Forget Me Knot (PoisonVerse #2), page 35
Onyx
One month before
Sometimes I woke.
I existed in a world that burned white hot. She lived in a world of ice.
Cold.
Uncaring.
Empty.
And all the while she forgot. Forgot that they were gone.
She spent her evenings with packs that paid for her time while the men who loved her rotted in the earth.
I hated it.
I hated more that she didn’t know; that I was silenced. The few times I woke up, I fought for my voice while our other half warred to protect her from the poison that I was.
So instead, I woke in the night and tried to tell her the truth she was ignoring.
She violated everything we had ever loved; going on dates with alphas, accepting gifts from them as if they deserved her.
I couldn’t speak, so I smashed them all.
Onyx
9 days before
She was going to match a pack.
Another pack.
Bloodcurdling rage consumed me. My makeup box was in my hands and I flung it at the mirror. It shattered, but it wasn’t enough.
This was it. If she found another pack, she would erase them completely. It would be like they never existed.
I ripped the drawers open, smashing everything I could.
I hated her.
She was leaving us behind.
Jake.
Vik.
Hart.
Viper.
She was going to leave us behind.
Onyx
9 days before, evening
She’d matched a pack.
She’d gone to their house and now she was waiting at their doorstep protecting an omega that wasn’t hers. A vault? Who cared what happened in a pack that wasn’t ours?
I hated it.
I could feel Viper here, as if he were sitting beside me.
My love.
My heart.
The only piece left.
We were about to forsake him. Forget him again. Again.
Again.
I grabbed my purse and reached for the pocket I so rarely touched. I opened it and drew out one of the wilting flowers.
A forget-me-knot. The greatest taunt of my life. Slowly I ripped off petal after petal, whispering to myself.
“He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not…”
Onyx
8 days before
The world shuttered and I lost myself.
I’d just returned from my date. King had been my bodyguard and I’d let him in. Let him close. He’d kissed me. Touched me. Claimed me.
This was a betrayal. I was dying—slowly getting smothered.
My fingers shook as I reached into the purse clutched in my arms as I leaned against the railings on the deck. I unzipped the pocket of my handbag.
I clicked it open and looked inside.
Dead flowers stared back at me. Some were wilting and dying. I took a breath so the panic didn’t choke me. I reached in and withdrew the ones with the most brittle, dull leaves. They were dead because of her. Because she was trying to kill me. Trying to leave me behind.
I had to make it impossible.
I held the dead forget-me-nots over the railing and let them drop. I watched them descend until they landed on the steps of the patio below.
I was dying. I had no voice.
But this I could do: leave a warning on the doorstep of the men who were killing mine.
Onyx
5 days before, early morning
We’d matched a pack.
It had been the worst thing I could imagine. Until… Viper had bitten in. He was here, lying in a hospital bed.
The rest of them had tried to comfort me, and I’d told them I needed space. I left the hospital and went home first. My nest was low.
I stopped on the way, buying bunches of blue flowers. Then I entered my apartment and crossed to my walk-in wardrobe. Behind a rack of clothes was the handle. I turned it and pushed the door open to reveal my nest beyond.
The space ahead glowed with sunlight spilling from a small window, a desperate attempt to keep the flowers alive.
Still, they died.
There was no bed. No pillows. Nothing that would mark it a nest. Instead, a single vase sat upon a table in the middle of the room.
The forget-me-nots within were wilting.
I shut my eyes, taking a deep breath.
This was always the worst part.
It felt like I was ripping my soul in two, pulling out those flowers. But before I could break, I’d replaced them.
The world steadied. Before me, a fresh vase of forget-me-nots stared back at me.
Bright.
Alive.
I knelt on the floor of the nest, plucking the dead flowers that were still intact.
Once there was a collection on the floor before me, I picked them up with shaking fingers. Carefully, I tucked them into the small pocket in the zipper of my handbag.
I carried them everywhere with me.
They were my only voice.
Next, I went to their home, walking slowly through the garage, a tremor in my soul.
Things had changed. Could I keep up? I was never here for long…
I hugged myself, avoiding the tattoo on my forearm.
Viper was bitten in. My love. My rock.
Only… I stared around at the space. Before, they’d been traitors, but what if…? Bracing myself, I looked down to the flower tattooed on my forearm.
Four.
I traced Viper.
The one who had stolen my heart. Then the other three. Their names… I shook. Four of them in that bond.
I could remember them.
I choked as I realised my mistake. All this time, I’d been wrong.
They weren’t gone at all, they had just changed. Grown. Become something new, just like I had.
As my finger moved across the flowers on my arm, I could picture them clearly in a pack. Viper’s arm was draped around Malakai. At his side, Arsenal was there, and King too.
This was their home and I was their omega.
But panic surged as I stared at the tattoo. Something was wrong.
I blinked furiously. Something was in the way.
A threat.
I was supposed to be their omega.
But they had one? Another one? I choked on a sob.
No.
I lowered my arm, staring around at the space.
Something didn’t fit.
And everything had to fit. It couldn’t be any other way, or they… or they… Their pale faces flashed in my vision. Still and dead.
“No.” My voice was thick. “No, no, no…”
My tattoo was burning.
Tears stung my eyes as I made for the part that didn’t make sense. I was down the ladder and into the poisoned pieces in seconds.
A nest.
His nest.
The piece that didn’t fit.
I searched it first, finding the box beneath his bed, finding a mug in it. I couldn’t tell whose scent was on it—it might be old, but I knew what it was.
A claim. On my alphas. On… Viper? And he was curled up with Viper right now in the hospital… I sobbed, taking it with me as I climbed out of the nest, finding the bike. The only thing in here that was Viper’s…
Mine… He was… mine.
My vision blurred as I let the mug drop to floor, watching it shatter. Then I stepped toward the bike, toward the mint and mist, scattering my own claim of wilted flowers.
Then I returned to his nest. The omega who shouldn’t be here.
I ripped out each blade, breaking down the nest, needing it gone—needing it to have never been here. The mistake.
Each blade I drove into the mattress, a threat.
He couldn’t be here. Not if I was.
I took the lipstick in trembling fingers and wrote the message on the wall.
I needed to write more. To say more. But I couldn’t…
Why did we keep forgetting? I kept dying over and over. It wasn’t fair that she lived and I burned, bundled away in the back of her mind.
That… wouldn’t be enough…
“He’s not yours.”
I’m yours.
How could they not realise that? But after this, everything would be fine. I would have them back.
It would be perfect.
With the message written, my lipstick snapped and fell to the bed of knives beneath me.
Onyx
2 days before
I was finally getting closer to the pack, but the omega was still here.
Nothing had worked to get rid of him. I was in a hotel right now, while the omega was curled up with Viper. I hadn’t done enough.
But today, Arsenal’s words had been clear as day as he showed me the USB. “This is what we need if we want to fix things with Ice.”
Ice was the piece that didn’t fit. The omega who had claimed my pack.
So, in the hotel room where Arsenal had shrugged off his jacket, I reached into his pocket and slipped it out.
The USB.
In its place I left a single wilted forget-me-not.
FORTY-NINE
Viper
“I… remember,” Onyx whispered. Tears flooded her cheeks and my heart shattered. “It…” Her voice broke, her fingers squeezing all the blood from mine. “It h-hurts.”
“I know, My Love.” I didn’t move, holding her terrified gaze. “You took it from Arsenal’s jacket. I need to know where it is.”
“She took it?” Riot growled.
Onyx stared at me, glittering eyes unsure, but they went wide as I felt the metal of a gun pressed against my skull. I almost looked away from her, almost closed my eyes, but I’d faced death before. I’d faced it for her.
“W-wait,” she choked. “Don’t… I…” Her expression was desperate for a moment as she tried to remember.
Then her expression crumbled. She released my hands, her fingers drawing open her handbag. She fumbled until she found a zip for a little pocket in the silken lining.
She unzipped it, staring at what was inside.
It was full of wilted, dry forget-me-nots. Shaking fingers pulled them out, and her breathing was coming short and sharp until I saw the glint of silver.
The USB.
The hard edge of the gun vanished, and I saw the dull glow of a cigarette stub tumble to the ground at my side. Riot ripped the USB from her grasp, but Onyx barely seemed to notice. Her hand jumped to her mouth, a choked sob slipping out.
Malakai
The moment Onyx entered our pack, her wound, her pain, ripped our bond open completely, exposing everything we had ever tried to hide or run from.
I buckled, grabbing the iron bars before me to steady the world that was spinning around me. I felt them all.
Viper and Onyx. Wrecked by grief that had festered for so long it had hollowed them out leaving them isolated. Trapped by silence, unable to find connection.
King. Unworthy, tearing himself apart trying to make up for what everyone else gave him. Never enough, no matter what he did for the pack he loved so much.
Arsenal. A failed leader, killing himself to do better, fuelled by self loathing when he couldn’t fix us.
Ice. Shattered and put back together so many times that he didn’t know where the pieces went anymore, yet so desperate to find a way to make them fit.
And I knew they could feel me, too. Isolated. Unable to connect the way I needed. Unable to connect like we were right now, the wide open bond giving me a breath of reprieve.
But despite the pain, there was hope, because it also smashed apart the barriers we’d been clinging to. We’d been terrified of our own poison, afraid that if we spoke our pain out loud, we might give it to each other. But silence had festered wounds worse than any of that.
And of course, it was her.
She was our answer.
Arsenal
The world rocked as Onyx collided with our bond. I could feel everything. But she was still chained, so when Riot opened the cage, stopping in front of me, I gripped my gun in shaking fingers.
“Let her free,” I hissed.
I could still hear Onyx as she wept, still chained to that chair by her neck. The much less stable part of me—the part that could feel her terror through the new bond—wanted to put a bullet in his skull right now.
“It takes a lot to surprise me these days, Arsenal. But this—” He glanced back to Onyx. “—Was thrilling.”
He began toward the door.
“Riot!” I started after him, but he just raised his keys and shook them loudly. “She’ll be free when I’m out.”
I was torn between following him to make sure, and returning back to the others. Ice was in the cage now, clutching Onyx’s hand as she wept.
I waited, breath stuck in my chest. For too long, the only sounds were the billowing wind and rain and Onyx’s pain.
Finally, there was a click of metal and the collar came free. She collapsed into Viper’s arms, her sobbing devolving into wails.
I felt her pain.
We all did.
Ice was kneeling at their side, shaking fingers brushing her tangled chocolate locks. King had taken a few steps toward them, but stopped. Malakai was staring, unmoving, his face ashen, knuckles white where he gripped the iron bars.
“It’s… gone…” Onyx’s choked whisper carried across the space as she finally found the strength to draw away from Viper’s embrace. Her hand traced the bite on her neck. “They’re gone. Did we…” Her voice cracked. “Did we leave them behind?”
“Never,” Viper whispered, cupping her cheeks and wiping her tears away. “We never leave anyone behind.”
FIFTY
Viper
Traumatised and trembling, Onyx stayed curled up in my arms in the car. She hugged her knees to her chest and her head was bowed so her tangle of brown hair obscured her face.
When we got in, she didn’t settle.
“I can’t be here.” It was the first thing she said as I led her to the nest in Malakai’s room.
I had the bond I had dreamed of since the moment my aura had come out. A connection with her. So now I felt her pain. Her fear.
More than anything else, I felt the choking weight of her guilt.
I could sense the rest of the pack too. We were all in shock, and there were a lot of wounds to unpack. But I could see they were willing to give her space. Never once did I feel a single bit of compassion waver within the bond.
“I can’t be… in his nest,” she croaked.
I frowned. If she wanted to leave, I wouldn’t stop her. I would take her anywhere she needed to be. But the idea of her not being here—not being home… It made my chest ache.
This, I realised, was home. And she was pack.
Onyx
The warmth and love that filled Ice’s nest was like daggers in my soul; the twinkling warm lights that hung across the ceiling, the piles of woollen blankets draped across the bed, the small—but slowly growing—collection of mugs upon the coffee table.
More than any of that, it was their scents.
Roses and cookies, riverside and clove, apricot and champagne, honey and chestnuts.
Mint and mist—that was, perhaps, the only safe one.
It was everything I couldn’t have. So I pulled from Viper’s arms and left.
I couldn’t run from them. Not completely. I didn’t know why—because a part of me knew I should—but the selfish, wounded piece just couldn’t walk out of this place. Despite everything, this run down garage in the middle of the Gritch District was the safest place in the entire world.
And I wasn’t strong enough to leave.
So I followed my instincts, tugging from Viper’s arms and going to the only place that felt right.
The old nest was emptied of knives. There were no linens on the bed, and all that remained was an empty mattress in a tiny cellar. That… was right. For a moment, I felt I could breathe as I climbed onto it and curled up.
Everything empty about this place reflected what I’d taken. What I’d done to this pack that was now trapped with me. To Ice.
This place was right for my soul.
Nails bit into the tattoo on my forearm, palm brushing the scar.
I knew now it was a scar I’d given myself.
I felt like I had been ripped open, all my wounds exposed, and I was made of nothing but grief and guilt. Guilt for what I’d done to Ice.
Grief for love, for old wounds that still felt angry and fresh and open—never given the chance to heal.
And it was a cruel, cruel thing that I could only face them now I’d made the choice to leave them behind.
Viper
She didn’t drink.
She didn’t eat.
I took blankets down, but she would tug them off, leaving the bed bare. She let me hold her, but her scent shifted to terror every time I asked if she wanted to go upstairs or let one of them visit.
For too long she was silent. She hadn’t shed a tear since I’d carried her from the tower.
“Talk to me,” I whispered.
She curled up tighter.
I stroked her hair, tugging her closer still. “Please, My Love.”
I felt her fingers ball in my shirt. “I didn’t know…” she said, at last. “When I said yes…” She couldn’t finish.
But I knew.
When she’d taken the bond, she hadn’t known what she’d done. And now she didn’t feel she deserved to have it at all. Yet, she was stuck with it. It couldn’t be undone. And that was, I thought, what that seething ball of guilt was made of.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I whispered.
“I still did it.”
Arsenal
After arriving back from the tower in the early hours of the morning, we barely slept a wink. Mal just sat at the kitchen island, open beer in hand. When Ice finally tried to force him off the seat to grab a nap, he just said, “We missed it.”
