The Omega's Three Mates

Chapter Three

Here's the thing about horror movies: they don't prepare you for the smell. The metallic tang of blood, yes. The musty reek of abandoned houses, sure. But nobody mentions how fear has a scent – sharp and acrid, like burning plastic mixed with copper pennies. Or how wrong a wolf can smell when it's been put together like some kid's twisted science project.

The first one through the door wasn't even trying to look natural. Its limbs bent at angles that made my brain short-circuit, fur patchy and wrong, like someone had studied wolves through a broken kaleidoscope and thought "yeah, that tracks." The memory hit me like a punch – being twelve, catching "An American Werewolf in London" on late-night cable, Mom's face going ghost-white as she lunged for the remote. "Not appropriate," she'd said, hands shaking as she changed the channel. Now I got why.

Richard – the giant brown wolf who was apparently my father, because this was my life now – launched himself at the first mutant dog thing. The impact shook dust from the ceiling, a snarl ripping through the air that made my bones vibrate. But more were coming. So many more.

They poured through the doorway like a nightmare given flesh, moving wrong, all sharp angles and too many joints. Their eyes glowed toxic yellow, nothing like Richard's storm-grey. Nothing like mine. These weren't wolves. They were something else, something that made my pendant burn cold enough to frost my shirt.

"Oh god." The words came out strangled as I backed away. Every horror movie I'd ever watched (secretly, after Mom went to bed) screamed at me to run, hide, get out. But my legs wouldn't move.

Richard fought like something out of a nature documentary directed by Michael Bay – all raw power and deadly grace. But they kept coming. Three, four, five of them now, circling him with tongues lolling from mouths full of too many teeth. One lunged, getting a mouthful of throat before Richard could twist away.

Blood hit the floor. The wrong-wolves' excitement spiked, filling the air with a scent like rotting meat and ozone. My father stumbled, and something primal deep in my chest wanted to scream.

The window behind me exploded.

More wolves poured in, but these ones looked right – powerful, natural, moving like actual predators instead of glitch-in-the-matrix horrors. They slammed into the monster dogs like a hurricane, and suddenly the room was chaos. Snarls and screams and the wet sound of teeth meeting flesh filled the air as my survival instinct finally kicked in.

I bolted for the nearest door, yanking it open to find a closet that smelled like someone's entire life had gone wrong in there. But beggars can't be choosers when eldritch horror wolves are having a death match in your living room. I dove in, pulling the door shut just as something heavy hit it from the outside.

The fight raged beyond my pee-scented sanctuary. Every impact made the house shudder, every snarl set my teeth on edge. My pendant pulsed faster now, almost burning, and my blood felt electric under my skin. Like it wanted to change, to shift, to become something else.

"No no no." I pressed my hands against my temples, trying to block out the sounds of violence. "This is not happening. This is not real. This is just a really bad trip from that gas station sushi I ate yesterday."

Something screamed – not quite wolf, not quite human. The sound cut off in a wet gurgle that made me gag. My hands shook as I pulled out my phone, its light casting shadows that seemed to move wrong in the tiny space.

Three missed calls from my BFF Riley. One text: "Hey, you okay? Your house is literally full of cop cars rn."

Cool. Cool cool cool. The police were at my house while I was hiding in a murder closet watching my wolf father fight demon dogs. This was fine. Everything was fine.

A body slammed against the door hard enough to make the wood crack. I bit back a scream, pressing myself deeper into the corner between old coats that smelled like moth balls and regret. More snarls, more impacts, more sounds that were going to feature heavily in my future therapy sessions.

Then... silence.

The kind of silence that feels like holding your breath underwater, waiting for something to grab your ankles and drag you down. My heart pounded so hard I was sure they could hear it, whatever they were. The pendant burned colder, and something scratched at the door.

"Savannah?" Richard's voice, human again. Weak. "It's over. You can come out."

I stayed frozen, remembering every horror movie where the monster used a loved one's voice to lure out its prey. The scratching came again.

"Savannah, please. I'm hurt... I need..."

His voice cracked, and something inside me cracked with it. Seventeen years of absence, and still some part of me recognized truth in that pain. Or maybe I was just really, really stupid.

I reached for the door handle, my fingers trembling.

Time to find out which.

***

You know that moment in horror movies where the final girl decides to open the door, and you're screaming at the screen because obviously it's a terrible idea? Yeah. That was me, except instead of a hockey-masked killer, I got something way worse: a room full of apex predators, including my father's bosses from supernatural hell.

The closet door creaked open with all the dramatic tension of a CW season finale. My father lay bloody and broken near the window, his massive brown form taking up way too much floor space. The wound at his throat still bled, dark and wrong against his fur. But he wasn't alone. Five other wolves filled the room, their presence making the air thick enough to choke on.

Two of them made the others look like stuffed animals from the clearance bin – massive black shapes that seemed to drink in the shadows, their fur so dark it had a blue sheen like oil on water. They moved in perfect sync, these mirror-image monsters, every step calculated and predatory. Their eyes caught the light – not gold or amber like the others, but a pale, glacial blue that felt like getting hit with liquid nitrogen. Ancient eyes. Hungry eyes. The kind of eyes that expected the world to bow, and weren't used to being disappointed.

And they were all staring at me like I was an all-you-can-eat buffet with daddy issues.

My father's form rippled, bones cracking as he forced himself back to human despite the blood still oozing from his wounds. "My Alphas," he gasped, actually trying to bow his head despite looking like death warmed over. "I can explain-"

The twin black wolves moved as one, their power filling the room like a physical weight. My pendant burned cold enough to make my teeth ache, the silver actually frosting over against my skin. The temperature dropped twenty degrees, and my breath came out visible despite the summer heat.

"Um." My voice came out embarrassingly squeaky. "Hi? Thanks for the save, I guess? Though a little heads up about the whole 'werewolves are real' thing would've been nice, Mom, if you're listening from wherever..."

"Shut up, Savannah," Richard snapped, fear making his voice sharp despite his injuries. He was looking at me like I'd just cussed out the Pope in Vatican City. "Show respect to your Alphas."

"My what now?" But before he could answer, the air suddenly charged with power, like standing too close to a Tesla coil during a lightning storm.

The transformation hit like a wave of pure wrongness. Bones cracked and reformed, fur melted like smoke, and suddenly the room was full of way too much naked man. Each one looked like they bench-pressed Buicks for fun, but the twins... holy hell, the twins. They had to be pushing six-eight, all coiled muscle and brutal grace, with blue-black hair that seemed to swallow light. Identical faces that belonged on Renaissance statues of avenging angels, all sharp cheekbones and devastating jawlines, but their eyes – those pale, arctic eyes – held nothing but predatory intent.

"Jesus Christ!" I slapped both hands over my eyes, but it was too late. The image was burned into my retinas like the world's most traumatic photoshop fail. "What is wrong with you people? Have you never heard of pants? Basic human decency? The existence of CLOTHES?"

"You dare speak to your Alphas with such disrespect?" One of the other wolves-turned-men growled, taking a step forward.

"Stand down," one of the twins commanded, his voice hitting notes that made my bones vibrate and my blood sing with something ancient and scary. Power rolled off him in waves, making the other wolves – including my father – actually flinch.

"The little Omega doesn't know any better," his brother added, and oh god, their voices were identical too, like getting hit with double-barrel supernatural bourbon. "After all, Richard's former partner kept her... ignorant."

The way he said 'partner' made it sound like a slur. Richard actually whimpered – a sound that did not belong in the throat of a grown man, naked or otherwise.

"My Alphas," he tried again, blood still dripping from his lips. "I never meant to-"

"Silence." Both twins spoke at once, the word carrying enough force to make the windows rattle. "You lost the right to explain when you abandoned your family to fend for themselves for several years. They both belong to the pack."

"Excuse me?" The words burst out before my self-preservation instinct could grab them. "I don't belong to anyone, especially not to some nudist wolf cult with twin control freaks at the top."

Dead silence. The kind that feels like the moment before an avalanche, when the whole world holds its breath.

"Oh god." Richard's face went chalk-white. "Savannah, please-"

"Feisty," one twin purred, taking a step closer. "I like her."

"She's just spirit," the other agreed, moving in perfect sync.

The air grew heavier, filled with something wild and magnetic that made my skin buzz and my head spin. The pendant at my throat pulsed like a second heartbeat, and the room started to tilt in ways that definitely violated physics. Power rolled off the twins in waves, making it hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to remember why I should be afraid.

"Little Omega," they said in unison, and wasn't that just nightmare fuel, "you have no idea what you are. What you mean to this pack. To us."

"Stay back," Richard snarled, but it came out weak. He tried to rise, failed, desperation written all over his face. "Please, my Alphas. She's just a child-"

"Seems like a capable young woman," one twin cut in.

"And unclaimed," finished the other. "With no pack."

"We'll take her in..."

"-you won't have to worry about her"

"-she's no longer your concern."

That was the last straw for my overloaded brain. Between the wolves and the violence and the impromptu nudist colony and the creepy twin mind-meld thing happening in this murder house – not to mention the way they talked about me like I was property to be claimed – something in my head just went "nope" and hit the emergency shutdown button.

The last thing I saw as my consciousness noped out was six expressions of varying degrees of alarm and hunger on six ridiculously attractive faces. The twins reached for me in perfect sync as I fell, their arctic eyes blazing with triumph.

Because apparently, even my fainting spells had to come with a side of supernatural possession claims.

Then darkness swallowed me whole, and I made a mental note to haunt my mother's ghost for not warning me about any of this. Especially the naked part. And double especially the terrifying twin alphas who looked at me like they'd just found their favorite new toy and couldn't wait to start playing.

Really, Mom. Really.