“We could be happy here,” I rasp out. I could be happy here. With her.
Khaos stares at me, and his eyes reveal the truth. “For how long? We can’t stay here, Angel, we have to go home. You can’t live with a collar, and neither can I.” He stands up and walks out of the room.
The day passes with that conversation going around and around in my brain. But I don’t have an answer, and I can’t find a way of making our mate ours.
I blink my eyes open and find her crouched next to me. She tugs on my arm until I stand, and then she helps me into bed. She climbs in next to me, and we lie there staring at each other.
“I know.”
Two words that shatter me. Two words to devastate me.
“We’ll find you. I will find you,” I whisper. “As soon as I’m free, I will find you again.”
She smiles sadly. “You don’t owe me promises.”
“I know. But I’m giving it to you, anyway.”
Casey
“What do you dofor work?” Khaos asks suddenly.
I look over at him and smile. “It’s been what? Three, four weeks, and you’re only now asking?”
Khaos leans back, arms folded over his chest, waiting.
“I lead tours in the tourist season through the woods and mountains, and I sell artwork.”
He blinks. “I haven’t seen anything.”
I roll my eyes. “Come on, then, Mr I’ll-only-believe-it-when-I-see-it.”
I unfold myself and pull the stairs to the attic down.
“Go have a look.”
I watch him climb the stairs, wondering if I should follow, but the old, familiar voices of my birth pack chase me back to the couch where I scowl at the TV.
He’s gone a long time, and I keep flicking my gaze to the stairs; the longer he’s gone, the more nervous I get.
The minute I see his boots, I fix my eyes on the TV and stay there, pretending I’m absolutely fascinated.
He comes down and sits beside me. He exhales. “You are so very talented. Every time I think you can’t get more fascinating, more intriguing, more desirable, we find another facet of you.”
“You don’t soundhappy about it.”
“I’m not.” Khaos barks a laugh. “How could I be happy about this situation? Our omega is our owner. And in order for us to be free, she needs to choose someone else. It's occurred to me that we should just stay with you with the collars on us.”
I swallow hard, blinking back tears.
“Maybe we could be all right for a month, two, more. Maybe forever. But maybe not. But you are worth it,” Khaos whispers in a rare moment of vulnerability.
I sit there silently and consider his words, letting them fall heavily into me. Breaking a part of me that I’m trying to build up. I take those desperate, whispered words and turn them into a weapon.
“I don’t want you to stay with me with that being the choice. None of us are free right now, but maybe freeing you would be enough. It’s too late for me.”
Khaos stares at me, but I refuse to look up.
“How did you manage to resist shifting for so many years under such trauma? Where did your wolf go?”
