Page 2 of Celestial Alphas (Nexus #2)

Chapter

One

M onsters can be anyone—I know you just have to push a person far enough that they don’t know where else to turn but into the darkness awaiting them. I’ve been labelled a monster by everyone who knew the real me, and when it was screamed at me so many times, I began to believe it must be true. How can I be anything else? It began with my parents, and I knew it would never end. My Nexus is a monster, but Finnegan? He told me something else. He saw me; he saw everything I am capable of and what my monster likes to do, and he still kissed me. He saw the real me and didn’t scream monster .

I don’t know how to feel about that. I stare up at the ceiling for a moment longer, the nightmare I was held in drifting from my mind like claws detaching from prey, allowing it to slowly drag itself into the light. A bright white spotlight hangs right above the hard bed I’m lying on, burning into my eyes, and I smell like bleach as the confusion sets in. I’m not at the academy…or anywhere I know. My skin stings as I blink my eyes a few times to see a white ceiling with seven spotlights in a line above me. I sit up, rubbing my arm, and my dry mouth parts when I see the door.

It’s covered in black runes. Double doors, simple wooden doors, but they have hundreds of black runes painted on them. There isn’t a window; it’s just a concrete tomb and a bed with no mattress for me to lie on. Is this Finn’s room? Why the fuck would he live in something like this? Is it a safe house?

“Finn?” I question, reaching for him, feeling for the bond between us, but it’s gone. Instead, there is a buzzing noise in my mind, and even my Nexus seems pushed down under the weight of it. They are alive, all of them. I can feel it, but the bond is quiet for the first time in my life. My Nexus is dazed but there, slowly waking up like a storm drifting in off the sea. Someone has dressed me in a white jumpsuit and scrubbed me with bleach by the smell and feel of it. I remember seeing Finn, I remember him holding me, and then nothing.

How am I here? I reach for the rune that connects me to Onyx, but I’m just reminded that it’s gone. It’s just gone. Never thought I’d miss it. My heart is racing as I hear four clicks, four locks being undone, before the door opens and a familiar older man walks in with a cloud of “pretentious asshole” hovering around his dark thousand-pound suit and shiny-as-shit shoes. He is all pepper-grey curly hair, perfectly styled, and there isn’t a stain on him. The door swings shut behind him, and he cocks his head to the side. It reminds me of Onyx. “You’re Onyx’s father…”

“Smart,” he sighs. “And beautiful… I will begin this by apologising for the Nexus you have been born with. A terrible fate and not one I’d wish on my worst enemy. Your mates did the right thing by handing you over, Gwenieve Autumn. Now, I have questions about your upbringing and what your Nexus is capable of. The sooner you answer, the nicer I can make your new home for you. We can be powerful allies by the end?—”

“I know it was you,” I snarl, standing up off the bed, and I see him almost take a step back. He is scared of me, and a part of me hates that he knows enough to be scared. “Severi likes to talk. It’s kind of a really bad fucking habit of his. Chatters on and on, including telling me all about you and your plans, and how it was you letting Vian into the city to find me. How it was you that caused the murders. You’re working with them, and you made sure the Supreme Alpha ended up dead. The house bomb, the Vian, the dead are all your fault!” I shout, tears burning in my eyes as I think of Harry. Sweet Harry, who just began his life, who was the closest I ever got to a brother, is dead. He died in my arms because of this fucker. “When my Nexus is done, they won’t know what bit of your body is which.”

“Annie…you love her, right?”

I pause and my Nexus does, too.

“She is being held by the Vian, and one word from me…” He draws a line across his neck. He might as well draw a holy circle around himself because I won’t hurt him if it means hurting Annie. Fuck. “Besides…” He points up and I follow his direction to see where the spotlights are, tiny little lasers, sparkling out of the lights, and all of them are pointing right at my stomach. “You attack me, you’re dead. My name is Paavo Nieminen, and we can be allies if you are as smart as I suspect you are. Somehow, you’ve got that Nexus under control and managed to take out anyone that was a threat to you or others. I’ve watched the warehouse footage and seen exactly what you are. I’d hate to put you down.”

I want to laugh in his face, but I feel broken. I still huff at him. His grey hair curls like Onyx’s around his forehead, and his eyes are the very same in every sense. But Onyx is taller and not as lean as Paavo. It still hurts to look at him though, because I only see his son. His son who was stealing my heart like a thief, and when he got it, he crushed it and threw me away. “Hate to break it to you. It will take more than those to stop her.”

“Would it?” Paavo asks. “I’ve seen what you are, Gwenieve, and I’d like to test what kills you. Should I begin with bullets or go straight to filling this room with water and see how long you can hold your breath?”

My heart races and I shake my head, taking a step back as my body all but turns to ice. How did he know? “Why would you betray everyone? Betray the entire Nexus race and your son? Or does Onyx know?”

He laughs, and it’s a horrible sound that makes me want to itch all over. “Onyx knows everything. He always has done. Less about me, more about you. Aren’t you concerned about why your mates put you in here?” My heart seems to stop. Completely stops, but he doesn’t. “They gave you up. Your mates, knowing that the punishment for murder is having your Nexus ripped from your soul and painfully dying a slow death. I guess they took your rejection to heart.” He smirks, just like his son, shattering my heart further. “And not one of them has asked about you since. Your trial begins tomorrow, and I’m sure they will be on the opposing side, making sure everyone knows about their monster mate.”

They put me in here. Even my Nexus is quiet now, watching from my one eye. Her pain feels like mine, like our heart is being ripped apart and crushed. I don’t know why I expected more. They hate me. They hate me and they gave me up. Everyone hates me. I wasn’t born to be loved—only to be feared and eventually destroyed. My mother was right.

Finnegan promised me, though! My mate promised, and he lied…but worse, I believed him. I trusted someone for the first time since my parents. He kissed me and promised to keep me safe, and he gave me up for this. They all did, and they are going to let me die a painful death. Rhodes…was it all a lie? I’ve always been alone, always, but I foolishly let myself get close to them and believed they might not hate me. I believed I might not have to be alone anymore. My Nexus all but cries in my soul, and it’s painful, making my knees feel weak. I can’t let him see me fall apart. Not him.

“You’re not alone.” My Nexus rarely talks to me, and her voice reminds me of the bitter taste of lemons. Sometimes I imagine her as more than a being in my soul, more than the wolf I shift into and the person she can make me be…but as a wounded little wolf drowning in a lake. I can’t save either of us, or I always drown right there next to her. Sometimes I’m the one who pushes us both in.

I straighten my shoulders and lift my head. He doesn’t get to see me break. No one gets that. “The moment I’m in that trial, I’m going to scream the truth about you. I’m going to make sure everyone knows what a betraying piece of shit you are, and my mates can sink into your ship with you. I’m done with Starlight and the fucking Nexus race. All of you are not worth it. You’re a murdering bastard!”

“I know you’re a murderer, so this coming from you is rich, don’t you think?” He crosses his arms. “It doesn’t have to be like this between us, Gwenieve. Did I mention I knew your mother very well? We were childhood friends because she was an orphan, and my dear parents were investing in the local orphanage. I used to go with them, and I met her there. You have her features and the same bitterness.”

“My mother wasn’t bitter.” I defend her, even when he is right. She was bitter against the Nexus race and hated them. I knew she was an orphan. Father told me once, but she never spoke about it. “She had a hard life from the beginning and did the best she could, even with me.”

“Your parents took you from us, from your people, and from any help you could have received before you became a murderer. It might have been different if we had time to contain your Nexus, train you from a young age, and your mates could have helped with the bond. Your parents made a serious mistake and forced you into it.” He taps his fingers on his arm. “For that, I am sorry.”

“I don’t want your pity, and I don’t believe for a second I would have been accepted,” I snap. “Now get out. We don’t have anything to say to each other.”

“I’m the Supreme Alpha, and I can sway the trial for you. The evidence can disappear like this.” He clicks his fingers. “But we would need to come to an agreement.”

“What kind of agreement?” I blandly ask. Whatever it is, the answer is no.

“The way I see it, you’re a very powerful weapon. No one could stop you, right? You shift, you kill. I see you as being very useful to me, and now that I’m in charge of all of Starlight City and the entire Nexus world, having a monster in my back pocket, well, it seems like a good idea. You’d work for me, do exactly what I say, and I’ll make sure you’re free. You can go back to the academy, carry on with your life, and I’d only call on you occasionally.” He smiles like it’s a brilliant offer. He wants me to kill for him, to take out anyone who finds out what a pig he is.

I laugh, literally just start laughing. “If you think, for one second, I can control my Nexus enough to be a trained weapon for you…” I keep laughing even as he goes red faced. “If I could control my Nexus, you’d already be dead. So would everybody that I don’t like, and I’d be out of this jail. I have no control. I’m not a weapon you can just use. And even if I could—” I lift my head to see he is right in front of me, anger flashing in his eyes. “My Nexus is in my chest, watching you right now, and she’s saying fuck you . Whatever is making her not able to come out in this room isn’t going to last. She wants you dead.”

For a moment, he pales. I look at the grey leaching onto the tiles and smirk at him. Time’s ticking. He slaps me, hard enough to send me crashing to the floor, and I’m shocked enough to just lie there, tasting my blood in my mouth. I spit out my blood on his shiny shoes as he reaches down, grabbing my arm and pulling up my sleeve before I can think about fighting back. The lasers hover over my chest, and I know if I fight him, it’s going to hurt for me. His hand glows where he lays it on my wrist, and I scream as I feel my skin being cut. After a second, he drops me and I lift my arm, looking at a massive rune on my arm from my wrist to my elbow. It looks like an arrow bent in half. “A torture rune. Let’s see how much you talk back after a day of that.”

“A what—” I pause as I feel it. Pain. The pain spreads through my veins from the rune, like pure fire, until I feel it everywhere. I scream and I barely hear him over it, in pain as he laughs and says goodbye, shutting the door behind him. I sob, scream and claw at the floor as my blood feels like it’s on fire. Sobs echo out of my throat as my Nexus screams in my head, as we both do, but we know that no one is ever coming for us. We are alone.

I shouldn’t have trusted them. They hate me, and now…well, I hate them too. If we weren’t enemies before, if I didn’t want to hate them as much before, them giving me up for this fate seals the deal between us. Screw them. I’m going to get myself out of here on my own. Like I’ve done everything. It’s always just been me. Because I won’t be used as a weapon by anybody.