They think the Humans are here to save them. They don’t believe the truth. That the Humans aren’t liberators. They’re executioners.
Does that grant me the right to take their choices away?
“What she gonna do? Shake her tits and ask them nicely?” the Alpha jeers, and some of the soldiers chuckle.
“Enough,” barks the Prime, his eyes glowing under his helmet in warning. "You have your orders. Now, move out."
The two Betas who sat next to me in the truck come closer. They nod briefly in acknowledgement, but return to surveying our position, their heads on a swivel.
The Prime adjusts his rifle and keeps his finger close to the trigger. He taps me on the shoulder and I realize he’s speaking to me. I swallow and force myself to focus.
"Stay by my side and keep your head down. We're not here to fight, but the fight might come to us, copy?"
I nod, my voice lost somewhere in my throat.
The fear is twisting inside me, shaking my inner Omega awake. She stirs like a tide beneath my skin, gentle and coaxing, tugging me toward the edges of myself, toward O-space. That liminal place where everything blurs and nothing hurts.
It’s a spectrum, this space. Sometimes it sharpens me so I can use my Command and makes me burn like a flare in the dark. Other times, it cradles me under, soft and smothering, until I vanish into myself entirely.
I swallow hard, stiffening my spine.
Now is not the time to go quiet or dissolve.
I curl my fingers into fists, pressing my nails deep into my palms until pain anchors me. A small, bright sting to tether me to the moment.
I will not melt. I won’t go soft.
Not here.
I fixate on a spot to lash myself to reality.
The Prime Alphas shirt has a mess of loose threads and puckered material where a patch has been torn away. His name is stitched beneath where the truth used to be.
Prime Alpha Zero.
His name gives him weight. A presence. Not just another soldier, not just a rank, but a person who made a choice.
What was the catalyst that drove him to leave everything he believed in behind?
I can’t picture Knox doing the same. Not because he doesn’t care, but because he was built for obedience. Trained to believe the mission always comes first. And when push came to shove, when I needed him to followme, not The Capital, I knew he wouldn’t.
He would’ve tried for the sake of his Pack and he would’ve torn himself in half.
And I’d still be the one left behind.
That’swhy I ran.
Not because I didn’t love them, but because I knew how the story ended.
My loyalty is to my family. My Omegas.
His is to the Pack, Fathim, and duty.
It broke me, and I doubt I’ll ever recover, but I accepted it as an inevitable conclusion.
And now here’s Zero.
Same rank. Same indoctrination. A hardass and terrifying… but he walked away from it all.
