He Begged the Omega He Destroyed

The silver dagger's cold against my throat.

Do it.

Just fucking do it.

Kieran's voice echoes in my head: "Get her to safety." Always her. Never me.

I press the blade down—

I jolt awake, gasping. My hands fly to my neck. No blood. No dagger. Just sweat-soaked sheets and my heart trying to pound its way out of my chest.

My cabin. My bed. The digital clock on the nightstand reads 11:47 PM.

I'm not dead. I'm not in the snow. I'm...

I look at my hands, turning them over. No frost. No blood. No silver blade cutting into—

Oh god.

The Luna Ceremony. Tomorrow's the Luna Ceremony.

I grab my phone, hands shaking. The screen lights up with notifications. Pack group chat: "Luna Ceremony rehearsal at 9am! Don't be late!"

The date stares back at me: three years ago.

Three. Fucking. Years.

I'm back.

My wolf stirs inside me, confused. She feels it too—the wrongness, the impossible rewind. But she's also relieved. We're alive. We're whole.

Last time, I went to that ceremony. Stood in the very back of the ceremonial hall where Omegas belonged, watching Kieran Ashford—Alpha heir of Silvermoon Pack, black wolf, my fated mate who never knew it—place that moonstone crown on Seraphina Blackwell's head. Seraphina, the Beta with perfect blonde hair and a perfectly fake smile, wore white like she deserved it. Kieran smiled at her. Really smiled. The kind of smile I'd never seen him give anyone.

The rejection pain hit me like someone drove silver needles through every nerve in my body. I collapsed right there in the crowd. People stepped over me. Around me. "Some Omega's having a fit," someone muttered. Kieran didn't even turn around. He was too busy staring at her.

I spent the next three years dying slowly. The Rejection Sickness ate me from the inside out while Seraphina played Luna and Kieran never knew. Never cared to know.

Until I ended up alone in the snow with his dagger at my throat.

I swing my legs out of bed. The wood floor's cold under my bare feet. Real. Solid.

This is real.

I'm really back.

My reflection in the mirror looks like shit—dark circles under my eyes, silver hair a tangled mess. But I'm twenty-two again. Not twenty-five and dying. Not bleeding out in the forest.

Not this time. I won't watch him crown her. I won't die for him again.

I yank open my closet and start pulling out clothes. Jeans. T-shirts. My good jacket. Everything goes into the duffel bag on my bed. I move fast, mechanical. I've got maybe six hours before sunrise. Before anyone notices I'm gone.

Mom. I need to get to Mom first.

Elena Thorne—my mother, human, never shifted a day in her life but tougher than most wolves I know. Last time, I lost her. By the time I found her, she didn't even recognize me. She died calling for a daughter she couldn't remember.

Not this time. This time I save her. Get her somewhere safe. Then we disappear. Maybe Canada. Maybe Mexico. Somewhere far from Silvermoon Pack and Kieran Ashford and the mate bond that killed me.

I'm shoving cash into my bag when I hear it.

A car engine. Coming up the dirt road to my cabin.

I freeze.

Nobody comes out here. My cabin's at the edge of pack territory, practically in the woods. I chose it specifically because nobody bothered me here. Nobody except—

Headlights cut through my window.

No. No no no.

I know that car. That black SUV. I've seen it a thousand times.

Heavy footsteps on my porch. Three deliberate steps. Then a knock.

"Iris." His voice. Deep, commanding, with that Alpha edge that makes wolves want to bow. "Open the door."

Kieran. Alpha heir. Twenty-eight years old. Built like he was made for war, with dark hair and darker eyes and a face that could've been carved from stone. He's the man I loved for ten years and the man who destroyed me without even knowing I existed.

And he's standing on my porch at midnight like it's normal.

It's not normal.

My hands grip the edge of my dresser. "Go away."

"I know you're planning to run."

My heart stops.

How—

How the fuck does he know that?

"I don't know what you're talking about." My voice doesn't shake. Good. "It's midnight, Kieran. Go home."

Silence. Then:

"You're wearing your grey jacket right now. The one with the broken zipper you never fixed."

Ice floods my veins.

I look down. I'm wearing my pajamas. My grey jacket's hanging on the back of my chair.

But he's right. Last time—when I ran—when I died—I wore that jacket.

"You took the silver dagger," he continues, voice rough. "The one I gave you. You went to the forest. The clearing with the frozen stream."

Oh god.

Oh god oh god oh god.

"And your last words—" His voice cracks. Just a little. Just enough. "Your last words were 'I'm sorry.'"

The room spins.

Nobody knows that. Nobody was there. I died alone.

Unless—

No. That's impossible. That's fucking impossible.

"How." I can barely get the word out. "How do you know that?"

A long pause. I hear him breathing on the other side of the door. Heavy. Unsteady.

"Because I was there." Quieter now. "I found you. I held you while you..." He stops. Starts again. "Please, Iris. Open the door. We need to talk."

I should run. Should grab my bag and bolt out the back window. This is wrong. This is so wrong.

But my feet are moving toward the door. My hand's reaching for the knob.

He can't know these things. Can't possibly know. Unless he was there. Unless he saw—

But that means he knows I killed myself. That means he knows everything.

My hand closes around the doorknob. It's cold. My palm's sweating.

I could walk away right now. Pretend I never heard him. But the way his voice broke when he said "I held you"—

I've never heard Kieran Ashford's voice break before.

I take a breath. Then another.

Then I yank the door open.

Kieran stands on my porch, and he looks wrecked. His eyes—god, his eyes—are bloodshot and wild and desperate in a way I've never seen.