Unhinged Omega: A Dark Reverse Harem Omegaverse Romance (Ghost Alpha Unit Book 4)

My bare feet pound against the frozen earth as I run deeper into the burned-out forest, my lungs burning with each desperate breath. Behind me, the sounds of chaos at the airport grow fainter. Explosions, gunfire, and inhuman roars gradually fading into the distance.

I don’t stop running.

I can’t stop running.

Not until I’m sure I’ve lost them all. Nikolai, his men, the tank, that pretty blond alpha, and…

The Knight.

A shudder runs through me at the memory of those glowing blue eyes, that iron mask, those wicked metal claws. But I push the thought away, focusing only on putting one foot in front of the other.

The thin fabric of my robe snags on blackened branches, tearing further with each step. My feet are raw and bloody from the rough terrain, leaving a trail of crimson footprints in my wake, marking my path. But the pain barely registers through the haze of adrenaline and desperate need to escape.

Finally, when my legs feel like they’re made of lead and jelly at the same time, I spot a massive fallen tree. Its roots have been torn from the earth, creating a natural shelter beneath the twisted tangle of wood and dirt.

Perfect.

I collapse into the hollow space, wedging myself as far back as I can get. My chest heaves as I try to catch my breath, each inhale burning like fire in my throat. I press my forehead against my knees, willing my racing heart to slow.

I made it.

I actually made it.

A hysterical laugh bubbles up from my chest, but I clamp my hand over my mouth to stifle it.

I can’t risk making any noise.

Not yet.

Not until I’m absolutely sure I’m⁠—

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I know that feeling anywhere.

I’m being watched.

Slowly, I lift my head, and my blood turns to ice in my veins.

The Knight.

He looms between the burned trees, the scene straight out of my darkest nightmares. His massive frame heaves slowly with every growling breath, blocking out what little sunlight filters through the dead branches above. He’s bleeding from dozens of wounds, blue-black blood dripping from his arms—metal and otherwise. The iron rods that used to jut out of his upper back are gone, leaving his silhouette more human than before.

He looks like he’s barely standing.

But he isn’t attacking me.

He just stares at me.

Like he’s memorizing every detail of my face.

Like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he blinks.

Slowly, carefully, I crawl out from beneath the roots. My muscles scream in protest as I force myself to stand on trembling legs. The Knight doesn’t move, but a deeper, rattling growl rumbles from his chest. A sound of pain as much as menace.

I take a step backward.

He takes a stumbling step forward.

I take another step back.

He follows, swaying like a tree in a strong wind.

We continue our strange dance through the forest, neither of us looking away from the other. Every few steps, he stumbles, catching himself against charred tree trunks that creak ominously under his weight. The growling never stops, but it’s punctuated by soft, ragged breaths of agony that sound disturbingly human.

The sound of running water reaches my ears. I risk a glance behind me and spot a murky river cutting through the forest, the sloped bank not far from my feet. When I look back, the Knight has stopped moving, watching me with those intense blue eyes. They glow with a dimmer light than usual in the shadows shrouding his face.

Testing a theory, I take two steps to the left and back.

He mirrors me, but slower. Clumsier.

Three steps to the right and back.

Again, he follows, but I can see he’s fading fast.

I edge toward the river, picking my way carefully across the slippery rocks. The murky water is numbingly cold against my feet as I wade into it, but I barely notice. I’m too focused on the massive figure shadowing my movements.

The Knight follows me into the river.

I keep backing up without looking away from him, reaching behind me until I feel the dead, dry grass on the other side of the river. I dig my fingers into the dirt and haul myself up, scooting back up the slope until I’m just out of reach.

My heart pounds in my chest as I watch the Knight lumber after me through the frigid water. His movements are sluggish, uncoordinated. Nothing like the unstoppable force that tore through Nikolai’s men. Blue-black blood mingles with the murky river, swirling around his legs in grotesque patterns.

He’s dying.

The realization hits me. This creature that’s haunted my dreams for as long as I can remember, this demon that’s devoured me countless times in my nightmares…

He’s mortal after all.

The Knight reaches the bank, his massive frame looming over me even though he’s still standing in the river and I’m up on the steep bank. He could easily grab me, and there’s no way I’d be able to move in time. I brace myself for the attack, for those metal claws to tear me limb from limb.

But it doesn’t come.

He just… stands there.

His broad shoulders heave with each ragged breath, the sound rattling in his chest. He’s so weak, he can’t even lift his head to meet my gaze, his hair covering his face as it hangs in limp tangles.

It’s the first time I’ve ever noticed his hair. Beneath the blood and dirt, it’s a stark silver-white.

Vrissian?

The thought catches me off guard. I’ve never considered the Knight might have a nationality, an origin beyond my own fevered imagination. But that hair… it’s unmistakably familiar.

Like mine.

Like my mother’s.

He’s not just mortal.

He’s… human.

Before I can process anything, the Knight lets out a slow, deep breath and collapses forward.

I try to scramble back, but I’m not fast enough. His massive metal arm falls across me, pinning me to the slope. The weight is crushing, driving the air from my lungs in a pained gasp. Panic claws at my throat as I struggle to breathe, to move, to do anything.

But I’m trapped.

Trapped beneath the very monster I’ve spent my entire life running from.

I can’t breathe. The Knight’s massive metal arm crushes down on my chest, pinning me to the muddy slope. Panic claws at my throat as I struggle for air, my lungs burning. This can’t be how it ends. Not after everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve survived.

Gritting my teeth, I force myself to focus. To think. The weight of his arm is immense, but he’s unconscious. Unmoving.

If I can just…

I wiggle my body, inching to the side millimeter by agonizing millimeter. The mud helps, slick and cool against my skin. I feel a rush of air as I manage to slide my torso out from under the crushing metal.

Gasping, I scramble the rest of the way free, my nails digging into the earth as I claw my way up the bank. My heart pounds so hard I feel it in my temples, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I should run. Every instinct screams at me to flee, to put as much distance between myself and this monster as possible.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

Crying changes nothing, mylita, my mother’s voice whispers in my head. But kindness? Kindness changes everything.

‘Fuck,’ I mutter, already turning back.

The fallen Knight lies motionless, half in the river and half on the bank. His legs are submerged in the murky water, the current tugging gently at his massive frame. If it weren’t for the slow rise and fall of his muscled back, I’d think he was dead.

He’s even bigger up close. At least eight feet tall, maybe more, and every inch of him is solid muscle. The plating grafted to his right shoulder and upper back, the foundation for the metal arm that resembles a knight’s armor all the way down to the clawed gauntlet that serves as his hand, gleams dully in the filtered sunlight.

It’s the first time I’ve seen his face, too, visible now that so much of his iron mask has been blown away. I’ve caught glimpses of it in my nightmares, flashes of teeth and exposed muscle, but never like this.

One blue eye is mostly closed, at least as much as it can close with his eyelids so badly damaged, while the other glows faintly through what remains of his iron mask. Like his body, the exposed portions of his face are a roadmap of scars layered upon scars, leaving barely any unmarred skin. But beneath the destruction, I can tell he’s a man.

That’s what shocks me the most.

Only his mouth is truly monstrous. He has no lips or cheeks, only exposed muscle—a dull, grayish purple—and sinew holding his jaws together. His razor-sharp teeth are permanently bared in a terrifying grin like some kind of nightmare beast. I’ve felt those teeth sink into my throat enough times in my dreams to know exactly how lethal they are.

What kind of torture did he endure to become this? What sort of monsters would do this to another living being?

Unconscious and bleeding, he looks less like a demon than before. He looks almost… vulnerable.

The thought is absurd.

This creature has terrorized me my entire life. He’s torn me apart in my nightmares more times than I can count. I should be running as far and as fast as I can.

Instead, I find myself reaching out with trembling fingers. I hesitate, my hand hovering over his blood-drenched hair. His head is warm beneath my palm when I finally make contact. Warmer than it should be even through his hair, like he’s burning with fever.

Why am I touching him?

A low, exhausted growl rumbles in his chest at my touch, but he doesn’t stir as the questions pile up in my mind. Each scar tells a story of unimaginable pain. Surgical scars, burn marks, places where it looks like flesh was simply carved away and replaced with metal. These aren’t all battle injuries.

Someone did this to him on purpose.

‘What did they do to you?’ I whisper, more to myself than to him.

His visible eye flutters beneath its lid, and I snatch my hand back. But he remains unconscious, his breathing labored and shallow. The blue-black blood continues to seep from his wounds, darkening the already murky water around his submerged legs.

I should leave him here. Let the river take him, or wait for exposure and blood loss to finish what Nikolai’s men started.

It would be the smart thing to do.

The safe thing.

But I can’t.

Maybe it’s because I’m tired of running. Maybe it’s because I’m curious about the connection between us. Why he’s haunted my dreams all these years, why he came looking for me.

Or maybe I’m just losing my fucking mind.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

Either way, I need to do something. Fast.

Looking around the desolate forest, I spot patches of scraggly weeds and herbs growing between the charred trees. My mother’s voice echoes in my memory, teaching me which plants can heal and which can harm. It wasn’t proper for an omega of my station to learn such things, but she insisted. Said someday I might need to know.

I never thought that day would come while trying to save the monster from my nightmares.

My bare feet are numb as I pick my way through the underbrush, gathering what I can find. Most of the plants are twisted and mutated from radiation, but I can still make out what they once were. Yarrow for bleeding. Feverfew for his burning skin. Even some wild garlic, though it looks more like tentacles than bulbs now.

The sun sinks lower as I work, and my fingers tremble from the cold as I tear strips from my robe to make bandages. I use the cleanest scraps I can find from his tattered gray pants too, though there isn’t much salvageable material. It’ll have to do. I mash up the herbs with river stones and squash the pulp mixture into the makeshift bandages before packing them into the Knight’s wounds.

Cleaning his wounds isn’t possible here. Not with the only water source being the color of piss. Some of the Knight’s gashes are deep, especially where the metal rods were blown from his back. The herb-treated fabric soaks through almost immediately wherever I stuff it into the wounds, but it’s better than nothing.

He lets out a low growling moan. This has to hurt, but he doesn’t wake up, even as his metal hand twitches and those wicked claws dig furrows in the mud.

‘I’m sorry,’ I mumble to him as I work, meaning it for some reason.

I must be insane.

Absolutely, certifiably insane.

In sleep, his face loses some of its ferocity. The permanent snarl of exposed teeth seems less threatening somehow. More tragic than terrifying. Like everything else about him, it speaks of violation. Of someone or something trying to turn him into a weapon, a monster, by literally tearing away his humanity.

But I’ve seen real monsters.

My father.

Monty.

Alphas who wear pleasant faces.

This creature… for all his terrifying appearance, there’s something almost innocent about him. The way he followed me through the forest, not attacking, just watching me. Like he couldn’t quite believe I was real.

Like he’s been looking for me as long as I’ve been running from him.

‘Why me?’ I murmur, knowing I won’t get an answer. ‘Why have you been hunting me all these years?’

His back rises and falls with each ragged breath, but otherwise, he remains still. The glow from the eye hidden by his mask—it must still be open somehow, maybe because it’s damaged like the rest of him—has dimmed further, barely visible now.

Even unconscious, he radiates heat like a furnace. His skin burns wherever I touch it, fever raging through his massive frame. It’s like being near a campfire. Good for me, I guess, but bad news for him.

I sit back on my heels, surveying my handiwork. The makeshift bandages aren’t a long-term solution, but they might buy him some time. Though for what, I’m not sure. It’s not like I can drag him anywhere. He must weigh as much as a car with his massive height and all that metal grafted to him.

And even if I could move him, where would I take him?

Back to Nikolai’s compound?

Into the wilderness to die slowly instead of quickly?

A distant explosion makes me jump. The sound carries across the water, reminding me that chaos still reigns beyond the forest.

Sooner or later, someone will come looking. Whether it’s Nikolai’s men, that pretty blond alpha and his tank-driving friend, or someone else entirely, I can’t stay here.

But I can’t seem to make myself leave, either.

I press my palm against the Knight’s forehead, or what I can reach of it around the mask. At least his fever seems marginally better after I managed to get some of the feverfew tincture into him, though getting anything past those razor teeth was terrifying. But his breathing has grown more labored, each exhale ending in a wet rattle that can’t be good.

‘Don’t you dare die on me,’ I find myself muttering. ‘Not now. Not when I finally have a chance to understand what’s happening between us.’

He doesn’t respond, of course. But something shifts in his breathing—becomes less ragged, more even.

Like even unconscious, he heard me.

Like he’s trying to do what I ask.

I gather fallen branches and start constructing a crude shrine near us, weaving dried grasses and herbs into a small doll. It’s a poor offering to the moon goddess my mother taught me to pray to, but it’s all I have.

‘Please,’ I murmur in Vrissian, bending toward the doll on my palms and knees and pressing my forehead to the cold earth. ‘Please protect us both. Guide us through this night.’

The words feel strange on my tongue after so long. Father forbade us from practicing our old ways, and the consequences for disobeying him were always dire. But out here, with death breathing down our necks, propriety seems meaningless.

A howl echoes in the distance. Whether from a wolf or something worse, I can’t tell. The Knight’s metal arm twitches at the sound. Even unconscious, he’s ready to fight.

To protect.

The thought startles me.

When the hell did I start thinking of him as a protector rather than a threat?

Another violent shiver racks my body as the last rays of sunlight fade. The moon rises, full and bright, casting everything in silver. Including him. The light catches on his mask, on the metal grafted to his flesh, making him look almost beautiful in a tragic way.

I have no choice. I’m going to freeze to death if I don’t get warm soon.

‘Don’t eat me,’ I mutter as I carefully wedge myself between his massive arm and his fever-hot side. ‘I just got done patching you up. It would be rude.’

His skin burns against mine through what little is left of my robe. This close, I can smell him. Metal and blood and wilderness, like a wounded and armored wolf.noveldrama

And alpha.

It’s strangely familiar, but not in a nightmarish way. I don’t remember catching his scent in my dreams. Then again, they never ended this way. Never ended with me curled up against him.

But as his warmth seeps into my frozen limbs and his massive frame blocks the bitter wind, I feel safe, somehow.

Protected.

Like nothing in this wasteland would dare come near us.

The last thing I notice before I finally succumb to exhaustion is a bright star I’ve never noticed before twinkling in the night sky, outshone only by the silver light of the moon.