the sacred lake at the edge of the city had revealed I was an omega, I’d kept to myself.
With my family’s exorbitant fortune, I’d learned quickly not to trust people’s motives. Instead, I’d spent all my time training at the gym and playing with my knives. That was my happy place.
People always disappointed me.
A harsh lesson I’d first learned from my mother. She’d fallen apart after my father’s death until she’d eventually wasted away. Apparently, I wasn’t enough for her.
I shifted on the floor and noticed Ascher was staring at me.
He was sitting with his shoulders back as blood dripped from open wounds on his face. With his tattoos, horns, and woodsy alpha scent, my omega instincts should have screamed “danger” in his presence.
But for some reason, my instincts trusted him.
His posture was always rigid, his face tensed, like he was constantly weighing every move he made. Constantly searching for threats.
I could relate.
At his core, Ascher was a soldier. A man more comfortable with war than daily life. Only completely relaxed when he held a weapon in his hands and had a task to complete.
Ascher asked softly, “Is she okay?”
I tightened my arms around Sadie’s back and cradled her sleeping form against me as her soft purr warmed me to my core.
Ascher’s lips curled up with a snarl, and his eyes flickered with live flames.
It was a rhetorical question.
We both knew she’d been fucking tortured while we’d hung uselessly next to her.
I sighed heavily. “How have you survived watching her put herself in harm’s way?”
Ascher clenched his jaw. “I fucking haven’t.”
Cobra was sprawled against Jax, and he blinked open his emerald eyes. “Kitten’s a fighter.” A self-satisfied smirk flashed across his gorgeous face as he snuggled against Jax.
I wanted to be mad at him because he was the reason she’d been injured. I would have, if I hadn’t understood their dynamic.
Anyone could see that Cobra was obsessed with her.
It destroyed him that she wouldn’t listen to him, but her spirit was part of the reason he was infatuated.
You could practically feel lightning strikes crackling between the two of them when they squared off. Their attraction was vicious.
“We cannot allow her to be hurt like this again,” Jax said with a low growl. His deep reverberation shook through the air, and the driver glanced back with concern.
All of us nodded in agreement.
When it came to Sadie, we were on the same page.
Jax breathed deeply and squeezed Cobra against him, similar to how I was squeezing Sadie.
Even an idiot could see that if Sadie was Cobra’s damnation, then Jax was his solace.
Cobra was more beast than man, and Jax was more man than beast.
Everything about Jax screamed calm power.
He was old enough to have complete control over his baser urges and patient enough to harness that calm. Compared to cat and wolf shifters, bears were rare, and often kept to themselves.
I respected Jax for his calm temperament because, in my experience, the most powerful alphas were the most corrupt.
But Jax didn’t assert his strength over others.
He was Cobra’s moral compass, a natural leader that everyone looked to. I’d instinctually leaned against him for support and followed his lead blindly.
Until now, I’d always been the one in charge. I’d trained the soldiers in the fae queen’s army, and I’d been the lead during missions.
But when Jax had stepped forward to get initiated, even before Sadie had, I’d followed without question. We were a group, and he knew what was best for us. We all felt it in our bones.
“We’re here,” the driver said.
I inhaled sharply as anxiety settled over me like a heavy blanket.
For the first time in over two decades, I was home.
