Chapter 65 I SEE RED
ALISANDER'S POV
For a moment, it looks like she might attack.
Then she laughs another sharp and bitter laughter.
“We’ll see,” she says. “I’ll hold you to your promise.”
She turns and walks to the door, stopping only once to glance back at me with eyes still burning with hostility towards me
“This ends one way or another Omega,” she says. “Don’t forget that.”
Then she leaves.
And slams the door shut behind her.
The silence that follows is heavy but much appreciated.
Sebastian slumps inward with exhaustion crashing over him all at once.
This lazy wolf. I'm the one that faced Ava and he's the one who's tired?
“Alisander…” he whispers. “What did you just do?”
I finally let myself breathe.
“I protected us,” I answered him quietly.
And deep down, where the chains around my soul groan faintly under strain, I know that I just signed myself up for more troubles.
The door slams shut behind her.
The sound echoes far too loudly in the sudden quiet, like a final judgment sealing itself into the walls.
For a heartbeat, I remain standing exactly where I am with my shoulders still squared and my spine straight.
The power in the command is still humming faintly beneath my skin like dying embers refusing to cool inside of me.
Then the room exhales and frees its tension, and so do I.
Inside our shared mind,
“What did you just do?”
Sebastian’s voice isn’t loud.
And that’s what makes this worse.
It’s tight and controlled.
I'm used to seeing Sebastian lashing out to me and asking me questions but now it's tight clipped and shaking.
Shaking in a way that tells me he’s trying very hard not to panic and jump into conclusions.
“Alisander,” he presses on as fear starts bleeding through now, “what was that?”
I roll my shoulders, already dismissing his concerns without thinking about it.
“I was merely handling a nuisance.”
“That wasn’t handling!” He snaps back. “You made her kneel. You used a command–”
“A fragment of one,” I cut in smoothly. “Barely worth mentioning or remembering so let it go.”
Silence.
Then,
“You scared me.”
The words hit harder at me than Ava’s threat ever could.
I clench my jaw as irritation starts flaring hot and sharp, not at him but at the weakness creeping up my spine.
I feel irritation at the way my chest feels too tight and too full because of a mere Beta.
“You were about to kill her,” Sebastian continues, his voice trembling now despite his effort to steady it. “I felt it. You wanted to.”
I scoff, turning toward the window as if the night outside might be more cooperative than my own conscience. “She threatened your life. I responded proportionately.”
I might have a trauma for women threatening my life due to actions that are not my own.
“That wasn’t proportionate!” His thoughts slam into mine. “That was… that was terrifying. You’re hiding things from me.”
I bare my teeth in frustration though there’s no one here to see it.
“I am merely protecting you.”
“By becoming something worse?” he fires back at me immediately.
The question lodges itself deep in me
I open my mouth to answer, to deflect and maybe belittle the concern he is feeling.
But I feel something coming up my throat.
It happens all fast and sudden, like a blade to my guts turning inward.
I suck in a breath to stop it and end up choking.
My hand flies to my mouth as a violent cough rips out of my chest.
The sound from my cough is harsh and wrong at the same time, tearing through the silence in the room.
Pain lances up from my sternum as air is stolen from my lungs.
“What–?” Sebastian gasps inside our head.
I stagger forward for half a step, bracing myself against the edge of the table with my hand as another cough follows.
I'm over my mouth as the cough wrecks through me.
It's wet.
It's too wet.
I pull my hand away slowly as I see red.
Bright, unmistakable crimson color stains my palm.
For a second, I just stare at it.
Am I dying again?
The world tilts around me but it's not dramatic or anything, it's not enough to knock me down–but it's enough to remind me brutally, that I am now an Omega not a reckless Alpha.
Not anymore was I an Alpha.
That the hint of my power taken from a past life does not come free when forced through a weak vessel like that of an Omegas.
“Alisander,” Sebastian’s voice fractures completely now. “You’re bleeding. Why are you bleeding?!”
I swallow and force it all in and it burns all the way down.
‘Side effect,” I mutter to him, wiping my hand roughly against my sleeve. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with Bastian.”
“Don’t lie to me!” he shouts as panic starts flooding our shared space. “You promised–”
Another cough from me cuts him off.
There's more blood from me.
This time it splatters against the floor and splashes everywhere.
My knees finally weaken for just a fraction and I grit my teeth hard enough that my jaw aches as I force myself upright again.
Oh damn it.
That damned goddess warned me of the consequences if I tried to use my powers.
Yet here I am, forcing old power through regardless of the consequences.
“You’re hurting,” Sebastian whispers in our head as devastation threads his every word. “You’re hurting because of me.”
That–
That nearly breaks me.
I press a fist to my chest trying to breath carefully now and force the pain down where it belongs.
“No,” I say to him firmly. “This is not on you.”
“Then tell me the truth,” he pleads. “All of it. Why are you bleeding, what you used on Beta Ava and what it’s costing you.”
I close my eyes.
For the first time since I woke in this cursed, fragile body,
I don’t have an answer ready for Sebastian.
Plus, the blood at my feet is still warm.