Page 37 of Captive Omega
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Rowan
I’d never actually been to the settlement of the Wolfsbanes. Our assault teams and patrols had sometimes approached the village, but we’d never entered it, not in my lifetime, at least.
I’d come very close to it once, only to run into the twins. Since that day, I’d stayed away. Maybe on some level, I’d known I’d made a mistake when I’d attacked them—when we’d attacked one another.
But the past didn’t matter anymore. Only the future did, and if we wanted to have one, we needed to get help for Luna.
I didn’t know what I expected to find when we arrived at the village, but it certainly wasn’t… nothing. The settlement was almost empty. Most of the huts were abandoned, although traces of their occupants still lingered.
There were a few Wolfsbanes who’d stayed behind, and much to my relief, the pack healer was one of them. “It doesn’t look like the Alpha is here,” Nate said, “but in his absence, Andrea might be able to help. And she’s more likely to agree to it too.”
It was almost laughably easy to sneak into the healer’s hut. A woman was inside, grinding some herbs in a pestle. Even if we were discreet, she still sensed us approach. She turned toward us and shot us an unimpressed look.
“So… I take it Ivy was successful in her mission. Did you kill her?”
If she cared about the female werewolf’s fate, she didn’t show it. I wanted to tear her apart, slowly, because she’d obviously been involved in the plan to poison Luna. But my hands were tied for now. I couldn’t do anything until Luna was safe again.
“I think Ivy’s fate is the last thing you should be worrying about,” I told her instead.
“Andrea, why did you do this?” Sam asked. “You cared about Luna, didn’t you?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t she save your life?” Nate added, cradling Luna closer. “At great cost to herself?”
Andrea’s stoic expression faltered. “She did, yes. But some days, I wish she hadn’t interfered. I certainly wish you hadn’t stepped in. Because now, you have to pay the price for it.”
“Pay the price for what?” Sam growled. “Luna has done nothing wrong.”
“She hasn’t, no, but this isn’t about her. You and Nathaniel killed her brother.”
My mind went blank. Somehow, I’d forgotten that Sam and Nate had been rogues. There was a reason they’d left their pack. They’d killed Luna’s brother, Stuart, when he had attacked her in a fit of feral insanity.
If they’d all been of age, things would have been very different. Sam and Nate could have claimed Luna, just like they had this time around. No one could go against a wolf’s right to protect his mate. But all of them had been young, and Luna had only been fourteen.
The chaos affected werewolves in many ways, and it was entirely possible that Sam and Nate had been feral back then too. My memories of that night were hazy because of the bloodlust I’d experienced, but I could distinctly remember that much.
The Wolfsbane guards had come after them, not me. They couldn’t have known I was so close to their lands. In hindsight, it should have been obvious this would be a problem, but we’d been so focused on Luna it hadn’t occurred to us to worry that much about the past.
“What would you have wanted us to do then?” Nate asked. “Just allow Stuart to kill her, to kill you?”
“No, but you could have knocked him out without killing him,” Andrea answered.
Flashes of the confrontation between Stuart and the twins exploded through my head. The images fed my righteous anger, and I bared my fangs at Andrea. “Is that a fact? How can you be so sure of that? You were knocked out and the only ones who remember what truly happened are Sam, Nate, and Luna. How can you possibly know what they were supposed to do?”
She wasn’t so easily dissuaded. “Quite easily. Some people are more important to the pack than others. You know that, Rowan Savage.”
“Yes, I do,” I replied. “But I also know that for any wolf, the most important thing is their connection with their mate. It’s absurd to expect anything different, even if they were young.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Sam piped up. “Just help Luna. We won’t run away or anything like that. We’ll face ‘justice’ if that’s what it takes. But you have to save her.”
Andrea curled her lip in distaste, and I narrowly suppressed the urge to throttle her. Her behavior shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. Luna was the last heir of Alpha Clayton, but assuming the leader of the Wolfsbane Pack had survived this war, he could always have more children. Between that, Luna’s Omega nature and her defiance of her Alpha’s command, she likely wasn’t very popular among her pack members. And so, I wasn’t convinced of Andrea’s dedication to her craft. I decided to add some extra incentive.
“Just so you know, Luna carries my pup. So even if she survives, your little mission might have killed the future of your pack, and of mine.”
Predictably, Andrea’s eyes widened in horror. She might have been willing to let Luna die, but killing an unborn pup was an entirely different matter. There had been so few pups born since the last chaos. A pup was always valuable, and one from the Clayton bloodline more so.
“Why didn’t you tell me about that sooner?” Andrea asked. “We would have never done this if we’d known.”
