The Omega's Three Mates

Chapter Two

The thing about running for your life? It really highlights how much those mandatory high school PE classes were absolute garbage. Like, where was "Escaping Supernatural Predators 101" when I needed it? Instead, I'm sprinting through Garden Valley Cemetery in Doc Martens, trying not to die while questioning every life choice that led to this moment.

Shadows rippled behind us like oil slicks breaking physics, carrying whispers that made my skin crawl. The air tasted like pennies and ozone, thick enough to choke on. My pendant burned arctic-cold against my chest, pulsing in time with my thundering heart – the same pendant Mom used to clutch in her sleep, whispering names I couldn't quite catch.

"Left," Richard barked, his voice carrying despite the wind that kept trying to steal my breath. He vaulted over a low wall like gravity was optional, his expensive coat billowing because apparently even apocalyptic family reunions require dramatic flair. Show-off. Must be nice having time to practice your supernatural parkour when you're not busy raising a kid alone.

Something fast and dark shot past my peripheral vision, too fluid to be human. The hair on my neck stood up as a howl split the night – closer now, hungry in a way that made my bones ache. More voices joined it, a chorus that spoke to something primal hiding under my skin.

We cut through backyards that reeked of dead grass and desperation, the kind of neighborhoods Mom and I always ended up in. Places where no one looked twice at a single mother with too many locks on her doors and salt lines on her windows. Richard moved like a shadow himself, all lethal grace and barely contained power. The kind of movement that screamed 'apex predator.' The kind I'd caught myself falling into lately, when the moon was full and my reflection didn't look quite right.

A dark shape lunged from behind a mausoleum, missing my throat by inches. I jerked back on instinct, feeling claws or fangs or something tear through my jacket sleeve. The scent of my own blood hit the air, copper-bright and wrong, shimmering with tiny flecks of gold that definitely weren't normal.

"Here!" Richard grabbed my arm, yanking me toward a house that made crack dens look like five-star hotels. The windows were boarded up, the porch sagging under the weight of years and neglect. Lovely. Just like every other "safe house" Mom had dragged me to over the years, running from something she'd never named but always feared.

We slipped through a broken door into darkness that should've been impenetrable. Except I could see everything in shades of grey and silver, every dust mote and cobweb sharp as daylight. Cool. Cool cool cool. Totally normal. Just another fun genetic gift from dear old dad, along with abandonment issues and an apparently irresistible supernatural scent.

"You're taking this well," Richard said, scanning the room with those storm-grey eyes. Eyes like mine. Eyes I used to practice glaring with in the mirror, wondering if he'd see them in photos Mom definitely wasn't posting on the social media accounts we definitely didn't have.

"Yeah, well." I pressed a hand against the wall, feeling ancient wallpaper crumble under my fingers like all my assumptions about reality. "I'm compartmentalizing. I'll freak out later when we're not being chased by whatever the hell those things are. You know, once we're safe. Like Mom and I never were."

His shoulders tensed. Bullseye.

"Savannah..." He turned from the window, and something in his expression made my chest tight. Not anger or guilt – worse. Pity. "What happened with your mother – with Vanessa..."

Glass shattered upstairs. Footsteps that didn't sound quite right – too many joints, wrong rhythm – crossed the ceiling. My heart kicked into overdrive as Richard's head snapped up, nostrils flaring.

"Save it." The pendant pulsed harder, like it knew. Like it remembered. "We didn't need your explanations then, don't need them now." A lie, but hey, timing is everything.

"You do." His voice dropped lower, rougher, as something dragged sharp points down the wall above us. "Because what I did – leaving you both – it's why she had to run. Why you were never safe."

I laughed, the sound sharp as broken glass. "Wow. That's a hell of a delayed paternal guilt trip. What triggered it? Mid-life crisis? Terminal diagnosis? Or did you just run out of Netflix shows to watch?"

"I found my true mate."

The words hit like a physical blow. Wood splintered somewhere behind us, and the shadows began to move with purpose, but I barely noticed over the roaring in my ears.

"Your... what?"

"My true mate. When you were two." Each word fell like another nail in a coffin I didn't know I was building. "The pull – it's impossible to resist. But leaving you both exposed... I didn't think. Didn't realize what would happen to an unmated Omega. To your mother."

Something huge moved past the window, blocking what little light filtered through the boards. The temperature dropped twenty degrees as shadows pooled at our feet like hungry things. But all I could focus on was the grenade Richard had just dropped into my already exploding life.

"That's what she was? What I am? Some kind of supernatural prize to be claimed?"

A crash from the kitchen made us both jump. Claws clicked against hardwood, getting closer.

"We don't have time for-"

"Make time." My voice shook with seventeen years of questions. "You left us – left her – because what? The universe said you had a better match? And that put a target on her back? On my back?"

"The others wanted her." His face twisted with something like grief as more footsteps joined the first set, surrounding us. "An Omega without a mate, without protection... I should have stayed. Should have protected you both. But I was selfish, and she ran. Ran for seventeen years, keeping you hidden, keeping you safe-"

"Until she couldn't anymore." The words tasted like ash. "Until whatever was hunting us finally found her."

Wood creaked under too much weight. The air grew thick with that metallic taste, and under it, something wild and hungry that made my blood race. Made me want to run, to fight, to become something else entirely.

"Okay, no." I pushed off the wall, anger burning through the fear. "This is insane. True mates? Omegas? What's next – are you gonna tell me Mom was secretly writing Twilight fanfic on w*****d?"

A low growl echoed from the stairwell. Not Richard this time.

"This isn't fiction, Savannah."

"Really? Because it sounds like every bad paranormal romance novel ever." My laugh came out hysterical, bouncing off peeling wallpaper and broken dreams. "Prove it."

His eyebrows rose. "What?"

"You heard me. Prove it. Turn into a wolf right now." I crossed my arms, channeling every ounce of teenage defiance I'd stored up over seventeen years of questionable parenting. "Because either I'm having a mental breakdown, or you're actually trying to convince me that my deadbeat dad is some kind of supernatural furry."

Something massive hit the front door hard enough to make the whole house shudder. Richard's jaw worked, shadows dancing across his face as more shapes gathered outside, their movements too fluid, too wrong.

"This isn't a game."

"No s**t. But if you expect me to believe any of this – that Mom spent my entire life running from horny werewolves because you couldn't keep it in your supernatural pants – then show me. Right now."

He studied me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then, with a sigh that seemed to carry seventeen years of regret, he shrugged off his expensive coat.

"Wait, what are you-" My eyes widened as he reached for his shirt buttons. "Oh my god, no. What are you doing?"

"Showing you." His voice was grim as he stripped off his shirt, revealing a chest covered in scars that caught the dim light like mercury. "Clothes don't shift with us."

"Oh my god." I spun around, slapping a hand over my eyes. "This is not happening. My long-lost father is not stripping in an abandoned crack house while monsters try to break in. This is not my life."

The front door splintered. Something hit the boards over the windows hard enough to make them crack. Behind me, the rustle of clothing hitting the floor. Then silence. Then... something else. A sound like bones grinding, muscle tearing, reality itself being reorganized. The air grew thick with that metallic taste, and under it, something wild and ancient that made my blood sing with recognition.

A low growl filled the room.

Every instinct screamed at me not to turn around. Every cell in my body knew that whatever was behind me wasn't human anymore. But apparently, seventeen years of bad decisions had left me with zero survival instincts, because I looked anyway.

Where my father had stood, a massive wolf filled the shadows. Brown fur so dark it was almost black rippled over muscles bigger than any natural wolf had a right to be. But it was the eyes that got me – storm-grey and impossibly familiar, glowing with an intelligence that was both human and absolutely not.

The scream that tore from my throat probably set off car alarms three blocks away.

"Holy s**t holy s**t holy SHIT." I scrambled backward until I hit the wall, my heart trying to punch its way out of my chest. "You- That's- You're actually a-"

The wolf – Richard – took a step forward, and I held up both hands like that would do literally anything against several hundred pounds of apex predator.

"Nope. No. Stay right there, Twilight. I am having a completely rational breakdown right now and I do not need you all up in my personal space with your... everything."

He huffed, the sound almost amused, which was just unfair because giant murder wolves should not be capable of dad-level condescension. But before either of us could process the seven layers of trauma this moment was adding to my already impressive collection, the front door exploded inward in a shower of splinters and broken dreams.

The shadows around us writhed like living things, and Richard's ears flattened against his skull as a growl rumbled through his chest. The kind of growl that said our family therapy session was about to be crashed by something much worse than repressed childhood memories.

Dark shapes poured through the doorway, moving too fast, too fluid, their eyes gleaming with colors that shouldn't exist. And as my father – the giant freaking wolf who was apparently my father – positioned himself between me and the oncoming nightmare, all I could think was: Mom, what else didn't you tell me?