The Omega's Three Mates

Chapter Eight

"Let me see those burns." Richard stepped forward as we trudged up the muddy path, his concerned dad voice in full effect. "Silver toxicity can—"

"Hard pass." I stepped away from his reaching hands, nearly stumbling on the uneven ground. "I think I've hit my quota of terrible father figures for one day."

"Savannah Marie." He used my full name, like that somehow earned him parental rights. "You need medical attention. The silver—"

"The silver wouldn't have been necessary if you'd bothered to stick around and teach her about what she is," Maxine cut in, her voice sharp as a blade. "Funny how you're playing concerned father now, when she's safely in pack territory. Where were you when she was out there alone? When her mother was dying?"

Richard's face went tight. "You don't understand—"

"Oh, I understand perfectly." Maxine's eyes flashed dangerous gold in the darkness. "You left your omega daughter defenseless in human territory. No training. No pack protection. Just a magic necklace and a prayer that no one would notice what she was before she came of age."

The silence that followed was deafening. Even the forest seemed to hold its breath.

"She had the amulet," Richard said finally, but his voice had lost its earlier authority.

"The amulet that's failing?" Kalel's voice was pure ice. "The one that nearly got her killed tonight?"

I wanted to say something clever. Something cutting that would make Richard feel even a fraction of what I was feeling. But the world chose that moment to tilt sideways, the combination of silver burns, adrenaline crash, and general trauma finally catching up with my very human tolerance for supernatural bullshit.

"Whoa." Caleb caught me before I hit the ground, his arms careful around my burned skin. "I've got you."

"'M fine," I muttered, but the words came out slurred. "Just need a minute."

"You need a lot more than that," he said quietly, and before I could protest, he'd scooped me up like I weighed nothing. The movement sent fresh waves of pain through my silver-burned skin, but his chest was warm against my cheek and I was suddenly too tired to care about looking weak.

"The pack's hunting cabin is closest," Kalel said, already moving ahead to clear the path. "Ten minutes out. Ryder?"

"We'll take rear guard," Ryder confirmed from somewhere behind us. "Ransom, Luka—spread out. Standard defensive formation. The rest of Bloodmoon can secure the perimeter."

I should probably have been paying attention to their tactical planning. Should have been asking questions about hunting cabins and pack territory and why exactly we needed a defensive formation inside their magical force field. But Caleb's heartbeat was steady under my ear, and the silver burns throbbed in time with it, and staying conscious suddenly seemed like way too much effort.

The last thing I heard before the darkness claimed me was Richard's voice, saying something that might have been an apology.

Too little, too late.

Story of my life, really.

***

When consciousness crept back in, my first thought was that I'd somehow died and ended up in a luxury resort. The room around me was all exposed wooden beams and stone, with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto moonlit forest. A fireplace bigger than our old apartment's bathroom crackled cheerfully, casting warm light across what had to be the world's most comfortable bed.

"Welcome back to the land of the living." Maxine's voice drew my attention to where she lounged in a leather armchair that probably didn't come from IKEA. The burns on her arms had already started to heal, though some of the worse ones still looked angry red.

"This is a hunting cabin?" I croaked, trying to sit up. Every muscle protested the movement, and the silver burns still felt like someone had taken a blowtorch to my skin.

Her mouth curved. "Bloodmoon Pack isn't exactly hurting for resources. This is one of their smaller properties."

"Smaller?" I looked around at what could have been a spread in Architectural Digest: Supernatural Edition. "What's their actual house look like? Versailles?"

"Close enough." She stood, and something in her posture had changed. More formal, somehow. "I need to head back to my pack now that you're safely in Bloodmoon territory."

"Oh." The word came out smaller than I meant it to. Which was stupid—I barely knew her. But she'd been the first person to actually give me straight answers, even if those answers mostly involved creative swearing and violence.

Her expression softened fractionally. "I have two omega siblings," she said, her eyes going distant. Sad in a way that made my chest hurt. But before I could ask, she shook it off, warrior mask sliding back into place. "You're in good hands here. Just... try not to give the twins too much grief, yeah?"

"No promises."

That earned me a ghost of a smile before she slipped out, leaving me alone with my thoughts and an impressive collection of bandages. The silver burns looked better than they should have, given how recently I'd acquired them, but they still hurt like hell.

"Those will heal faster with this salve." A new voice made me jump. An older woman with silver-streaked dark hair and laugh lines around her eyes stood in the doorway, holding what looked like a mason jar full of something green. "I'm Amelia, one of the pack healers."

"Hi," I managed, watching as she crossed to the bed. Her movements were efficient but gentle as she checked my bandages. When her fingers brushed the pendant at my throat, she paused.

"The Alphas mentioned this shouldn't be removed," she said carefully. "Even though it's silver."

I touched the familiar metal, warm despite its composition. "Apparently it's been suppressing my... wolf?" The word still felt strange in my mouth. "Mom never said..."

"Mothers do what they must to protect their children." Amelia's voice was kind, but there was something else there. Something that made me think she knew more than she was saying. Before I could ask, she straightened. "You need rest. And food. I'll have something brought up."

As if on cue, my stomach rumbled. When was the last time I'd eaten? Before the safe house? Before everything went sideways?

"Thank you," I said, meaning it. "For helping with..." I gestured vaguely at my silver-decorated self.

Her smile reached her eyes this time. "Rest," she repeated. "The questions will keep until morning."

She was probably right. But as I sank back against obscenely comfortable pillows, I couldn't help but think that "morning" felt very far away. And I had a feeling the answers wouldn't be getting any better with time.

***

The kitchen floor was cold against my knees, that specific kind of cold that seeps straight into your bones and makes a home there. Mom's body lay sprawled in front of me, exactly as I'd found her that day—one arm outstretched like she'd been reaching for something (for me?), her dark hair spilled across the white tile like someone had knocked over a bottle of ink. The contrast was wrong, too sharp, too vivid. Like a photo that had been oversaturated until it hurt to look at.

Her eyes were open, wide with a terror that the doctors hadn't been able to explain. That no one had been able to explain. I remembered the way they'd shifted uncomfortably when I asked, the way they'd used words like "inconclusive" and "unexplained causes" while carefully not meeting my gaze. As if death was supposed to make sense. As if anything about finding your mother's body on your kitchen floor at 7AM on a random Tuesday was supposed to follow some kind of logical pattern.

"Mom?" My voice cracked, splintering like ice in spring. This wasn't right. I'd already lived this nightmare once—had relived it every night for weeks. I didn't want to see it again. Didn't want to notice new details, like the way her favorite sweater (the blue one I'd given her for Christmas) was torn at the collar, or how there were scratches on her arms that definitely hadn't been there the night before.

Her head turned. Not the way heads should turn—more like a puppet with broken strings, all wrong angles and jerky movements. "I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry."

"No." I scrambled backward, but my body wouldn't move. Dream logic at its finest—that Lysol-scented kitchen floor might as well have been quicksand. "This isn't real."

"I thought we'd have more time." Her body jerked upright, movements stiff and wrong, like someone was pulling invisible wires. Dark marks bloomed across her neck like bruises, spreading like ink in water. They formed patterns, almost like letters in a language I couldn't read. Didn't want to read. "I should have told you sooner."

"Told me what?" The words tasted like ash and copper pennies. Like the aftermath of screaming. "Why didn't you tell me anything?"

The kitchen lights flickered, casting strange shadows across her face. For a moment, she looked... different. Older, maybe. Or younger. Or something else entirely. "I wanted to protect you from our world." Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, stark red against too-pale skin. "For as long as possible. But now..."

"Now what?" The air felt thick, like trying to breathe underwater. The shadows in the corners of the kitchen were moving, taking shapes that made my brain hurt.

"The day after tomorrow." Her eyes went black, then gold, then black again, like someone flipping through paint samples from hell. "Your eighteenth birthday. Everything changes. Everything—"

I woke with a strangled gasp, heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape. For a moment, I couldn't remember where I was. The unfamiliar room swam into focus slowly, details emerging from the shadows like photographs developing in dark room fluid—exposed wooden beams overhead, a stone fireplace big enough to roast a whole deer (god, I hoped they didn't actually do that), ridiculous thread-count sheets now soaked with my sweat. Moonlight spilled through floor-to-ceiling windows, turning the forest beyond into a silver-painted tableau of branches and shadows.

Right. The hunting cabin that was definitely not a hunting cabin unless the hunters in question were billionaires with a thing for architectural porn. The aftermath of silver burns and neo-vampire attacks and my whole life turning into some kind of CW supernatural drama, except with more violence and fewer convenient commercial breaks.

Then I saw them.

The alpha twins were slumped in matching leather armchairs that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe, both somehow managing to look dangerous even in sleep. Caleb's head was tilted at an angle that would definitely hurt in the morning, one hand still resting on what looked like a leather-bound book. Even unconscious, his face held traces of that intensity I'd seen earlier—like the weight of authority had carved permanent lines around his mouth, between his brows. His other hand was curled loosely around something that glinted in the moonlight—a knife? Because apparently sleeping armed was just a thing in this brave new world I'd stumbled into.

Kalel had somehow managed to fold his ridiculous height into a position that reminded me of a cat, though a very dangerous cat who still had weapons strapped to his thigh and what looked like dried blood on his boots. His features were softer in sleep, but there was still something lethal about him—like a gun with the safety off, dangerous even at rest.

The sight of them should have been unsettling. Should have sent me running for the nearest exit (assuming I could find one in this maze of rustic luxury). Instead, something in my chest loosened, just a fraction. The nightmare receded, leaving only the hollow ache of old grief and new questions that multiplied like bacteria in a petri dish.

I should have told you sooner.

Mom's voice echoed in my head, dream bleeding into memory until I couldn't tell which was which. Had her eyes really been that wide with fear? Had there really been marks on her neck that the doctors couldn't explain? Had she really tried to tell me something that last night, before I'd brushed her off with some excuse about homework and Netflix?

What had she been trying to protect me from?

And more importantly—what was going to happen on my birthday besides me wolfing out for the first time? Would it hurt like the transformation in An American Werewolf in London? 'Cause that looked like it hurt a lot, and I'm not a big fan of pain. I have a seriously low threshold of pain. I cry when I get papercuts.

The pendant at my throat pulsed once, like a second heartbeat, as if it knew I was thinking about it. About change. About secrets.

Outside, something howled—a sound that definitely didn't come from any normal wolf. One of the twins shifted in their sleep, a low growl rumbling in their chest. Answering a call I couldn't understand.

Yet.