Page 34 of Captive Omega
He padded forward, leaving the rest of his pack behind him. The gesture of good faith made it impossible for me to attack him outright. I had to hear him out, at least.
The bloodlust of the Savage family had almost overwhelmed me completely by now. If I hadn’t lost my mind altogether, it was just because I knew my pack needed me. But there was something even more powerful at work here, more important to me than my pack, than my family, than my life itself. Alpha Clayton was right. The chaos was too important for us to disregard.
“All right,” I said. “I’m listening.”
“I propose a truce between our two packs. I think we can both agree too many of our pack members have already died.”
“Our dispute is not yet settled. You’re the one who started this, Alpha Clayton, not me.”
“Yes, and I had good reasons for it.” Alpha Clayton’s eyes flashed with a deep, feral anger. “I’ve wanted to catch those two rogues for almost ten years now. They took my son from me, and now, they’ve taken Luna too. Your brother is complicit in their escape. I just know it.”
Ah, yes, the mysterious twins who’d attacked my pack while Rowan had distracted me. According to my mother, they were also Luna’s mates. Apparently, Alpha Clayton had a personal grudge against them.
“They killed your son? How did that happen?”
“I don’t want to discuss it now,” he replied. “It happened, and it’s unforgivable.”
“Fair enough. I take it you want to catch them.”
“Just like you want to catch your brother.”
I thought about the beautiful Omega my brother had stolen from me. Rowan might have conveniently disregarded the vow Luna Clayton had made, but I hadn’t. I hadn’t branded or bitten her, but her promise was still there, along with a challenge Rowan couldn’t take back. Yes, I wanted to catch my brother. As a Firewolf and an Alpha, I had to.
“Of course.”
“Well then, I have a plan. Let the chaos judge us all, Alpha Savage. Your brother, the rogues, and my daughter have betrayed their packs. It’s time for them to understand that. And as for us… I believe you must realize we’ve failed our packs too.”
My first instinct was to lash out at him for the offense. But he wasn’t wrong. I’d been unable to protect my people and give them what they wanted. And even now, I couldn’t let go of my desire for revenge, of the knowledge that I had to track Rowan down.
Something angry and cruel was clawing at my insides. I didn’t understand it. Maybe I didn’t want to. Maybe it was just easier to think about the beautiful woman dressed in white than to acknowledge the fact that I didn’t have a mate of my own.
“You’re prepared for what that will mean then?” I asked Alpha Clayton.
“I am a Wolfsbane Alpha. I’m prepared for anything. In fact, it’s exactly what I want.”
I wasn’t sure I believed that, and I certainly didn’t believe him. But if there was one thing I trusted, it was the chaos. It was the force that guided us to our mates, to our other halves. And while it might not have worked for me, not for its primary purpose, I still had faith in it.
“All right, Alpha Clayton. I will play along. What did you have in mind?”
Nine
Chapter 9
Nathaniel
It took us a couple of hours to make the bear’s den marginally habitable. The cave was large enough that it fitted all of us, and the bear cubs on top of that. We’d been unable to fully get rid of the mother bear’s smell, but that would fade in time. Besides, the cubs found it comforting, and we didn’t hate it per se.
We threw out the carcass of the deer the bear had eaten before and cleaned up as much as we could. We had to grab a few supplies from our storage shelter to make it work, but we did it, and the result was satisfactory, if not ideal.
Once we were done, we all crawled into the small nest of blankets we’d created and curled against one another. I wasn’t tired, but I enjoyed the proximity. Everything had been happening so quickly, but at the same time, we’d been waiting for this—for Luna—ever since we’d left the pack. Between that, and Rowan’s sudden appearance in our lives, there was a lot to process.
Assuming Luna was right and she was with pup, things would just get even more hectic from now on. But that wasn’t a bad thing—or at least, I hoped it wasn’t.
Tired, Luna closed her eyes and succumbed to slumber. She was so beautiful when she slept, so at peace, like an angel. It was strange to think that this was the same woman who’d eaten the still warm heart of a bear, mere hours before.
“Not that strange,” Rowan told me, having obviously caught onto the thought. “She’s our mate. She might seem harmless, but she’s anything but.”
“The night we left, her brother attacked her and our pack’s healer. She just… jumped on him. We didn’t see the whole thing. By the time we got there, he’d already thrown her off. But I get the feeling that if she’d been older, things would have ended differently.”
