The Omega Who Burned

THE ALLIANCE

Caden came back to the pack hollowed out.

He sat in this chair and stared at nothing for a long time. The old man who carried Mira away, as she belonged to him.

Aethon.

The name sat in his chest like a stone. Only one bloodline in the supernatural world could open that ring. He pressed his fingers against the desk and breathed.

Who was she?

How was she connected to Aethon?

What was she?

The question circled without answers, and Voss was no help. His wolf had gone completely silent since the ring closed, the way grief sits in a person before it has a name.

She was mine, Caden thought. It was not a question. It was not even a decision. It was simply the most certain thing he had ever known. Mine. And they took her. He was still sitting there when the door burst open.

Robert stepped in, his face tight. "Alpha. We have a problem."

Caden looked up slowly. "What kind?"

"Border attack. We found bodies this morning, three wolves from the night patrol. All dead."

Caden was on his feet before Robert finished the sentence.

"Where are the bodies?"

"They are at the Pack Hospital."

The pack hospital was quiet in the way places go quiet when something terrible happened inside them. The bodies of the three border wolves lay side by side, covered to their chests, their faces still wearing the expression of something that had come at them without warning. Dr Henry stood at the far end of the room when Caden entered. He turned immediately.

"Alpha. Thank you for coming."

Caden looked at the bodies. Something moved through him that was neither grief nor anger, something colder than both.

"When did this happen, Beta?"

"Last night, when they were on patrol and were attacked. I discovered them this morning, sir."

"No one reported it last night?"

Robert said nothing.

Caden looked at him for a long moment. Then he turned back to Henry.

"What killed them?"

That is what I wanted to show you. Henry moved to the nearest body and carefully lifted the wolf's right hand. Beneath the fingernails, dark residue. Something that had no business being there. "This is not a rogue attack, Alpha. The wound patterns, the residue, the way the blood settled this has witchcraft written all over it."

Caden studied the hand without touching it.

"Before he died," Henry continued, "this one fought back. He marked whoever attacked him. Scratched deep enough to draw blood."

"If the attacker is supernatural, the wound would have healed," Caden said.

"Yes. But not immediately. There would have been a wound." Henry met his eyes carefully. "Whoever did this does not want their secret exposed."

Caden Straightened. "Increase border security. I want the strongest wolves on that line, rotating shifts, no gaps. And I want every wolf in this pack checked for unexplained wounds." He turned to Robert. "Something is happening in this pack that I do not know about yet. I intend to find out what it is."

"Alright, Alpha, on it."

# # #

Meanwhile, in Alison's chamber

She sat on the edge of her bed, her side throbbing, where the border wolf had scratched her before Lucian's intervention ended it. The wound was healing slowly.

You are careless, Clara said inside her mind. Her wolf's voice was low and precise. If you had hidden your scent, they would have found you.

"I know."

Lucian killed them all to protect you. That is a debt, Alison.

"I am aware of what it is," she pressed her hand carefully against her side and felt the heat still radiating from the wound's edges. "Which is exactly why I summoned him."

A knock at the door. Then Lucian stepped inside without waiting for an answer, which was his way of reminding her that he had never waited on her convenience and did not intend to start.

"You were at the border."

"I needed information."

"You needed to be reckless." He crossed the room slowly. "You left a trail."

"It is handled."

"Is it?" He stopped in front of her. "Adnan is ash, Alison. My coven is rattled. The girl killed him without even being in the room." His voice was quiet and precise. "Do not tell me things are handled."

"That is exactly why I need you." She held her ground. "Senna's daughter, Mira, her power had fully emerged. Alone, neither of us can reach her. Together."

We tried together twenty years ago. "His jaw tightened. "You remember how that ended."

"We succeeded twenty years ago. Senna is dead."

"And her daughter is alive. Stronger than her mother." He studied her face. "You knew about wolf blood. You knew what she was and you did not tell me."

She said nothing.

"Give me one reason I should trust anything you say."

"Because you want her as much as I do." Her voice was steady. "I know you wanted to kill her. But I need her blood alive. We can both get what we want for this, the same way we always did. Together.

Silence stretched between them long and weighted with twenty years of things unsaid.

"I am not interested in your games, he said. "The last time I moved against her, I lost Advan."

"Lucian." Her voice dropped. "Do not forsake me. Not now."

"Stop it, Alison. You are a liar. I trusted you once, and you betrayed that trust."

" I love you." The words came out quiet and old, worn smooth from being held too long. "But Kevan was my soul mate. My wolf would have died without the bond. I had no choice."

"I know you had no choice." His voice hardened. "That did not make it easier to watch."

"You killed him eventually," she said softly. "So let us not pretend it did not work out the way you wanted."

He looked at her for a long time. Something moved across his face that was neither forgiveness nor anger, something older than both.

"Let us forget the past," she said. And focus on what is in front of us."

What happened next was not forgiveness. It was not trust. It was something older and darker than the two people who had once wanted the same things and had never fully stopped, closing the distance between twenty years of silence in the only language they had ever shared fluently.

They lust in together. Lucian took her mouth like he had been holding back for twenty years and was done with patience. She met him with equal force, neither of them gentle, neither of them asking permission. His mouth moved to her neck, teeth grazing the skin there, and she felt the bite of it through her entire body.

He used his hand to unlock her bra, grappled her breast with his left hand, sucking it, starting from the n*****s of her breast.

He was getting hard down, cannot wait any longer. She was moaning, uh-huh…uh-huh; her moaning was getting intense, she could not withhold it anymore. She was sexually aroused and enjoyed every bit of it.

She unblocked his trousers and grabbed his p***s. Straight to her mouth, licking it as if her life depended on it. It'd been a long time since she had been sexually aroused like this; she saw him dripping wet and ready to be ridden. He inserted his dik inside her and f**k s**t out of her body, till they both collapsed.

When it was over, they lay in the dark, and neither of them spoke for a long time.

Then Lucian's voice came, flat and certain.

"I want the girl alive. Her power intact." Alison turned her head.

"Agreed. Her blood is more useful living."

"Then we have an agreement."

Outside the window, the night was cold like a normal day. Across the territory, Caden was looking for answers. Somewhere beyond the border, Mira was waking up in a castle that had been waiting for her entire life.