Page 23 of The Omega's Bloodline: Part One

What thefuckwas that?

I watched with rising horror as the light in his eyes faded and snuffed out. He was tossed aside like a ragdoll, and the deer shifter who had tried to dance with me was snatched up next. She screamed and flailed, neither doing anything to dissuade the invisible force that held her.

“Shit,” Tommy mumbled. “We have to get out of here.”

The crowd was already panicking, stampeding to the exits, with more than one person disappearing beneath their feet.

Being a panther shifter meant not much in this world scared me. I was the predator. But…whatever that thing was made me feel like a mouse under a cat's paw.

It felt wrong.

I’d encountered a lot of shit in my life; some things felt out of place, like they didn’t belong, and this thing, thisfuckingthing, sure as hell didn’t belong.

I felt like a dick leaving the deer shifter, but I couldn’t fight something I couldn’t see, and I wasn’t ready to die. Something brushed against me, feeling like ice sinking straight into my bones, and I surged forward, desperate to escape.

Tommy dragged me outside with the herd and shoved me into his car. “What the sweet fucking hell was that, man?”

“I don’t think we want to know. Do you think the owl’s dead?”

“Looked that way.” Tommy slammed his foot on the gas and ripped through town until we hit the interstate.

I felt Logan’s presence shining like a beacon in the distance as Tommy’s car ate up the miles. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know where you’re going, but I’m going to the New York nest. At least until I know what the fuck that was.”

I swallowed hard, already regretting the words I was about to say. “Drop me in Syracuse on your way.”

It wasn’t smart to go back, but something was killing shifters and Caden needed to know. He didn’t like me very much but that didn’t mean I was going to put him at risk.

Tommy nodded sharply. “You got it.”

I squirmed in my seat for the entire trip.

“What’s got ants in your pants, bucko?”

“Nothing.” I shrank deeper in the seat and fisted my hands. None of my friends knew about her. Part of that was selfishly keeping Logan to myself, but I also didn’t want any of them sniffing around. I knew Caden could protect her from any of my shithole friends if they got it in their heads to try something, but I felt better keeping them in complete ignorance of her existence.

I bit down on the growl that tried to rumble through my chest.

It really wasn’t fair. It had been pure luck of timing that Caden had gotten to her first. I couldn’t help but remember her gentle touch and soothing voice as she had nursed me back fromthe brink of death, the way she had looked at me with those impossibly dark eyes, making me feel more seen than I had ever been in my life.

Every time I was near her, it took all the willpower I had ever possessed to stop myself from climbing straight into her arms to listen to her heartbeat and feel her fingers stroke my fur.

I shoved my hand through my hair, already grossed out by the drying sweat that clung to each strand. My clothing reeked of the scent of horny shifters and I was more than ready to strip down and shower.

“Where to?” Tommy asked as we entered Syracuse.

“Here is fine.”

He stopped the car and I slipped out, saluting him as he slammed on the gas and zipped off toward New York. I didn’t need a map app to know where I was going. Each step in Logan‘s direction felt like I was walking home, a buoyant familiarity infusing my body the closer I got. I tried my best to avoid humans as I traipsed through residential areas, eventually coming to a stop at the bungalow where Logan lived with my brother. Or rather, where he lived with her, since it was her house.

I swallowed down the nerves that now battled with the elation of being so close again. I knew she would welcome me, as much as I knew Caden wouldn’t. Not that I blamed him. I didn’t have a fabulous history with respecting the boundaries of his romantic relationships.

Both salvation and misery lay on the other side of that door. I just needed enough courage to knock.

It was easier said than done. I couldn’t quite decide if I would be more welcome in this form or one of my shifted ones. Logan had always been most comfortable when I was in my smallest form. A fluffy house cat posed no threat. But I wanted to see her, wanted to feel every inch of her pressed against this one. Itwas an exercise in self-punishment. In this form I was intimately aware of every ache, every desire, my complex brain in a human body plagued by memories and fantasies I couldn’t escape.

When I was a cat, things were simpler. There I sought after my most basic needs, but everything else was muted. I couldn’t desire her in the same way, couldn’t experience the intoxicating bliss of being able to bury my face in her hair and sate the longing that never left.

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