"Stay back," he growls, but his voice is weaker than the threat deserves. The gun wavers in his grip, but it's not the steady grip of the man who filleted those soldiers. It's unsteady and unfocused, which is equally dangerous in its own way. "I'll fucking kill you."
"I believe you," I say, and I mean it. Even wounded, even dying, he's managed to take out five trained soldiers on his own. "But you're bleeding out. You've probably got about ten minutes before you lose consciousness, less if you keep moving."
He tries to stand, to prove me wrong, but his legs give out immediately. The gun falls from nerveless fingers as he collapses forward, and I'm moving before I can think about it, catching him before he hits the ground.
The moment I touch him, it's like electricity shooting through every nerve. His scent floods my senses, omega pheromones mixing with blood and fear and something else, something that makes my alpha want to simultaneously protect and possess. He's unconscious now, dead weight in my arms.
"Well," Carlisle says from behind me, and I can hear the smile in his voice as he approaches. "This is an interesting development."
I check Felix's pulse—rapid and thready, not good—and start cataloging his injuries with the detached efficiency that comes from years of battlefield medicine. Multiple lacerations, at leasttwo bullet wounds in addition to the ones he was already sporting fro us, possible internal bleeding. He needs treatment now, not in twenty minutes when we get back to base.
But underneath the medical assessment, my brain is spinning with the implications. Felix is an omega. An omega who kills with the efficiency of a trained assassin. An omega who's been traveling with our scent-matched omega, pretending to be her alpha protector when really...
I look down at Felix's unconscious face, pale from blood loss but still sharp-featured and beautiful in that dangerous way. Even knowing what he is now, there's nothing soft about him. Nothing that screams omega except the scent, and even that has edges that could cut.
"He's an omega," I say, looking up at Carlisle.
And the words feel like they're reshaping reality as I speak them.
Chapter
Twenty-One
FELIX
The first thing that hits me isn't the pain—though fuck knows there's plenty of that, radiating from every wound like I'm a goddamn pincushion. It's the smell. Or rather, the absence of one. That sharp chemical mask I've worn for years, the artificial alpha pheromones that kept the world from knowing what I really am—gone. Stripped away like old paint, leaving nothing but the truth underneath.
Omega.
The word tastes like bile in my throat.
My eyes crack open to fluorescent hell, and I immediately know I'm back in their medical bay. Same antiseptic stench, same beeping monitors tracking my vitals like electronic vultures waiting for me to die. Wires snake from my chest to machines that probably cost more than most people's houses. But none of that matters because?—
"Juniper?" Her name tears from my throat, raw and desperate. I try to sit up, ignoring the way my body screams in protest, the stitches pulling like they're trying to unzip me from the inside out.
Strong hands press against my shoulders, pushing me back down with infuriating ease. "Easy." Doctor's voice, calm as a fucking lake while I'm drowning. "She's safe."
"Where is she?" I snarl, or try to. It comes out more like a wheeze. Pathetic. Everything about me is pathetic now—an omega who couldn't even protect his own. "I need to see her."
"She's in the other room, recovering." His blue eyes are steady, professional, but there's something else there too. Understanding, maybe. Or pity. I'd rather he just shot me. "You can see her when you're strong enough."
"I'm strong enough now." Another lie, but what's one more? My whole fucking life has been a lie.
"No, you're not." Bane's voice cuts through the haze, and I turn my head to find him standing by the door like a giant gargoyle. His hazel eyes scan me. Cataloging, assessing, filing away every detail for later use. "But you will be. Doctor's the best at what he does. Came pretty close to not being able to pull you back from the edge, though, so I wouldn't recommend any more midwinter hikes."
"So." I force myself to meet his gaze, even though every instinct screams at me to fight or run. "You know."
"That you're an omega?" Bane's scarred eyebrow climbs toward his hairline. "Yeah, we figured that out when you bled all over Elias smelling like winter morning."
A laugh claws its way out of my chest, bitter as arsenic. "Congratulations. You've discovered my deep, dark secret. The big bad assassin is just another omega playing dress-up." The self-loathing drips from every word like poison.
"Why hide it?" Bane asks, and the genuine curiosity in his voice makes me want to punch something.
Preferably his face.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" The monitors spike as my heart rate shoots up. "The line of work you're in, you really have to ask that?"
I expect some smartass remark, maybe outright dismissal. I'm not sure if the understanding that softens his gaze is any better.
