Page 40 of Knot Their Safe Haven
The water was dark, murky with debris and diesel and God knew what else. Light filtered through in broken beams, already fading as I descended. My lungs screamed for air I couldn't draw, muscles begged for movement I couldn't provide.
This is how I die.
The thought came with surprising calm. Not in my bed at ninety, surrounded by the pack I'd never had. Not in some dramatic confrontation defending my Omegas. But here, at the bottom of whatever hidden reservoir lurked beneath the city, alone except for a song that played like a funeral dirge.
Where have you been...
I tried to move, pouring every ounce of will into just flexing a finger, twitching a toe, anything to prove I wasn't already dead. But the drug held firm, chemical chains stronger than any physical restraint.
Water pressed against my lips, seeking entrance. I held my breath through pure instinct, but I could feel the countdown starting. Thirty seconds, maybe forty before my body overrode my mind's commands. Before survival instinct forced me to inhale death.
The ringing in my ears grew louder, heartbeat thundering like drums at my own execution. Twenty years of fighting, of building, of saving everyone but myself, and this was how it ended. Not with bang or whimper, but with lungs full of murky water and a love song playing somewhere in the distance.
At least the others are safe. Knox at his gym. Malcolm at the clinic. Adyani across the ocean. They'll mourn, but they'll survive.
The thought should have brought comfort. Instead, it brought rage. They'd survive because they'd never really lived with me anyway. We'd all been so careful, so distant, so fucking afraid that we'd never actually been together. And now we never would be.
My vision started to tunnel, darkness creeping in from the edges. The need for air had become everything, consuming thought and reason and even fear. My mouth opened without permission, water rushing in like an eager lover, filling spaces that should have held breath.
This is it.
The weight that had haunted me for years—that crushing loneliness, that sense of being unclaimed and unwanted—became literal as water filled my lungs. I was sinking not just through water but through every regret, every missedopportunity, every night I'd spent alone wondering what it would feel like to be truly loved.
Peace came with acceptance. The frantic beat of my heart slowed. The screaming need for air faded to whisper. Even that damned song seemed to grow softer, more lullaby than taunt.
Where have you been all my life...
I'd been here. Waiting. Working. Wanting. And now I was dying, having experienced everything except the one thing I'd craved most—being claimed, being chosen, being someone's everything instead of everyone's sometimes.
My eyes started to close, the last bit of light fading to memory. But in that final moment, in that space between life and whatever came after, I saw them.
Emerald eyes in the darkness.
Green like forests, like promises, like the boy who'd seen me clearly seventeen years ago and never forgot.
Alessandro.
His name formed on lips that could no longer speak, a prayer to a god I'd never believed in. Those eyes grew closer, or maybe I was falling toward them, or maybe death just looked like the last beautiful thing I'd wanted to see.
Either way, as the darkness claimed me completely, as my heart gave its last stuttering beats, as water replaced everything I'd ever been, those eyes were there.
Watching.
Waiting.
Where have you been all my life...
The question echoed into nothing, and Velvet Morclair—Omega, revolutionary, woman who'd saved hundreds but couldn't save herself—finally stopped fighting.
The water won.
The darkness won.
But those emerald eyes remained, burned into retinas that would never see again, a last gift or a first glimpse of whatever came after.
Where have you been...
Right here. Waiting for someone brave enough to claim me.
