I hated myself for wanting her so damn badly, but I didn’t hate her.
When I’d watched her sleeping in my bed the morning after Asher’s fire, I’d been nearly overwhelmed by the need to tell my brothers the plan was off. Her scent was everything. It was salvation. Just being around her for a few unguarded moments, with no suit masking her full Omega perfume, caused my Alpha nature to steady. I walked out of that room, shut the door behind me, and the words I wanted to tell my pack pushed against my lips—Let’s tell Eros that Lucy can stay. Asher almost killed her, so it’s the least we can do.Fallon would probably ask if her Omega nature was messing with my head.You think I’d let some chick dictate what I do?I’d probably ask him. Nitro would thenbe an asshole, calling me the pack’s weak link. I’d tell him to fuck off. Might punch him for good measure.
But then I’d walked away from her, and I’d kept my damn mouth shut. I’d made Lucy go back to the room that smelled of smoke and attempted fucking murder. I’d made her sleep on a rickety camping cot. I’d kept up the charade and watched my brothers—Nitro especially—humiliate our Omega over and over.
My Alpha instincts screamed at me, demanding I take charge. My body itched to barge into that surgical suite and demand answers. But logic fought back, knowing that was the worst thing I could do if I wanted Lucy to have her best chance of surviving. It twisted my gut even more, this war between my need to protect and the fear of ruining everything.
Every minute that passed deepened my desperation and self-loathing. I was accustomed to chaos, risks, and injuries, but right now, standing in the sterile waiting room, I felt utterly helpless.
Helpless like the kid who couldn’t remember anything about his parents because he’d been barely two when they died.
Helpless like the kid who had no family to take him in, so the system snapped him up.
Helpless like the kid who had no one to take his side when the school bully picked a fight.
Helpless like the kid who was called the charity case.
Then the basket case.
Then the hopeless case.
I hadn’t been powerless and useless for a long damn time. Even at age nine, beaten to a bloody pulp by my foster mother because I ate something out of the fridge that I shouldn’t have, I’d found a way to fight back. Battered and bruised, I’d eaten everything in the house I could stomach, packed the rest in a duffel bag that wasn’t mine, and ran away. Didn’t take long for assholes from Alpha Protection to hunt me down though. Byten I wasn’t someone other people could knock around. After I found my pack, I felt invincible.
Until now. Until Lucy.
As the seconds turned into an eternity, I started feeling like I might die. I fought against my worst tendencies with weakening resolve, as my darker nature kept whispering to me—lash out at your brothers, curse the fucking universe, break things to show this place what you’ll do to it if Lucy dies.
The only thing that calmed the rising rage was the memory of Lucy’s fierce green eyes. The way they looked when she was hopeful. The way they looked when she was defiant. The way she looked when she was scared.
I’ll never scare her again; I told myself fiercely.Won’t let anyone else either.
If she survived this, I vowed I would repair what I had broken. I would buy her a new necklace, and I’d put it on her gently. I would prove to her that I could be a better man, an Alpha deserving of her.
I glanced around at my brothers. I’d never seen them this tormented. At different times in our lives, each one of us had walked the line between life and death. We’d had moments of mourning, thankfully relieved by survival. We’d existed in a state of wildness, always throwing caution to the wind.
Losing one of us was always a possibility. Losing Lucy wasn’t an option from the very start. Her brightness was driving away the shadows we’d grown used to living under. We shouldn’t have tried to blot out her sunlight.
All I could do was cling to the hope that she’d live through this and give us a chance to atone for our sins.
ASHER.
I stood at the threshold of the waiting room. No matter how many times I blinked, everything looked muted and fuzzy. This was what the world sometimes looked like to me. Perpetually out of focus. When this happened, the only thing that cleared my vision was fire.
But no matter how many times I brought my lighter’s flame to life—gaining me repeated warnings from nurses about calling hospital security—my eyes didn’t correct.
Lucy was in surgery. It had been too long. Even if I couldn’t see the clock clearly, I felt it in my bones. Something happened. Something that might take her from us. How had we ever considered driving her away? Fuck, I’d nearly killed her and now I felt like the biggest idiot in the history of mankind.
She had to live. I wanted to show her the fire staff. I wanted to show her everything I knew about befriending flames.
My fingers fidgeted with the lighter again, flicking it on and then instantly extinguishing it again. The nurses were watching me like hawks. I caught their furtive glances in the corner of my vision; they thought I was unstable, a loose cannon ready to go off. They were right. But what did they really know? Did they understand the inferno raging inside me? Did they get how her very existence made me feel sane? Lucy was the match, waiting to strike. Lucy was the embers, waiting to ignite. Lucy was the wood that transformed to ash. She was everything, somehow contained within such a small body.
I shoved the lighter back into my pocket, gritting my teeth against the frustration building within me. Just hours ago, Lucy had stood next to me on stage, curiosity sparking in her emerald, gold-touched eyes. Now, her life was at risk. I should have followed her into the tent. I wasn’t an Alpha. I wasn’t a worthy mate. She should have left us when she had the chance.
“Goddammit!” I growled, backing into the hallway and slamming my fist into the wall. Pain blossomed across my knuckles. The sting didn’t fade, meaning I likely fractured something. But it didn’t matter. My body had no value. Let it fall apart. Let it bleed and break.
Lucy’s pain was something I couldn’t accept.
Not anymore.
