The Captured Omega's Savior

Chapter Twelve

KAILAN

The apartment air tastes stale when I wake. Three days since Winter drove us here bleeding. Three days of her scent saturating every molecule until breathing becomes an exercise in restraint. My body recognizes morning through the ache in joints that reformed wrong, through the pull of scar tissue where tattoos split and healed.

She sleeps on the couch again. Third night running. The leather holds her shape even when she's gone, a ghost impression that makes both predators pace their cages. I watch her from the doorway—black and white hair spilled across worn cushions, one arm thrown over her head, defensive even unconscious.

The tiger wants to stalk closer. Memorize the rhythm of her breathing. The wolf wants to curl around her, share warmth, establish pack bonds through proximity. I turn away from both impulses, pad barefoot to the kitchen where her father's notes spread across granite countertops like accusations.

Molly Whitman, nineteen, omega, complained about Rick Grover cornering her after pack meetings. Disappeared six weeks later. Violet Hayes, twenty-two, filed three harassment reports. Gone within the month. Each file represents failure—the council's, the system's, Judson's inability to stop it before they killed him.

Coffee percolates, filling silence with mechanical sounds. The machine belonged to Judson. His fingerprints ghost the handle. Everything here carries his memory—the precisely labeled spice rack, the calendar still showing last month, the jacket hanging by the door that smells of pine soap and purpose.

"You're up early."

Her voice catches me mid-pour. Coffee sloshes over the rim, burns my thumb. I don't flinch. Ten years of monastery discipline taught me to swallow smaller pains.

"Couldn't sleep." I don't turn around. Looking at her first thing destroys what little control I've rebuilt overnight. "Your father documented seventeen missing omegas. Pattern suggests another will disappear within the week."

Papers rustle as she approaches. Vanilla and jasmine announce her proximity before she appears in my peripheral vision, wearing an oversized t-shirt that belonged to her father and nothing else obvious beneath. The hem barely covers her thighs. My jaw clenches hard enough to crack molars.

"Rick Grover." She reaches past me for a mug, arm brushing mine. The contact burns through my shirt. "Son of Silvercrest's alpha. Three complaints filed against him specifically."

"Daddy's boy playing predator because he can."

"Because the system lets him." She adds sugar to her coffee, three heaping spoons. "Dad wrote to the state council. They responded with bureaucratic deflection. 'Internal pack matters.' 'Insufficient evidence.' 'Proper channels.'"

I finally look at her. Mistake. Morning light catches in her impossible hair, turns her skin luminous. The shirt rides up when she reaches for cream, exposing the curve where thigh meets hip. Both animals slam against their mental barriers.

"We can't go after them half-cocked." My voice comes out rougher than intended. "Need intel. Resources. A plan that keeps us breathing."

"Every day we wait—"

"We get stronger. I'm still healing. You're still processing." I gesture at the fading bruises on her throat, purple-yellow remnants of David Fletcher's hands. "Rushing gets us killed."

She sets her mug down hard. Coffee sloshes. "So we just let them keep taking girls?"

"We prepare properly. Your father died because he moved too fast, trusted the wrong people."

"My father died because Magnus murdered him." Heat flares in her eyes, green shot through with gold that speaks of fae ancestry. "Because the trafficking network runs deeper than one pack, one alpha, one supplier."

"Exactly why we need to be smart."

She moves closer. I back against the counter, maintaining distance that already feels insufficient. Her scent intensifies—anger adding spice to sweetness.

"Smart like spending three days avoiding each other? Smart like pretending we didn't—" She cuts herself off, color rising in her cheeks.

"That was a mistake."

The words land like a slap. Her pupils dilate, not with arousal but hurt quickly masked by anger.

"A mistake." Her voice goes flat. "Right. Just pheromones and proximity."

"You said it yourself. We don't know each other."

"Bullshit." She invades my space, close enough I feel her breath against my chest. "You know exactly what this is. You're just too much of a coward to—"

I move before thinking. Crowd her against the opposite counter, hands braced on either side, caging without touching. The position puts us close enough to share air, close enough her warmth radiates against me like fever.

"Careful." The growl threading through my voice belongs to both predators. "You have no idea what you're playing with."

"Don't I?" Her chin tilts up, defiant. "Big bad hybrid who spent ten years hiding in a monastery rather than face what he is. Who runs from everything that might matter. Who—"

"Who killed four men getting to you." The words come out ice-cold. "Who'll kill a hundred more to keep you safe. Who wants you so badly it rewrites DNA, makes both sides of my nature agree for the first time ever."

Her breathing quickens. "Then why—"

"Because wanting isn't enough. Because you deserve better than some broken weapon who brings death wherever he goes. Because three days ago you killed your first man and you're not processing it, you're deflecting into whatever this is."

"This." She laughs, bitter. "You can't even name it."

"I won't name it. Not until you've had time to think without my pheromones scrambling your judgment. Not when we're both running on trauma and adrenaline."

"My judgment is fine."

"Is it? Tell me about David Fletcher. Tell me how it felt when the knife went in."

She flinches. "That's not—"

"Tell me about the sound his throat made opening. Tell me about watching him die, counting the seconds, carving your initials into dead meat."

"Stop."

"Tell me you've slept through the night without seeing his face. Tell me you don't wake up tasting copper."

"I said stop." Her hands come up, shove against my chest. I don't budge. "You don't know—"

"I know exactly. Twenty-three men dead by my hands, Winter. I remember every face, every sound, every second it took them to stop breathing." I lean closer, voice dropping. "I know what killing does to someone. How it changes you. How it makes everything after feel different."

She stares up at me, eyes bright with unshed tears. "So what, you're protecting me? From you? From myself?"

"From making decisions you'll regret when the adrenaline wears off."

"Maybe I won't regret them."

"Maybe. But we find out the right way, not because we're both drowning and grabbing the nearest solid thing."

She searches my face for long seconds. Then deflates, tension bleeding from her shoulders. "You're probably right."

"I am right."

"Arrogant bastard."

"Accurate bastard."

A smile ghosts across her lips. "So what do we do? Keep circling each other? Keep pretending every accidental touch doesn't set us both on fire?"

"We focus on the mission. Find these missing girls. Stop whoever's taking them."

"And after?"

"After, we see what's left. What's real versus trauma response."

She nods slowly. "Okay. Mission first." Ducks under my arm, escapes the cage of my body. Her absence feels like loss. "But Kailan? When this is over, when we've stopped them, saved whoever we can save—we're going to have a conversation about what you think I deserve."

She disappears into the bathroom. Water runs. I remain frozen against the counter, controlling the urge to follow, to pin her against tile and show her exactly how much restraint I'm exercising.

The files draw me back. Safer to focus on external threats than internal ones.

A pattern emerges as I spread documents across the living room floor. The missing omegas cluster around pack borders—territories where jurisdiction gets murky, where girls can vanish between bureaucratic cracks. Silvercrest borders three other packs. Perfect hunting ground for someone who understands the system's blind spots.

Winter returns dressed in jeans and a tank top that reveals the lean muscle of her arms. She settles cross-legged beside me, careful distance between us.

"What are you seeing?"

"Border exploitation." I trace the territorial lines with my finger. "Here, here, and here. Overlapping patrol routes that create gaps. Someone knows exactly when and where to grab them."

"Inside knowledge."

"Has to be. This level of precision requires access to patrol schedules, pack movements, council protocols."

She pulls Judson's laptop closer, starts cross-referencing names. "Three council members have sons in border positions. Two own property in neutral territory."

"Follow the property records."

Her fingers fly across keys. "Shell company. Maritime Holdings LLC. Purchased six warehouses along the state highway." She turns the screen toward me. "All with loading docks sized for long-haul trucks."

"When?"

"Two years ago. Right when the disappearances started clustering."

We work in tandem, building the web. Financial records. Property deeds. A network of complicity that spreads through official channels like cancer. Winter takes notes in her father's style—precise, methodical, building evidence that would hold up in court if courts mattered here.

Hours pass. The sun tracks across the floor, illuminating dust motes and the careful distance we maintain. She shifts occasionally, stretches muscles stiff from sitting. Each movement draws my attention despite discipline that once let me sit motionless for days.

"Holly Rodriguez." She holds up a photo. Twenty years old, dark hair, bright smile. "Filed a complaint two weeks ago. Lives right on the Silvercrest-Ridgeline border."

"Prime target."

"We could warn her."

"And reveal we're investigating? They'd move operations, destroy evidence, disappear."

"So we just let her—"

"We watch. Follow. When they move on her, we intervene."

She sets the photo down carefully. "Use her as bait."

"Use their pattern against them."

"It feels wrong."

"Everything about this feels wrong. But we save her and get proof of the network. One girl's fear against dozens already gone."

She nods, unhappy but understanding the mathematics of triage.

A knock at the door freezes us both. Three raps, pause, two more. Winter reaches for her gun but I recognize the pattern. Pete's scent signature from when he picked me up at the airport.

I check the peephole anyway. The hardware store owner stands in the hallway, looking like any other small-town merchant except for the way shadows bend wrong around him.

"It's Pete."

Winter lowers the weapon but keeps it close as I open the door. Pete enters carrying a paper bag that smells of fresh bread and something metallic underneath—blood. Not human. Something older.

"Susan sends her regards." He sets the bag on the counter, pulls out a loaf still warm from the oven. "And provisions."

"How is she?" Winter moves closer, hope naked in her voice.

"Healing. The pack rallied around her after you left. Magnus's wolves scattered or submitted. She's re-establishing order." Pete's expression shifts, becomes something ancient looking through human eyes. "But there are complications."

"The network." I don't make it a question.

"They've sent negotiators. Want to maintain supply lines through Moonhaven territory. Susan's refusing, but she's one Luna against infrastructure that spans three states."

"She should run." Winter's hands clench. "Take the pack and disappear."

"Running abandons the next girls to their fate." Pete pulls papers from the bag. "She sent these. Shipping schedules. Routes. The network's moving another cargo shipment in four days."

I study the documents. Interstate 5 to Highway 299. Rural routes where screams disappear into empty miles. "How many?"

"Six confirmed. Maybe more." Pete's mask slips again, revealing something that makes my tiger want to run and attack simultaneously. "Young omegas from various packs. Already paid for."

Winter grabs the papers, scans them with increasing fury. "We can intercept. Stop the shipment."

"Two of you against professional traffickers?" Pete shakes his head. "Suicide."

"Then we get help. Alert the authorities—"

"The authorities who've been paid to look away? The council members taking their cut?" I set the papers down. "Pete's right. Direct confrontation means death."

"So we're really not going to do a damn thing?"

"We do something smarter." I tap the warehouse addresses. "They have to store the girls somewhere before transport. These locations—one of them is the holding point."

Pete nods slowly. "Find the girls before they ship. Create enough chaos that the network has to resurface, show itself."

"Susan can't help directly." Winter states it flat, accepting. "She has to protect Moonhaven."

"But she can provide intel. She's cultivating sources among Magnus's former wolves. Some knew more than they admitted." Pete moves toward the door. "Three more things. First, the military-grade suppressants David had? The network has crates of them. They're using them to keep omegas docile during transport."

My blood turns to ice. "Second?"

"James Fletcher wants to meet. Says he has information about his brother's contacts."

"It's a trap." Winter's voice carries certainty.

"Maybe. But he's been feeding Susan intelligence since you left. Seems his conscience finally grew teeth." Pete pauses at the door. "Third thing—the Storm pack sent scouts south. Looking for someone."

My pulse accelerates. "How many?"

"Three that we've identified. They're not being subtle about it. Want people to know they're here."

Winter looks between us. "Storm pack—that's your father's territory."

"Was." The word comes out bitter. "I haven't been pack for ten years."

Pete's expression suggests he knows something more, but he only nods. "Be careful. The network's spooked after losing Magnus. They'll be watching for retaliation."

He leaves. The apartment feels smaller without his presence, or maybe that's just Winter's proximity pressing against my awareness. She stands at the window, silhouetted against afternoon light that turns her hair into a monochrome flame.

"Storm pack scouts." She doesn't turn around. "They're looking for you."

"Probably."

"Will you go to them?"

"No."

"Even if it's your father—"

"My father and I said everything we needed to say ten years ago. With claws and blood."

She turns then, studies my face. "You really hate him that much?"

"Hate requires emotional investment. I nothing him."

"Liar."

The accusation hangs between us. She's right, but I won't admit it. Russell Storm carved wounds that meditation couldn't heal, just taught me to ignore the bleeding.

"Holly Rodriguez." I redirect to safer ground. "We need to scout her neighborhood before—"

"Before we use her as bait. I know." She crosses to the desk, spreads out Pete's intel beside her father's notes. "Four days until the shipment. If she fits the pattern, they'll take her within forty-eight hours."

"Gives us time to prepare."

"Time to watch another girl get stalked." Her voice carries sharp edges. "Time to let her feel hunted while we wait."

"You want to save her or save them all?"

She meets my eyes. "Both."

"Can't always have both."

"Your father's wolves are here for a reason. Maybe they could—"

"No." The word comes out harder than intended. "Storm pack involvement complicates everything. We don't know their agenda."

"But if they're looking for you, maybe they'd help—"

"The Storm pack helps nobody without extracting payment. Trust me on this."

She watches me for a long moment, then nods. "Okay. We do this ourselves."

The afternoon stretches toward evening. We map routes, memorize faces, build our understanding of the network. Professional focus maintains the boundary between us, but awareness thrums beneath—every accidental brush of fingers, every shared glance, every breath of her scent adding to tension that builds like storm pressure.

When darkness falls, she stands, stretches. Her shirt rides up, exposing a strip of skin that makes my mouth go dry.

"I'll get ready for surveillance."

She disappears into the bedroom. I remain surrounded by evidence of systematic evil, trying not to imagine her changing clothes, trying not to think about how she looked three days ago with my head between her thighs, trying not to want what I can't have.

Not yet.

The mission comes first. Save the girls. Stop the network.

But as she emerges dressed in black, hair pulled back, gun tucked into her waistband like she was born to it, I know I'm lying to myself.

There is no after without her.