Obsidian Heat

Chapter Six

Once in Jonah's bathroom, Isme slumped to his butt on the cool black and white tile and fished his small Swiss army knife from his pocket, flipping out the biggest blade. Classical music blared from the next room, tugging loose a smile from his lips, as Jonah cranked it up steadily louder. He could hear Jonah stomping around in the background, dishes slammed on kitchen counters. He just wanted that smell to go away. Then he could get back to his normal life. Get away from this intoxicating omega, this strange half-life.

He began, mindlessly, cutting, small blade under skin, seeking that haze of release he usually felt when he did this for long. But it was different, now that someone knew. Now that someone was watching. His breath hitched. The knife went deeper. The high of it stole his breath. Blood dripped on the tile. Shit. "Jonah?" he called, and the knife clattered to the floor. He felt woozy, like he was going to pass out. Jonah was at the door in seconds. He hadn't bothered to lock it this time; what was the point when Jonah wasn't going to stop him?

The bigger man jerked his wrist toward him and he rose to a standing position with the force of gravity. Dazed and wobbly on his feet, he slumped into Jonah's broad chest. "Shit. I'm going to need to stitch you up," Jonah murmured, his fingers prodding Isme's bloody arm.

"No hospital," he slurred. Blood started soaking through Jonah's shirt. "Too many questions."

"I can do it. Military, remember?" Jonah grunted. He went for his first aid kit again as Isme struggled to keep his eyes open. Jonah ran his wrist under the cold water from the faucet but like Jonah had already assessed, the bleeding didn't stop. Jonah wiped the skin with alcohol wipes next and prepared the needle with the sutures. "This is going to sting, okay?"

Isme laughed, then, a small, humorless sound. Jonah held him upright and prepared the suture. Barely noticing the prick in his skin, Isme let his eyes close as Jonah worked the stitches. It took three of them. He added a bandage and touched the puckered skin. Isme finally opened his eyes. His temperature shot up under Jonah's gentle caress; he gritted his teeth against the lightheadedness. "I feel ill," he drawled.

"Stay with me, alpha." Jonah swore under his breath as he cleaned off Isme's arm and the blood off his bathroom floor. "Why do you do this to yourself?"

"I have to make it stop." Isme breathed raggedly.

The omega nodded, then, and didn't ask what the "it" was. Maybe he understood. "When I was 11," he said, instead of asking more questions. "Arden took me for his mate. He was a general, back then. Maybe still is. He took me to the front, but he said I wasn't to fight. I begged him every chance I could. Fighting was better than the alternative."

"I don't know if I can stay awake," slurred Isme. "What was the alternative?"

"He raped me, every night," Jonah murmured, tangling his fingers through Isme's hair in that soothing, massaging motion that made him purr. This time, though, Isme couldn't take pleasure in the touch. "He was testing some new drug on me for omega pain tolerance. Every morning, I got an injection. I never knew what it was. I couldn't leave."

"That's awful," Isme mumbled.

"Some mornings I woke up in bloody sheets," Jonah said. "Then a whole day with nothing to do but go on the computer or read. Then the horrors at night. While the shells blasted outside. So I get it, alpha. I get why you want it to stop. More than you know."

Isme blinked away tears and sagged against him. "Thank you, Jonah."

"For what?"

"Sharing with me," said Isme. "I don't imagine you share that with many people."