Page 1 of Knot Their Soldier: Part Three

Chapter One

Blaze

My Sparkles is dead.

My Alpha doesn’t understand that.

It keeps searching for her pulse, her scent, her bond, the sweet Omega-thread that should be wrapped around my ribs and showing me the light.

There’s nothing there.

Blaise is dead too.

I wait for him to argue with me. He was always the one who softened when her scent would sour. The one who melted when she purred, who wanted to curl around her in the nest and be good because she made goodness feel possible.

I wait for that gentle, useless voice to tell me to stop and be better for her.

Nothing answers.

There’s only me now.

I hate it.

I hate it so much that my hands and skin feel wrong. The whole world feels wrong because she’s supposed to be in it, and she isn’t. Blaise is supposed to be in my head whining about mercy and restraint and how Sparkles wouldn’t want this, but he isn’t here either.

Fine.

Fantastic.

The pain needs somewhere to go, and I’ve found it somewhere to live.

The Beta harpy who killed my everything stares up at me from the dirt, shaking, bleeding, and somehow still breathing when my Sparkles isn’t. Her mouth opens. She says something. Begs, maybe. Explains, maybe. I don’t hear it.

She wants death, I think. She wants us to kill her quick and easy.

That’s adorable.

My Omega didn’t get quick or easy.

She got blood in her throat and our bond tearing out of me while my Alpha clawed at the inside of my skin, trying to get to her too late and too slow.

Sparkles wanted to live, and she didn’t get what she wanted. And I wanted her to live, and I didn't get what I wanted. So nobody gets what they want tonight.

I cock my pistol, aim it at her foot, and shoot. Blood sprays into the air, pretty red droplets splattering across my face.

She screams, and my ears ring.

I wait for the good part. The little fizz behind my ribs when someone screams just right. The click in my head that says there, better.

Nothing comes.

It's all just bitterness and consuming despair.

I frown down at her, offended on principle because screaming is supposed to help. Blood is supposed to help. Fear is supposed to make the world line up into neat little pieces again, one body, one blade, one problem, one solution at a time.

It doesn’t.

The pain stays right where it is.