Chapter 28
EMME
Talon moved first, striding toward the frail bundle of omega. He leaned close but didn’t touch her, which had my wolf howling in appreciation.
Kellan lifted one eyebrow as he smirked. “We like jealous Emme,” he said in a side-whisper, like it was a secret.
I scoffed. “Chelsea is half dead, and a traitorous, lying bitch. I’m not concerned.”
My possessiveness wasn’t because I didn’t trust my alphas. Not only did their actions demonstrate I was everything to them, but I could literally feel it through the bond. Nope, my possessiveness was because I loved them and claimed them as mine.
Any shifter with half a brain knew the rules… you don’t touch other shifter’s mates.
“She’s definitely half dead,” Talon confirmed, straightening and scowling as if her unconscious presence annoyed him. I wondered if he was remembering her forcing me to bite him during our first meeting. He held blame for himself as well, but there was plenty to go around.
It was not your fault, mate. I kept that just between us in the bond. You were a victim too.
Slade’s hug was tight and unexpected, as he clearly heard my words through Talon. “I will kill her for you,” he bit out in a rasp of dragon. “Burn her until she’s ash, and you will never have to see her face again.”
In his powerful embrace, I felt a touch less brittle. These alphas were healing traumas one at a time, and facing this shit with them by my side made it almost easy.
When Slade released me to head for Chelsea, Hunter stopped him with a hand on his chest. There wasn’t even a flicker of unease from Slade at his brother’s touch. “We need to extract information from her first,” Hunter said, eyeing the omega with distaste too. “Then she can die.”
There was not a chance in purgatory that any of these alphas would suggest a trial by Alpha Council for Chelsea.
We were done with them completely, choosing to play by our own rules now.
In our rules, she’d screwed up so badly that there was no saving her.
Her actions could have cost me my life, and if what I picked up at the time was accurate, she’d had no idea what Fletcher had planned for me. She hadn’t even cared to ask.
He could have killed me or worse… bonded me to Blaine.
It was only pure luck, and maybe a little magic dust from the goddess, that kept me from losing everything.
Slade huffed at the fact that he had to wait to avenge me, but he trusted Hunter to be the more levelheaded when his dragon’s rage took over. Personally, I enjoyed the side of him that lost control and killed any threat around us. Not that I’d admit it.
The bright green of his gaze snapped in my direction. I will kill anything that even breathes wrong around you, Snow.
My block was as faulty as the flickering lights above us. That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me, Scary.
Slade tilted his head and looked rather pleased that I was slightly unhinged too.
While most of us waited around Chelsea, Finley and Constantine wandered off to investigate the rest of this level. I kept tabs on the bear through our bond, worried when he was out of sight in this horror house. Hopefully Constantine would spot any magical traps before they were sprung.
Finley hurried back a few minutes later. “I found Fletcher’s office.”
Slade and Hunter eased up on eyeballing Chelsea and headed toward Finley.
“Keep an eye on her,” Slade called to his twin, and Talon nodded, arms crossed and expression hard. “And don’t kill her yet. Hunter is right, we need to wait for answers first.”
Now Talon just looked annoyed but didn’t do anything other than lean against one of the stainless-steel tables.
Curiosity had me following the alphas down a white hall into the office. A cold, impersonal office. The metal desk held a laptop and a few folders, which Finley was riffling through. There were two filing cabinets which Hunter approached, and Slade went for the computer.
“Have you found anything of importance?” Slade asked as he booted up the device.
Finley’s expression was grim. “These are notes from his omega experiments. Not to mention alphas, betas, and deltas.”
He opened a folder which had a bold, black title on the cover: Experiment 34. Forced bonding 8.
Inside, I could see a pinned photo of a pretty blonde omega female.
She was smiling, her blue eyes lit up as if she were truly happy.
A few flips through the pages told a completely different story.
More photos, each of them showing a deterioration, until the last photo she was barely recognizable.
“There are experiment notes for each stage,” Finley muttered, and I heard the clank of his teeth as he ground them together.
“In this case, he bonded her to two alphas, simulating a scent match, and was able to strip her of her powers. Only the alphas couldn’t hold on to the additional strength long enough to be useful.
” He read a bit more and shook his head.
“He noted that it took a completed quintet to form long-lasting power. He was also making adjustment to how they simulated scent matches.”
“There are more in here,” Hunter said, his words shaking with his fury. “Folder after folder of experiments. Some dating back twenty or more years.”
Slade’s keystrokes were heavy against the laptop, the heat in the room giving away his fury, but he hadn’t said anything yet.
“He always planned to control us,” Hunter said, each word filled with his rage.
“We all have folders in here. Each of us was groomed in a different way to create the alphas he wanted. He didn’t care that we hated him, he knew he could control us through Emme.
And he planned to control Emme through Talon and Jewels. ”
“Jewels was the nail in his coffin,” I said, shaking my head. “Amazing that for all of his research, he never saw her betrayal coming. Which derailed his entire plan.”
“Talon helped fuck him up too,” Slade finally spoke, voice flat, though I caught the lick of pride over his twin.
“He was on Fletcher’s side, but what that pathetic excuse for an alpha didn’t realize was that it’s impossible to fight Emme’s purity.
Fletcher never expected Emme to forgive Talon for his actions and show him the meaning of a true pack.
Emme and Jewels were the nails in his coffin. ”
Slade’s praise meant so much that it was hard not to react. Somehow, I managed to keep my voice even. “Now we just need to find the nail in Jewels’ coffin.”
Slade returned to his typing. Finley was finished with the folders on the table, and had taken to reading over the dragon’s shoulder.
“What did you find?” Hunter asked them as he piled files on the table.
“This is the online account,” Finley said, his voice brimming with the burr of his bear. “He held fifty-eight omegas over a thirty-year period.”
Fifty-fucking-eight. We were so rare to begin with, and fifty-eight of my kind had been experimented on and were dead at Fletcher’s hands. “Is my mother’s file in there?” I asked, my voice cracking even though I was mostly anger. “Is mine?”
Finley leapt over the desk and wrapped me up in one of his perfect bear hugs. “She was subject forty-five,” he said as he held me. “Chelsea was fifty-seven.”
He paused, and Slade’s voice slowly filtered through the room, a deep, raging rumble. “You were fifty-eight, Emme.”
Just two of us still alive, out of almost sixty omegas.
Finley tightened his hold, and despite the hollow, choked-up feeling inside of me, I was comforted. “What… what did he say about Mom?”
I didn’t care about me since I was free and Fletcher was too dead to hurt me again, but I wanted to know what had happened to her.
Finley pulled away so I could see Slade, who was scanning the screen.
“Subject forty-five is a naturally born omega,” he started in a factual tone.
“Age: thirty-nine. First located with a possible hybrid shifter-witch. Four-year-old daughter suspected to be the same. Paternal line has vanished but will keep this subject locked down until daughter comes of age. Plans: manipulate a full quintet bond, scent match with new spell. Pack: Rogers pack.”
Slade’s chest rose and fell roughly, his words cutting off until he eventually continued.
“These are his first real observations: My son wants to build his power and will allow me to observe and take blood and vitals every six months to document the various ways an omega can be used by alphas. The duration of this experiment will be approximately ten years. Or until the daughter presents as an omega and confirms suspicions. So far, Subject forty-five has not confirmed her parentage. If the daughter is a witch-wolf, we will bond her to one of her real scent matches. Testing indicates it’s one of my alphas. The dragon—”
My gasp was loud cutting Slade right off. “How can you test for a scent-match at such a young age?”
I couldn’t remember anyone testing me for anything, but most likely it happened when I was asleep. Or maybe too young to recall. The very thought had shivers running down my spine at the violation of it.
“Fletcher was dabbling in magic and experiments far beyond what was ethical,” Hunter said, still in that cold, unemotional tone. “He didn’t care how much pain he caused shifters, all in the name of playing goddess.”
Swallowing roughly, I clung to Finley until I was sure my nails would be cutting into him, but he never made a sound. Just held me together. “I wish there was an experiment to bring him back from the dead so we could kill him slower. That was far too fast.”
The rumbles of beasts around me, both internally and externally, indicated that everyone agreed with me.
Slade returned to the screen. “There are hundreds of pages of observations from your mom and the Rogers pack. He was finessing the process, and he figured out how to keep all of her stolen power within that pack. The scent match mimicking was also improving.” He paused for a beat, blinking at the screen.
“Did you know Fletcher was bonded to your mother, Emme?”
I grimaced, hearing those words but not really processing them. “That’s not… that’s not possible?”
Hunter shifted closer to Slade, reading over his shoulder now. “He figured out how to split essences,” he murmured, as if he couldn’t quite believe it either. “He must have learned that from Talon’s presence in our lives.”
Fletcher had been everywhere, manipulating everyone in a bid to control the shifter world like a giant chess board of life.
Only he hadn’t quite kept all of his pieces together and one stabbed him in the back.
Could the same happen to Jewels? Was there a piece out there that she’d forgotten about, positioned perfectly to take the queen down?
“No wonder Mom was so drained in the end,” I said, feeling detached from the emotions that should have gone with this information. “Do you think he planned to do the same with Talon and me too?”
The detachment ended with that thought, and I almost lost control of my howling wolf.
He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s motherfucking dead, I reminded myself.
There was no way he could ever hurt anyone again.
“I would say there was a strong chance.” Slade and his unwavering truth left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“Your mother appeared to be the dress rehearsal for her daughter.” He waved at the computer.
“We owe Constantine more than we realized, since there’s record here of Fletcher spending millions and using multiple witches to try and track you.
Whatever Constantine did, he wiped you from the alpha’s radar. ”
Which no doubt saved me in the end, along with my bonding to Hunter and Kellan that kept me from ever being just Talon’s.
Finley held me through each revelation as I tried to process all of this new information. Fletcher had been systematically taking omegas apart until he knew exactly what magical essence filled us, and how he could utilize it for himself.
We’d stopped him in the end, but not before it was too late. My kind were all but extinct.
Constantine entered the room, his blue gaze piercing as he examined me. I wondered if I looked as distraught as I felt. “Chelsea is awake,” he said. “The others wanted me to get you.”
My chest remained heavy and tight as I sucked in a deep breath, while still feeling starved of oxygen. “Yeah, we need to find out what she knows.”
Even with all the bombshells, we were still no closer to tracking Jewels.
We might not be able to undo Fletcher’s horror-experiments, but we could ensure that we didn’t lose our autonomy and beasts forever.