The Captured Omega's Savior

Chapter Two

KAILAN

Four in the morning tastes like ice and silence.

I wake before the bells, same as every day for ten years. No alarm needed when your body learns the rhythm of mountains and meditation, when discipline becomes bone-deep as breathing. The cell around me stays dark—narrow stone walls, single window, sleeping mat that's seen a decade of dreams about things I can't change.

The tiger stirs as consciousness sharpens. Always does at this hour, sensing the vulnerability of sleep fading into the vulnerability of being awake. I breathe through the stirring, count heartbeats until the beast settles back into the cage I've built from mantras and willpower.

Morning meditation happens in the courtyard where wind cuts through robes like memory through bone. Forty-three other monks arrange themselves in perfect rows, but I take the corner spot where shadows still cling to stone. Ten years and I still don't belong here, not really. They accept me because Uncle Chang vouched for me, because desperation looks the same in any language.

Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile.

The words flow through my mind in Pali, each syllable a brick in the wall that keeps both sides of my nature contained. Tiger and wolf, fire and pack, the impossible combination that shouldn't exist but does. Meditation teaches you to sit with contradiction without trying to resolve it.

Some days that's easier than others.

The gong sounds at five, calling us to martial arts training in the lower courtyard. This is where the monastery shows its teeth—these aren't pacifist monks mumbling prayers in corners. These are warriors who've chosen peace, men who could kill with their bare hands but prefer to grow vegetables and copy sutras.

I move through forms that blend tiger strength with wolf pack tactics, adding my own modifications that the masters pretend not to notice. The crane style flows into something that looks like stalking. The dragon becomes a hunting pattern. Every movement is prayer and preparation, devotion and deadly intent wrapped together like ink and skin.

Brother Jamyang partners with me for sparring. Twenty years older, pure human, but fast enough to keep up when I'm holding back ninety percent of my supernatural strength. He throws a perfect combination toward my ribs, and I counter with a sweep that puts him on his back.

"Better." Master Lobsang nods approval from the sidelines. "But you're still fighting like you expect to lose."

The observation cuts deeper than it should. Ten years of monastery life, and I still move like someone atoning for existing. Like every technique needs to be pulled, every victory questioned, every moment of strength followed by twice as much restraint.

"Perhaps that's because I should lose."

"Perhaps that's why you're here instead of where you belong."

Where I belong. The words follow me through morning chores, hauling water from the spring that never freezes, sweeping courtyards that collect prayer flags and bird s**t in equal measure. The work keeps hands busy while minds wander, and mine wanders to places I've spent ten years trying to forget.

Heaven Falls, Washington. The Storm pack territory that stretches from the Cascade Mountains to the Pacific, ruled by my father Russell Storm for three decades. Susan lives there—lived there—until she married Judson Solis and moved south to California. My half-sister, ten years older and infinitely wiser, who held my head while I puked up my first taste of whiskey and held my heart when Su-mei retreated to her mountain caves.

I scrub stone floors and think about Susan's laugh, about the way she used to sneak me cookies when Russell wasn't watching, about the tears in her eyes when I told her I was leaving for Tibet. She begged me to stay. Try therapy instead of exile. Find another way to deal with what happened that night when I almost killed our father.

But some sins don't wash clean with talking.

Afternoon prayers happen in the main hall, forty-four voices rising in harmonies that make the mountain itself seem to listen. I mouth the words but feel them less these days, going through motions that used to bring peace but now just mark time. Uncle Chang watches me from the abbot's seat, dark eyes missing nothing.

He knows I'm changing. Has been changing for months now, growing restless in ways that meditation can't touch. The tiger paces more. The wolf howls for pack bonds I've denied for a decade. Both sides of my impossible nature pressing against barriers that feel more like prison walls every day.

Second training session runs from four to six, weapons work that lets me pretend the wooden staff is something that bleeds when you hit it hard enough. Master Pemba calls it "channeling aggression into enlightenment," but really it's just sanctified violence with extra steps.

I work through bo staff forms until sweat stings the fresh ink on my arms, until muscles remember what they're built for beyond carrying water and sweeping floors. The tiger tattoo on my back ripples with movement, eight years of traditional artwork that tells the story of everything I'm trying to transcend.

Every stripe a prayer. Every claw a promise. Every golden eye a reminder that some natures don't change just because you want them to.

Dinner is silent, always is, bowls of rice and vegetables that taste like discipline and duty. I eat mechanically, fuel for a body that could survive on half the portions if necessary. Monastery life strips you down to essentials, teaches you the difference between wanting and needing.

I want to go home. I need to stay away.

The wanting grows stronger every day.

"Nephew." Uncle Chang appears beside my sleeping mat as full darkness settles over the mountains. "Come. There's work to finish."

I follow him to his private chambers, where bamboo needles wait beside pots of sacred ink. The tattoo session I've been dreading and craving in equal measure. More prayers for my arms, more chains for the beasts that live beneath my skin.

He works in silence for the first hour, needle biting flesh in patterns that spell salvation across my forearms. The pain focuses everything down to single points of contact, ink and blood and the steady breathing that keeps the tiger from taking this as an attack.

"Your mind wanders today, nephew." Uncle Chang's voice carries the weight of avalanches. "The tiger smells your distraction."

He's right. The beast pushes against my mental barriers, golden eyes burning with accumulated rage from a decade of suppression. He remembers the taste of Russell Storm's blood on our claws. Remembers how right it felt to tear strips from the man who called himself father while betraying the woman who gave birth to us.

Su-mei. My mother. The tiger who loved a wolf and learned that love makes you stupid, makes you vulnerable, makes you the kind of fool who believes promises whispered against your throat in the dark.

Russell cheated. Not once. Not twice. A parade of she-wolves warming his bed while Su-mei hunted alone in the mountains above Heaven Falls, believing her mate's lies about pack business keeping him away.

I found out on my nineteenth birthday. Caught his scent on some beta's skin and followed the trail to a cabin where the great Russell Storm was showing a twenty-year-old exactly how grateful an alpha could be for her services.

The tiger took over. Pure instinct and fury, claws that could shred steel raking down my father's back while he screamed. Would have killed him if four pack members hadn't dragged me off, and even then I remember the taste of his blood and how right it felt in that moment.

That's when I knew I had to leave.

"Focus." Uncle Chang's needle bites deeper, adding another microscopic prayer to the tapestry covering my arms. Both limbs are sleeves of sacred text now—Tibetan, Sanskrit, Chinese characters flowing like water across skin scarred by training and time.

But it's the tiger on my back that tells the real story.

Eight years of traditional tattooing, done the old way with bamboo and iron will. Uncle Chang worked on it every month, adding details that brought the beast to life one painful session at a time. Stripes that follow my spine. Eyes that burn gold against my shoulder blades. Claws that rake down my ribs like the ones I keep hidden beneath human skin.

The tiger tattoo moves when I do. Breathes when I breathe. Sometimes I think it's more real than the man wearing it.

"Finished." Uncle Chang wipes blood and ink from my arm, then steps back to admire his work. "The Metta Sutta suits you. Loving-kindness for all beings."

Even the ones that betray you, I don't say. Six months of silence makes words feel foreign, dangerous. Speaking breaks the careful quiet that keeps both sides of my nature leashed.

"You're troubled."

Not a question. Uncle Chang reads me like scripture—every micro-expression catalogued, every tension noted. He should. He's been watching over me since I arrived broken and bloody, more beast than man, carrying guilt that tasted like copper and shame.

"Nothing I cannot manage."

The words escape before I can stop them. First sounds I've made in half a year, and they come out rusty, uncertain. Uncle Chang raises one white eyebrow that's seen decades of weather and wisdom.

"The vow ends when you choose to end it."

"I haven't chosen."

"No. But something has chosen for you."

He moves to the narrow window that overlooks the valley below. Clouds cling to peaks that scrape heaven, and somewhere beyond them waits a world I left behind. A world that might be better off without me in it.

"Brother Tenzin received a message this morning. Urgent communication through channels we don't usually engage."

My blood turns to ice water. No one knows I'm here except family. No one would reach out unless—

"Show me."

Uncle Chang produces a satellite phone from beneath his robes. Modern technology hidden in ancient walls, because even monks need to stay connected when the world demands blood. The message light blinks red like a wound.

I take the phone with hands that don't shake. Ten years of discipline don't crack easily. But the tiger lifts his head, scenting danger through digital signals and memories of a half-sister who used to sneak me cookies when our father wasn't watching.

Susan, who practically raised me after Su-mei retreated to her mountain caves to lick wounds that never quite healed. Susan who defended me when Russell called me an abomination. Susan who cried when I left for Tibet, begging me to stay, to try therapy instead of exile.

The text is short. Devastating.

Judson dead. Pack taken. Magnus Blackthorne. Come home. Susan.

Judson. Susan's husband, the alpha of Moonhaven pack down in Redding who treated her like a queen instead of a conquest. Good man. Strong leader. The kind of wolf who builds legacies instead of destroying them.

Dead.

The tiger surges against my mental walls, and for the first time in months, I don't push him back. Gold fire burns through my vision. Claws scrape bone from the inside. Every prayer tattooed on my skin screams as the beast demands blood, demands vengeance, demands the kind of justice that comes with teeth and fury.

Pack taken means slaughter. Means rape and submission and everything wolves do to establish dominance over conquered territory. Means Susan is trapped in hell with no way out, surrounded by enemies who'll use her body to prove their power.

"How long since this arrived?"

"Six hours."

Six hours. Susan's been suffering while I've been hauling water and sweeping floors and pretending enlightenment could fill the wolf-shaped hole in my chest. The tiger snarls, and this time I let him. This time we agree on something.

"I need transport to the nearest airport."

"You cannot shift for that length of travel. The confined space will drive both sides of your nature past sanity."

Uncle Chang speaks with the calm certainty of someone who's watched his nephew wrestle demons for a decade. He's right. Flying as human means suppressing everything supernatural for nearly a day. Flying as tiger means arriving in California as a rabid animal ready to tear through anything breathing.

"Then I'll find another way."

"There is no other way. But there are options."

He disappears into the depths of the monastery, returning with a leather pouch that smells like death and desperation. Pills rattle inside like teeth torn from screaming mouths.

"Complete suppressants. They will kill both your natures for twenty-four hours. Make you fully human for the duration of travel."

I stare at the pouch. "Kill them?"

"Herbs harvested from beneath corpses on Everest. They separate soul from beast, temporarily. You will arrive functional but empty. Hollow. The reconnection when they wear off..." He meets my eyes. "It will not be pleasant."

Pleasant. The word tastes like ash, but Susan needs functional more than she needs my comfort.

"Side effects?"

"You will feel nothing. No rage. No pack instincts. No supernatural strength or speed. Completely, utterly human until the herbs burn out of your system."

Twenty-four hours of being nothing but flesh and bone. Twenty-four hours of the kind of weakness that gets people killed. But also twenty-four hours of being able to board a plane without triggering airport security or having a breakdown at thirty thousand feet.

"There's something else you should know." Uncle Chang settles onto the meditation cushion across from me. "Your father established accounts before your exile. Trust funds managed by human lawyers. You have considerable resources in America."

"How considerable?"

"Forty-five million dollars, accumulated over ten years of careful investment."

The number hits like a physical blow. Forty-five million. Enough to wage wars or buy armies. Enough to make Magnus Blackthorne's life very short and very painful.

"Russell did this?"

"Guilt is a powerful motivator. He wanted you to have options when you returned."

When, not if. Russell Storm might be a cheating bastard, but he's never been stupid. He knew I'd come home eventually. Knew the tiger and wolf in me would never truly accept permanent exile from pack, from family, from the sister who raised me when our parents were too broken to do it themselves.

"The phone works globally. You can contact your sister once you're airborne."

I pocket the device and stand, joints protesting from hours of stillness. The tiger tattoo ripples across my back as muscles stretch and remember movement. Time to trade meditation for action, peace for war.

"Pack light. And remember—you are not the same man who arrived here ten years ago. You have tools now. Control."

"What if control isn't enough?"

"Then be the monster they made you. But be a precise monster. Surgical. Save the rampage for when it serves justice."

The suppressants burn my throat going down, taste like grave dirt and frozen blood. But they work fast. I feel the tiger retreating, not sleeping but disappearing, torn away from my consciousness like skin flayed from muscle. The wolf follows, pack instincts fading to nothing until I'm just flesh and bone and very human rage.

Empty. Hollow. But functional.

The ride to Lhasa passes in chemical silence. Mountains become valleys, isolation becomes civilization, peace becomes the promise of violence. I feel each mile like weight lifting from shoulders that no longer remember what they're capable of carrying.

Susan's message loops through my mind as the plane lifts off. Judson dead. Pack taken. Magnus Blackthorne.

The name tastes familiar, dangerous. A rogue alpha with a reputation for brutality and conquest.

He's about to learn what happens when tigers come home to hunt.