I startle and stare straight up. He’s standing behind my head, staring down at me. He ducks down and presses a hard kiss to my open mouth. His scent burns into my soul. It is him. I kiss him back until he pulls away.
“Omega,” he purrs, and then his eyes drift down my body, and I can see him take in my wounds one after the other. The air chills and turns deadly as the menace of an enraged alpha fills the air.
“Keys!” he demands.
Mordecai lets out a roar, and I see him swing with his weapons; they go straight through the throats of the black-robed betas in front of him.
“Get him the keys!” Mordecai snarls.
Alphas rush to do his bidding, searching dead bodies and slaughtering betas until one shouts he has them. He races towards Mordecai, but the huge alpha points a sword at Jarek, and the alpha veers off, bringing them straight to him.
The alpha stares at me, his mouth twisting in sympathy and horror. Jarek snarls in a deep and violent way, and the alpha averts his eyes.
“Sorry, Alpha,” he murmurs.
The Anarchy Wolf slams into the cage of prisoners, dismantling the doors. Omegas and alphas flee in a wave, flooding out and to freedom.
A handful stop, staring at me, their hands pressed to their chests, finger and thumb in the shape of an O.
“Keres saved us. The snow omega has saved us again.”
I want to argue with them not to call me that. To stop it because he uses it, but they are gone too fast, and I don’t have the energy to argue.
Jarek unlocks the shackles and pulls me up, growling when my wounds start bleeding. He fusses with them, but over his shoulder, I notice that Walker is gone. His blood is a dark red stain on the ground, but the manacles are empty.
I can’t lie. A part of me is relieved. I know there’s going to come a reckoning where it will be that one of us watches the other die, but I’m glad it isn’t this day.
Even if he is a monster who deserves it.
Even if he’s the reason my family is dead.
He’s the only one I have left, and I’m…not ready to be alone.
Jarek picks me up, drawing my gaze. I hate being so weak, so vulnerable.
“You died,” I say flatly.
“I did for a second, and then I lived, and I came for you. Not even death will keep me from you, remember that,” he murmurs and glowers at the alphas and omegas around us. They cringe and back away, leaving a wide space.
Came for me.
Three words that threaten to break down the walls I have built to protect myself. I avert my eyes, watching the massive shadow of the Anarchy Wolf trot back through the empty building towards us.
I stare at him as he gets closer.
I knew he wouldn’t eat us.
He slowly extends his neck, and his hot breath huffs over my hair. I reach up, my fingers sinking into the most luxurious fur. He allows itfor a minute and then pulls back, snarling. His deadly gaze is fixed on something beyond me, and when Jarek turns us, I find Mordecai staring up at a beta who is clinging to the side of a beam like it’s going to save his life. I think he’s about ten feet in the air and climbing.
“Come down,” Mordecai demands.
“Oh, Beta Goddess High, save us from the perverted and barbaric minds of the alphas. Free us from the curse of the omega influence. Kill them all. Strike them down. Make this world free of the perversion of—”
The Anarchy Wolf jumps up with lethal grace, grips a chunk of robe and simply yanks him from his perch. He falls straight onto Mordecai’s sword, which splits open his throat and leaves his neck a ruin of blood and muscle.
“How sad,” Jarek whispers with a lack of sincerity.
“Jarek?”
