The Cursed Omega's Revenge

Chapter Nine

GRAY

Finding her on that bathroom floor, covered in filth and spit, bruises blooming fresh across golden skin—it takes every ounce of my Interpol training not to hunt down whoever did it and introduce them to the violent thing I keep leashed inside my chest. But she just kneels there in dirty water, empty as a shell, talking about being broken like it's fact instead of tragedy.

The wolfsbane stench clings to her, mixed with silver nitrate that makes my nose burn. Someone killed her heat. Killed it hard and fast and dangerous, the kind of suppression that can lock a wolf away permanently. The emptiness in her golden eyes tells me it worked too well.

I leave her there because staying means blowing our cover, but my wolf rages the entire walk back to our quarters. He knows something I don't, keeps pushing images at me—protect, claim, mine—that make no sense. She's just another abused omega. Just another casualty of Bloodthrone's systematic cruelty.

So why does walking away feel like tearing off pieces of my soul?

"We have a problem." Maddox greets me at the door, and the air around him crackles with barely contained telekinetic energy. "Several problems, actually."

Inside, Paxton sits surrounded by stolen documents, his face the particular shade of gray that means he's been reading too much violence through his gift. Financial records spread across the bed like evidence of damnation, each page another nail in Remus's coffin.

"The omega from this morning," I start, but Maddox cuts me off.

"Can wait. Gray, we found her."

The words don't compute. "Found who?"

"Mother."

Everything stops. The world narrows to that single word, impossible and inevitable. Twenty years of believing she died that night, or soon after. Twenty years of mourning a ghost.

"She's alive." Paxton's voice comes hollow with the weight of what he's touched. "Remus keeps her as his Luna. Has for two decades. The marriage documents are here, signed three days after father's death."

Three days. Our father's body barely cold, and Remus was already claiming his widow. My hands curl into fists hard enough for nails to draw blood.

"Where?"

"East wing, third floor. The Luna's suite." Maddox moves to the window, staring out at the compound that holds more ghosts than we imagined. "She takes meals in her rooms. Rarely seen in public. The omegas whisper about her kindness, how she helps when she can."

Margaret Carver, helping omegas while married to their tormentor. The cognitive dissonance makes my head spin. Is she complicit? Victim? Both?

"There's more." Paxton picks up a document with careful fingers, like it might burn. "The omega you're obsessing over. Samira. She said her surname is Lim."

The name hits like a physical blow. Lim. At the time I didn't make the connection because I was too busy keeping my wolf down. Liwon Lim, father's Beta, murdered the same night. His wife Suchin, dead in their home. Their infant daughter, supposedly killed with them.

"That's impossible." But even as I say it, pieces click together with sickening clarity. "The baby died. Everyone said—"

"Everyone said what Remus told them to say." Paxton's gift gives him certainty I lack. "But look at the timeline. Samira's age matches. Raised by the pack since infancy. No knowledge of her parents."

Liwon's daughter. Hidden in plain sight as the lowest omega, raised in the same house where her father died trying to stop a monster. The brutal poetry of it makes me want to tear down walls.

"Does she know?"

"Doubt it." Maddox turns from the window, and his eyes hold the same rage burning in my chest. "Who would tell her? Who would risk Remus discovering he's been harboring his victim's child?"

I think of golden eyes empty of everything but resignation. Of the way she protects younger omegas despite having no power. Of bruises layered on bruises, twenty years of systematic destruction of a child who should have been pack royalty.

"We need to see Mother." The words taste strange after so long. "Confirm she's really there. Really... alive."

"Already arranged." Maddox produces a servant's schedule with the satisfied air of a magician. "She takes tea at four. Alone. The hallway outside her suite is unguarded for exactly twelve minutes during shift change."

Three hours. Three hours to prepare for seeing the woman who sang us lullabies, who taught us to read stars, who screamed when father's blood painted throne room walls. Three hours to decide if we reveal ourselves or maintain our cover.

"The financial records," I force myself to focus on the mission, not the earthquake in my chest. "What did you find?"

Paxton gestures to his careful arrangement of evidence. "Systematic trafficking going back twenty years. But here's the interesting part—the money doesn't all flow to Bloodthrone. Someone's been skimming. Significant amounts diverted to offshore accounts that trace back to..."

"The Council." I finish, because of course. The rot goes all the way up. "Which member?"

"Still working on that. The encryption is sophisticated. But whoever it is has been using Bloodthrone as their personal procurement service. Special orders for specific types of omegas. Young. Female. Unusual characteristics."

Like golden eyes and bodies that don't develop properly because they're hiding something impossible.

"The auction." Maddox says suddenly. "It's in three days. If we're going to move—"

"We need more evidence. Need to identify the Council member." But even as I say it, my wolf snarls impatience. Every hour we delay is another hour Samira exists in that careful emptiness, another hour omegas suffer, another hour our mother lives as Remus's prize.

"About the Lim girl," Paxton watches me too carefully. "Your wolf reacted to her this morning. And just now, you—"

"Drop it."

"Gray—"

"I said drop it." The snarl comes out before I can stop it, alpha command bleeding through. Both brothers bare their necks instinctively, and I hate myself a little more. "Sorry. I'm sorry. It's just..."

"Complicated." Maddox finishes, because he understands. Because we're all walking through a minefield of memory and duty and ghosts we thought were buried.

Four o'clock comes like judgment day. We position ourselves carefully—Paxton watching the servant stairs, Maddox at the main hallway, me approaching from the east. The plan is simple: observe, confirm, retreat. Do not engage. Do not reveal ourselves. Do not compromise the mission.

Plans rarely survive first contact with reality.

The Luna's suite door stands partially open, afternoon light spilling into the hallway. I approach on silent feet, every instinct screaming danger and hope in equal measure. Through the gap, I see her.

Margaret Carver sits at a small table, back to the door, pouring tea with movements I remember from childhood. Her hair, once golden-brown, now carries more silver than color. She's thinner, fragile in a way that speaks of long illness or sustained stress. But the way she holds her teacup, pinkie extended just so—mother always said proper ladies never forget their manners.

I should leave. Should turn around and walk away, maintain our cover, stick to the plan. Instead, I push the door wider.

She turns at the sound, and twenty years collapse into nothing.

Her face carries two decades of suffering mapped in lines and scars. A healing bruise colors her left cheekbone purple-green. Her eyes, the same gray-green I see in mirrors, widen with something between fear and recognition.

"I don't have anything worth stealing." Her voice comes steady despite the tremor in her hands. "Unless you count tea and memories."

I step inside, close the door with careful movements. Everything in me screams to cross the room, to fall to my knees beside her chair, to beg forgiveness for leaving her here. For surviving when she didn't.

"I'm not here to steal anything." My voice comes out rougher than intended. "Just... looking for someone."

She studies me with eyes that have seen too much. "You're one of the investigators. Morrison, isn't it?"

The lie tastes like ash. "Yes."

"You have your mother's eyes." The words slip out quiet as prayer. "She must be proud."

My heart stops. Restarts. Hammers against ribs that suddenly feel too small. She knows. Somehow, impossibly, she knows.

"How—"

"A mother always knows her cubs." She sets down the teacup with trembling fingers. "Even when they wear different names. Even when twenty years and Scottish accents try to hide them."

The plan dissolves. Cover shatters. I'm across the room before conscious thought catches up, dropping to my knees beside her chair like I'm ten years old again, seeking comfort from nightmares.

"Mother."

Her hand touches my hair, and I break. Twenty years of rage and guilt and desperate hope pour out in ragged breaths while she murmurs nonsense comfort, the same sounds she used when we were young and the world still made sense.

"My beautiful boy." Tears track down her cheeks, but her smile holds more joy than sorrow. "I knew you'd come home. All of you. Where are—?"

"Here." Maddox speaks from the doorway, Paxton beside him. They cross the room in synchronized movement, and suddenly we're all on our knees around her chair, her hands trying to touch all of us at once.

"My boys. My brave, beautiful boys." She cups each of our faces in turn, memorizing changes two decades carved. "Look how you've grown. Your father would be so proud."

"We thought you were dead." Paxton's voice breaks. "We left you here. We left you with him."

"You survived." Fierce pride strengthens her voice. "That's all that matters. You lived, and you came back."

"We're getting you out." Maddox says it like fact, not plan. "Tonight. Pack your things—"

"No."

The word stops us cold. She straightens in her chair, and for a moment I see the Luna she used to be, before Remus broke her down to manageable pieces.

"I can't leave. Not yet." She touches the bruise on her cheek with absent fingers. "There are omegas here who need me. Children who have no one else. If I disappear, he'll take it out on them."

"Mother—"

"Did you know Liwon had a daughter?" The subject change throws me. "Beautiful baby. Only three months old when..." She trails off, lost in memory. "Remus doesn't know she survived. Doesn't know she's been under his roof all these years."

My brothers go still. We exchange glances weighted with shared knowledge.

"The kitchen omega," she continues, voice soft with affection. "Samira. They call her Mud, try to break her down to nothing. But she has her father's spirit. Her mother's strength. Even if she doesn't know it."

"You know who she is." Not a question.

"I was there the night Liwon died." Fresh tears threaten. "He was trying to save evidence, trying to stop the trafficking. Such a good man. So loyal to your father. When I heard they'd found an orphaned baby in the omega quarters, same age as the Lim child should be... I did the math."

"Why didn't you tell her?"

"And paint a target on her back?" She shakes her head. "Remus would kill her just for being Liwon's blood. She's safer as nobody. Even if it breaks my heart watching her suffer."

I think of empty golden eyes, of wolfsbane killing what makes her whole, of twenty years of systematic destruction. "She's not safe. None of them are."

"No." Agreement comes heavy. "But she's alive. That has to count for something."

We stay too long. Risk too much. But none of us can bear to leave, not when we just found her again. She tells us fragments—how Remus keeps her controlled through threats against the omegas, how she helps when she can, how she's been slipping medicine and comfort to the abused for years.

"The Lim girl," she says as we finally prepare to leave. "She had her first heat last night."

My wolf surges so hard I taste blood.

"I gave her wolfsbane and silver nitrate." Guilt weighs down every word. "It was that or let Remus claim her. But the combination... it may have damaged her wolf permanently."

Rage builds in my chest, hot and brutal. That emptiness in her eyes makes sense now. They didn't just suppress her heat—they caged the only free part of her.

"Go." Mother pushes us toward the door. "Before someone notices. But know this—when you make your move, whatever you're planning, I'll be ready. Twenty years I've waited for justice. I can wait a few days more."

We leave her there, surrounded by elegant prison bars, and every step away feels like betrayal. But she's right. We have roles to play, evidence to gather, a Council traitor to identify.

Back in our quarters, the weight of revelation settles like lead.

"Liwon's daughter." Paxton says it like he's testing the words. "Father's Beta's child, raised as the lowest omega in the pack that killed her parents."

"We have to tell her." Maddox paces, telekinetic energy making papers flutter. "She deserves to know—"

"And get her killed?" I cut him off. "You heard Mother. Remus doesn't know. The second he finds out she's Liwon's blood, she's dead."

"So we do nothing? Let her go on thinking she's worthless?"

I think of kneeling beside her in that bathroom, the way she talked about being broken like it was carved in stone. My wolf whines, pushing images I don't want to acknowledge. Protection. Possession. Mine.

"We get evidence. We identify the Council traitor. We shut down the auction." I list facts because emotion threatens to drown me. "Then we burn this whole place down and sort through the ashes."

"And Mother?" Paxton asks quietly. "We just leave her here?"

"For now." The words taste like poison. "Three more days. Then we end this."

Three days to pretend we haven't found our mother living as a prisoner. Three days to watch Samira move through hell with empty eyes. Three days to gather enough evidence to destroy not just Remus, but whoever's been pulling his strings.

My wolf paces, restless with knowledge I'm not ready to face. She's Liwon's daughter. Pack nobility hidden in plain sight. Broken down to nothing by the same monster who destroyed our family.

Nothing special, I told myself. Just another omega.

But she's not, is she? She's the daughter of heroes, raised in shadows, carrying strength she doesn't even know she possesses. And my wolf recognized something in her that my conscious mind is too cowardly to name.

Three days.

Then we tear it all down.

And maybe, in the ashes, we can find whatever's left of the children we all used to be.