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She tilts her head back, face shining up at me, eyes blurry and rimmed in red. Fuck. Smell of her fever hits me like a smack in the face. I rip my fingers from where they wanna be and suck ‘em clean.Filthy. Delicious.
Her pupils expand and contract like a telescope. Heat blooms under her ashen cheeks and I can’t fuckin’ think. It’s a lie, what I told her. If she goes into heat, I might not be strong enough to stop my rut. Need distance from her now. Can torture her later.
“Just — ” I exhale in a rush and swipe my hand down my face, inhalin’ the rich scent of her cunt as I do it, then push my wet fingers back through my hair. Don’t make it far though. My hair’s in tangles around my shoulders, a fuckin’ mop. My beard’s even worse. “Wait here. I need a minute,” I repeat.
I let her go and stomp away from her through the forest. I walk and I walk until I can no longer hear her breathing. ‘Til I can’t hear anything but the sound of the wind movin’ through leaves, the gentle hum of machines workin’ in the distance. We’re so fuckin’ close. I can suffer not knowin’ who or what she really is until we get to Dark City.Who she is? I know who she is. Pssh. She’s Echo. She’s not spyin’ for shit. She’s alone. Like me.
And I punished her for it.
I exhale shakily and rub my chest, trailing the rough pads of my fingers over the soft silk of my largest scar. I close my eyes, picture the slim, pale face of a little girl who’s even younger than I am, but who looks like our mother. Evelyn. Noon. Both dead. Both Omegas. Omegas aren’t meant to survive this world alone. What am I doin’? The control Echo’s got over her gifts is shaky at best. She’s sick. She’s confused.She’s workin’ for them. Nah. She’s lonely.
And I left her alone for what? Forshit.
“Fuck.” I turn around and lurch back in the direction I came, trees starin’ down at me like they know what I’ve done and disapprove.
“A…Adam?” A whispered word has me hustlin’ faster. Sounds further away than she should be.
“You runnin’, Omega?” I shout.
I make it back to the copse where we separated and see her kneelin’ a little ways off, through the trees, in a patch of light that could only generously be called sunlight. The trees are thinner around her and I can see her lookin’ away from me, off into the distance. There’s somethin’ strange about her expression, though…
Her face is suspended in disbelief, her mouth wide open, her eyes huge. She’s watchin’ somethin’. Somethin’ I can’t see until I clear the next cluster of thick tree trunks…and my Berserker form pulls forward the moment I see what she does.
He rips out of my skin, shredding the pack on my back, exploding out of all of my badly stitched clothes at the same time that Echo’s shaky voice screams, “Adam!” And at the same time that an Alpha dives through the air, hands extended to claws and mouth open, fangs heshouldn’thave reaching towards her.Those are Berserker claws…Berserker fangs…and they’re gunning for my girl.
I release a feral roar and kick my back legs harder into the soil, springing up and colliding with the Alpha’s chest so fuckin’ close to Echo, I can feel the breeze her body creates as she lurches back in terror, makin’ a fuckin’ fool a’ me.She’s no spy. She’smine. Two halves of a lonely whole.
I take the Alpha to the ground and land in the dominant position. I don’t hesitate, but slash my claws over his chest once, twice, and on the third stroke, I aim for his throat and relieve him of it. His skin tears easy — too fuckin’ easy.
I look down at the mess of bone and flesh in my hands unable to understand what’s sowronghere. I don’t have time to analyze it when Echo screams again. I turn my back on the corpse and move into position in front of her only to find — Jesus Christ — thirty Alphas have formed a loose ring around us. Formin’ a solid line between the trees, they have us boxed in.
The fur on my back lifts and a low growl slips from between my teeth. My claws clack against each other as I dig them into the soil and my thoughts fire, trying to piece together what it is that I’m seeing.
Echo, even feverish, is quicker’n I am, because it’s her small, frightened voice that whispers, “Adam, I think they’re…they’re dead. The Alphas are all dead.”
I glance down at the corpse I just dismembered and then at my own claws.Blood? Where’s the blood?There isn’t any. His bone and flesh had crunched so easily, like a sand castle disintegrating under a harsh sun, and inside had been nothing but brittle jaundiced bones and black flesh. But more importantly, there was no blood. But it isn’t fuckin’ possible. Echo can’t be right. They’removing. How can they be dead…
“Adam, they’re coming! Look out!”
The Alphas, finding their new target inme, charge forward as one. The first three I’m able to bat away easily, but the fourth and fifth and the sixth jump onto my back and stab and bite and claw with Berserker fangs and Berserker teeth. It doesn’t make sense. They aren’t Berserkers. They look like Alphas, larger than Betas, but they aren’t beasts…
I slam into a tree and dislodge the three clinging to my fur. One of them gets up and, with sightless eyes, swivels towards me. His lips peel back from thick ivory fangs and he runs at me even though he’s got a fat chance in hell a’ winnin’. I’m aBerserker.
But…he might be dead.
I smash my fangs through his brittle, dry skin and the taste of it — oh fuck — the taste of it… Tastes like rot. My gaze sinks, changing from long range to near view, and I see maggots and flies festering beneath the torn ligaments as I kick his body back and spit out his skull. His limbs, splayed on the ground like a broken swastika, still twitch.
I ignore the bile that burns the back of my throat and rip a chunk of flesh out of the incoming Alpha’s shoulder. As he staggers back, I grab onto his arm and rip the entire thing free. The socket that’s left behind is a mangled mesh of what looks like forest twigs and beef jerky, but the bastard just keeps comin’.
I cut through another half dozen when I feel myself first start to drag. I know I can’t shout at Echo to tell her to run, either. We’re near the Dark City Highway Lines, finally close enough that, if she could get there, she’d be spotted by my scouts, and if she gave them my orders, they’d protect her. But I can’t risk morphin’ outta my Berserker form to tell her shit. Not when all fuckin’ eighteen of ‘em are surroundin’ me now and I’m the only fuckin’ thing between them and Echo.
Claws score my back. Fangs sink into my thigh. Venom —fucking venom —spreads through me and I roar as the first bolt of delirium reaches my brain, turning my sight hazy.
The Alpha at my leg suddenly slinks away and I spare the only second I got to look over my shoulder. He’s pinned to the ground by vines, but gettin’ through ‘em doesn’t take much. Behind me, backed against three trees that don’t got enough branches to climb — even if she had strength for that — Echo’s on her knees, tryna fight. Sight of it breaks my fuckin’ heart and makes me goddamn wild.
I turn and catch an Alpha by the jaw as it races towards me, fangs dripping with a venom that’s black when it should be silver — and shouldn’t evenbeat all. My paw is skewered by one of his fangs, but I ignore the pain of it as I wrench down and left and tear his jaw clean off. I rip free his longest tooth, toss the bones aside, reach through the gaping mess of his open mouth and impale his skull with it.
Eyes — murky yellow eyes — remain open wide as the body keels to the side, the dead thing finally still.
