He moves.
Fast.
A glint of metal is my only warning. Cold steel grazes my face. I flinch, and my sharp movement causes the blade to slice my skin. A drop of crimson blood rolls down the edge, over the handle, and onto Blaze's thumb.
He lifts it. Laps at it with his tongue.
A shiver runs down my spine. Horror floods every vein.
He’s going to kill me.
Oh,rut-damn. He’s actually going to kill me.
He studies me with a strange hunger. His lips are stained with my blood.
"How can someone so cruel taste so sweet?" he murmurs. It's not a compliment. It's a curse.
"Blaze… you're scaring me."
He laughs. A hollow, broken thing with no warmth in it. I've never heard him make that sound before, and goosebumps prickle my skin.
"Oh, Sparkles," he spits my pet name like it’s poison, tainting its memory. "I've barely even started haunting you."
And then he’s gone. Leaving only the scent of smoke, charcoal, and scorched steel burned into the air, into my lungs, into me.
I curl into the couch, holding my knees to my chest, but it doesn’t help. The ache is inside. A hollow behind my ribs that yawns open and swallows every breath, every beat, every shred of peace.
What have I done?
I broke him.
My sweet Blaze is now a monster, and it’s all my fault.
Chapter Thirteen
Knox
I’m trying not to stare at her.
But I am.
Because in the pale morning light of General Stone’s office, she looks lost. All nervous tics and hunched shoulders, flinching every time she meets one of our eyes like we might shatter her just by looking too hard.
She didn’t behave this way when we saw her at the entrance to Blackgate fortress.
Blaze disappeared for a while, locks hold no meaning to the soldier, then reappeared with the stink of frustration and sadness wafting off him.
I think the dickhead did something to upset her, but at the moment I can’t prove it or reprimand him.
It’s been hours since we arrived.
In that time, we’ve been stripped of our weapons, handcuffed like criminals, and locked in a holding cell as though we are ticking bombs they’re too scared to defuse.
A doctor came to check my injuries, just like Halley promised. She found a bullet lodged in my shoulder, so tangled up in tendons that my body hadn’t pushed it out. She cut my shoulder open and fished out the bullet. Impressively, she worked fast and stayed professional, despite my snarls and barks of pain.
She left after hooking me up to a blood bag. I hate those. Feels wrong to have another fucker’s blood pumping in my veins. But it helped. I don’t feel great, but I’m not dying either which is the best a soldier can hope for after a hard battle.
I’ve got a dozen new scars, still pink and raw. They’ll speak testament to the danger I rescued our Omega from, and I’ll wear them with pride.
