The Cursed Omega's Revenge

Chapter Twenty

GRAY

The note arrives between the third and fourth course, slipped beneath my plate while the server pours wine that gleams like liquid garnets in crystal. Cream paper, no watermark, seven words in blocky print that make my wolf lift his head: Behind the elder care facility. Nine tonight. Come alone.

My brothers catch the shift in my posture like predators sensing movement in tall grass. Maddox's water glass pauses halfway to his lips, condensation beading down crystal. Paxton's fingers still on his fork, that subtle tension that means his gift is already reaching out, tasting the paper's history through proximity alone. The dining hall thrums with anticipation—buyers arrived early for tomorrow's auction fill the space with cologne and cruelty, their laughter sharp enough to draw blood. Remus holds court at the head table, playing gracious host to monsters who've traveled from three states away to shop for flesh.

I slide the note across mahogany polished to mirror-brightness. Maddox reads, passes to Paxton. No words needed—twenty years of shared survival creates its own language of glances and muscle tension.

The party spills through the packhouse like wine through white linen, staining everything it touches. Music from the ballroom carries on air thick with cigar smoke and anticipation. In darker corners, I catch the wet sounds of appetites being fed, alphas sampling the merchandise before tomorrow's main event. Perfect cover for a meeting that reeks of ambush.

We slip out through the kitchen where omegas wash endless dishes, their hands raw and bleeding from lye soap. The Georgia heat clings even after sunset, humid enough to swim through. Spanish moss hangs from ancient oaks like the hair of drowned women, and somewhere in the darkness, cicadas scream their mating songs.

The elder care facility squats against the tree line, windows black as closed eyes, kudzu climbing its walls like it's trying to drag the building back into the earth. We approach from three angles—Maddox from the north where shadows pool thick as tar, Paxton circling south through the abandoned garden where tomatoes rot on dying vines, me taking the direct path because sometimes the obvious route is the least expected.

Movement in my periphery. Three figures emerge from kudzu-choked darkness, moonlight catching on metal—weapons held low but ready.

"Weapons on the ground." A woman's voice, steady despite the tremor of fear underneath.

We comply with deliberate slowness, setting knives and guns on cracked concrete that still holds the day's heat. The figures step into better light—two men and a woman, all carrying the middle-rank scent of betas. Auburn hair catches silver light on the woman. Administrative assistant, if memory serves. The larger man works supply management, built like someone who loads trucks and asks no questions. The third—

My heart stops. Starts again. Races.

"Rufus."

The son of my father's third Martin steps forward, and twenty years collapse into nothing. Broader now, scarred where baby fat used to soften edges, but those eyes—dark as tilled earth after rain, holding flecks of gold that catch light like hidden treasure—haven't changed. The boy who taught me to catch fireflies in mason jars, their light painting his face green-gold in summer darkness. Who split his contraband candy bars down the middle because Mom restricted our sugar, making every stolen Snickers taste like rebellion. Who showed me how to throw a sucker punch when bigger boys cornered us behind the training grounds, his knuckles splitting against their teeth while he laughed wild and free.

"Hello, Gray."

Memory floods back—Rufus at eight, setting up pup tents by the creek where we told ghost stories that made the younger kids cry. His voice dropping to whispers about the thing in the woods that ate bad children, while overhead, real monsters plotted in council rooms. Teaching me curse words in his grandmother's Louisiana Creole, the syllables rolling off his tongue like music. That last summer before everything ended, when we carved our names into the old oak behind the packhouse, swearing we'd be brothers forever.

"You died. They said Martin's whole family—"

"Aunt Linda grabbed me during the chaos. While everyone focused on the throne room, on your father's—" His voice catches like it did when we were ten and he found his dog dead behind the barn. "She ran. Took me to Hemlock, New York, where nobody asks questions and everyone minds their own business."

My wolf circles beneath my skin, testing truth through scent—gun oil and cigarettes and that particular note of honeysuckle that always clung to Martin's family line. No deception, just exhaustion that runs marrow-deep.

"You knew who we were."

"The moment that SUV pulled up. Twenty years changes faces, not souls. You still walk like Romulus—controlled violence wearing a suit. Maddox still watches everything like it might attack. Paxton still sees too much for his own good."

The woman steps forward, moonlight revealing a face marked by loss. "Lucy Brennan. I run administrative operations." Her fingers twist in her blouse, nervous energy seeking outlet. "My sister Ruby presented omega two years back. Tried to run when Remus started his night visits. They brought her back in pieces. Made us all watch as they—" Her voice fractures like safety glass, holding its shape but spider-webbed with cracks. "Made us understand what happens to omegas who forget their place."

The big man speaks with the careful cadence of someone who thinks before every word. "Hank Meyer. Supply management. My daughter Hannah presented last week. Sweetest girl you ever met, loves to sing while she gardens, voice like morning birds." His massive hands clench and unclench. "The moment her scent changed, I saw Remus watching. So I lied. Said she was visiting my mother in Colorado for the summer. Drove her there myself, eighteen hours straight, told her to forget this place existed."

Three betas. Three reasons for treason. Three stories that paint Remus's reign in shades of systematic horror.

"We've been planning this for months," Rufus says, pulling a cigarette from his jacket with fingers that barely shake. The flame from his lighter illuminates his face for a moment—older, harder, but still the boy who sang me lullabies when nightmares got too real. "Lucy, Hank, and I aren't the only ones. There are others—omegas ready to fight, betas sick of the blood, even a few alphas who remember what honor used to mean. Tomorrow, during the auction, they're ready to riot. Create enough chaos for you to grab who you need and run."

"Can they be trusted?" The question tastes necessary but bitter.

Rufus's laugh holds no humor, just recognition of what we've all become. "Can any of us? But Gray, these people hate Remus as much as you do. Lost children, siblings, mates to his trade. He killed my parents, killed your dad. His own brother, Gray. Sometimes the need for vengeance is stronger than trust. Sometimes it's all we have left."

He's right. In this economy of suffering, revenge is the only currency that holds its value.

"We brought evidence." Hank produces a flash drive from his pocket, small enough to swallow if necessary. "Real shipping manifests. Routes through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi. Which omegas went where, who bought them, how much blood money changed hands."

Lucy pulls out handwritten notes, different inks suggesting multiple sources. "Guard rotations for tomorrow's auction. Which alphas have private viewing privileges for the special lots. The back routes they use to move the ones who don't survive the breaking process."

Rufus offers a leather journal, worn soft as skin from handling. "This belonged to Hector's father—Remus's previous beta, Leon. Started documenting everything when his conscience finally grew too heavy. Every omega sold, every visitor who left with merchandise, every beta who asked questions and ended up feeding the roses in the memorial garden. Then he ate his gun. Left this behind a wall. I found it while I was helping renovate the office for Hector. In it was a note asking forgiveness from a God who stopped listening long ago."

My wolf snarls satisfaction. Physical evidence that could bury Remus properly, make even the Council take notice.

"After we run," Rufus continues, lighting another cigarette off the dying ember of the first, "I know a place. Rogue pack deep in Appalachia, near Shenandoah. Call themselves Riverrun. Moonshiners, gunrunners, the kind of assholes who'll do any dirty work if the price is right. Every alpha in three states uses them for jobs too ugly for official channels."

"You're suggesting we take up with criminals?"

"I'm suggesting we take them over. Three alphas with your bloodline, your training? We could gut their leadership, claim the territory. Establish a base where Remus can't reach and come up with a way to take this place back for your blood."

The plan has merit wrapped in madness. But then, everything about tomorrow qualifies as insane.

"There's something else." Rufus's scent sharpens with urgency. "Hector's been hunting one of the kitchen omegas. The one called Mud. He knows she's who injected him with the wolfsbane mixture."

Ice forms in my veins, spreading from chest to extremities. Samira's on tomorrow's auction block, priced at five hundred dollars like broken furniture. If Hector's actively targeting her—

Footsteps on gravel cut through thought like blades through silk. We melt into shadow as voices carry through humid air—panic and fear and underneath, something that makes my wolf surge against his cage. A group of omegas moving in protective formation, surrounding a figure wrapped in someone's shawl. They pass close enough that I catch the scent—blood and hypothermia and that particular exhaustion that comes from pouring your life force into another's wounds.

Samira, though I can't see her clearly through the protective wall of bodies.

We wait until they round the corner, then follow at a distance. The confrontation is brief—her dress destroyed, violent shivering that speaks of systematic torture, the little one blurting out Hector's location before catching herself.

When I wrap my jacket around her shoulders, when our fingers brush in that barely-there touch that sends electricity racing up my arm, her skin burns fever-hot despite the hypothermia. The silver threads that saved my mother have left her depleted, running on fumes and stubbornness alone.

"The auction won't include you." The promise escapes before logic can cage it, carrying the weight of prophecy.

Then she's gone, disappearing into the basement with her protectors while rage builds in my chest like pressure in a volcano, seeking release.

"Supply closet." Maddox's voice pulls me back from the edge. "They locked him in a closet."

The storage building reeks of motor oil and old violence. Inside, muffled curses lead us to a padlocked closet that vibrates with Hector's fury. Paxton picks the lock with the efficiency of someone who learned the skill young and never forgot.

Hector spills out—bound with rope that's already rubbed his wrists raw, gagged with his own socks, face purple with rage and oxygen deprivation. We haul him upright, drag him struggling through the compound's back paths. The forest swallows us whole, darkness between the pines thick enough to choke on. Pine needles muffle our footsteps while overhead, branches whisper secrets to the wind.

Three miles deep, where even death screams dissipate into nothing, we stop.

I remove the gag, let him suck in air that tastes of decomposing leaves. "Comfortable?"

"You're dead! All of you! When Remus finds out what you've done—"

My fist connects with his jaw, bone giving way with a satisfying crack. Blood paints bark in patterns that please my wolf. "You touched her. Put your hands on what's mine."

"That omega b***h killed my wolf! She deserves—"

Maddox lifts him without touching, invisible force spreading him against empty air. Shoulders dislocate with wet pops that echo between trees. Ribs crack under pressure that comes from everywhere and nowhere, his screams turning to whimpers.

"My turn." Paxton pulls off his gloves with the care of a surgeon preparing to operate.

His palm presses against Hector's forehead, and both men scream. My youngest brother's gift tears through Hector's history—every cruelty, every violation, every moment of pleasure taken from another's pain. When he pulls away, Paxton doubles over, vomits into pine needles that haven't seen rain in weeks.

"Twenty-three. That's how many he's—" He can't finish, dry heaving while tears stream down his face. "The youngest was eleven. Eleven years old."

We string him high against an ancient oak, arms wrenched back until both shoulders fully dislocate. The gag goes back in, deeper this time, far enough to trigger his reflex. Already, eyes glow green-gold in the darkness beyond our vision. The forest knows wounded prey when it smells it.

"Coyotes first," Maddox observes with clinical detachment. "Then maybe bears if they're ranging this far south. But probably coyotes. They like to start with the soft parts—stomach, genitals. Keep their prey alive and conscious for hours."

Behind us, something rustles through underbrush, drawn by the scent of blood and fear. We don't look back.

At the compound's edge, Paxton suddenly grabs Rufus's wrist. The beta freezes as my brother's gift flows through him, reading truth written in memory and bone.

"He's clean," Paxton confirms after long moments. "No hidden agenda. He loved our father, Gray. Came back partly for Becka, but also hoping to find us. To find family."

The party still rages as we slip back inside, music and laughter covering the sound of our footsteps. In our quarters, we spread Hector's father's journal across the desk. Twenty years of documentation in handwriting that grows increasingly frantic.

"Remus has a handler," I read aloud. "Someone high in the Council who protects him, feeds him information. They meet quarterly at—" The rest is obscured by what looks suspiciously like tears mixed with whiskey stains.

"Can't trust the Council anymore," Maddox states what we're all thinking. "If someone that high up is compromised—"

"Then we're on our own." I close the journal, decision crystallizing. "Tomorrow, during the auction. We take Mother and Samira. Anyone else who wants to run. Then we disappear into Appalachia and become someone else's nightmare for a change."

Rufus grins, and for a moment he's ten again, planning mischief by firefly light. "Just like old times. Remember when we stole Remus's dirtbike?"

"And crashed it into the lake."

"Worth the beating."

From the forest, something screams high and thin. Hector, meeting justice delivered by teeth and claws.

The plan forms between us—positions, timing, contingencies for when everything goes to hell. Because it will. These things always do. But sometimes that's the point. Sometimes you need to burn everything down to see what's worth saving in the ashes.

Outside, Luxor sleeps unaware that tomorrow brings revolution wrapped in the skin of an auction. Two hours from Atlanta, close enough for civilization to pretend it matters, far enough for monsters to play without supervision.

In twelve hours, everything changes. But right now, Samira sleeps wrapped in my jacket while my wolf counts heartbeats, each one bringing us closer to freedom or death.