The Captured Omega's Savior

Chapter Seven

WINTER

Darkness swallows the hall like a living thing. That roar—neither human nor wolf nor anything that belongs in a sane world—rattles the windows in their frames. David's hand clamps around my wrist. Bone grinds against bone. His palm slick with sweat, fingers digging deep enough to leave purple bruises.

"Move."

He yanks me through the chaos. Bodies crash together, blind and panicking. Someone screams high and terrified. Crystal shatters—probably the chandelier Judson installed for Susan's birthday. The emergency lights kick in, washing everything in bloody red. David shoulders through the crowd, using my body as a battering ram when people don't move fast enough.

I try to wrench free. Plant my feet. His fingers dig deeper, and I feel something in my wrist shift wrong.

"None of that." His breath burns against my ear, whiskey-sour and excited. A drop of his saliva hits my neck. "We have business to finish."

The hallway beyond the main hall stretches empty and too quiet. Our footsteps echo on hardwood that Susan polished yesterday. David knows exactly where he's going—third door on the left, brass key already in his thick fingers. The lock clicks open. He shoves me inside hard enough that I stumble, catch myself on the wall.

The room reeks of preparation and something else. Something chemical. Latex. Antiseptic. A bed dominates the center, leather restraints already attached to the frame. Medical supplies spread across the dresser—syringes, vials, instruments I don't recognize. Camera equipment hulks in the corner, red recording lights already blinking.

My stomach turns liquid. Bile burns the back of my throat.

"Cozy, right?" David pockets the key with practiced ease. The sound of metal on metal seems too loud. "Had it set up special. The buyers like documentation. Proof of product quality."

Red emergency lighting bleeds through damask curtains. Screams filter through the walls—raw, animal sounds. Gunfire pops in rapid succession. Something heavy hits a wall hard enough to shake the floor. Plaster dust drifts from the ceiling like snow.

David doesn't even glance toward the noise. His eyes stay locked on me, pupil-black with anticipation. "Let them sort that out. Nothing changes what happens here."

"You're insane. There's an attack—"

"There's an opportunity." He pulls out a knife. I recognize it immediately. His favorite. The blade he used to carve his initials into Mikey Hendricks' shoulder last week while the boy screamed. Into Maria Santos' thigh the week before while her children watched. The handle worn smooth from use. "See, chaos works in our favor. Magnus handles whatever's happening out there. I handle you in here. By the time anyone thinks to check, you'll be marked and mine."

The blade catches red light, throws it back doubled. My spine presses against wallpaper that feels like sandpaper through silk. "Here's how this works. I bite you—just enough to establish a claim. Nothing permanent. The beauty is, the buyers have ways to break mate bonds now. Chemical dissolution. Takes about a week, leaves the omega fresh for a new mark. Clean slate."

"Magnus said—"

"Magnus says lots of things. But money talks louder." David steps closer. I smell his cologne—something expensive trying to cover the stink of arousal and violence. "The network pays three million for an omega with your specs. Young, strong, virgin. The fae blood? That triples the price. Fifteen million, Winter. You're worth fifteen million dollars on the international market."

Another crash shakes the house. More screams—different now. Rage mixing with fear. The sound of wood splintering. David's jaw muscle jumps but his focus never wavers.

"But first, we need to make it legal. Pack law says a claimed omega belongs to her alpha. No questions asked. So I mark you tonight, file the paperwork tomorrow, and by next week you're on a plane to very selective buyers who collect rare things." His tongue flicks across his lower lip. "They'll love that hair. Those eyes. That impossibly sweet scent that's getting stronger every hour."

"Susan—"

"Will be handled if she causes problems. Your friend Beth too. Actually..." His smile shifts into something thoughtful and horrible. "Beth might fetch a decent price herself. Virgin beta, good bloodline. Pretty enough. Maybe I'll throw her in as a bonus. Two for one deal."

The suppressant syringe presses against my ribs through its hidden pocket. Military grade poison meant to kill my wolf if capture seemed certain. But David's all wolf. All arrogance. All assumption that I'll fold like every other woman he's broken under his hands.

"On the bed." He gestures with the knife, casual as pointing out furniture. "We can do this easy or hard. Easy means you cooperate, I'm gentle, everyone you care about stays breathing. Hard means I take what I want anyway, and Susan finds out what her intestines look like. While she's still alive to watch them spill."

Gunfire rattles closer. Automatic weapons now. Someone screams—not fear this time. Battle rage that makes my bones ache with recognition. David's jaw tightens, a muscle jumping beneath stubbled skin, but he keeps focus on me.

"Choose. Now."

I move toward the bed. Let my shoulders slump. Let him see defeat in the line of my spine. My fingers brush the hidden pocket, find the syringe's outline through silk.

"Good girl." He follows, already unbuckling his belt. The leather whispers free of loops. "See? You're smart. Survivors adapt. In a few years, you might even—"

I spin. The syringe slides free, cap already thumbed off during my approach. David sees the movement, starts to react. The knife comes up in a trained arc.

Not fast enough.

The needle punches through his neck just below the jaw. My thumb drives the plunger home, giving him twice the dose. Military suppressant floods his system—enough to kill a wolf permanently in minutes. The chemical burn of it makes his eyes water instantly.

"You f*****g—"

His backhand catches my cheek. Stars explode across my vision. I hit the floor hard, hardwood bruising my hip. Copper floods my mouth where teeth cut inner cheek. But I'm already watching the suppressant hit his bloodstream. His eyes go wide, then wider. The wolf inside him—the thing that makes him strong, fast, dangerous—starts dying. I can smell it happening. The musk of alpha fading to something merely human.

"What did you..." He staggers. The knife clatters against hardwood, bounces once. His hand goes to his throat, pulls the empty syringe free. "What is that?"

"The end of you."

He lunges. Still strong, still trained, but nearly human now. Muscles that relied on supernatural enhancement suddenly working alone. I roll aside, feel air displaced by his grasping hands. My foot catches his knee from the side. He goes down hard, a sound like a wounded animal tearing from his throat.

We grapple on the floor. David's heavier but I've trained for this my whole life. Dad's voice echoes in my skull: Leverage beats strength. Speed beats size. Fury beats everything.

David gets his hands around my throat. Thick fingers squeeze. My windpipe compresses. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision like dying stars.

My fingers find his dropped knife. The handle fits my palm like destiny.

The blade slides between his ribs with barely any resistance. Find the gap, angle up, just like Dad taught me with practice dummies that never bled like this. David's eyes go wide. His hands loosen. I shove him off, pull the knife free. Blood follows, darker than the emergency lighting, hot enough to steam in the air-conditioned room.

"You can't." He presses both hands to the wound. Red seeps between his fingers faster than he can contain it. "The buyers... Magnus will..."

"Magnus has his own problems."

I straddle his chest. Feel his heart hammering through his shirt. The knife rests against his throat. David Fletcher, who carved his initials into pack members like signing artwork. Who would have sold me overseas for fifteen million dollars. Who threatened everyone I love with creative deaths.

"Please." The word bubbles red. Blood frothing on his lips. "I can... we can make a deal..."

The blade opens his throat in one smooth motion. Arterial spray paints my face, my white dress, the walls. Hot enough to shock. David's hands fly to his neck but there's nothing to hold. Nothing to fix. The suppressant killed his wolf. This kills the rest.

I watch him die. Count the seconds. Watch the fear in his eyes turn to understanding turn to nothing. His legs kick twice, then still. When he stops twitching, when the blood flow slows to a trickle, I take the knife and carve two letters into his cheek. Deep enough to scar if he could scar.

W.S.

Winter Solis was here.

The gun sits in his shoulder holster. Glock 19, full magazine plus one. I pull it free, check the chamber—brass glints back. Wipe the blood from my face with bed linens. My hands don't shake. Dad would be proud.

The hallway looks like a war zone painted in red light and redder blood. Bodies sprawl in positions that spines don't bend to naturally. Blood paints the walls in patterns that look almost deliberate. The fighting has moved deeper into the house, leaving destruction like breadcrumbs.

I follow the sounds of combat. Through the kitchen where cast iron pans have caved in skulls. Past the library where hundred-year-old first editions burn, leather and paper smoke thick enough to choke. My eyes stream but I keep moving.

The main hall is chaos incarnate under emergency lighting.

A figure moves through Magnus's men like they're standing still. Not graceful—every motion looks wrong, joints hyperextending, muscles moving under skin in patterns that don't match any anatomy I know. But effective. Brutally, horrifically effective.

He's shifting. Or trying to. Fur ripples along his arms—orange and black tiger stripes overlapping silver and gray wolf patterns. His face keeps changing—human features melting into wolf muzzle into something else into human again. One leg bends backward at the knee. The other twists wrong at the hip.

But he fights. Mother of God, how he fights.

An enforcer rushes him with a baseball bat. The figure catches it mid-swing, yanks the man close enough to smell his fear. His hand—currently more claw than finger—opens the enforcer's stomach with surgical precision. Intestines spill onto hardwood in wet loops. The enforcer tries to hold them in, fails, drops.

Two more try to flank him. He drops, rolls, comes up inside their guard. An elbow shatters one's neck. Teeth—too many teeth in a mouth that can't decide its shape—find the other's throat. Tears it out in a spray that paints the ceiling.

That's when I notice: there are too many fighters. Magnus brought eight enforcers. I count twelve bodies already down, more pouring through the main entrance. Fresh uniforms. Professional stances. Automatic weapons.

Reinforcements. The trafficking network sending backup.

I raise David's Glock. The grip fits perfectly—he kept his weapons maintained. The first shot catches a newcomer center mass. He spins, goes down clutching his chest. The second shot takes another in the head. Brain matter decorates the wall behind him. Dad trained me well.

The shifting figure turns at the gunshots. For a heartbeat, our eyes meet across the c*****e. Gold eyes. Tiger eyes burning in a face that can't hold its shape. But also something else—recognition? Confusion? Pain that has nothing to do with the blood streaming from dozens of wounds.

Then three more enforcers hit him at once and the moment shatters.

I empty the magazine into the reinforcements. Controlled pairs, center mass and head. Make sure they stay down. Brass casings ring against hardwood. The slide locks back on empty too soon.

"Winter!"

Susan's voice, thread-thin with pain. I find her slumped against the far wall, hand pressed to her side. Blood seeps between her fingers, too much, too fast.

"Don't move." I drop beside her, try to assess the damage. Deep claw marks. Muscle torn. Maybe organs. Definitely bad. The blood smells wrong—too dark, too thick. "I need to get you—"

"He came." She grabs my wrist with her free hand. Blood makes her grip slick, desperate. Her eyes shine with something beyond pain. "I knew he would. Knew he'd come home."

"Who—"

Movement in my peripheral vision. Magnus emerges from behind an overturned table. Blood spatters his face but it's not his. His ice-blue eyes track the shifting figure, who just threw an enforcer through a window in a shower of glass and screaming.

Magnus doesn't hesitate. Three running steps, perfect form. His flying kick catches the figure in the ribs. I hear bones break from across the room—a wet crunch that makes my stomach turn.

The figure goes down hard. Tries to rise. Falls. The shifting stops, leaving him caught between forms—neither human nor animal. Just broken.

Magnus stands over him, victory written in every line of his body.

"Well. This is unexpected."