Right now, that shit end of the stick was losing our damn minds for want of a mate.
But we’d tried everything. Even the ‘can’t fail’ people at Eros had taken our money and given us nothing for the ridiculously high investment. They hadn’t updated us in months. Maybe they thought we were a lost cause.
Too dark. Too dangerous. Too deviant to match with an Omega. If we did match? What unstable psycho would want to be with us? She’d have to be strong. She’d have to take punches and keep standing.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand, and I glanced at the screen. Asher. Again. Third time tonight. I let it ring until it stopped, knowing he was probably neck-deep in some chaos of his own making. He'd been more erratic lately—we all had been. Something was unraveling in all of us, and I was the one who was supposed to see it coming, to have a solution before the problem fully manifested.
I was failing.
Nitro had missed three knife throws today. I'd watched him from the window of the compound, saw the frustration in every line of his body. Fallon had disappeared again last night, returning with that distant look that meant he'd been seeking something he couldn't find. And Kane—Kane had been buried in machine parts for days, fixing things that weren't broken while ignoring the ones that were.
We were all breaking, each in our own way.
I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. DemonX was our ragtag found family. Busted ass orphans with nothing to lose and no one to care. We were too intense and too damaged to function separately in normal society. Together, we created a brutal, breathtaking balance. All our rage and bad habits knitted together into something that could almost pass for home.
The makeshift weapon was still in my hand, still tempting me with its simple solution. A physical pain to override the emotional one. I wouldn't have to worry about anything if I just sliced and waited until, bit by bit, the life drained away.
I'd been carrying too much on my shoulders, even though my pack brothers never asked me too. They were all capable, easily able to survive without me. I was the one who needed them. Not the leader at all. Not the glue. The hanger-on who, in the end, wasn’t all that fucking important.
My fingers tightened around the glass, and I felt it bite into my palm. A small satisfaction as a trickle of warmth ran down my wrist—blood, not intentionally drawn but welcome, nonetheless. I unfurled my fingers to examine the cut, a neat slice across my palm. I hadn't even felt it happen.
That seemed fitting somehow.
The blood pooled in every line, rivers of crimson. I wondered what the broken, shallow canal that ran from between my pointer and middle fingers to the base of my palm meant. Istudied it intensely. It didn’t feel like part of me, even as the proof sat before my eyes.
Someone pounded on my door; the sound should have jarred me to reality. But the slamming of fist paled in comparison to the cacophony inside my brain.
"Xander! You alive in there?" Kane's voice was not exactly concerned but edging towards it. He pounded hard on the door again. Bang! Bang! Bang!
I didn't answer immediately. I watched another drop of blood form and fall onto my dark sheets, disappearing into the fabric.
"I'm fine," I called back, my voice steady and controlled. Always controlled.
"Bullshit," he replied, but I heard his footsteps retreating. He knew better than to push.
I set the blood-smeared glass on my nightstand and yanked open the drawer to snag a bandana. I wrapped it around the wound. Black, so even if I kept bleeding, I wouldn’t see the telltale red.
Not deep enough for stitches.
Deep enough to remind me that flesh is fragile.
So easily sliced.
Life easily ended.
That fact used to make our stunts thrilling.
In the shadows of my room, with blood seeping slowly through the cloth wrapped around my hand, I allowed myself to face the truth.
I was changed.
DemonX was changed.
None of us were admitting that the end was coming.
What time was it in Seattle?
I reached for my phone and opened my contacts, scrolling to the number of our Eros Institute rep. The fifth one assigned. We’d scared the others off.
