Page 38 of Psycho Alphas: Part Two

My mind flashed to the dumb fucking Monopoly situation I’d just fled in the basement. I didn’t realise until I spotted her odd look, that I was palming my neck—and the stupid Monopoly piece. I could already feel my anger ebbing, though, much faster than it usually did.

I cleared my throat. “You just didn’t want them hurting me. I get it.”

She paused, halfway to tossing a cheesy puff into her mouth, violet galaxies fixed on me from beneath heavy eyelashes. “You’remyAlpha.” She sounded almost pouty.

I grinned, chest warming. “I sure am, Kitten.”

She brightened at that, then straightened the packet and funnelled a mouthful of cheesy puffs down the hatch, dusting her cheeks bright orange.

ELEVEN

ACE

As the scent of fresh, frosted moonflower faded from the room, my sanity waned, as if traces of her in the air were keeping me grounded.

I tried to hold on, but the bars, the basement, the cold stone floor, and scattered weights, guns, and muzzles—it all blurred in and out.

I took a breath.

How long had passed since she’d left me?

There was something I could reach for. Something I wasn’t used to. It was a flower unfurling in the bond I despised; it was a promise of sanity.

If I reached for it, I would find my mind again—the thing Thistle had stolen.

But I hated her too much, and I wouldn’t do it.

Instead, I looked for alternatives. I wouldn’t survive without other options. My body ached, and clinging to that sensation kept the world in focus…just.

I held onto the pain of my stomach, the thin, erratic pulse that sped through my veins, an ache in my chest with every breath, and the burning of my skin with each movement over fabric, as if it had been out in the sun too long.

But the madness that threatened was something completely beyond my control. And a failure to face that truth was dangerous.

It would leave me weak.

It would mean defeat.

A flash of that madness left me with odd images. Blinding sun. Agonising steps, endless as I followed nothing but instinct across an open desert.

A snarl unfurled in my chest at the memories, and finally reality shuttered out for darkness.

“How far have you fallen?” Zed’s voice echoed in my head.

Silver hair tumbled haphazardly before ice-blue eyes that marked our family tree. He was… blood. The brother I should have killed long ago.

Too many games.

Too muchmercy.

I’d had his life and his Omega in my sights, and I hadn’t ended either.

Instead, I’d opened my mouth, a laugh in my voice.

“Run.”

The word was a flickering echo in my mind, thrill and destruction: my addiction. Those games were my curse—the thing I couldn’t give up.

But as I watched, he turned into another nightmare. She was the same Omega he’d clutched in his arms as he knelt at my feet, shaking and desperate. But she wasn’t dying as she had been then.