Page 97 of The Wronged Omega

I would never do such a thing, but that’s not what he meant. Change was coming, whether I was the center of it or not, and I was, if nothing else, opinionated and unafraid to speak my mind. He had hope for the future and the downfall of the council. I could see it in his eyes, but I couldn’t return the sentiment. I wasn’t meant to lead or cause their downfall. I was meant to live and heal and find my place in this world next to my mates. If that meant I’d be given some level of power one day, then I’d take it, but the fight wasn’t in me. If I had to guess, someone or a few someones in this room would be at the center, and I couldn’t wait to see what came from it.

Chapter 48

Mine

I was still in my head when I was scooped up into Odie’s arms. “I don’t know how you did that, Mine,” she said into the nape of my neck.

“We should be dead.” Ellie’s voice was oddly jovial as the shock and adrenaline converged.

“Or worse.” Sloane added from behind us.

The room emptied of the council members, and everyone around me couldn’t stop talking about what happened and how incredible it was. I didn’t think I did very much. Arthur was the one who started it all. They should be thanking him.

This was all very strange, and apparently, this was rather unheard of. Of course, Arthur had mentioned that it had happened before, but due to the topic of the trial, it wasn’t known by anyone outside of this room. Even Gerard didn’t know about this besides the rumors he initially didn’t believe.

Leona and Iker lay on the ground, exhausted from fighting Bernard’s pheromones the entire time. The others merely felt relief at being released. Alastor grabbed the keys from Herman, telling him to fuck off, before undoing Gerard and Ellie’s handcuffs. No one else seemed to notice how his hands lingered on hers, but I did. The pieces were falling together for them, and maybe in a few days or weeks, I’d pester her for details and ask how she felt about it given I didn’t know how an Omega-Omega pairing would work. Since she didn’t flinch or pull away, I was in no rush. However, she didn’t lean in either, which I thought was interesting.

For now, we would celebrate our win, sleep for the next week, and finally have a future waiting for us outside these doors. I wasn’t dumb enough to think things were over or that we weren’t going to be under surveillance the rest of our lives, but I didn’t care. In fact, I’d have Cy find whatever was watching us so I could make all the rude gestures I could and possibly read them some of the darkest horror romance I could find.

I’d annoy them as much as they annoyed me, but I’d be the only one getting anything out of it. Whoever was my keeper for the rest of my days sure had a lot of things coming their way.

We settled down, and Herman shooed us out of the room and showed us out of the large estate. We had no car waiting for us, no way to get home, but no one cared as we walked down the steps and breathed in the fresh air.

“I still can’t believe that worked.” Sloane stretched his arms up at the bottom of the steps. “It’s going to be a long walk out of here. Good thing we all love a good hike.”

“You can’t be serious?” Gerard guffawed. “We don’t even have shoes. We have no way to call someone to set up a ride. Who knows what even awaits us at the mansion. How do we—”

“Don’t worry, Gerard. Trust me. A hike is exactly what we need to let off some of this energy.” Sloane smiled a knowing grin and winked at us.

No one questioned him as we continued our way down the stairs and the driveway that seemed to be a few miles long. Eventually, we turned off onto a trail I hadn’t noticed with Sloane leading the way up a small hill that looked over the estate. From up here, we could see everything and were already a few miles away. I didn’t know what he was planning, but he was right that we needed this to burn off the buzzing energy beneath our skin.

“All right, Sloane, time to spill. What are we doing here?” We all stood in a semi circle, facing Sloane and the estate behind him through the trees.

“I think I can answer that.” A familiar voice came from our right, and more than one gasp and question fell from the groups’ collective lips. Arthur. “The future where you take charge is closer than you think, Mine.”

I’m not fighting them. I want to go home. My arm brushed my side as it fell, scraping against the sores on my wrist. I really wished I had a second hand right now to massage out some of the ache. It was only a mild distraction from the fear running through me at the thought of another battle so soon after our win. The adrenaline was slowly vanishing, and I didn’t have anything left in me, not today.

“You may think differently after we explain.” Arthur smiled down at me with a patient smile.

“I wasn’t running late to dinner because of my new role. Arthur came to me under that guise, and we had a plan of our own to enact. I’m sorry I lied to you, but we were never going to be sentenced to death. Well, they could have done that, but we would have escaped and ended up here anyway.” Sloane rubbed the back of his neck as multiple people started yelling at him, and even Ellie threw a rock, hitting him in the arm. It wasn’t big enough to do any damage, and I’d probably do the same if I could aim with my left arm.

“My son and some of the others are corrupt. I couldn’t let them win any longer. We were barely holding them back as is, having to allow certain wins to skate by even when we didn’t want them to.” Arthur’s lips turned down in a frown as he sighed. “Sloane was given Lucinda’s old position thanks to my insistence. I invited him out to discuss it and other things.”

“Other things involving our capture and the aftermath of it.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Cy demanded with her arms crossed, most likely to keep herself from punching him.

Sloane turned around and looked out at the estate. “I knew they were coming that night. Arthur warned me, and we formulated a plan to end this once and for all. The council needed to be stopped, and there was only one way to do that. Trade our massacre for theirs.”

The fuck did he just say?

“Kill them? How?” Gerard stepped forward, his head swiveling from the back of Sloane’s to the estate, trying to sort out what they had done.

“Easy, explosives. Lots and lots of explosives.” Sloane smirked as he turned back to us. “They are rigged all over the estate. Ready to blow in a minute. We timed it well, actually. I’m rather proud of this group. Even without knowing it, you followed the plan to a T.”

“You’re going to explode the entire—” Odie’s words were cut off by a blast, then another, and another. They didn’t stop for a few minutes, and we watched as each one detonated, destroying more and more of the massive estate that we had been in only an hour ago.

We watched in silence as the council’s downfall settled and the explosions stopped.

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