Page 9 of Bubblegum Pop

At first, I couldn’t understand what I was looking at. Every single person in the room was staring at Odin in shock.

I could hear shouting, feel Apollo’s anguish as he dropped to his knees, and I was aware that people were running around me, but none of it mattered.

Because the chair leg… The fucking chair leg…

Blood poured down the right side of Odin’s face. His body twitched, mouth flapping, gasping for breath.

And the chair leg was sticking straight up out of my brother’s skull.

One breath was all it took, and the world burst around me. Everything vanished as my true alpha unleashed. The primal force that lived inside me was hellbent on destroying whoever harmed my pack.

Everything was tinged red. My mind blown, body shaking, all I was was speed, strength, and pure fucking rage as I flew to my feet. There was no thinking, no considering what was happening. I couldn’t even feel Apollo and Odin through the bond.

My pain was so harsh and desperate that there wasn’t a single moment of hesitation as I jumped forward and grabbed an empty pint glass next to Apollo. Like lightning, I lifted it, and with a crunch, I slammed it straight into Stan’s face—into the face of the alpha who had driven a chair leg through my brother’s eye.

Screams erupted from Stan, but it only made me press harder. I couldn’t feel anything of my shredded palm as I pushed shards of glass deeper into his mouth, shredding his cheeks and eyes. There was just the deafening agony of Odin’s wound reverberating through my skull, along with Apollo’s broken arm.

Stan’s blood slashed across my face, and the alpha in me surged.

Barton and Pud were already gunning for me, but it was nothing.

In a rogue state, there was no empathy, only the need to kill.

I reached behind the bar, grabbing a bottle of vodka, bringing it straight down onto Barton’s head in one smooth arch. There was a loud thud and a crack, and my alpha instincts rumbled in approval. A quick thrust into his neck with all my strength and his spine snapped, the shithead crumpling out of sight.

Pud only had time to flinch before I smashed the bottle on the bar top. The harsh tang of vodka filled my lungs, exactly like the sharp bite of my brother’s scent, without his tang of lemon.

Pud had no chance. I thrust my arm out, the thick glass of the bottle embedding deep into his throat.

I could hear the chaos around me, see Apollo bent over Odin, rocking, crying, shaking as he clutched his phone to his ear.

I needed revenge. The chair leg stuck straight up out of Odin’s skull and, even though there was a brief rise and fall of his chest, I was already gone. There was no saving me. Rogue alphas could only be stopped two ways, and we didn’t have an omega to keep us steady.

I never thought I would go rogue. Apollo and Odin kept me grounded when shit went down with us.

There were special prisons for alphas who went rogue. One incident, and you were thrown in for a year, no questions asked.

Still holding the bottle, I pushed harder, getting straight into Pud’s throat, swiping my arm right, ripping through his flesh. All that muscle didn’t help him in the end. He choked before his body slackened and he went down.

I shot around to face the bar, and my first opponent.

One more left.

Stan had fallen against the bar top, his mouth open in pain, tearing his fingers up as he pulled out the larger shards of the pint glass embedded in his ugly face. The beta bartender behind him tried to help, but she stumbled backwards, shaking in fear as I approached. “Move,” I snarled the warning at her, not recognising my own voice.

I wanted to go slow, make it hurt, but there was no space when the red rage took over.

Lifting my shattered bottle, I jumped at Stan, knocking him to the ground. One stab in the stomach, and his body jolted. Another stab to his chest, then I pressed my knee on his ribs, cracking them. His fear was useless as I raised the bottle above my head, clutching it between two hands as I drove the jagged edges straight through his skull, exactly as he did to Odin. The thud of the glass on the bar floor that knocked through my arms as his skull cracked under me was the most satisfying thing I had heard since the last time I had made Apollo come.

I coughed as I hauled myself up. Breaths short, heart beats erratic, I wheezed as my gaze darted around the room. I needed them; I needed Odin, but there was a gaping hole where my brother should be. Like he’d cleaved, forced himself to separate from the pack bond.

That should have been it. I should have stopped, but my mind was already broken. I had to destroy everything in my path to get to my mate and my brother.

I couldn’t see Odin’s body through the red haze, and my alpha brain knew he was dead.

My legs trembled as I stood, my wild racing blood suffocating me. There was a shout from Apollo. As I turned, I met his horror-filled stare. Another bulked-up alpha grabbed him around the waist, dragging him away from Odin. Apollo kicked out, elbowing backwards, punching, scratching, doing whatever he could to tear free. Another roar burst out of me as I leapt towards him.

They couldn’t hurt him. They couldn’t hurt my mate.