Page 191 of Knot Their Soldier: Part Three

This is death. Actual, proper death with no second chances or magical Omega resurrection. And I find that I'm proud to meet it knowing we did not fail when our moment came.

The bond is faint now, frayed and exhausted, but it is still there. I feel the shape of us holding inside my heart, even here, now at the very end.

Our love made this bond, and our bond created the Command that will save our people. I feel peace knowing our love, through this Command, will remain. It's not a bad legacy for a rejected Omega and a squad of war-weary soldiers.

Darkness gathers, soft and deep, and I let it come.

Somewhere inside the darkness, there is a single glowing flame.

It is distant at first, no more than a flicker in the aching, frayed bond inside my chest, but it is coming closer with every breath. Warmth suddenly blooms through me like a wildfire, and in the final fading edge of myself, I know I am not meeting the dark alone.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Blaze

I would like it formally noted that I keep almost dying in increasingly cool ways, and nobody is around to appreciate it. Honestly, it is starting to feel disrespectful.

I haul myself over the lip of the cliff in a spray of loose rock, blood running down both arms, one knee barely working, and at least sixteen extra holes in my back that definitely were not there this morning. My chest burns every time I inhale, which probably means some of the bullets are lodged in my lungs, but that sounds like a later problem.

I grin victoriously. I made it!

Below me, the whole mountainside is anarchy. Smoke rolling through the distant tree line, fire licking at the road, bodies and blood everywhere. Those are my favorite things, usually.

I am already getting excited about rejoining the fight when I realize this fight is moving wrong. The enemy is moving the wrong way. They're not charging forward anymore, but retreating.

What the fuck did my Omega do while I was gone? 'Cause there is only one person who can create such a monumentally confusing event.

I wipe blood out of my eyes and squint downhill, sudden exhilaration kicking harder than the pain of my body closing my wounds sluggishly.

'Baby girl, please tell me you didn't start the apocalypse without me,' I try to project through the bond, but the haze of battle has scrambled my mind like it used to before our mating. I'm deep in the darkness where Halley usually has to use her light to find me.

I try to force myself to calm down, but my adrenaline is still pumping. Only moments ago, I was so deep behind enemy lines that even I had to admit that the heat got a little too spicy, even for me.

The easy part was Commanding that officer to send him back to Halley. Which is saying something, because my control over my Alpha Command isn't great. Something about me not having enough focus to get it right, but it fucking worked.

He did what I told him to. What a good boy.

The problem started when I looked back toward Pack Scorch and realized there was no fucking way I could fight my way through that crush fast enough to get back before somebody put a hole in my brain.

I fucking hate how Humans fight. It's not even clever or fun! They just throw bodies at us until they wear us down.

So I did what any brilliant, heroic, unfairly handsome Alpha would do.

I changed tactics.

The cliff was right there. Steep as fuck, all broken rock and loose shale, with a straight drop waiting to kill me if I slipped. It was perfect.

So I climbed.

Which was awesome.

It was less awesome when the enemy noticed and started shooting at me. I'm fairly sure I took more rounds in the last few minutes than in the rest of my life combined, which makes my surviving the climb even more impressive. I mean, there is still a fifty-fifty chance I might bleed out, but totally cool.

My eyes scan the road, searching for my Pack.

I quickly spot them, right in the middle of a crater. Fuck, it looks like the Humans have managed to find the right angle to land an artillery strike on the road.

I frown as I comprehend that the four of them are not standing, and are collapsed in a pile together.