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The bond inside all of us goes tight and high-pitched, like the shriek of a falcon.

The gun goes off.

15

knight

IT’S LATER.

THEREare bodies downstairs.

We have retreated to the nest, where we huddle together, guns sitting on the floor in front of the mattresses.

Lotus is in the middle of all of us and we have spent the last however long it has been frantically licking at the bite marks on her body, sometimes our own, sometimes our mates’ marks. Sometimes, I lick Arrow’s and Striker’s marks too.

We are frightened.

Someone is at the door to the nest, which is barricaded with a haphazard stack of chairs we took from the kitchen.

Before we did that, before…

There was a moment after shooting the men in the living room, where the blood short-circuited us somewhere. We turned on her, our omega, all three of us hounds, and we could smell blood on the air, and she was there, omega, and we all remembered, the voice, the other voice.

My good boys know what to do with an omega.

But our omega stopped it, easily, something I realize now she could have done all along.

We feel shame for having tried to hurt her, but we all know it will never happen again. If it does, she has the power to stop us.

The someone at the door is saying my name. “Knight, I know you’re in there. You don’t have to open the door. We can talk this way. I know you can hear me.”

I nuzzle into Lotus, who holds onto me.

I feel us, all of us, through the bond, as if we have one shared heartbeat, and it hasn’t slowed since we woke.

“Knight, it’s Theodorus. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt your omega. Say something.”

Say something.

I turn to look at Lotus, confused, seeking… what? Permission? Assistance?

“There’s backup on the way. The place will be crawling with police in no time. They’ve called someone from that facility you got out of. Colter? Colvin?”

“Coltrain.” It’s Calix, his voice barely audible.

“I hear you,” says Theodorus at the door. “I volunteered to come and try to talk you down. Kyvelki thinks she can help. But we need to gonow. You can’t stay here.”

I start to make sense of the words that I’m hearing, and I have a sensation, as if I’m underwater, and I’m looking up and I can see the surface above me, but distorted.

I hesitate for another long moment.

And then I fight my way up, to that surface above, and I break through, feeling sluggish and strange. My head hurts.

But I can think again. I climb out of the nest and go to the door. “Theodorus,” I say.

“Knight,” he says and he sounds relieved. “What happened?”

I don’t know what happened. I have memories of the past few days, but they are all so very strange that I can’t seem to put together anything coherent to even make sense of them, letalone find words to describe them. “We…” What? Went crazy? “Bit our omega.”