The Wolf, the Demon, and Their Omega

Chapter Eight

SASHA

The call comes at 3 AM. My father doesn't believe in time zones or human sleep cycles.

"You marked an omega."

I sit up careful, trying not to wake Mina where she's curled between Kenji and me. Her skin runs cold even pressed against demon heat. Snake-blooded. Still a revelation every time I touch her.

"News travels fast."

"Everything travels fast when you pay for it." His Russian accent thickens with anger. "Sixteen hours. That's how long you kept this from me."

I move to the living room, bare feet silent on marble that cost more than most people's lives. Through floor-to-ceiling windows, the city spreads below like a circuit board. All those lights hiding monsters.

"There was nothing to tell."

"Liar." The word hits like a fist. "My people say you claimed her. You and three others."

"Your people see what they want to see."

"They see my heir playing games with pack law. Making us look weak."

Weak. Everything comes back to that with Ivan Volkov. Show weakness, get eaten. The family motto, carved in scar tissue across my back from lessons learned young.

"I'm handling it."

"Like you handled Viktor?"

The name slides between my ribs like a blade designed for exactly that space. Three years and it still bleeds fresh.

"Viktor chose vampires over pack."

"Viktor disappeared because you couldn't hold the territory I gave you."

Territory. Like my brother was real estate instead of blood. But that's the Volkov way—everything is currency, especially family.

"Was there a point to this call?"

"The Marborne family made an offer. Eight figures for exclusive rights to your omega."

"She's not for sale."

"Everything's for sale at the right price." Ice clinks in his glass. Vodka, probably. The breakfast of bratva kings. "Even Bolkonsky princes."

The threat hangs between us like a noose waiting for a neck. My mother's family name in his mouth always sounds like profanity.

"Grandfather's lawyers would disagree."

"Your grandfather's dead. Has been for five years. His protection died with him."

"His will didn't."

The Bolkonsky inheritance—billions in assets, hundreds of miles of Siberian territory, and enough old blood political weight to make even Ivan Volkov careful. All mine as long as I keep the name, keep the bloodline pure, keep playing prince to two kingdoms.

"Your mother knew what she was doing." Hatred bleeds through satellite connection. "Whoring herself to that old man for his name."

"Careful."

"Or what? You'll fly to Moscow and challenge me? Bring your mongrel pack?"

My wolf rises, wants blood for the insult. I breathe through it. Control is just rage on a leash, and I've got the best leashes money can't buy.

"The omega stays with me. Non-negotiable."

"Everything's negotiable. Even Bolkonsky land rights."

"You threatening to contest the will?"

"I'm suggesting you remember which family keeps you breathing." His voice drops to subzero. "The Bolkonskys are extinct except for you. The Volkovs are legion. Choose wisely."

The line goes dead. I stand there holding expensive silence, tasting threat and promise mixed with morning air.

"Your father sounds charming."

Adrian materializes from shadow because vampires don't believe in privacy. He's wearing silk pajama pants and nothing else, looking like temptation's rough draft.

"Family politics."

"Ah." He settles on the couch like liquid sin. "The kind that ends in shallow graves?"

"The only kind worth having."

I pour vodka from the bottle we keep for emergencies and visiting Russians. The burn helps settle my wolf, gives it something else to hate.

"He wants to sell her."

"Of course he does. Ivan Volkov would sell his own fangs if the price was right." Adrian accepts the glass I offer. "Question is, what will you do about it?"

"What I always do. Play both sides until I find an angle."

"The Bolkonsky name won't protect you forever."

"It doesn't need to. Just long enough."

"For what?"

I think about Mina sleeping in our bed. About hidden, ancient magic screaming NO when we tried to scry her father's blood. About bonds that shouldn't exist but do.

"To find out what she really is. Why she matters."

"Maybe she just matters because she's ours."

"Nothing's ever that simple. Not at Blood Moon."

Adrian raises his glass in mock toast. "To complicated women and the idiots who claim them."

We drink. The vodka tastes like home and hate, which are basically the same thing in Russian.

---

Morning comes brutal. Mina's already in the shower when my phone starts its daily assault. Fourteen messages from pack lieutenants. Six from Bolkonsky estate lawyers. One from Natasha that just says "Your father knows."

I dress in armor—Blood Moon blazer sharp enough to cut, shoes that sound like money when I walk. The Bolkonsky signet ring on my right hand, the Volkov tattoo hidden beneath expensive cotton. Two faces, two names, two ways to die badly.

"Problems?"

Kenji lounges in my doorway eating toast like he owns the place. Which technically he does—the pack house is shared territory.

"The usual. Father wants to auction Mina. Lawyers want signatures. Everyone wants pieces of me."

"Join the club." He watches me knot my tie with eyes that burn brighter than they should this early. "My uncle's been calling. The Fukiyama clan has opinions about shifters of questionable origins."

"Let me guess. They're against them."

"They're against anything that can't be controlled with fire." His smile could melt steel. "Good thing I've always been the family disappointment."

Lysander appears between us because fae don't use doors when teleporting is an option. Today his uniform looks like it was cut from midnight and deals with demonic tailors.

"My mother sends regards."

"That sounds ominous."

"Everything about the Seelie Court is ominous. But specifically, she's interested in meeting your omega."

"Our omega."

"Yes, that's what has her fascinated. Shared bonds. Impossible magic." He tilts his head like reality's whispering secrets. "She thinks Mina might be the key to something old."

"How old?"

"Before the Accords. Before the Veil. Before humans forgot they were prey."

The bathroom door opens. Mina emerges in clouds of steam and nothing else, then freezes when she sees all three of us.

"Morning show?"

"Strategy meeting." I try not to stare at water droplets racing down her neck to her collarbone. Fail spectacularly. "Get dressed. We have research to do."

She doesn't move to cover herself. If anything, she straightens, all that snake confidence on display.

"Research into what?"

"You." Lysander hands her a towel without looking away. "Specifically, your father's bloodline."

Something flickers across her face. Gone before I can name it.

"He was... wasn't he..."

"No." I move closer, watch her pupils dilate. "He was something that wanted to pass for human. Big difference."

She wraps a towel tighter around herself finally, but the damage is done. My wolf wants to lick every drop of water off her skin. Wants to mark her again where everyone can see.

"And you think you can find out what?"

"The truth." Adrian joins us because apparently we're having a pack meeting in my bedroom doorway. "About why dragon magic protects his identity even in death."

"Dragons are extinct."

"So are Bolkonsky princes." I let her see my teeth. "Yet here I stand."

She stares at me. Processing. I watch her catalog the name, file it under things that don't fit.

"You're not a Volkov?"

"I'm both." The words taste like broken glass. "Volkov blood, Bolkonsky name. My grandfather's price for his empire."

"Why?"

"Because the last Bolkonsky male heir died without issue. The name would have ended. But Grandfather had a daughter who married beneath her station." I shrug like it doesn't matter. Like I haven't spent my whole life caught between two legacies. "My mother. Who married Ivan Volkov for love and regretted it for the rest of her short life."

"Short?"

"Siberian wolves who marry outside the pack rarely see forty. Stress, they said. But stress doesn't usually come with claw marks."

The silence that follows has teeth. Mina reaches for me, then stops. We're not there yet. Not in daylight. Not without the others.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. She got what she wanted—a son with the Bolkonsky name to inherit what her father built. And I got what I needed—enough power to survive the Volkovs."

"Until now."

"Until you." I meet her eyes. "You're complicating things."

"Good."

Kenji laughs. "God, I love complicated women. They make better explosions."

We migrate to the dining room where breakfast waits. Rich people magic—food appears when needed, disappears when done. I've never asked who handles it. Some questions make you complicit.

"So." Mina sits between Adrian and me, casual as breathing. "How do we research bloodlines that don't want to be found?"

"Carefully." Lysander spreads papers across the table. "I've been looking into Chen as a surname. It's common, obviously. But Chen with connections to dragon magic? That narrows things."

"What did you find?"

"Gaps. Historical records that skip. Genealogies that end abruptly. Fires that destroyed exactly the right documents." He slides a photograph across the table. "But I found this."

Black and white. Old enough that the edges crumble. A group of people in formal dress, standing before what looks like a courthouse.

"Siberian Trade Alliance, 1892." Lysander points to a woman in the back row. "Anastasia Bolkonsky. Your great-great-grandmother."

I've seen her portraits. Ice-blonde like all Bolkonsky women, built to survive winters that kill the weak.

"So?"

"So look at the man beside her."

Asian features. Careful posture. Something about his eyes that makes my wolf nervous even through a century-old photograph.

"Chen Li Shen." Lysander's smile could cut glass. "Listed as a trade representative from Hong Kong. But here's where it gets interesting—he doesn't exist before this photo. Or after."

"Timeline?"

"Three months in Siberia. Long enough to negotiate treaties that gave the Bolkonskys exclusive trading rights through Hong Kong for fifty years." He produces another document. "Long enough for Anastasia to have a daughter who wasn't her husband's."

The room goes still.

"You're saying—"

"I'm saying your great-great-grandmother had an affair with someone named Chen who could negotiate impossible treaties and then vanish like smoke." Lysander leans back. "Someone whose descendants might carry interesting genetics."

I stare at the photo. Study my ancestor's face, the careful distance between her and Chen that screams intimacy to anyone who knows how to look.

"Mina's father was Marcus Chen."

"Could be coincidence."

"Nothing's coincidence." I turn to Mina. "Your father's middle name?"

She's gone pale under brown skin. "Li."

"Full name?"

"Marcus Li Chen." Her voice comes out strangled. "He said it was his grandfather's name. That he was honoring—"

She stops. We all see it hit her.

"Chen Li Shen." She grabs the photo, studies it with desperate intensity. "This could be him. My father's grandfather."

"Or great-grandfather. Dragons live long when they choose to."

"But that would make us—"

"Distant cousins." I finish. "Connected by blood so diluted it barely counts."

"But connected." Adrian drums his fingers on crystal. "Which might explain why the bonds took so easily. Blood calling to blood."

"That's insane."

"That's dragon logic." Kenji grins. "They're all about bloodlines and destiny and s**t that makes the rest of us look like mayflies."

My phone buzzes. Natasha again: "Uncle is on the move. Pack meeting in an hour. Be there or be hunted."

I show the others. Watch them process what this means.

"He's calling you out?"

"He's reminding me who holds the leash." I stand, already calculating moves and countermoves. "Mina stays here. The building's warded, and—"

"Like hell."

She's on her feet, snake-fast and twice as dangerous.

"I'm not hiding while you play politics with people who want to sell me."

"This isn't a game. Pack meetings end in blood more often than not."

"Then I'll bring bandages."

"Mina—"

"No." She moves into my space, and I smell petrichor and promise. "We're pack. You said so. Pack faces threats together."

"This isn't your fight."

"Everything's my fight now." She touches the spot where my bite mark healed. "You made sure of that."

The others watch us circle each other. Apex predators negotiating territory.

"If you come, you follow my lead. No exceptions."

"If I come, I watch your back. No negotiations."

"Stubborn."

"Says the man named for two different dynasties."

"That's different—"

She kisses me. Shuts me up with lips that taste like rain and rebellion. My wolf howls approval, wants to bend her over the table and show everyone exactly who belongs to who.

When she pulls back, we're both breathing hard.

"Still think I should stay home?"

"I think you're going to get us all killed."

"Maybe." She grins, and I see the predator beneath the skin. "But what a way to go."

Kenji applauds. Adrian pours more coffee. Lysander starts humming something that makes reality nervous.

And I stand there tasting tomorrow's disasters on today's lips, wondering when exactly I stopped caring about survival more than I care about her.

My phone rings. Father again.

This time, I don't answer.

Let him wonder. Let him worry. Let him remember that Bolkonsky princes have survived worse than Volkov wolves.