Page 30 of Knot Their Soldier: Part Three

He rises from Knox’s prone body and starts stalking straight toward me.

"Oh fuck," Shade says, jumping in front of me with his gun raised. "Whatever you think you can do, baby girl, now is the time."

I reach for our bond, the one that I felt in my heart even before we made love in the cellar.

Beneath the rage and sickness, I know there must still be the faintest flicker of my mate.

Viper said that he loves me.

Tonight, I need him to prove it.

My limbs are weak, and I step around Shade anyway. He curses under his breath and reaches for me, but I shake my head, keeping my eyes locked on the Alpha coming toward us.

"Viper!" I shout. "Who am I?"

The beast roars back, but I don’t tremble.

The sound should send me scrambling behind Shade. It should hollow me out, leave me shaking and small beneath the weight of all that violence.

Instead, the strange certainty I've felt since I woke settles through me. It's quiet, steady, and familiar in a way I don’t have the strength to examine.

I felt it once before, in the hospital, when everyone else saw a lost Alpha and I simply saw Viper. Back then, the certainty came in a wave that made me brave despite the fear clawing through me.

This time, there isn't a wave that comes quick and recedes quicker.

Instead, that knowing confidence pumps through my blood and stays as part of me.

Death doesn't scare me.

I know what death feels like now. I know what it is to have the world end, and to come back anyway.

Viper in Blood Lust does not scare me.

But losing him does.

I square my shoulders, draw a careful breath, and hold my ground the way Knox taught me in training.

"Who am I?" I ask again.

Viper’s stride falters.

His head lifts, nostrils flaring as he drags my scent into his lungs.

A strange pattern of emotions cracks through the snarl of violence written on his face. Curiosity, confusion, and grief all flash in rapid succession.

"Tell me who I am, Viper."

He slows to a stop an arm's length away, his chest heaving, sweat gleaming across his skin.

The black in his eyes recedes enough for a faint glow of green to break through.

It's all the confirmation I need to see.

He's still in there.

I can feel Shade’s tension, his gloves creaking on the rifle as he prepares to defend me with lethal force. He won’t need to, though.

I can feel Viper’s bond pulsing as he tugs at it, as if testing the connection, checking if I'm actually real.