And damn him, she believed that. She fucking believed that. Something in her chest shifted, a crack of ice melting into water. It wasn't love. Not yet. But it was the way he looked at her, like even her raw edges were sacred, like her existence was everything.
"You've done this before," she guessed, felt the whisper of need threading up her spine, blurring the ache Dante had left, misting the pain.
Valentino could be all she needed if she allowed him to be all she needed. It was as easy as that. And she was so fucking angry at herself and Dante. She was disturbingly angry at how much power he held over her, how easily he had broken her.
But did she have to suffer with Valentino by her side, soothing the pain? Did she really have to give a damn? Rue was just so fucking tired, and the last three days of consciousness had been a hell of mistakes.
He gave her a lazy shrug, a long sigh. "Pissing them off? Please. It's a lifestyle. I used to throw fits just to ruin their day."
Rue huffed out something like a laugh, and this time it came out real, no longer twisted with a touch of sorrow. Her breaths came easily then, tension melting away. "That's not what I meant."
"I know," he said, softer now. "But they're also listening and staying away because you need them to. They can feel it."
She didn't say anything to that. The cream in her cup had melted fully into the milk now, lavender marbled into a gentle ivory. She knew what he meant, that her broken, incomplete bond could be felt across the pack. That they were all listening to her emotions.
She missed them terribly.
Valentino reached for her hand across the table. He did not grab for it, did not snatch. Just held out his palm like a quiet question. She hesitated. Then placed her hand in his. It was warm. Familiar. A little too safe. Her heart slowed in a good way.
"Just enjoy it," he said, smiling once again. "Let me give you something beautiful for once."
Rue didn't look away, but her voice was quieter this time. The vulnerability swelled. "I don't know if I know how."
His thumb brushed her knuckles. "I'll teach you, you have me."
She looked at him then, really looked, stared at the soft pink flush across his cheeks, the gentle curl of his lips, the way he kept watching her like he didn't want to miss even a blink. The dip of his brow, the flutter of his lashes, the spark in his eyes. And for a second, just a heartbeat, Rue thought she could almost forget how fucked up the world was.
Almost.
*
Dante
Dante stood, ankle-deep in the shit storm of his own making, watching the mess play out like a riot. The severed head lay in the cradle of the scanner, still steaming from the burn, twitching from the residual volts. But the reading was clear.
The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, and his chest burned.
Elder God.
A Monster.
The reports had been difficult to find, but not impossible, hidden so deeply that it had taken hours to find. The language was so old that they had to have it translated by a specialist. But history was repeating itself. A dark storm, a strange gas that ignited all, the herald of the darkness, and then the Omegas.
The queens, the parasites.
His chest hurt, not panic, not fear, but the slow ignition of the inevitable. The locusts had erased planets like the plague, and instead of assuming the worst. They had merely declared them as a lesser species. No. They did seem like lesser species, like animals driven by a leader who was just mildly more intelligent than the rest.
But the undead weapons of the Elder Gods?
This changed things.
Elder Gods were extinct. They'd been exterminated, destroyed to save the rest of the world. But not anymore. Her blood had mixed with his, tainting his veins, his fucking tongue. His goddamn pack. She was an Elder God, too. One so pure that her father must be one. It wasn't even a goddamn recessive gene. And that scared him, that destroyed him the most.
This was bad. Catastrophic, maybe even apocalyptic. This could kill them all.
"I don't believe you," Kieran cursed, voice too sharp, too harsh. The lights flickered.
Dante did not even flinch. "Believe whatever the fuck you want." He nodded towards the chart. "The facts are there." His expression was stormy, his face too fucking pale. God.
Seraphim's eyes flickered to the display, the glow washing his face in a pale blue. His body jiggled, growing translucent almost, emotions painting his features. "It…explains why she isn't in our fate." His voice was brittle, like he hated the words that had spewed from his tongue. "It explains why she's so strong."
Levi's voice was quiet in the beeping of the lab. "You're not going to hurt her, are you?" The words seemed to hover, cold, still, awful. And Dante turned to him slowly. He did not have to answer; he didn't need to. Behind him, Halcyon howled.
Some truths were better left unsaid.
*
Rue
Three hours later, she was starting to get used to the sweetness. The quiet of Five was almost deceptive. It blanketed her like silk, spun too fine, coated her like honey sticky over ice. She was caught in the web of a good time, and it was easy to sink into the comfort of being cared for.
Valentino made things worse by being too good. The kind of good that made her forget things. Important things. Her anger. Her pain. The damn reasons why she should never let someone kiss her forehead and mean it. His nose nuzzling hers, body running so warm she wanted nothing more than to be branded by his bare flesh.
She was starting to smile.
She was caving so fucking quickly that it seemed almost stupid.
Valentino was dozing with her on a hill of sweet grass, head tilted back, eyes closed, looking like a painting created from sunshine and rainbows. Her fingers brushed his, light and instinctual. Shoulder to shoulder. His tails cushioned her for comfort. And when she rose, pushed herself against his chest, he'd look at her with more intensity than she'd ever felt before. His breaths were slow, hurt thundering under her palm.
He remained inches away from her face, purr rolling out from him in a bass that seemed to resonate straight from his soul. He didn't even need a fucking kiss to purr. Her body in his arms was enough for his Alpha. Her presence was enough for him.
That was enough to break her.
Until the sky cracked open.
It didn't explode. It shattered. It was as if a star were falling through. Fast. Blinding. Streaming in freefall, splitting the air. The spaceship slid onto the ground with a heavy quake. Valentino held her close, carefully breaking her fall.
And then he appeared.
His hair was now platinum, kissed by lilac, falling in soft waves that moved like smoke and steam. His armour gleamed like moonlight on the surface of water, feathers fanned out like a peacock from the heavens. Lips curved into that dangerous smile. But it didn't reach his eyes.
Altair.
Rue's breath caught without her permission.
She saw the way Valentino stiffened before he even rose from the ground. His movements were slow, deliberate. An Alpha ready to fight. The rage was there, coiled thick in his veins. He growl was too loud for someone who should be his family.
"I said to give me one more fucking day," he snarled, low and guttural, voice stripped of its usual honey. "At least one more day, goddamn it."
Altair didn't flinch.
He walked forward like a dream, like goddamn royalty. And when he reached them, he stopped a bit too far, too distant, too strange. Rue knew something was wrong with the way he stood, back straight, tease missing from his tongue, feathers all sharp instead of soft. The flirt had gone from his eyes. And she could not smell him; he was holding his scent in.
His voice was gentle, yet sharp and irrefutably stoic.
"Rue," he said. Her name on his tongue was laced with arsenic. "There's been a summons from the Intergalactic Council," he said. "New information has surfaced. You are to be taken into custody."
Valentino snarled. "No."
Altair looked at him then. Not cruel. Not mocking. Just exhausted, a pinch of truth in his brow. His scent flowed now, the caramel was wet. "It's not up to me, Valentino." His exhalation was noisy. "I'm only here because your jets won't shoot me down."
"That's because you should know what I need. What we need."
"This is bigger than us," Altair's eyes seemed to swim. "I-I'm sorry, Rue."
"What?" she whispered, but it came out cracked. What the fuck was he talking about? Altair's gaze didn't shift. It was still on her. Only her.
"You're under arrest."
The words didn't echo. It fucking sank like stones.
Valentino moved too fast, a half-step forward, and he had her behind him, his tails already hissing all protective and primal. "The fuck did you say?"
Rue felt the air seem to freeze, the stillness around them humming like a string about to snap. Her heart kicked against her ribs. She couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Could barely breathe.
The sky above still glowed pink and lavender. The koi swam, unbothered, on the unbroken parts of the falling river. Somewhere, petals drifted gently in a too damn perfect breeze. And she stood as the only Omega in a city that smelled like fantasy.
It had been too good to be true.
Her lips moved. "For what?"
This had Altair's expression twitching, eyes shifting, stilling into stone. "For being an Elder God."
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