The Omega's Berserker Alpha

Chapter Seven

FEILIAN

Touch is a language I learned to fear before I learned to speak.

When Holly's fingers brush mine while handing me gauze, I see her death seventeen ways—throat torn by Madison, poisoned by wolfsbane, old age in a bed that smells like lavender, drowning in the Atlantic during a storm that hasn't happened yet. The visions cascade through me like water through a broken dam, but I don't flinch anymore. Death is just another dialect I've mastered.

"You okay?" Holly asks, noticing my stillness.

"Fine." I wrap April's wrist with practiced efficiency, careful not to let skin meet skin. "The swelling should go down in a few hours."

April watches me with eyes that have seen too much. "T'as appris où, le français?" Where did you learn French?

The question pulls me backward, to a monastery that no longer exists, where my most precious possession was a silver boombox the size of a shoebox. The monks found it bizarre—this child who hoarded language cassettes like other girls collected dolls.

"From tapes," I answer in French. "On a mountain where there was nothing else to do but listen."

Chloe, curled against my side like a broken bird, perks up. "Des cassettes?"

"Pimsleur, mostly. Some Berlitz." I smooth her hair, accepting the vision of her possible futures—some bright, some dark, most ending in this very room. "I had German, Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic, and Lhasa. Wore them out from repetition."

"Why?" Stephanie's voice is hoarse from screaming that happened before they stole the boat.

I think of those endless mountain nights, my boombox crackling with static as I repeated phrases in languages I'd never use, never need. "Because the world is bigger than one tongue can hold. And because..." I pause, searching for truth. "Because if you speak enough languages, you're never entirely foreign anywhere."

The door opens and Patrick enters with a woman I don't recognize. She's in her sixties, silver-streaked black hair in a neat bun, brown skin marked with laugh lines and the particular exhaustion of someone who's seen too much pain. When she extends her hand to shake, I see her death clearly—peacefully, in her garden, thirty-seven years from now, surrounded by grandchildren who don't exist yet.

"Dr. Sonya Ramirez," she says, and I take her hand briefly, accepting the cascade of her probability streams. "Patrick asked me to consult. I specialize in trauma recovery."

"You're retired," I observe, catching fragments of her recent past in the touch.

"Semi-retired. I live on the north shore of the island, far enough from pack politics to maintain perspective." She sets down a medical bag that's seen better decades. "Patrick mentioned you speak multiple languages. That's unusual for someone raised in isolation."

"Not isolation. Selective separation." I release Chloe gently and stand. "There's a difference."

Dr. Ramirez studies me with eyes that diagnose without judgment. "May I examine them?"

I look at the three omegas, seeing their trust in me, their need for permission. "She's safe," I tell them in French. "I see good futures with her."

April nods first, then Stephanie. Chloe just burrows deeper into the blankets, but doesn't protest when Dr. Ramirez approaches with careful movements.

"Holly, can you tell me what you've found so far?" Dr. Ramirez's voice carries the particular calm of someone who's talked people back from edges.

While they discuss medical details, I move to the window. Ezekiel's attack plays out in probability streams—sometimes in six days, sometimes seven, occasionally never if certain variables align. In one stream, Patrick tears Ezekiel's throat out with his teeth. In another, Ezekiel burns the medical wing with us inside. The futures shift like smoke, impossible to grasp.

"Feilian?" Patrick's voice pulls me back. He's standing too close, his ice-and-whiskey scent making my approaching heat spike. Sixty hours now, maybe less. "You alright?"

"Your pack wants to send them back."

"My pack is wrong."

"Your pack is scared." I turn to face him, noting how his pupils dilate when our eyes meet. "Ezekiel has a reputation. He once skinned an omega alive for trying to escape. Made the others watch."

Patrick's temperature drops ten degrees. Frost spreads across the window. "He won't touch them."

"No. He won't." I agree, seeing the futures where Patrick becomes something monstrous to protect what's his. "But the cost might be higher than you think."

Before he can respond, Chloe whimpers. Dr. Ramirez is examining the bite marks on her shoulder—claiming marks that were meant to break, not bond. My wolf snarls at the sight.

"Who did this?" Dr. Ramirez asks gently.

"Ezekiel," April answers for her. "He likes them young. Says they're easier to train."

The window cracks under Patrick's hand. The sound makes all three omegas flinch, and I move between them and him instinctively.

"Control," I say quietly. "They don't need another alpha's rage right now."

He takes a breath, then another, reining in the winter storm under his skin. "I'm going to kill him."

"Yes," I agree, having seen it in multiple timelines. "But not today."

Dr. Ramirez continues her examination with professional calm, but I catch her watching Patrick with interest. When she takes my arm to move past me, I see fragments of her past—she knew Magnus, treated his omegas, kept their secrets and her silence.

"You treated Magnus's victims," I say quietly, and she freezes.

"How did you—" She looks at where our skin touched, understanding dawning. "Mountain wolf. You're a true seer."

"I see probabilities. Past and future bleed together."

She nods slowly. "Yes, I treated them. What Magnus did to omegas... Patrick doesn't know the full extent."

"He's starting to guess."

"It was worse than he can imagine." Her voice drops to barely audible. "There's a basement room. Hidden. Holly knows about it. We found things there—restraints, drugs, recording equipment. Magnus liked to document his conquests."

The information settles into my bones like ice. I glance at Patrick, who's focused on Chloe's quiet crying, and wonder if learning the full truth about his brother would break him or finally free him.

"Feilian?" Chloe reaches for me, and I go to her, accepting the vision of her next words before she speaks them. "Est-ce qu'on va mourir?" Are we going to die?

"Non." I stroke her hair, seeing futures where she lives, where she heals, where she finds love with a gentle beta named Marcus who doesn't exist in her life yet. "You're going to survive. All of you."

"How do you know?" Stephanie asks.

"Because I see it." I let certainty color my voice, even though probability is never certain. "Multiple futures where you're free, safe, happy even."

April laughs bitterly. "Happy. Right."

I touch her hand deliberately, letting her see what I see—just a flash of her five years from now, teaching self-defense to young omegas, mated to a female alpha who treasures her strength. Her eyes widen.

"Was that—"

"One possibility. The most likely if you stay here."

Patrick moves closer, drawn by our conversation. "You're showing them their futures?"

"The good ones. They've seen enough of the bad."

His phone buzzes. Roland, the display shows. He ignores it, but I've already seen the conversation in probability streams—Roland wants to negotiate with Ezekiel, send the omegas back with compensation to avoid war.

"Your beta thinks you're making a mistake," I tell him.

"My beta thinks too much like Magnus would have."

"Magnus would have kept them or sold them, depending on his mood." The words come out flat, factual. "You're trying to protect them. The pack doesn't understand protection without possession."

Dr. Ramirez finishes her examination, her face grim. "They need rest, proper nutrition, and time. The physical wounds will heal quickly with wolf metabolism. The psychological wounds..." She looks at me. "They seem to trust you. That's unusual for omegas this traumatized."

"We recognize each other." I think of my grandmother's lessons, her words echoing across time: Trauma speaks its own language, child. Those who've been broken can hear its accent in others.

"I'll stay with them tonight," Holly offers. "The heat suite is prepared for—" She stops, flushing.

"For me." I finish. "Fifty-eight hours, give or take."

Patrick's jaw clenches. The temperature drops another degree.

"We should discuss protocols," Dr. Ramirez says carefully. "An unmated omega in heat, especially one with your bloodline—"

"Will trigger every unmated alpha in range." I move away from Patrick, needing distance from his magnetic pull. "I know."

"The heat suite has reinforced locks, soundproofing, and its own ventilation system," Holly explains. "You'll be safe."

Safe. The word tastes like lies. In the probability streams, I see Patrick breaking down the door, see myself begging him to claim me, see us f*****g against every surface while my heat burns through us both. But I also see him maintaining control, pacing outside like a caged wolf while I suffer alone.

"I had a boombox," I say suddenly, needing to fill the silence with something other than future s*x and violence. "Silver, with dual cassette decks. Got it from a trader when I was seven."

They all look at me, confused by the non sequitur.

"Every night after training, I'd listen to language tapes. The monastery was silent except for wind and prayers, but in my room, I had voices teaching me to speak German, Russian, Arabic. The batteries were precious—we had to charge them with a solar panel that barely worked. But those tapes..." I touch the window, watching team form under my fingers. "They were my window to a world I thought I'd never see."

"What happened to it?" Patrick asks softly.

"Burned with everything else." I see the monastery in flames, hear my grandmother's last words, feel the weight of languages I learned for no one. "The tapes melted first. Plastic burns faster than wood."

Chloe makes a soft sound of sympathy. She understands loss of treasured things.

"I'll get you another one," Patrick says, and the certainty in his voice makes my chest tight.

"It won't be the same."

"No. But it'll be yours."

Before I can respond, his phone buzzes again. This time it's Tyler, and Patrick's expression shifts to alert.

"Ezekiel sent a message," he says after reading. "He wants his property back. Gives us twenty-four hours before he comes to collect."

The three omegas press together, fear scent spiking.

"Twenty-four hours is generous for him," I observe, seeing the probability streams shift and realign. "He usually just attacks."

"He's testing me. Seeing if the new alpha is weak enough to fold."

"Are you?"

Patrick's eyes flash silver-bright. "No."

"Then we should prepare for war." I turn back to the omegas, switching to French. "You're going to learn to fight. Not because you'll need to, but because knowing you can changes everything."

"We can't fight alphas," April protests.

"My grandmother was four-foot-eleven and could drop an alpha in three moves." I demonstrate the first position of mountain wolf martial arts, the one that looks like prayer but is actually prepared destruction. "Size means nothing if you know where to strike."

Chloe watches with interest. "You'll teach us?"

"If you want to learn."

All three nod, and something shifts in the probability streams—their futures getting brighter, stronger, less dependent on male protection.

Patrick's phone buzzes a third time. Madison's name appears, and I see her future intentions clearly—she plans to seduce Patrick tonight, before my heat makes me irresistible. She thinks if she can get him to f**k her, it'll break whatever hold I have on him.

"Madison's coming to your room tonight," I tell him. "Around midnight. She'll be wearing lingerie under her robe."

He stares at me. "How could you possibly—"

"I see probabilities. Hers are very... focused." I turn back to the omegas. "Dr. Ramirez, they should stay together tonight. Pack bonds form faster with physical proximity."

"I agree." She stands, gathering her supplies. "I'll check on them in the morning. Patrick, a word?"

They step into the hallway, but I hear them anyway—enhanced hearing is both gift and curse.

"That girl is dangerous," Dr. Ramirez says quietly.

"I know."

"No, you don't. Mountain wolves were hunted nearly extinct for a reason. They see too much, know too much. Being near them changes people, makes them see possibilities they'd never consider otherwise."

"Good."

"Patrick—"

"This pack needs changing, Sonya. It needs to be more than Magnus's legacy."

She sighs. "Just... be careful. When her heat hits, with her gift active, she might see futures that don't exist, might pull you into probability streams that were never meant to manifest."

They return, and I pretend I didn't hear. But Patrick watches me now with new awareness, understanding that I'm changing more than just his pack—I'm changing the very fabric of what's possible.

Fifty-seven hours until my heat.

The countdown beats in my blood like a second heartbeat, and in every probability stream, Patrick is there when it breaks—sometimes as savior, sometimes as claim, always as the inevitable conclusion to an equation that started the moment he bought me for five million euros.

I just hope we both survive the solution.