Page 251 of Knot Their Soldier: Part Three

SPARKS, HALLEY. (OMEGA)

I open it and read the first few lines out loud.

"Defective Omega." I swallow thickly, my voice shaking at those familiar words, but I keep going. "Poorly educated. Controllable with incentives. Emotional instability requires monitoring. Advanced age lowers expectations of success with Omega Command. Disposable if compromised."

My voice peters out as a low, pained sound leaves Blaze.

The bond lights up with indignation and rage, violence pulsing through the Alphas, but Shade doesn't react, and I know it's because he's read it before. He prepared himself so he could remain calm and stop us from losing our minds over a dead man's words.

Defective.

Disposable if compromised.

There it is.

The truth of what I was to General Stone.

I always knew what I was to him, but seeing it written in his own words makes it harder to dismiss. To Stone, I was an experiment he could send onto a battlefield and replace if I broke.

I wait for the words to tear me apart, but they don’t.

My restored fertility comes to mind, followed by the old fear that the negative pregnancy result proves him right. That I’m still defective. The word stings, but the shame doesn’t consume me the way it once did.

I’ve thought about the my fertility often and what it means for the future of our Pack. I want to talk to my mates about children, but the last traces of that shame have kept me silent. I’m getting closer to facing it, though.

The report still hurts. No one wants proof that another person considered them disposable. My resurrection healed my body and restored my connection to my Omega, but it didn’t erase the years I spent believing I was defective or the damage done by everyone who treated me that way.

I swipe at the rogue tear tracking down my cheek, ignoring the symphony of my Alphas growling in protest of my distress.

When Stone wrote this, he thought I was small, easy to control, and powerless.

I am not powerless anymore.

I’m surrounded by my Pack, whose love and support have started streaming down the bond with Shade’s encouragement.

I let the file sit open and I scroll lazily through it, barely skimming the rest. It's a summary of my time training with Scorch Squad and the development of my Omega Command. It's littered with Stone's personal opinions of me: lazy, old, stubborn, useless.

Finally, I've had enough and scroll back to the top.

SPARKS, HALLEY. (OMEGA)

I stare at my name.

The report is thinner than I expected.

Stone spent years convincing me he knew everything that happened between Scorch Squad and me at the training camp. He wanted me to believe Knox and Shade reported every moment of our time together.

This file proves they didn’t.

Stone recorded my training progress, but the file contains none of the private moments that changed our relationship. He knew nothing about the arguments that brought us closer, the touches we tried to dismiss, or the slow realization that Scorch Squad and I were becoming more than just comrades.

Stone’s bold claims about our Pack forming were guesses that happened to be correct.

I scroll through the report again, paying closer attention to what Knox and Shade left out.

When we first met, Knox and Shade had spent their entire lives in a military that demanded loyalty before anything else. Yet this proves that even then, while we were still trying to understand what was forming between us, they chose to keep parts of me from their commanding officer.

Warmth spreads through my chest and into the bond. Knox’s hand squeezes my shoulder while Shade looks at me over his glasses with quiet understanding.