Page 143 of Psycho Alphas: Part Two

“That was Ace. I’m the reason Bella…” My voice shook. “It’s my fault, what happened to you.”

Bambi watched me carefully for a moment, then wrote, ‘All I dreamed about was escaping. I thought I was going to die there. You saved me.’

She underlined the ‘you’.

“I’m glad you’re not there anymore…” I swallowed. “What’s uh… what’s your name?”

She’d been Bambi from the moment I’d seen her, but I wanted to get it right.

She scribbled: ‘Bambi?’

“Yourrealname?” I asked.

She looked annoyed. ‘That’s the one I want,’ she wrote.

Bambi it was, then. “What do you like to do?”

She frowned, looking between me and Bunny like she didn’t understand.

“You can pick,” I said, glancing around at the dragons’ hoard of sketchbooks. Then I grabbed the TV remote, pulled up a movie list, and set it beside her.

I think we had everything we needed.

Bambi picked a historical TV show and it began running while I started on my next sketch.

A few days went by like that. My Alphas checked in, giving us more food than we knew what to do with. Bambi never spoke, but she was healing. Her sugar dust and sunstone scent on morning three was finally as sweet and warm as it should be.

She wouldn’t look at herself in the mirror, always avoiding the one beside my desk, though I caught her brushing the edges of her face dressing sometimes.

On the third afternoon, she scribbled: ‘Did saving me…’ The words trailed off, her fingers shaking. Finally, she pushed on. ‘Cost you your Alpha?’

“He’s here. He’s safe. It’s going to be okay. Ace has a plan.”

‘Your god Alpha?’ she wrote, and I saw the first hint of a smile tug at her lips as she looked up at me.

A grin lit my face. “He’ll fix everything. I promise.”

But I noticed as we settled back into the historical show (we were on season six now), that Bambi hugged the pillow to her chest harder after that.

I think I knew what it meant, even if it was all wrong.

“Are you worried you’re… a burden?” I whispered.

I looked from her to Bunny, and she made him give me a little nod. Her eyes shimmered with tears as she stared at her own fingers intently.

“You’re not.” She shouldn’t think like that. I wracked my brain until I realised exactly how to show her. “I promise,” I said. “And I can prove it!”

THIRTY-NINE

ROGUE

Bambi’s presence made for an unusual few days. The two Omegas stayed in Thistle’s nest while the Misfits put one together for Bambi in the east wing, but Thistle said she wasn’t ready for it yet.

My gunshot wound was only a graze on my side, and today I’d poked it a few times to test. It had closed up enough for me to walk without bleeding all over. It would leave a gnarly scar I hoped Thistle would love.

I’d sat in with Knox on a few meetings with the Misfits about the Ring. Ace had joined one, but the cocky bastard seemed to think he had everything worked out already.

Bella was still out there—and she’d apparently fled her mansion by the morning after the party.