Page 59 of Forbidden Bonds
“The sky, where the virus came from.”
“Exactly… To be fair to them, I had a lot of attitude. Lucian got me out of there, but he was in the military, and I was on my own. I got into hacking, I guess, as a way of getting one over the system that fucked me up.”
She kisses me, soft, lingering, full of her love and acceptance.
The one woman who sees all of me and loves me anyway.
I can never go outside without crippling fear.
She can’t go out either.
So here we are, together.
Perfectly imperfect. Trapped, but in a way that works for both of us, and that doesn’t feel like being trapped at all.
I lift her in my arms and carry her to the nest. Small, safe, intimate… and recently refreshed.
Time to get it all dirty again. Time to practice breeding my mate.
Epilogue
Rhett
The cameras will go blind for exactly four minutes. Long enough.
Zeb doesn’t say a word as he escorts me down the concrete corridor. But my palms sweat and my chest feels like it’s in a vise. I’m back at a government facility, this time without Larissa. Being away from her hurts, but this… this I need to do.
We stop at the reinforced door. One swipe of Zeb’s clearance card, and the lock releases with a metallic sigh.
Inside, Hammond Cohen sits slumped on a cot. Shackled, bruised, stripped of arrogance, or so it would seem until his eyes lift to meet mine and I see the hatred that still burns there.
“You,” he croaks. His gaze swings past me, but Zeb has already blended into the shadows, doing what he does best.
The bond with Larissa showed me how to proceed from here. I watched her pluck memories and project them in the tunnels. Now it’s my turn.
I seek out the festering roots of his demise, his demons, the endless hunger, the thwarted ambition, and the gnawing terror that he is and always will beless.Then I slam it back into him.Images bombard his mind: ten years of failures, every sneer, every dismissal from the Uncorrupted, and all the betrayals.
Finally, the omega,myomega, that he lost.
His screams echo against the walls as I flood him with his own reckoning until he collapses, babbling gibberish.
I blink. My chest is heaving.
He’s rocking on the cot, drooling, eyes vacant.
“Messy,” Zeb mutters behind me, a distinct air of satisfaction coupled with amusement. “Effective, though.”
I steady my breathing, wipe the sweat from my brow. My chest still feels too tight, the walls too close. Leaving Larissa and the safety of my home was a monumental challenge.
It was worth it.
Zeb’s eyes meet mine. He smirks and lifts his chin in indication.
I step out. The door sighs shut, cutting off the ranting madman.
We walk together back along the corridor and into the underground parking garage where a blacked-out van is waiting for me.
It takes me home to my mate.
