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

I fade in and out, caught between burning heat and bone-deep chills. My back feels like someone’s still digging around inside it with a rusty spoon.

Fuck, I hate infections. Give me a clean shot through the shoulder over this shit any day.

Voices drift around me, sometimes clear as a bell, sometimes warped and distant like I’m underwater. Raven’s voice is the most constant. Always there, always talking. To Geo, to Cosima, to people on the radio whose voices I can’t fully make out.

‘…need you to check every outpost between here and the Surhiiran border…’

His voice is sharp. Commanding. Not the flirtatious purr he uses to get his way, but the voice I taught him. The one that makes people listen.

‘I don’t give a fuck if he hasn’t been seen in three months. Find him. The name’s Azarel…’

Always fucking Azarel.

The name sends a spike of something ugly through me, even in my half-conscious state. My mate is looking for another alpha. An alpha who’s useless enough he let her slip through his fingers. And I’m lying here, nearly as useless, while Raven helps her.

Because apparently, alphas aren’t the only ones whose whims he’s powerless against.

Cool fingers brush against my forehead. Too delicate to be Raven’s. Cosima.

‘His fever’s getting worse,’ she says.

‘I know. The doctor said to give the antibiotics time to work.’

‘What if they don’t?’

I hear the concern in her voice and want to laugh. Since when does the ice princess give a shit if I live or die? But her fingers linger on my brow, gentle as a whisper, before they’re gone.

Darkness pulls me under again. I’m sinking, drowning in heat and memory.

Then I’m back at the compound. Back in a time where my world still made sense and I was in absolute control of it.

All but one thing.

‘RAVEN!’

My voice echoes off the metal walls of the hangar as I slam through the door, irritation prickling under my skin. This is the third time this month he’s bailed on a job he was supposed to help coordinate. I’ve got seven crates of weapons sitting on the north perimeter without enough men to move them because half my crew is deployed on other jobs.

Lex stumbles out of a side corridor, buttoning her shirt with one hand, hair sticking up like she just rolled out of bed. She smells like cheap whiskey and an even cheaper female beta. Great. Always good to know where my people’s priorities lie.

‘What’s wrong, boss?’ she asks, clearing her throat.

‘Where the fuck is Raven?’

Lex shifts uncomfortably. ‘Haven’t seen him today.’

‘He was supposed to help manage the Belvast shipment. Now I’m short-handed and the contact is getting pissy about the delay.’

‘You want me to round up some bodies? Mikey and Reese should be back from patrol.’

I wave her off. ‘Find them. And when you see that blond pain in my ass, tell him I want to see him. Now.’

Lex nods and scurries off, probably grateful to escape my mood. I stalk through the compound, checking all of Raven’s usual haunts. Not in the mess hall. Not in the training area. Not flirting with the new recruits like he thinks I don’t notice.

He’s been different lately. More erratic. Disappearing at odd hours. Blowing off responsibilities. It’s not like him, not since the early days when he was still half-petrified and trying to figure out how to exist outside that hellhole of a brothel.

By the time I reach his quarters, my temper’s at a slow boil. If he’s off blowing some guard in a supply closet, I’m going to be pissed for more than one reason.

But no, they all know better than that. I made it crystal clear the day Raven joined up. If any of them so much as touched him, I’d kill them. Made a rather gruesome example of the one guard who tried, just to be sure the message stuck.

It’s not jealousy. It’s protection. Raven came to me broken—trained to obey any alpha command, conditioned to offer his body like it was nothing, unable to tell the difference between desire and coercion. Even years later, I don’t trust him to protect himself.

Not with his… issues.

I pound on his door. ‘Raven! Open up!’

Nothing.

I pound harder, rattling the frame. ‘I know you’re in there! Open the fucking door or I’m breaking it down!’

Still nothing. Concern starts to override anger. Raven’s never silent. Even when he’s pissed at me, he always has some smartass remark ready. The quiet is wrong.

Fuck it.

I drive my shoulder into the door, splintering the lock with a loud crack. The door flies open, and I stumble into the room⁠—

Then freeze.

The scent hits me first. Rich and sweet, like honey warmed in the sun, but with a soft undercurrent that’s unmistakably Raven, but… different. Wrong. Or maybe too right in all the ways it shouldn’t be.

He’s curled up on his bed, which is now framed in thick, dark swatches of fabric hanging from the ceiling, forming a protective tent around the mattress. There are blankets tangled around his legs, golden hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. One of those blankets is mine, but I’m too focused on the state he’s in to process that properly. His chest heaves with each rapid breath, and even from the doorway, I can see the tremor in his hands.

‘Fuck,’ I mutter. ‘Again?’

Blue eyes snap to mine, fever-bright and furious. ‘Get. Out.’ His voice is a ragged hiss.

I should. I know I should. But I can’t make myself move. Can’t drag my eyes away from the flush spreading down his neck, disappearing beneath his half-unbuttoned shirt.

‘What crawled up your ass?’ I ask, trying for normal and failing spectacularly as my voice comes out rough.

Raven’s laugh is bitter, edged with something dangerously close to a sob. ‘This is your fucking fault.’

‘How the hell is it my fault?’ I snap, defensive heat rising in my chest.

‘You won’t touch me,’ he snarls back, struggling to sit up. ‘And you’ve made damn sure no one else will either.’

I grunt, irritation mixing with an unwelcome surge of relief. At least the men are obeying my orders. But looking at him now, sweat-soaked and miserable, clearly suffering, I can’t bring myself to feel good about that.

I hesitate, then take a cautious step toward the bed. Then another.

‘Don’t,’ he warns, but there’s a hitch in his voice that contradicts the command. His tone is dangerously close to a whine. A sound he shouldn’t even be capable of producing.

Sometimes I’m not sure if this is all the result of that dead bitch’s sick conditioning, or if she just exploited what was already there. I’m not sure I want to know. Either way, it’s strange magic capable of exerting a control over me it shouldn’t have.

Every alpha instinct I possess is screaming at me to either flee or claim. The scent pulls at something primal, making my body respond in ways I don’t want to examine too closely.

It’s far from the first time I found him like this. It happened just a few months after I pulled him from that brothel. That first time, I thought he’d somehow gotten into a stash of drugs. Wasn’t until later that I understood what was happening.

Back then, all I felt was confusion. Concern. Uncomfortable, sure, but there wasn’t any pull to his cloying scent. He was too fragile, too vulnerable. All I knew was I had to make sure no one ever took advantage of him in that state again, and being the one to do it was the furthest fucking thing from my mind for a myriad of reasons.

Not the least of all being the fact that I’ve never looked at another man that way. Certainly not another alpha.

Not until…

I don’t even know when it started, really. When these episodes of his started becoming more than just a pain in the ass, because it meant I had to be twice as aggressive about keeping my men from sniffing around him. And alpha or not, he’s pretty enough that I’ve seen curiosity in the eyes of the most unflinchingly straight among them.

Lex is the only one I can trust to enforce my orders when he’s like this, but his episodes freak her out and I don’t trust her to watch him closely enough without taking off.

I wish I had the same trouble.

‘You just had one of these a couple months ago,’ I say warily, keeping my distance. ‘It’s getting more frequent.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’ he snaps, teeth bared. His pupils are blown so wide the blue is just a thin ring around black. He looks feral. Desperate.

I run a hand through my hair, trying to think past the way my skin feels too tight. ‘There has to be something we can do.’

‘Not with you cockblocking me at every turn.’

The thought of any of my men touching him—doing what would need to be done to break this fever—makes something dark and possessive curl in my gut. But he’s right about one thing. He’s suffering, and that’s on me.

‘Can’t you just… go fuck an omega at a brothel or something?’ I ask, the words awkward on my tongue.

Irritation and shame flash across his face. ‘I don’t pay to fuck anyone. And it doesn’t work that way. I’ve tried. It has to be an alpha.’

‘Right,’ I mumble, flinching at the rueful note in his voice.

As uncomfortable as this is for me, it’s worse for him.

I take another step closer, trying to ignore the way my body responds to his scent. This feels so fucked up. He’s like a brother to me. Even if I were willing to confront what being attracted to another alpha—to another man—says about me, there are some lines you just don’t cross.

I have few enough people in my life who matter. I can’t risk this. Can’t risk him.

But looking at him now, trembling with need, skin flushed and eyes desperate, I wonder if I’m protecting him or myself.

‘You should go,’ he says, but his voice has lost its edge. There’s something pleading in it now, and I can’t tell if he’s pleading for me to leave or stay.

I should go. I know I should. But instead, I sit cautiously on the edge of the bed, keeping a careful distance between us. ‘When did it start this time?’

He laughs, the sound half-manic. ‘Last night. Why do you think I missed the fucking shipment?’

Guilt twists in my chest. While I was busy being pissed, he was here, alone, riding out another one of these episodes. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘What would you have done?’ he asks, eyes flashing. ‘Hold my hand? Pat my head? Tell me to take a cold shower?’

‘Well… have you⁠—’

‘Yes, I’ve taken a cold shower!’ he snaps, wincing suddenly as he holds his side like it hurts.

Fuck.

‘I could have—’ What? What could I have done? There’s nothing medical for this. His body is reacting to trauma, to the years of conditioning that brothel forced on him. They turned him into this, and I don’t know how to fix it. ‘I don’t know. Something.’

Raven’s eyes narrow, suddenly sharp despite the fever glazing them. ‘There is something you could do. You could fuck me.’

My heart hammers against my ribs. For a moment, I’m tempted—so fucking tempted—to take what he’s offering.

Then I remember finding him that night, kneeling half-naked and collared at the feet of that alpha. Remember the vacant look in his eyes, the way he responded mechanically to commands. How he looked at me when he came to my room that night, ready for me to use him the way everyone else always had.

I can’t.

‘That’s not going to happen,’ I say, voice rough as gravel.

The pain of rejection flashes across his face before he masks it with a sneer. ‘That’s what I thought. So get out and let me suffer in peace.’

He’s right. Every second I stay makes this worse for both of us. But I can’t make myself walk away from him when he’s like this. ‘There’s got to be someone else. Someone safe.’

‘Like who?’ he spits. ‘One of your goons? The ones who look at me like I’m a piece of meat or a ticking time bomb? The ones who only tolerate me because they’re afraid of what you’ll do to them if they don’t?’

Each word is like a bucket of ice dumped on me. Is that how he sees his place here? As tolerated? As nothing more than an extension of me?

‘That’s not⁠—’

‘It is,’ he cuts me off. ‘You think I don’t hear the shit they say when you’re not around? The things they call me?’

Rage flashes through me, hot and fierce. It’s a welcome departure from all the other emotions I have no fucking clue how to deal with. ‘Who?’ I demand, my voice guttural. ‘I’ll⁠—’

‘You’ll what?’ he interjects bitterly. ‘You’ll cut his tongue out and pin it to the wall to make an example out of him? So they can hate me and still think those things?’

I start to argue, but that was probably going to be my chosen mode of punishment. He knows me. Better than anyone.

Better than I’d like.

‘I don’t give a shit what those animals think,’ he mutters, looking away. ‘That’s not the point. But you… You’ve made sure I’m completely dependent on you. And then you act surprised when I want you.’

I flinch. ‘It’s not like that.’noveldrama

‘No?’ His laugh is bitter. ‘Then what’s it like? Everything I have, I have because of you, Nikolai. You’re my entire fucking world, and I’m just a sliver of yours. I’m not even your sidekick, I’m just a toy you can pick up and put back on a shelf whenever you feel like it. You think that doesn’t fuck with my head?’

The accusation leaves me cold. ‘I was trying to protect you.’

‘From what? Sex? I’ve had plenty. Choice? That might be nice for a change.’

‘You know damn well that’s not what I meant,’ I growl, anger finally cutting through the guilt. ‘You think I don’t see how you freeze when another alpha gives a command? How you’ll do anything, risk anything, the moment someone raises their voice in that tone? You think I don’t know what that means?’

His face goes blank in that way that tells me I’ve hit too close to home. ‘Fuck you.’

‘No, Raven. I’m serious. You’re not in control when you’re like this. You’re not capable of⁠—’

‘Of what? Consent?’ He laughs harshly. ‘Look at me, Nikolai. Look at what I am. Look at what they made me. When are you going to accept that I’m never going to be normal? That you couldn’t fix me?’

‘I’m not trying to fix you,’ I snap, the words tearing from my throat like barbed wire.

Raven launches himself off the bed with a sudden burst of energy I didn’t think he had left. His face contorts with something that looks dangerously close to hatred.

‘Yes, you are!’ he shouts, the sound bouncing off the metal walls of his quarters. ‘You think the same shit the rest of them do. The same shit everyone has always thought my entire life.’ His voice cracks, and I see the first tears start to trickle down his flushed cheeks. ‘That I’m just a broken alpha. A failure. A freak.’

The last word hangs between us, dripping with all the venom and self-loathing he’s been carrying around like a second skin. Those tears… fuck, I can’t handle his tears. Not when they’re my fault.

I’m on my feet before I realize what I’m doing, grabbing his arms to hold him steady. To hold him close. To keep him from falling apart.

‘That’s not true,’ I growl, giving him a slight shake. ‘That’s not what I think. Not what I’ve ever thought.’

He reacts in an instant, like a cornered animal, and shoves me. Hard. Hard enough that I actually stumble back a step, which catches us both off guard. His face instantly transforms from rage to horror.

‘I’m sor⁠—’

I don’t let him finish that apology. I can’t. Something inside me—something I’ve been fighting for years—finally snaps. I surge forward, one hand tangling in that golden hair, the other gripping his hip, and I crush my mouth against his.

Raven goes completely rigid in my arms. For one heart-stopping moment, I think I’ve read everything wrong. That I was right all the years I’ve spent convincing myself if I ever let my guard down around him, if I ever let my control falter, even an inch, I’d be the thing that finally breaks him.

Then, instead, he melts.

His body softens against mine, his lips parting on a broken sound that’s half sob, half moan. His arms snake around my neck, pulling me closer, deeper. The kiss turns desperate, hungry, years of restraint burning away like paper in a wildfire.

I back him against the wall, pinning him there with my body, cursing myself even as I press closer, even as I drink in the taste of him.

‘I never—’ I break the kiss just long enough to grit these words against his lips. ‘I never saw you as any of those things. Never.’

Raven’s eyes are fever-bright as they search my face. His lips are already swollen from my kiss, his chest heaving as he stares up at me.

‘Then what?’ he asks, his voice small, vulnerable in a way Raven never allows himself to be. ‘What am I to you?’

I search his face, all that golden beauty I’ve been denying myself since the day I pulled him out of that hellhole. My teeth clench so hard my jaw aches as I finally admit the truth.

‘A temptation.’

Something flashes in his eyes—shock, hope, hunger—and then he’s kissing me again, fingers digging into my shoulders hard enough to bruise. Any last semblance of control I had shatters. My hands are everywhere, tearing at his clothes, his at mine, desperate to feel skin against skin.

We stumble back toward the bed, a tangle of half-shed clothing and frantic touches. I push him down onto the mattress, following him down, settling between his spread thighs like I’ve dreamed about a thousand times but never allowed myself to want in the waking world.

Raven arches against me, his nails raking down my back through my shirt, more aggressive than I’d ever expected. More demanding. This isn’t the vacant-eyed doll I feared he’d be. This is pure Raven. Willful, fierce, and utterly desperate for me.

I drag his remaining clothes off, my own following in quick succession. His body is a revelation beneath mine, lean muscle and golden skin. I’ve seen him undressed before—it’s impossible not to when you live in each other’s pockets in a war zone—but never like this. Never splayed out beneath me, flushed with want, cock hard and leaking against his toned stomach.

My hand wraps around him, thumb sliding through the generous slick pooling at the tip, and he makes a sound that nearly undoes me on the spot. His hips buck up into my grip, seeking more friction, more pressure, more everything.

‘Please,’ he gasps, the word punching through me. ‘Nikolai, please, I need⁠—’

I capture his mouth again, swallowing his pleas as I work him with steady, firm strokes. He’s leaking more than any alpha I’ve ever seen, almost like an omega in heat, or at least the male version, and I realize this is part of what they did to him. Part of how they broke him. But it’s useful now, letting me slick my fingers before reaching between his legs.

The first press of my finger inside him makes him jerk, a broken cry escaping his lips. I freeze, afraid I’ve hurt him, but he grabs my wrist, pressing my hand closer.

‘Don’t stop,’ he begs, eyes wild. ‘Don’t you fucking dare stop now.’

So I don’t. I work him open carefully, one finger becoming two, watching his face for any sign of discomfort. But there’s only pleasure there, his head thrown back, lips parted, a continuous stream of soft sounds escaping him with each thrust of my fingers.

I curl them, searching, and when I find what I’m looking for, his entire body goes taut as a wire. A strangled cry tears from his throat, his cock pulsing in my grip as I milk him through his release, fucking him with my fingers until he’s trembling, oversensitive, yet still somehow begging for more.

‘Niko, please,’ he whimpers, using a nickname I haven’t heard from him in months, come to think of it. ‘Need you. Inside. Please.’

Those words cut through the haze of lust enough for me to remember. He’s not an omega. He can’t take a knot. I’m not even sure if he can take my cock, not without proper preparation. Not without⁠—

‘Fuck,’ I snarl, looking around frantically. ‘Need lube.’

Raven makes a sound of frustration, trying to pull me back. ‘Don’t care, just⁠—’

‘I’m not fucking hurting you,’ I snap, my voice harsh with the effort of maintaining control. I reach for my discarded coat on the floor, searching the pockets. Thank fuck I actually have a condom in one of the inside pockets, one of the lubricated ones.

‘That fucking coat,’ Raven mutters, and I can hear the eye roll in his voice even as his hands keep trying to pull me back to him.

‘Shut up,’ I growl, tearing the foil packet open with my teeth and rolling it on. The lube isn’t ideal, but it’s better than nothing. I flip him over onto his hands and knees, ignoring his whimper of protest at the delay. ‘This angle will be easier. Trust me.’

He goes quiet at that, the fight draining out of him as he settles into position. His hair spills across the dark sheets like golden silk, and I take a moment to just look at him. I should need to picture an omega right now. A female omega. It would be easy enough from this angle, with all that golden hair.

But I don’t need to.

I don’t want to.

I want Raven. Even if I know everything I’ve fought so hard to build is going to come crashing down after I let myself have him.

I line myself up, one hand gripping his hip, the other guiding my cock. The first push is met with resistance, his body tensing despite his best efforts.

‘Breathe,’ I murmur, leaning over to press my lips to his shoulder blade. ‘Just breathe, little bird.’

The old nickname slips out before I can stop it. His whole body shudders in response, but he relaxes enough that I can press forward, slowly, inch by agonizing inch, until I’m fully seated inside him up to the edge of my knot.

‘Fuck,’ I groan, my forehead dropping to rest between his shoulder blades. ‘Raven…’

‘Move,’ he gasps, pushing back against me. ‘Please.’

So I do. I start slow, careful, but it doesn’t take long for his desperate pleas to drive me faster, harder. My fingers dig into his hips hard enough to bruise as I fuck into him with increasingly reckless abandon. His moans drive me wild, each sound like a direct line to my cock, making me harder, more desperate.

I’m already going to hell for this. For taking the one good, decent, innocent thing I’ve ever done and twisting it into something else.

Might as well go all the way.

I straighten, gripping both his hips now, and withdraw almost completely before driving back in with a force that makes the bed frame creak in protest. Raven’s fingers twist in the sheets, knuckles white, a string of curses and pleas falling from his lips as I set a ruthless pace.

I watch, mesmerized, as my cock disappears into him again and again, the sight making my blood burn hotter. His thighs tremble with the effort of holding himself up, and I run my hands down to feel the quivering muscles, marveling at the strength it must take to endure this without collapsing.

He moans desperately, the sound vibrating through his entire body. I feel it where we’re connected, that pulse of pleasure traveling up my spine like lightning. I drag my nails up his sides, leaving faint red lines in their wake, and he arches further, pressing back into each thrust with desperate need.

I’m close—too close—but I refuse to finish before he comes again. I bend forward again, one arm braced beside his head, the other reaching around to grasp his cock. It pulses in my palm, hot and slick, and I match the rhythm of my hand to the increasingly erratic snap of my hips.

When he comes a second time with a hoarse cry of my name, his body clenching around me, I follow him over the edge. My release hits like a freight train, white-hot energy searing through every nerve ending. I feel the base of my cock swelling, the beginning of a knot that has nowhere to go, but I push anyway, instinct overriding reason.

Raven yelps, his body clenching around the intrusion, and for a moment I think it might work, might actually lock us together.

But he’s not built for it, no matter what that brothel tried to make him into. The angle’s wrong, the physiology all wrong, and after a moment of resistance, the swelling recedes, leaving us both panting.

I pull out carefully, disposing of the condom before collapsing beside him on the sweat-soaked sheets. Neither of us speaks for a long moment, the only sound our ragged breathing gradually returning to normal.

Finally, Raven shifts, turning to face me. His eyes are clear, the fever that had gripped him finally broken. ‘You know what’s fucked up?’ he asks quietly. ‘I think this actually worked.’

I grunt in response, not trusting my voice just yet. My mind is already racing, cataloging all the ways I’ve just irrevocably fucked up everything. All the lines we can never uncross.

Because despite what he thinks, he isn’t just a sliver of my world. He’s more of it than I ever realized until this moment. Until I feel it all starting to crumble around me.

‘Hey.’ His hand on my cheek startles me. ‘Stop it.’

‘Stop what?’

‘The self-flagellation. I can see it in your eyes.’ His thumb traces my cheekbone, a gesture so tender it makes my chest ache. ‘This wasn’t your fault. I wanted it. I’ve always wanted it.’

I grab his wrist, pulling his hand away from my face. Can’t handle that tenderness. Not now. ‘It’s not that simple.’

‘It could be,’ he insists, those blue eyes searching mine. ‘If you’d just⁠—’

‘No,’ I cut him off, my voice harder than I intended. ‘Go to sleep, Raven. Just… go to sleep.’

I can see the argument brewing in those stormy blue eyes, but whether it’s exhaustion from the fever finally receding or the hazy satisfaction of what we just did, he doesn’t fight me on it. For once.

It doesn’t take long for his breathing to fall into the measured rhythm of sleep. He moves closer, burrowing against my chest, and I don’t have the heart to push him away. Not until I’m sure he’s out.

I sit up, running a hand through my hair. The reality of what we’ve just done is setting in already, heavy and inescapable. I’ve done a lot of terrible shit in my life. Killed more men than I can count. Betrayed, stolen, destroyed.

Hell, I walked away from my own blood. Walked away from my father’s empire, determined to build my own even if it cost me my damn life.

But this…

This is the only thing I know I’ll never be able to forgive myself for.