Page 26

Aubrey

“Which one of you idiots hasn’t mated your Omega yet?”

The three of us stop in our tracks.

While Willow helped Miranda set up the room she’d be sleeping in tonight, Caius led us Alphas to a mess hall where he said the rations were stored, dropping that question on our heads as we passed through a doorway and into the next corridor.

I can’t stop my scowl. None of us has mated.

Colt clears his throat dramatically at my side, and I swing my gaze at him to find him looking theatrically innocent, batting those mismatched eyes at me, brows raised.

What the fuck?

Rai claps me on the shoulder before he removes his coat and pulls up the sleeve of his tee-shirt to reveal a beautiful pair of crescent bite marks on his shoulder. When I whip back to Colt, he’s pulled the neck of his shirt down to reveal a matching mark near his clavicle.

What. The. Fuck?

I bare my teeth and sign, When the fuck did this happen?

Rai looks sheepish. “The night before last.”

“Last night, for me,” Colt chimes, sounding far more smug. “Did you think Rai miraculously got control of his curse for no reason?”

I squint at him, a growl forming in my chest that I tamp down. One cough could bring this entire underground bunker down on us.

“Look,” Caius says with a forceful bark, looking right at me. “I don’t know why you haven’t mated with your Omega yet, but none of you are leaving until it happens. Or whoever hasn’t mated her leaves alone.”

I balk. What the fuck is he talking about?

“Why?” Colt asks for me, being far nicer than I would.

“Your pack bond isn’t yet complete. She’s in danger until it is. That means all of you need to forge the bond with her.”

I roll my eyes.

“Explain what you mean,” Rai demands, the edge of a growl in his voice.

Caius sighs and waves us onward, so we leave the corridor. He pushes through a double door at the end to reveal an enormous eating hall, the lights above us turn on when we enter.

“Let me explain this in a way you can understand.” He steps behind a counter, and as the three of us line up on the other side, Caius slams his hands down on the granite. “The longer you all fuck around and don’t complete the bond, the greater the chance of Miranda going feral.”

Feral? Was that...even a thing?

“It would have been better if none of you mated her if you all weren’t going to. Packs are supposed to mark one another together. At the same time.” He leans back, letting his arms fall to his sides before he puts a fist to his chest. “You’ve felt it, right?”

I’m confused a moment, but then that beast inside me slithers behind my sternum and I know what he’s talking about. I find my hand is splayed on my chest without realizing, and so are Colt’s and Rai’s.

Caius nods slowly. “Of course you have. Well, that is what will make Miranda feral unless you all form a bond with her.” He frowns, sending dagger-eyes my way. “You have three choices. Mate her or get as far away from her as possible. It’s your proximity as an unmated fated pack member that endangers her.”

“You said three options,” Rai says.

“Kill yourself.”

I jolt.

“Look,” he grumbles and rubs a hand down his face with a sigh, “we can’t have a feral Cursed here, or anywhere. She would endanger us all. And the sickness is already starting in her.”

“What?” Rai and Colt ask in unison.

The more Caius speaks, a weight increases on my shoulders, trying to push me into the ground.

“It starts small. Minor aches, irritability. But they don’t go away, and things escalate. Before you know it, she’s rampaging, endangering everyone around her, those she loves. And she has power running through her veins that will cause more damage.”

No. There’s no way. Not Miranda. She’s too...good.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Colt growls at me. Fucking mind-reader. “I’m glad I can read your thoughts, you asshole. You’re un- fucking -believable.” He looks at Rai. “This dumbass thinks that Mira won’t fall victim to instinct.”

Rai stares at me, more anger in his face than I’ve ever seen. “I don’t know why you keep ignoring your bond with Mira. We’re out of that place now. We can be a pack. What the fuck are you so afraid of?”

Loving her. Losing her. Like I’ve lost everything before.

Colt’s hand is on my shoulder again, his voice softer than before. “Life is too short to be this scared to live, Aubs. You have to let the past go so you can move forward with her. With all of us. Don’t you want to change things for the better?”

A strange sensation forms in my throat, a thickness I’d long forgotten. Emotion wells up from my chest. I want her, I think at Colt. I love her. She’s all I could think about when I was on the auction block. I send him a droll look. And you two idiots.

Colt lets out a puff of laughter before turning serious again, something I’ve seen happening more these days. “You need to make things right with her, bro. She feels rejected. And I don’t need to read her thoughts to know that.”

He’s right, of course. I’d fucked up a lot of things in my life, but this could be the biggest fuck-up of them all.