2. The Enforcer Watches
CHAPTER 2
THE ENFORCER WATCHES
The blackout spreads like contagion through the Shadow Dominion as I flee the Midnight Courts. What began as darkness in a single courtroom has cascaded into sector-wide power failures, streetlights dying in sequence as I race toward the translator quarters.
Reports filter through emergency broadcasts on my wrist communicator—system failures across multiple districts, security protocols activating, curfew enforcement accelerating. This is no random technical glitch. The scope and timing suggest something far more deliberate.
I weave through crowds of panicked humans rushing to reach their assigned sectors before lockdown. The integration zones where claimed omegas live with their shadow demon alphas maintain priority power—their windows still glowing while the rest of the city dims into darkness. Beyond that relative safety, the human settlement sectors are already falling into shadow.
Curfew alarms begin their discordant wailing—the sound designed to be impossible to ignore, to create instinctive compliance. I check my wrist communicator with growing dread. Sunset in forty minutes, mandatory lockdown in sixty. The translator quarters lie on the far side of the settlement sector, at least thirty minutes away under normal conditions.
These are not normal conditions.
The warmth beneath my skin has deepened to an insistent pulse, the first unmistakable sign of suppressant failure. Pre-heat symptoms accelerating in direct proportion to my stress levels—a cruel biological feedback loop where fear triggers the very condition I'm desperate to hide.
I make rapid calculations, weighing routes and risks with the precision drilled into me through resistance training. Standard paths through monitored sectors: too exposed to security patrols. Underground maintenance tunnels: likely sealed during emergency protocols. Public transportation: already shut down as part of lockdown procedures.
Which leaves one option—the demolished zone. A partially collapsed section of former residential neighborhoods destroyed during the initial Conquest and never rebuilt. By day, it's dangerous with unstable structures and minimal security coverage. During a blackout, when shadow demons move fastest through darkness, it borders on suicidal.
But with failing suppressants and a closing curfew window, "suicidal" becomes merely a "calculated risk."
I cut eastward toward the crumbling boundary between settlement sectors and the demolished zone. My translator uniform might pass initial inspection if stopped—court officials receive extended curfew allowances during emergencies—but the pendant at my throat grows warmer against my skin, a silent alarm warning that my chemical shield is dissolving by the minute.
The transition from settlement to demolished zone happens with jarring abruptness. Maintained streets give way to cracked pavement overtaken by stubborn vegetation. Intact buildings vanish, replaced by skeletal structures with exposed rebar and partially collapsed walls. The jagged skyline creates perfect hiding places for anyone wanting to avoid official notice.
Or perfect hunting grounds for shadow demons.
I navigate using mental maps memorized during resistance training, picking my way through rubble as twilight surrenders to true night. My pace quickens with each passing minute, the silver pendant bouncing against my throat with every step. Useless now except as a timer counting down to complete exposure.
The first warning comes not as sound but as sensation—darkness pooling slightly thicker than it should in corners, temperatures dropping several degrees beyond the evening chill. The distinctive weight of shadow manipulation presses against my skin like cold, invisible hands.
Behind me, shadows move against the natural flow of darkness, gathering density and purpose.
I don't look back. Don't need to. Training kicks in and I accelerate, leaping over fallen concrete barriers, ducking under twisted metal supports, navigating the urban ruin with desperate efficiency. The translator quarters shimmer like a mirage in the distance—lights still functioning on backup power, safety tantalizingly visible but impossibly far.
The darkness moves faster than I can.
Shadow demons don't need to run—they travel through darkness itself, bending shadow to allow impossible speed. I hear nothing behind me, no footsteps, no breathing, just the oppressive silence of shadows growing denser, colder, more purposeful.
When I finally risk a glance over my shoulder, my worst fears materialize.
Lord Kael Nightshadow himself is tracking me, his four arms extended as he manipulates darkness to flow around him. His massive form glides through the shadows rather than runs, each movement fluid and predatory. Those glowing purple eyes fix on me with terrifying focus, growing larger as he closes the distance between us with effortless precision.
This isn't random. He wasn't just in that courtroom by coincidence. Something about me caught his attention before the blackout, before he could have detected my failing suppressants. What did he see? What triggered this focused pursuit?
I push harder, lungs burning as I sprint toward the distant safety of human sector lights. The warmth beneath my skin deepens to a persistent ache, the first traitorous hints of slick beginning to form despite my desperate control. Shadow demons can smell omega pheromones from impossible distances—my body might as well be screaming its secrets to him now.
I'm still twenty yards from the boundary when something cold seizes my ankle.
I crash down hard, palms scraping against broken concrete as a shadow tendril solidifies around my leg. Before I can scramble up, more tendrils materialize from the darkness, wrapping around my wrists and waist with impossible strength.
"Impressive," comes a deep voice that seems to resonate directly in my bones. "Most humans would have taken the obvious routes."
Kael materializes fully before me, shadows coalescing into solid form as all four powerful arms extend to pin me against a crumbling wall. His glowing purple eyes illuminate my face with eerie light, casting sharp shadows across features I can no longer control.
The shadows around us grow impossibly dense, temperature plummeting until my breath clouds before me. His massive head lowers, nostrils flaring as he inhales deeply near my neck where the silver pendant rests.
"Your papers say beta," he growls, voice vibrating through my chest like distant thunder. "But there's something else beneath those chemicals you've been taking."
I feel the silver pendant growing warm against my skin—the emergency dose of suppressants activating in response to my elevated body temperature, a last-ditch defense against detection. But it's far too late. Kael's enhanced senses have already pierced my chemical shield, his head tilting with predatory curiosity.
"Interesting," he murmurs, one finger tracing the edge of the pendant. "Standard black market suppressants don't mask pheromones this effectively. Your protection is... specialized."
When I try to break free, more shadow tendrils extend from his form, wrapping around my limbs with increasing pressure. Not enough to bruise—yet—but the message is unmistakable.
"No one runs in my territory without a reason," he says, voice dropping to a dangerous tone that sends ice through my veins despite the growing heat in my core. "Especially not an unregistered omega."
His fourth hand finds the hidden pocket in my uniform where I keep my resistance communications device. The sleek black rectangle looks impossibly small in his massive palm, dark against darker as he examines it with clinical interest.
"Now we discover what other secrets you're hiding, little translator."
The city-wide power outage takes on new meaning—not random failure but deliberate trap, with me as the unsuspecting prey. I've walked straight into a security operation targeting resistance operatives, and my crumbling suppressant coverage has revealed the bonus prize of an unregistered omega.
As he lifts me effortlessly, my body begins to betray me further, responding to his alpha pheromones with another unwelcome rush of slick between my thighs. I feel it happen—the humiliating evidence of omega biology overriding conscious thought, preparing for an alpha claiming I've spent years fighting to avoid.
Kael's nostrils flare again, purple eyes brightening with cruel satisfaction as he detects this ultimate betrayal. "Your body reveals truths your words hide," he says, his voice dropping to a register that makes something primal inside me shiver with unwanted response.
I try to project defiance, but fear overwhelms it. Not just fear of punishment or interrogation, but the deeper terror every unregistered omega lives with—the knowledge of what happens to us when captured. The breeding facilities. The claiming. The loss of self.
The shadows around us deepen into absolute darkness, preparing to transport us both to wherever he intends to conduct his interrogation. His massive form presses closer, four arms creating an inescapable cage of muscle and shadow-matter.
"The tribunal will be particularly interested in your resistance connections," he says, shadows beginning to envelop us both. "But your omega status takes priority under Conquest law."
The last things visible before darkness swallows us completely are his glowing purple eyes, fixed on mine with the absolute certainty of a predator who knows his prey cannot escape.