The Omega's Desperate Escape

Chapter Twelve

ALEX

The November rain tastes different when you're the one making it fall. I stand on the roof of the Meridian Tower, watching water I've called from clear skies wash Toronto clean of its sins—or at least dilute them. Below, the city moves through its Saturday morning routines, unaware that their unexpected weather comes from an alpha's restlessness.

Three months. Twelve weeks of watching Jinx navigate my city with the kind of desperate grace that makes my ancient wolf pace beneath my skin. The Ulfric—that primordial consciousness that chose me at birth, making me heir to powers my family never suspected—whispers in the Old Tongue about mates and moon-blessed bonds.

I've ignored him. Maintained distance. Let her exist in the spaces between territories while I played human billionaire and tried to forget how she smelled that first night at Murphy's Law—jasmine and vanilla and rage wrapped in drugstore cologne.

Then Desmond Venture decided to make her his obsession.

My phone buzzes. Local news alert: Unusual weather patterns continue to baffle meteorologists. Toronto has experienced 47% more precipitation than normal this November, with no clear atmospheric explanation.

Below that, another alert: City Council considers emergency measures as unexpected storms strain infrastructure. "It's like someone's playing with the weather," says Environment Canada spokesperson.

I let the rain ease to a drizzle, then nothing. The Ulfric settles slightly, though his attention remains fixed on Queen Street where our omega—not ours, not yet, perhaps never—counts her last suppressants like prayers to absent gods.

"Sir?" Oliver's voice comes through my earpiece. "Venture's pulled his surveillance teams. Complete withdrawal as of 0300 hours."

Interesting. Young Desmond finally realizes he's been swimming with something larger than expected. Smart boy. Too bad it won't save him.

"And our other interests?"

"The pharmaceutical shipment was successfully redirected. Our friend in Little Portugal made it available through the expected channels. The omega's packmate acquired two bottles yesterday evening."

Perfect. Let her think she's finding her own solutions while I remove obstacles she doesn't know exist. The suppressants I've provided—through careful laundering that would make forensic accountants weep—will hold her biology stable without the slow poisoning of veterinary-grade chemicals. Dr. Wagner is working on her formula, working from samples I'd collected from the air around Jinx. Unethical? Perhaps. But watching her slowly poison herself with horse hormones was worse.

"Venture's still at Murphy's Law. Fourth whiskey. Third cigarette."

"Let him sulk." I dissolve into shadow, letting darkness wrap around me like silk. The Ulfric taught me this during my first shift—that shadow was just another element to command, like wind or water or the moon's own light. "I have a meeting."

The building in Scarborough looks unremarkable from the outside—brick and mortar pretending to be a printing warehouse. But the wards shimmer in my peripheral vision, Tibetan script written in power that predates Toronto's founding. Inside, butter lamps flicker in patterns that have nothing to do with air currents and everything to do with maintaining barriers between what is and what could be.

"Yeshi." The monk who greets me is ageless in the way of those who've touched eternity and found it wanting. "The masters are concerned."

"About?"

"The weather. You're disturbing the natural patterns."

I follow him deeper into the building, past rooms where other monks meditate or work on texts that won't be digitized for fear of what knowledge unleashed might do. The building itself resists mapping—corridors that should intersect don't, rooms that should be small contain libraries, and everywhere the scent of butter tea and enlightenment.

"Since when do you care about a little rain?"

"We don't. But the Five-Element Council does. They've noticed someone playing with water and wind in ways that suggest..." He pauses at a door marked with symbols that hurt to look at directly. "That suggest the Ulfric wakes."

The meditation room beyond defies geometry. Space folds here, making a twenty-foot room feel like a cathedral while simultaneously intimate as a confessional. Master Tenzin sits in the center, looking exactly as he did five years ago when I arrived at the monastery, wild with power I couldn't control after nearly killing my brother.

"Sit."

I fold myself onto a cushion, feeling twenty-four again. Lost. Angry. Powerful enough to level city blocks but too unstable to trust myself around anything fragile. Which, the monks had patiently explained, was everything compared to me.

"You've been using the gifts."

"Minimally."

His laugh is dry as Tibetan wind. "You call reshaping weather patterns minimal? Creating weapons from moonlight? Moving through shadow like the Ulfric himself?"

"I've been careful."

"Careful would be maintaining your human facade. Careful would be running your empire without letting ancient power leak through the cracks." He opens eyes that have seen empires rise and fall with equal disinterest. "What changed?"

The answer sits bitter on my tongue. "There's an omega."

"Ah."

That single syllable contains centuries of understanding. The Ulfric stirs at the acknowledgment, pressing against my control with interest that borders on obsession.

"The Ulfric recognizes her," I continue. "Not just as omega, but as something else. Something more."

"And you've been, what? Making it rain whenever she's sad? Wrapping shadows around her enemies? Playing god from a safe distance?"

The accusation stings because it's accurate. Three months of weatherworking that coincided with her moods. Storms when she was frustrated. Unexpected sunshine when she smiled. Small interventions that kept the worst of Toronto's predators from noticing her.

"I've been protecting her without interfering."

"Until now."

Until Desmond Venture decided to buy her building, install cameras, and watch her like she was entertainment created for his amusement. Until another alpha's interest triggered every possessive instinct the Ulfric had been nursing for three months.

"There's another alpha. Venture. He's becoming... problematic."

"So remove him."

"It's not that simple. He's established. Connected. Part of the city's supernatural infrastructure. His removal would create a power vacuum that—"

"Excuses." Tenzin rises with the fluid grace of someone whose body is merely a suggestion they're currently entertaining. "The Ulfric didn't choose you for your ability to make excuses. He chose you because somewhere in your bloodline, you carry the potential for what he was."

"What was he?"

"The first alpha. Before packs. Before moon gifts. When wolves were thoughts given form and power was will made manifest." He moves to a shelf, pulling down a text that makes my eyes water to perceive directly. "Your omega. What makes her special?"

"I don't know. She hides it well. Suppressants for six years, no heat, no pack bonds. But the Ulfric woke the moment she walked into Murphy's Law."

"Show me."

He presses fingers to my forehead, and suddenly we're in my memory. That night three months ago, watching her move through the bar like smoke given purpose. The way her scent cut through suppressants and cologne, finding something in me that had been sleeping since birth. The Ulfric rising like a tide, recognizing what my conscious mind couldn't process.

Pack, the ancient wolf had whispered. But more than pack. Equal. Match. The completion of what was divided.

"Interesting." Tenzin withdraws, leaving me gasping from the psychic intrusion. "She carries something old. Older than pack bonds. Older than designations."

"What?"

"That would be telling." His smile carries the weight of secrets kept for excellent reasons. "But I'll say this—the Ulfric doesn't wake for normal omegas. He wakes for equals."

The word hits like ice water in the face. Equals. In all the histories, all the texts, never has there been mention of an equal to the Ulfric. He was singular. Unique. The alpha before alphas.

"That's impossible."

"Is it? You wrap shadows like cloaks and complain about impossibility?" He returns the text to its shelf with reverent care. "Find out what she hides, Yeshi. Find out why the Ulfric sings for her. But remember—"

"Power corrupts. Control is everything. The mountain doesn't bow to the storm." I recite the lessons beaten into me with bamboo and meditation.

"No. Remember that she has a choice. Even the Ulfric, for all his power, cannot compel what isn't freely given."

The truth of it burns. Because the Ulfric could compel. Could reshape reality until she had no choice but to accept what we are to each other. But that would make me no better than the alphas she runs from, the trauma that keeps her swallowing poison rather than trust her own body.

I leave the building with more questions than answers, dissolving into shadow before I fully exit. The city spreads before me as I ride wind currents home, and I taste her on the air—that particular blend of suppressed omega and unleashed fury that makes the Ulfric pace like a caged thing.

Monday. Three days until she walks into my territory thinking it's just employment.

My phone rings as I materialize in my penthouse. Dr. Wagner, calling from Switzerland where genius keeps its own schedule.

"My prince, the suppressants are working as designed. But I've noticed something in the molecular structure we need to discuss."

"What kind of something?"

"The kind that suggests your omega isn't entirely standard genome. There are markers here I've never seen. Sequences that predate modern wolf genetics."

I grip the phone tighter, the Ulfric's interest sharpening. "Explain."

"It's like her DNA carries echoes of something pre-divergence. Before the subspecies split. Before moon gifts became standardized." She pauses, and I hear data scrolling across screens. "Alexander, what aren't you telling me about this woman?"

"I don't know. That's the problem."

"Well, whatever she is, she's burning through suppressants at a rate that suggests her body is fighting to express something beyond normal heat cycles. The new formula will hold, but..."

"But?"

"But eventually, whatever she's suppressing is going to surface. And when it does, normal alpha-omega dynamics may not apply."

The call ends with more questions than answers. I stare out at the city I've claimed through human channels while the Ulfric paces beneath my skin. Venture's building gleams in the distance, hiding the omega who apparently carries impossibilities in her DNA.

Three days. Then she enters my domain, where I can protect her properly. Where I can unravel the mystery of what makes Jinx special enough to wake ancient powers.

The evening finds me restless. The Ulfric wants to hunt, to run, to claim. Instead, I pour whiskey that tastes like smoke and try to focus on legitimate business. The Emperor opens next week. The Empress in two. Normal concerns for a normal billionaire who definitely doesn't command weather and shadow.

But the pull is too strong. Before I consciously decide to move, I'm dissolving into darkness, riding shadows across the city to Queen Street. Not to interfere. Never that. Just to check the wards I've placed, the protections she doesn't know are there.

I materialize in the alley behind her building, wrapping night around me until I'm less than a whisper. From here, I can see their fifth-floor window, lit against the darkness. She's there with her pack, all of them celebrating their new jobs, their new beginning.

She's changed out of her work clothes into something soft—yoga pants and an oversized sweater that makes her look younger than her twenty-one years. The baseball cap is gone, short black hair tousled from the day. When she laughs at something the fox girl says, the sound carries down to me like music.

The Ulfric purrs, a sound that vibrates through dimensions.

I should leave. This is too close to the stalking Venture's been doing, too close to violating the distance I've sworn to maintain. But something holds me here, shadow-wrapped and watching as she moves through her space with the casual grace of someone who doesn't know they're poetry in motion.

She's teaching the bear to cook something—pasta, by the scent. He's trying to follow her quick movements, his bulk making him clumsy in the small kitchen. When he drops the spoon, she laughs again, and I taste joy on the air like wine.

This is why the Ulfric chose her. Not just for her beauty or her omega nature, but for this—the way she builds pack from nothing, creates family from the lost and broken, offers loyalty that can't be bought or compelled.

She pauses suddenly, hand halfway to the spice rack. Her head tilts, and I see her nostrils flare slightly. Impossible. I'm wrapped in shadow so thick light bends around me. Even Venture, with his pure bloodline, can't detect me when I choose to be hidden.

But she turns toward the window, brown eyes scanning the darkness below. Looking for something she senses but can't name.

Looking for me.

Our eyes meet across distance and impossibility. She can't see me—I know she can't—but something in her recognizes something in me. The Ulfric goes perfectly still, ancient power holding its breath.

For a heartbeat that lasts forever, we exist in this moment. Hunter and hunted. Alpha and omega. Two souls carrying power neither fully understands, separated by glass and shadow and the careful distance I maintain for her safety.

Then the fox girl calls her name, and she turns away. But her hand lingers on the window frame, and I see her glance back once more before returning to her pack.

I melt deeper into shadow, fleeing before I do something foolish like materialize in her apartment and tell her everything. The Ulfric howls disappointment, but I force us back across the city, back to the safety of distance and plans and careful control.

Three days until she walks into my territory.

Three days to maintain this facade of humanity while ancient power recognizes its match.

Three days to pretend I'm not already lost to whatever she is beneath the suppressants and survival.

The rain starts again as I reach my penthouse, but this time I'm not calling it. The city itself seems to weep for connections unmade, for powers circling each other in careful dance while destiny waits with patient hunger.

Let Venture think he understands the game we're playing.

He has no idea what's coming.

Neither does she.

Neither, if I'm honest, do I.