The Omega's Three Mates

Chapter Twelve

The kitchen felt too small for all of us—me, the twins, and Moira's heavy silence as she mixed herbs into a stone bowl that looked older than time itself. The air smelled like sage and something metallic that made my stomach turn.

Caleb stood by the window, a dark silhouette against the fading light. He hadn't said much since we'd come inside, but I could feel him watching. Always watching. Like he was waiting for something to go wrong.

Honestly? Same.

Kalel, at least, tried to keep things light. He'd perched himself on the counter, all casual grace and easy smiles, but I caught the way his eyes tracked Moira's movements. The way his fingers drummed against his thigh in a rhythm that felt more nervous tic than boredom.

"So," I said, because the silence was starting to make my skin crawl, "are we gonna talk about whatever's in that bowl, or are we just going to pretend it's a really aggressive smoothie?"

Kalel's lips twitched. "Probably not kale."

"Definitely not kale," I agreed, watching as Moira added something that looked suspiciously like dried blood to the mixture. "Unless kale's gotten way more metal since the last time I checked."

Caleb made a low sound—not quite a laugh, but close. His shoulders were rigid, something almost predatory in his stillness that made my heart skip. Which was... inconvenient. And definitely not the time.

The pendant at my throat pulsed once, like a warning.

Moira's hands stilled over the bowl. "It's time ye knew the truth about what yer mother did. About the price she paid."

"I'm sensing this isn't going to be a fun truth," I said, aiming for dry and landing somewhere closer to nervous. "Like, on a scale of 'surprise party' to 'apocalyptic revelation,' where are we at?"

Kalel slid off the counter, moving closer. Something passed between him and his brother—one of those silent conversations that seemed to happen a lot with werewolves. Which I was supposedly going to be. Eventually.

God, my life was weird.

"Tell her," Caleb said, his voice low and rough.

Moira's good eye fixed on me, sharp as a blade. "The necklace ye wear—it's more than just moon-silver and magic. It's a seal. A prison."

"Yeah, we covered that part," I said. "Supernatural wolf jail, very fancy, much wow."

"Not just for yer wolf." Moira's fingers traced the rim of the bowl. "For something else. Something in yer blood."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

Caleb pushed off from the wall, moving with a grace that shouldn't have been possible for someone his size. "What's in her blood?"

The question came out like a threat. Like he was ready to tear apart anything that might hurt me, which was... intense. Especially since we'd basically just met.

Moira met his stare. "Power. Old power. The kind that makes creatures like us look young."

Well, that was terrifying.

"And my mom knew about this?" My voice came out steadier than I felt. "She knew there was something in my blood that needed to be locked away?"

"Aye." Moira's expression softened, just slightly. "She knew what would happen when ye turned eighteen. What ye'd become."

"Okay, loving how ominous that sounds." I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to stop the shiver that ran down my spine. "Any chance this is just like, really aggressive puberty? Late-blooming supernatural edition?"

Kalel moved then, close enough that I could feel his warmth. "Whatever it is, you're not facing it alone."

Something flickered in Caleb's eyes at that—dark and possessive in a way that should have sent me running. Instead, it just made me feel... safe. Which was probably a sign that I was losing it.

Moira's hands moved over the bowl again, adding something that smelled like nightshade and starlight. "There's a way to know for sure. To see what yer mother sealed away." She paused, her voice going grave. "But it's dangerous."

"Color me shocked," I muttered. "Let me guess—it involves blood and pain and possibly sacrificing a virgin under the full moon?"

"Just blood," Moira said. "Yours."

Her words hung in the air like smoke. "The process requires blood. A lot of it. Under the full moon's light, we'll need to let you bleed until—"

"Until what?" I asked, though the tremor in my voice said I already knew.

"Until whatever's inside you decides it doesn't want to die."

Cool. Love that for me.

Caleb's presence suddenly filled the room like a storm cloud. "No." His voice was granite, absolute.

But Moira didn't flinch. "The girl needs to know what she is."

"Not if it kills her." The words came out more snarl than speech.

I caught Kalel watching his brother, something knowing in his expression. He stepped closer to me, casual but deliberate. "There has to be another way."

"There isn't," Moira said. "The moon-silver's magic will fade on her birthday. Whatever her mother sealed away—it's coming out one way or another."

My fingers found the pendant, its surface unnaturally cool against my skin. "You said my mom paid a price for this. Not money, but..."

"Blood," Moira said softly. "She paid in blood."

The room felt too small suddenly, too close. "Are you guys always this hands-on with your guests?" I tried for light, missed by about a mile. "Or am I just special?"

Kalel's lips curved into that easy smile that probably made girls spontaneously combust on the regular. "Oh, you're definitely special, little wolf."

But Caleb—Caleb just watched me with those dark eyes, like he could see right through my attempt at deflection. His jaw ticked, muscles coiled tight beneath that black henley. The way he looked at me... it wasn't just protective. It was something else. Something I couldn't read.

"The ritual needs to be done by midnight," Moira continued, either oblivious to or ignoring the tension crackling through the room. "When the moon reaches its peak."

"Of course it does," I muttered. "Because 2 PM on a Tuesday would be way too convenient."

Kalel's laugh was warm honey. "She's got a point."

But Caleb hadn't moved, hadn't softened. "How much blood?"

Moira met his stare. "Until her survival instinct kicks in. Until whatever's been sleeping inside her decides it's time to wake up."

I swallowed hard. "And if it doesn't?"

The silence that followed was answer enough.

My fingers traced the pendant's surface, feeling the ancient symbols carved into the moon-silver. All these years, I'd thought it was just pretty. Just something my mom had scraped together enough money to buy me.

But we'd never had money. We'd barely had enough for rent most months.

This necklace—this prison—had cost her something else entirely.

"Your mother," Moira said quietly, "she knew what was coming. What you'd become. The blood price she paid... it bought you time. Eighteen years of it."

I watched Moira's face, searching for any scrap of information about my mom that might help make sense of... well, any of this. The kitchen felt too close suddenly, like the walls were breathing in all the secrets about to spill out. "So you knew her pretty well then? Back when she was here?"

Something softened in Moira's expression, a crack in her usual stone facade. "Aye. Better than most, I'd say. She was... private. Kept to herself." Her fingers traced the rim of that ancient bowl, like she was pulling memories from its shadows. "But we'd talk, sometimes. Late at night, when the rest of the pack was sleeping. When she felt safe enough to let the walls down."

The way she said it made my throat tight. Like she was remembering something precious and broken. Something she'd tried to save and couldn't.

"What did you talk about?"

"Fear, mostly." Moira's fingers stilled on the bowl, and the silence that followed felt heavy with unspoken things. "She was always afraid. Not just for herself, but for what was coming. For you. Like she was counting down to something only she could see."

Great. More cryptic doom prophecies. Just what my anxiety needed. Because apparently being told I was some kind of supernatural time bomb wasn't enough fun for one day.

"My sister Merida," Moira continued, and something in her voice made my skin prickle. "She was there when ye were born. Helped bring ye into this world." Her gaze went distant, like she was looking at something far away. "She was the pack's midwife. Had been for twenty years. Seen hundreds of births. But that night..."

My heart jumped. Finally—someone else who might have answers. Someone who'd been there, who'd seen whatever it was that made my mom so afraid. "Can we talk to her? Maybe she knows something about—"

The air in the room went heavy. Thick with something I couldn't name. Like the oxygen had been replaced with lead.

I caught the twins exchanging a look, something dark passing between them. The kind of look that says you've just stumbled into territory you really don't want to be in. Kalel's usual easy smile had vanished, and Caleb... Caleb looked like he was bracing for impact.

Moira's face had gone carefully blank, that marble mask she wore when she was trying to keep something contained. "Merida... she died. A week after ye were born."

The words hit like ice water. "What?"

"They found her in her bed." Moira's voice had gone distant, hollowed out. "No marks. No wounds. Just... gone. Like her heart had simply stopped beating in the middle of the night. Like something had reached in and turned off the light."

My stomach lurched. "But that's not what really happened, is it?"

"No." Moira's good eye clouded with something that looked like old grief. "No, I don't think it was. She was... different, after yer birth. Scared in a way I'd never seen before. Wouldn't sleep. Kept all the lights burning. Spent hours writing in these journals she wouldn't let anyone see. Said she'd witnessed something that night, something she wasn't meant to see."

My mouth went dry. "What did she see?"

"She wouldn't say. Not directly." Moira's fingers moved over the bowl again, troubled. "Just kept muttering about shadows that moved wrong. About blood that glowed like starlight. About how the air in the room had gone thick and strange, like reality itself was bending." She looked at me then, something heavy in her gaze. "About a baby that came into this world with eyes too old for its face. A baby that didn't cry."

I felt my pulse skip. "Me?"

"Aye." Moira's voice had gone soft, almost reverent. "She spoke to yer mother, after. A long conversation that left them both... changed. Vanessa started wearing that pendant the very next day. And Merida..." She trailed off, like the memory was still too sharp to touch.

"Then she died," I finished numbly.

Kalel shifted closer, like he could somehow shield me from truths that were already eighteen years old. But Caleb—Caleb just watched, his expression unreadable, like he was putting together pieces of a puzzle I couldn't even see.

"The night before they found her," Moira continued, each word careful, measured, "she came to me. Tried to tell me something about Vanessa. About you. But she was... scattered. Afraid in a way that went beyond normal fear. Kept looking over her shoulder like she could feel something watching. Said some things were better left in the dark. That there were powers in this world older than our kind, older than the moon herself."

"And then what?" My voice came out small, young.

"And then nothing." Moira's mouth twisted. "By morning she was dead. Her journals were gone. Every scrap of paper, every note she'd taken that night—all of it vanished. And whatever she knew about that birth, about what really happened when ye came into this world..." She shook her head. "It died with her."

The pendant felt heavier against my skin. Colder. Like it knew we were talking about it. Like it was listening.

Another dead woman. Another set of secrets sealed away forever.

"Just like that?" I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to stop the shiver that ran down my spine. "Right after helping my mom give birth to me?"

"Right after seeing something during that birth," Moira corrected grimly. "Something that scared an experienced midwife—a woman who'd spent her entire life dealing with supernatural births—so badly that she couldn't sleep. Something that made her start warding her room with iron and salt."

She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice had gone quieter. More careful. "The Alpha at the time... he ruled it natural causes. Had her buried before anyone could look too closely. Before anyone could ask why a healthy female wolf in her prime just... stopped breathing in the middle of the night."

The twins went still at that, something passing between them that I couldn't read. A tension that felt old, complicated. But I was too caught up in the horror of it all to wonder why.

The pendant pulsed against my throat, a cold reminder of everything still sealed away. Everything still waiting to wake up.

Something had happened the night I was born. Something Merida saw. Something that marked her for death.

And in a few days, when I turned eighteen...

Whatever it was?

It was coming back.