Oh fuck. Ohfuck.
Felix doesn't smell like an alpha at all anymore.
The soldiers haven't noticed yet—their masks probably filter scents—but I can smell it clear as day. Omega. Felix is an omega, has always been an omega, just hidden under layers of drugs and deception.
My brain tries to process our next moves, but the pheromones are making everything sluggish. Singing a siren's song that entreats me to slow down, to bear my throat, to submit… Meanwhile, my body burns from the inside out, the forced heat making everything hurt and throb and ache. The world tilts sideways, or maybe that's just me falling, hands and knees hitting the forest floor as another wave of pheromones washes over us.
"Grab the girl," the leader orders. "Kill the other one."
Felix backs up far enough that we collide, and snarls, "Run!"
He fires a few shots, and I want to stay, but he pushes me with his free hand, forcing me forward. My feet slip against the icy slope and it's all I can do to stay upright as I stagger my way down. By the time I look up and see Felix has one of our attackers dead in the snow, another clutching a wound in his neck as he collapses against a tree, I realize I'm not alone.
One of the other alphas is closer than should be possible, and when he reaches for me, I barely lash out in time to clip his hand with my blade like it's a natural extension of my body.
"You bitch!" he seethes, lunging at me.
With no choice, I run. My legs aren't working right, muscles turned to water by the chemicals racing through my system, but I keep flinging myself forward, the sound of gunfire raging in the distance.
"Felix!" The scream tears from my throat, but it comes out wrong, twisted by the heat into something desperate and needy. I try to look back, but the other alpha is right behind me, the other two herding Felix deeper into the woods.
They're separating us.
The best thing I can do now is run.
So I do. I run, even as my legs feel like they're made of wood. A little stick puppet on tangled strings, hobbling jankily through the woods. It's not long before something hits my back and I go down hard in a blur of powdered snow and a heavy body on top of mine. The snow gives out, and we tumble like broken rocks getting bashed against the cliffs down a ravine, and when we finally stop, my head hits something hard enough that I black out for a second.
When I come to, I'm crawling, dignity abandoned, the forced heat making every movement agony. But strong hands grab my ankle, hauling me in the opposite direction.
"You're not going anywhere," he says, a vicious sneer in his deep voice. "Young, unmated omega? You'll fetch a nice price after we're done breaking you in."
The shadows are screaming warnings and rage now, but I can barely hear them over the blood rushing in my ears. My body is on fire, every nerve ending screaming for contact I don't want from people I want to kill.
He hauls me to my feet like a broken doll and drags me deeper into the trees, away from Felix, away from everything. My vision keeps fracturing, reality splitting into pieces—here's the forest, here's his hand on my throat, here's a memory of Felix teaching me how to hide a blade, here's the taste of copper and defeat.
"Stop struggling," he says, pressing me against a tree. The bark scrapes against my back through the thin shirt. "This can be easy or hard. Though personally, I prefer hard."
As he speaks, I hear others. More soldiers. More snakes slithering through the woods, ready to swallow us whole. Then I see their shapes in the distance through the trees, even if it's hard to separate them from the shadows.
His hand slides down my side, and my skin crawls even as my traitorous body arches into the touch. This is what I was always afraid of—not death, but this. Being reduced to biology, to need without want, to?—
The soldier's head explodes.
One moment he's pressed against me, the next his skull is just... gone. Replaced by red mist and chunks that splatter across my face like warm rain. His body crumples, and I see them through the haze of heat and blood.
Bane stands twenty feet away, rifle still smoking, looking like death incarnate in his black tactical gear and balaclava, but it's him. I've never seen another alpha as huge, close to seven feet of mostly muscle. His hazel eyes burn with something beyond rage, beyond human emotion. He looks like the mountain decided to grow legs and choose violence.
Archer flanks him, already engaging the other soldiers, his movements precise and lethal. Bodies drop like dominoes, professional killers reduced to corpses in seconds.
"Juniper." Bane's voice cuts through the chaos, grounding me even as my body tries to fly apart. His huge hands settleon my shoulders, and even though any touch but Felix's has always made my skin crawl, my body melts in response despite everything. I tell myself it's just the chemicals. Just the false heat. "Are you alright?"
A strangled laugh claws its way up my throat. Am I alright? I won't be, as soon as these two realize what's happening. They're alphas, after all. All alphas respond the same way to an omega in heat.
But the sound of movement to my right draws my attention and I realize Archer has already removed his mask. I can tell from the way his eyes widen, the way his nostrils flare, he's picked up my scent already.
But he doesn't attack. Doesn't move. And that look of concern on his face doesn't dissolve into unbridled lust like I expected.
Bane looks between us, and I hear the deep intake of breath through his mask. He knows. They both know I'm in heat. If my skin looks half as flushed as it feels, despite the frigid environment, he doesn't even need to pick up my scent.
