End of Chapter 36

The screen flashed—her and Seraphim standing in a tent, Seraphim's lips still wet with her juices. It was all a recording, not live. And he watched quietly, huddled away from his mates in the dark of their tent on the battlefield, settled with his phone on silent, pretending to be doing something else. Levi and Kieran weren't the only ones insane enough to stalk her. And after their argument about children, he didn't want to show them what he had — a spy drone that was tied to the rate of her heart.

It was a drone that recorded everything for him to watch, to inspect, to observe. Halcyon reasoned that he needed it to protect her. That he needed to know what she had been up to so that he would always be the most understanding, the kindest and the sweetest. And right at this point in the past? Her heart was soaring, and it was not because they were fucking. It was not because Seraphim had his tongue on her clit, and his fingers in her cunt. And Halcyon had begged for another taste, to nuzzle the plush swollen swell of her clit, to taste her honey-like slick from its source. He would make her cum again and again.

She said no.

His breath hitched in his throat. He didn't like the way his mates treated her, the way they did whatever the fuck they wanted. He didn't like it when they hurt her, when they lashed out at her. But he hated it more when they were too nice, too kind, too uncharacteristically not Alpha. Halcyon wanted to be the only one she could count on.

The only one she wanted.

The only Alpha that she deserved.

His vision flashed red when she pulled Seraphim close and dragged him down to her lips. He muffled a gasp and swallowed down the whine. It was a kiss that wasn't just Rue manipulating the situation, that wasn't Seraphim needing a boost. It was tongue; it was heat; it was something in her goddamn eyes—He roared.

A fist against the glass; it shattered. Beneath the glitching screen was a smile hooked at the corners of her lips. Her cheeks were flushed, honesty in her gaze. Their bodies were pressed together, and the pain burned in his throat. The loss pulsed and grew, sour flavouring his tongue, burning hot in his eyes.

It was the gentleness he craved from their past, the warmth that she had once bestowed upon him before he'd fucked it all up. And it was now blossoming in her face, shining in her eyes. Rue had yet to return it to Halcyon, to allow him the chance to see it once again, to hear it on her tongue, to experience her love. And now she'd gifted that sweetness to another fucking Alpha.

Fuck.

A sense of doom was flooding his system.

Halcyon was the only one who should have the love of an Omega. Halcyon was the only one who understood the sacrifice of loving an Omega. Halcyon was the only one who could carve out his heart for her on a silver platter. Halcyon was the only one willing to settle with something as awful as an Omega.

Seraphim who had declared that Rue was not theirs, had crossed a goddamn line.

Halcyon was in their home before he knew it, their dormitory which was too small for her. And yet he relished in the ability to share a room, to have her nestled in their space—the traces of his breakdown long gone with the help of reparative technology. His Alpha howled.

Rue stood towelling dry her hair, eyes like crystals, skin all pink. A frown, lips pursed, steam billowing, sweet, sweet Omega. She was always so beautiful. Too beautiful. "What's wrong?" He was frozen then, heart thundering, blood rushing, Rampage and Rut whispering in his mind. Omega. My mate. Mine. His breathing was harsh, crazed. "Halcyon?" And he began to remember the way she smiled in that recording, her eyes so filled with gold.

"You don't look at me like that," he whispered.

There was confusion in her, a nervous swallow. He knew what she was seeing, the darkness in him, the dilation of his pupils, swallowing innocent, naïve brown irises into glassy voids. The predatory-like prowl of a monster. He was sinking into the dragon, the dragon that had always protected him. That had always helped him do bad things.

"You should kiss me too."

"What?"

"After everything I did for you." His breaths were escaping him in pants. The dragon was hot under his skin, toying around his throat. It wanted one thing, and one thing only. Halcyon was a thousand times more connected with his Alpha than his mates. And it burned him, had him dropping towards his animal instincts, it had him growing insane. The sweat beaded on his brow. Take our Omega, take her. "I did so much for you. Don't I deserve it too?"

"Halcyon, you're scaring me—"

"I'm the nicest," his snarl was raw, savage, hot. Desire and rage grew within him. The pressure spiked. "I'm the only one that treats you well. I did all those things. I don't even like Omegas…I fucking hate them, did you know that? I fucking. Hate. Omegas. And you chose him first."

"Halcyon, what the fuck—"

"You're mine," he was rambling, stalking closer. His body was feverish, burning. His rage grew, consumed him, and made him forget to think about the words spilling from his lips. All wrong, all hungry. His dragon growled. He needed to act fast, he needed to be first. He needed to win. "You're mine. You're mine. You're mine."

"Calm the fuck down."

"I loved you first. I loved you first."

"Halcyon, snap the fuck out of it."

"Claim," his voice echoed with his beasts, "claim my mate. I need to claim my fucking mate." He flashed his teeth at her, incisors sharp. "Come here Omega."

Her step back was shaky. "You don't want that."

"No, you're wrong," his smile stretched, wide, stomach-turning with so much jealousy it transformed him. His mind felt shattered, cock hot, hard and twitching between his legs. "I actually don't fucking care what other people want. I could just break them all. If I claimed you," his grin grew, delight churning through him. "You'll only need me. Why didn't I think of that?"

"Halcyon, where the fuck is this coming from—"

"I watched you," he hissed, eyes wide caught in her gaze. "And the way you look at Seraphim, the way you kissed him like you love him." His lower lip trembled, brows knotted. "Oh, Rue, why him, not me?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, he's your soulmate—"

"I don't want them," he rasped, growl escalating. "I just want you."

Rue shook her head. "You already have me. Halcyon, I never left."

"No, I don't," he stepped closer, body flooding the room with his aura, his scent, his testosterone. His smile grew. "Omega, come here." And this time, there was a flash of fear in her eyes, a startled wideness as she stumbled backwards. She shouldn't be scared. "I'll give you exactly what you need." His eyes were hot, tears flowing. "I'll give you everything."

"Halcyon, don't you dare take another fucking step."

Her voice had him pausing, frozen. The command rang in his ears, and collared his throat, so strong it had oxygen robbed from his lungs. A second, a moment where he was caught in his body. But his Alpha growled, growled with a snarl through his mind. Our mate will be claimed by the poseidon before we know it. And you know what they're like with their Omegas. Halcyon blinked. They kill them.

And he lunged towards her.

Rue

God, she thought he was fucking innocent.

All that fucking acting, all that fucking pleading. Men always disappointed her, always raised her hopes and had them falling to the goddamn ground. He crushed them. And here he was, her bunny with eyes slitted gold, fire and ice, demanding things from her, wanting to hurt her with tears as if she were wrong.

He could win a fucking Oscar.

The void was in him, and when he smiled that smile didn't reach his eyes. He was burning, his complexion flushed with rage. And everything was wrong. The glassiness, the dazed look, the feverish rampage. The rationality was lost from his mind. The subliminal power that he radiated, crushed the room with a presence that stifled the air, his scent turning from a delicious bakery into the musky danger of an Alpha that had her slick flooding, but her body cold.

He looked like a fucking psychopath.

And just because she kissed Seraphim? Was he mental? Maybe that was why she was prepared, prepared when he stared at her, vibrating under her command, bristling. She waited, knowing what to expect, feeling so fucking old, she felt it deep in her bones. The whisper of his Alpha called at her Omega.

But she wasn't like that. He'd seem to have forgotten that her resistance was far greater than anyone she knew. That there was no place for lust and love in her life. That nothing swayed her. That Rue was all about goddamn survival.

And when he moved, breaking her command, snarling with canines showing, territorial with lust growing aggression— claws, fire, heat. Sweat-soaked gorgeous face, curls inky, deranged, wild shivering in his own flexing body. This was an apex predator that was going to claim her just because he was fucking jealous.

This was an Alpha that had lost his goddamn mind.

But he had forgotten that Rue wasn't just her voice.

And she'd been prepared for this, training for this in the mornings and the nights when they weren't lurking behind her doors. Self-defence was all she thought about because it was all she had. And her fist connected with his fucking face, smashed in, blood spilling from his nose just before he could reach her.

He fell back, struggling, and she pounced like the devil, arms taking him, hoisting him up. Power was all these fuckers understood, and power was what she would give them to get it into their thick fucking skulls that she wasn't someone they could fucking bully.

The fear spiked, grew and twisted, engulfed in a need to domesticate and dominate the fucking bitch. Because no one could command her, no one could take things from her. And he was smashed to the ground, as all her men were— eating her fucking knuckles, taking a pounding to his face one after the other. Elation, twisted joy, panted breaths.

One. Two. One. Two. One. Two.

Rue was winning, but it wasn't because she was better than him, stronger than him. No, he was weakening somehow, and she was growing, growing in a way she didn't understand, with boiling heat in her veins. And something good burned in her eyes. He seemed to try to speak through the blood flowing from his nose.

"Rue," his lips moved. All bullshit that she could see right through him, see it in the smile on his lips, the crazed glint in his eyes. His neck arched, revealing the stretch of it. Claim me. Claim me. Claim me. He was fucking purring like a masochist. One more and she knocked him out cold, and his head lulled back with closed eyes.

The dormitory was silent then, silent with soft pants. Kieran materialised behind her with Levi. They must have heard or seen or felt the commotion somehow, but she could sense them lingering. The frozen pause, as they stared at a bloody floor, a dragon unconscious on the ground.

"Take," she hissed, eyes catching the figures smeared in the light and the darkness, "the fucking trash out and leave." And as she moved, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror—slitted golden eyes just like a monster's, just like a dragon's, just like a beast's. An artemis' eyes, an ares' eyes, Halcyon's eyes.

They never stopped being red flags.

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