Page 144 of Unhinged Omega

She's close. I can feel it. The same inexplicable pull that drew me to her at the airfield is stronger now, tugging at something deep in my chest. Logic tells me it's impossible, but rationality isn't a sin I've ever had on my conscience.

Heavy footsteps echo behind me. Nikolai must finally be catching up after freeing himself. Imagining how much of a dumbass he probably looked like when he had to reach for those keys with his arms still bound soothes the sting of my own humiliation, but only a little.

Asshole.

Movement ahead catches my eye. One of Geo's guards rounds the corner, gun raised. "Freeze!" he shouts, but his hands are shaking. Poor bastard probably drew the short straw.

"Sorry," I mutter before launching myself at him.

The confusion barely has time to register in his expression before I duck under his arm and drive my knee into his stomach, following up with an elbow to the back of his head as he doubles over. He drops like a sack of potatoes.

"Still pulling your punches, I see," Nikolai drawls from behind me while I'm picking a gun off the unconscious guard's body. He quickly snatches the second one out of the holster under the guard's shoulder.

I spin around just as another guard appears. Before I can react, Nikolai's stolen gun barks twice. The guard crumples, red blooming across his chest.

"What the fuck?" I snarl, rounding on him. "You didn't have tokillhim!"

Nikolai arches an eyebrow, that infuriating smirk playing at his lips. "You're welcome."

"Geo would have ordered them not to use lethal force," I snap.

Before he can reply, three more guards appear, guns blazing. Nikolai curses and dives for cover as bullets pepper the wall where his head was a moment ago.

"Yeah, maybe not onyou!" he shouts over the gunfire.

Shit.

He's right.

I spot a metal pipe running along the ceiling, probably part of the ventilation system. Without thinking, I leap up and grab it, using my momentum to swing forward and kick the nearest guard in the chest. He goes down hard, his gun skittering across the concrete floor.

The second guard turns his weapon on me, because apparently he didn't get the memo about the princess treatment, but I'm already moving. I drop from the pipe and roll, coming up inside his guard. A quick strike to his throat has him choking and stumbling backward.

The third guard takes aim at Nikolai, who's pinned down behind a stack of crates. I grab the fallen guard's gun and throw it, catching the man in the temple. He drops with a satisfying thud.

"Now we're even," I call out to Nikolai. I brush the gunpowder off my shirt and turn to keep going. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him emerging from cover.

"I didn't need your help," he growls.

"Right," I drawl. "You had it completely under control."

His eyes narrow dangerously. "I did."

I weave through the familiar tunnels, my boots barely making a sound on the concrete floor. The path to Geo's office is burned into my memory from countless late nights spent wandering these halls when I couldn't sleep, but I try not to think about that.

Just like I try not to think about the other alpha following close behind me.

"Left here," I mutter, more to myself than him.

"You seem to know your way around," Nikolai remarks, his voice dripping with that infuriating smugness I remember all too well.

I roll my eyes, not bothering to look back at him. "Of course I do. I lived here."

"Ah, right." His tone sharpens. "You left my operation for this dump."

"Better than your tacky supervillain lairs and your merry little band of degenerates," I snap, ducking around a corner just as gunfire erupts behind us from one of the other corridors.

Nikolai dives after me, returning fire with practiced ease. "At least my men can shoot straight," he sneers as two guards drop.

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