The Omega Is The Alpha

Chapter 3

The kiss was an absolute catastrophe.

It was warm, messy, and tasted heavily of top-shelf bourbon, but to Farkas’ wolf, it was the spark that detonated a powder keg. The moment her lips pressed against his, a wave of raw heat surged through his veins, burning away the cold, mechanical efficiency he had spent years perfecting.

He didn't move. He couldn't. His mind, usually a fortress of tactical precision, scrambled to process the simple, terrifying fact that his target, the woman he had been paid three hundred million to put in the ground was currently gripping his jacket like a lifeline.

"Boss?" Hepi’s ghost-voice squawked from near the ceiling, sounding unusually panicked. "Boss, what are we doing? The protocol! The clean entrance! The untraceable heart failure! This is not on the checklist!"

Farkas ignored the spectral voice entirely. His hands, clad in black leather, hovered inches above Yvaine’s waist. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to pull her close, to wrap his arms around her until the rest of the world burned to ash. But the rational, surviving part of him, the part that had survived Conri’s beatings and the underworld’s blade remained paralyzed.

Yvaine pulled back just a fraction, her eyelids heavy, her eyes unfocused as she stared up at him. She didn't look afraid. She looked exhausted, irritable, and thoroughly intoxicated.

"You're not Valir," she grumbled, her small hand slumping down to rest against his broad chest. "Valir smells like cheap cologne and bad decisions. You smell like... grass. And rain."

"Miss Sinclair," Farkas managed to say. His voice was a low and gravelly rasp that sounded foreign even to his own ears. "You shouldn't be touch—"

"Shhhh..." she interrupted, pressing a slender finger directly against his lips. "Don't lecture me. I’ve had the absolute worst day of my life. Zelda stole my supply line in Milan, my ex-boyfriend bought three ad spots right across from my main bakery just to annoy me, and now I'm hallucinating a very handsome, very gloomy intruder in my living room."

"I am not a hallucination," Farkas said stiffly.

"That’s exactly what a hallucination would say," Yvaine replied with absolute, drunken conviction.

She swayed on her feet, her heels catching on the rug. Farkas’ reflexes took over before he could stop himself. His arm shot out, catching her around the waist and pulling her flush against his chest to keep her from tumbling backward.

Yvaine let out a soft, surprised gasp. The contact sent another electric shock through the mate bond, making Farkas’ jaw clench so hard his teeth throbbed. Her body was soft, yielding, and impossibly warm against his rigid frame.

"Oh boy," Hepi murmured, floating down to sit cross-legged on top of a nearby bookshelf. "You're in deep, boss. You're looking at her like she’s the last piece of steak on Earth. Remember, she’s a target! Zelda paid half up front!"

"Who sent you?" Yvaine asked softly, resting her cheek against his chest. She closed her eyes, appearing entirely too comfortable in the grip of an armed break-in artist. "Was it Zelda? Is this a new public relations stunt? Did she send a male stripper to compromise me?"

"I am not a stripper," Farkas growled.

"Pity," she mumbled, her breath warming the skin of his neck where his jacket collar gaped open. "You have the shoulders for it."

Farkas looked down at the top of her head. He could see the dark, glossy shine of her hair, smell the sweet, clean scent of her shampoo mixed with vanilla extract from her bakery. His wolf roared again, clawing at his chest, demanding he take her, mark her, declare her his. The Omega suppressants he had taken for years felt like thin paper against the sudden, monstrous tide of his true Alpha nature.

"You need to sit down," Farkas said, his tone dropping an octave as he fought for control.

"Don't want to sit," Yvaine murmured. She looked up as her storm-gray eyes locking onto his with a sudden, fiery intensity that took his breath away. "I want to forget about spreadsheets. I want to forget about Zelda Valerius. I want to forget that my life is falling apart."

Before he could answer, Yvaine stood on her tiptoes, looped her arms around his neck, and pulled him down into a second kiss.

This one wasn't a drunken mistake. It was demanding, fierce, and full of a quiet, desperate hunger that mirrored the dark void in Farkas’ own chest.

Farkas broke.

The last thread of his professional restraint snapped like dry kindling. His hand tightened on her waist, lifting her slightly off the floor as he kissed her back with a dark, ruthless intensity. He kicked the dropped poison blade under the couch, discarding his mission, his contract, and his sanity in a single heartbeat.

Yvaine let out a breathy sigh against his mouth, her fingers tangling in his dark hair, pulling him closer.

"Bed," she whispered against his lips, her voice trembling slightly. "Take me to the bed."

"Boss!" Hepi squeaked, covering his ghostly eyes with his hands. "This is breach of contract! This is professional misconduct! I don't think the Assassin's Guild has a form for this!"

"I don't care. Do you want to watch?" Farkas said teasingly at his friend ghost.

"No!" Hepi screamed before disappearing into thin air.

On the other hand, Yvaine furrowed to what she heard. "What?" she asked.

Farkas didn't answer. Instead, he swept Yvaine into his arms, carrying her easily down the dimly lit hallway toward the master bedroom, leaving the contract and his dark past behind in the shadows.

The next day, the morning sun filtered through the floor-to-ceiling silk curtains, casting long, golden streaks across the expansive king-sized bed.

Farkas sat on the edge of the mattress, fully clothed in his black pants and a dark t-shirt he had salvaged from his gear. His leather jacket lay folded on a nearby chair. He was staring at his hands, his knuckles tight, his mind a quiet, dangerous storm.

Beside him, buried under the white down duvet, Yvaine shifted softly.

Farkas turned his head slowly as his eyes scanning her face. She was asleep, her dark hair spread wild across the pillows, and her lips were slightly parted. The faint, sweet mark of his scent hovered over her skin—an invisible, possessive seal that only a wolf could recognize.

He hadn't marked her with teeth—she was human, it would terrify her, and he wasn't a monster, but the bond was established. She was his fated mate. And he was the man who had been paid to murder her.

"She’s waking up," Hepi warned, floating near the bedroom door with his arms crossed over his translucent chest. "And might I add, as your spiritual secretary, last night was a logistical nightmare. Zelda’s proxy has already texted your encrypted line twice asking for confirmation of death."

Farkas pulled his phone from his pocket. The screen flashed with an unread message from an anonymous burner number linked to Zelda Valerius: [Is the Sinclair problem solved? Reply with code 0.]

Farkas’ thumb hovered over the screen. He looked back at Yvaine. If he told Zelda the target was alive, Zelda would simply hire another hitman, someone who wouldn't hesitate to slit her throat in her sleep. If he lied and said she was dead, Zelda would find out the truth the moment Yvaine walked into her corporate office tomorrow morning.

"Hmm..."

A soft groan echoed from the bed. Yvaine stirred as her hand reached out blindly across the empty sheets before her eyes slowly fluttered open. She blinked against the morning light, wincing as a hungover headache clearly hit her with full force.

She sat up, clutching the white sheet to her chest, her eyes scanning the room until they landed on the tall, dark-haired man sitting on the edge of her bed.

The silence in the room was deafening.

Yvaine’s face went through three distinct transformations in five seconds: confusion, memory, and then absolute, staggering panic. The color drained from her cheeks as the events of the previous night flooded back into her mind.

"You..." Yvaine’s voice was raspy, stripped of its drunken warmth. She pulled the sheet tighter around herself, backing up against the upholstered headboard. "You're... you were actually here."

"I was," Farkas said quietly. He didn't move toward her, keeping his distance to avoid scaring her further.

"I thought... I thought you were a dream," Yvaine stammered, her breath coming in short, panicked hitches. "A bourbon-induced hallucination." She looked down at the rumpled sheets, then back at him, her smart, analytical mind rapidly piecing together the sheer absurdity of the situation. "Oh my god. I slept with a stranger who broke into my penthouse."

"You kissed me first," Farkas pointed out, his tone utterly flat. "And invited me to... to your bed."

"I... I was drunk!" Yvaine snapped, her grumpy, defensive corporate persona slamming back into place like a steel wall. "You were an intruder in my home! Why were you in my living room at one in the morning?!"

Farkas stood up slowly. His massive frame dominated the room, his shadow falling over the bed. Yvaine tensed, her hand quietly reaching toward the nightstand where her phone sat.

"Don't touch the phone," Farkas said softly.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't call the police right now," Yvaine demanded, her chin lifting defiantly despite the slight tremble in her voice. "You trespassed. You took advantage of me—"

"I saved your life," Farkas interrupted.

Yvaine paused, her hand hovering inches from the wooden nightstand. She let out a harsh, skeptical laugh. "You saved my life? By breaking into my apartment?"

"By dropping the knife," Farkas said coldly.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out the sleek, black-handled blade he had retrieved from under the couch earlier, and tossed it onto the mattress. It landed with a heavy, ominous thud against the white linen.

Yvaine looked at the blade, then up at his deadpan expression. The reality of the situation hit her like a bucket of ice water.

"Who are you?" she whispered, the anger draining from her voice, replaced by raw apprehension.

"My name is Farkas," he replied. "And someone paid me three hundred million to make sure you didn't wake up this morning."

Yvaine stared at him, her heart hammering against her ribs. She swallowed hard, her eyes flicking between the lethal weapon on her bed and the dark, imposing man standing before her.

"Who?" she managed to ask, her voice barely a breath. "Who hired you?"

Before Farkas could answer, the heavy silence of the bedroom was shattered by the sharp, jarring chime of his encrypted phone ringing in his hand.

Farkas glanced at the screen.

It wasn't Zelda.

It was Conri.

Farkas slid his thumb across the screen and brought the phone to his ear, keeping his eyes locked on Yvaine.

"Speak," Farkas said, keeping his voice low and monotone.

"Where the hell are you, Omega?" Conri’s arrogant, booming voice barked through the speaker, loud enough for Yvaine to hear the muffled noise. "You were supposed to be cleaning the training grounds three hours ago. The Beta squad is back, and if this place isn't spotless in twenty minutes, I’m going to personally break your collarbone."

Farkas didn't break eye contact with Yvaine. "I'm delayed."

"I don't give a damn about your delays!" Conri snarled. "Zelda just called me screaming! The hit failed! Her tracking team will do it themselves!"

Farkas’s eyes narrowed slightly. "A tracking team?"

"Yeah, you useless mutt," Conri sneered over the line. "Zelda didn't trust your proxy, so she sent her own secondary team to secure the perimeter. They're going up the elevator right now to finish the job themselves. And if they fail because of your incompetence, I’ll skin you alive!"

The call disconnected with a sharp beep.

Farkas slowly lowered the phone.

Outside the bedroom door, deep within the hallway of the penthouse, the distinct, metallic click of the front door’s lock being picked echoed through the apartment.

Yvaine froze as her eyes widened in horror. There were heavy, suppressed footsteps began moving quickly toward the bedroom.

Farkas reached down, grabbed the knife off the bed, and stepped in front of Yvaine, turning his back to her as his eyes began to bleed into a lethal, glowing gold.

"Stay behind me," he growled.