Chapter 5 Corvus
five
Corvus
The spreadsheet contains forty-three separate data points tracking our collective deterioration.
My hand trembles slightly as I type, a micro-tremor documented since day three.
Unlike Dorian's violent destruction or Oakley's desperate caretaking, my rejection sickness manifests in these small betrayals of control.
Fever burns lower but constant. Weight loss concealed by strategically layered clothing.
The cognitive decline negligible enough that neither of my packmates has noticed.
They don't need to know that I haven't slept more than two hours at a time since she left. That would be inefficient data for our current objective.
"Corvus." Oakley's voice from my doorway. The spreadsheet minimizes before he can see it, Columbus research taking its place. "How are you feeling?"
"Functional." Posture adjusts to hide the tension in my shoulders, the way my muscles ache constantly now. "I've completed the reconnaissance on the summer program."
He enters my room—pristine where Dorian's is destroyed, everything in its designated place except for the woman who should be here. "And?"
"She begins in three days. The program houses participants in renovated dormitories on the Columbus Theater District campus.
Security is minimal—keycard access only, no guards, no cameras in residential hallways.
" The building schematics appear on screen, obtained through a contact in their facilities department.
"She'll be in room 314. Third floor, northeast corner. Fire escape access."
"You've been thorough." There's concern in his voice. Oakley always was too perceptive. "When's the last time you ate?"
"This morning." The lie comes easily. Solid food hasn't stayed down for four days, but that's irrelevant to our planning.
"Corvus—"
"I've also been monitoring her communications.
" Another screen, deflecting his concern with data.
"Stephanie Shaw has attempted contact forty-seven times in the past twelve days.
Escalating desperation in the messages. She's also transferred $500 to Vespera's account with the note 'please forgive me. '"
"Guilt money," Oakley observes.
"Ineffective guilt money. The transfers haven't been accepted." The data I've collected—some legal, most not—scrolls past. "Her father has been in contact with the program director daily. He's... concerned about her health."
As he should be. The research I've compiled on rejection sickness makes for grim reading.
Sixty percent fatality rate within the first year for a single bond rejection.
For three bonds? The statistics don't exist because it's so rare.
We're in uncharted territory, all four of us dying by degrees, pretending we're not.
"Dorian wants to move as soon as she's settled there," Oakley says. "Maybe day two or three of the program."
"That would be tactically unsound." The schedule I've hacked from the Columbus system pulls up.
"Week one is intensive workshops, long days but early evenings.
Week two begins performance preparation—that's when she'll have late night rehearsals, walking back alone at midnight or later. Optimal acquisition window."
Acquisition. Such a clean word for what we're planning.
"Can we last that long?" Oakley murmurs.
Proper assessment demands attention. He's hiding it better than Dorian but not as well as me. Weight loss, shadows under his eyes, the way he unconsciously rubs his chest where the pack bond sits.
"We'll last as long as necessary," I say, returning to my screens. "I've identified the optimal location for the intervention."
The map of the Winslow Lake House appears, family property two hours from Columbus. Isolated, fully stocked, modernized security system I can control remotely. "Forty acres of private land, nearest neighbor three miles away. Complete privacy for the... adjustment period."
"Adjustment period." Oakley laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Is that what we're calling kidnapping and imprisonment now?"
"We're calling it survival." The careful control slips, voice sharper than intended. "Unless you have an alternative solution to our collective biological crisis?"
He doesn't, of course. We've all researched the same dead ends. Rejection can't be reversed. The bonds, once formed, are permanent until death. The only treatment is proximity to the bonded partner, and she's made it clear that voluntary proximity isn't an option.
Which leaves involuntary proximity.
"I've requisitioned supplies," I continue, pulling up another list. "IV fluids, nutritional supplements, sedatives if necessary. Everything needed to maintain her health during the transition."
"Transition." Oakley shakes his head. "You make it sound so clinical."
"The alternative is acknowledging the emotional component, which serves no strategic purpose." Even as I say it, my hand moves unconsciously to my chest, where the bond aches like a wound that won't heal. "Emotion is what created this situation. Logic will resolve it."
My laptop pings with a new alert. The monitoring software installed on her devices through a vulnerability in her email client shows activity. She's online, searching for something.
"What's she doing?" Oakley leans closer, his cedar scent spiking with interest.
The search history populates my screen, and something in my chest tightens despite the clinical detachment I'm trying to maintain.
"Rejection sickness survivability." "Omega rejection syndrome treatment.
" "How to break a mate bond permanently.
" "Experimental therapies omega biology. " "Pack bond severance medical trials."
"She's researching the same things we are," I observe, though the clinical tone masks how my chest constricts. "Looking for a solution that doesn't exist."
The next search makes me pause: "Summer intensive medical leave policies."
"She's looking for ways to hide how sick she is," Oakley observes. "To keep performing despite the rejection."
"Of course she is." There's something almost like admiration in my voice, breaking through the careful control. "She won't let biology stop her from her goals."
But the searches continue. Clinical trials that never completed. Success stories that don't exist because there are no success stories. You can't break biology this fundamental without breaking yourself.
And she's trying anyway. Stubborn, brilliant, self-destructive woman.
"We need to move sooner," Oakley says. "If she's pushing herself this hard while sick—"
"She won't quit." The certainty surprises me with its vehemence. "Vespera Levine is many things, but she's not someone who gives up. She'll perform until she collapses, but she won't stop voluntarily."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I've been studying her for months." The comprehensive file appears—academic records, history, psychological profile assembled from observation and data. "She's driven by defiance, not despair. Every action she's taken has been about maintaining control, not surrendering it."
Even rejecting us was about control, choosing the pain of separation over the surrender of acceptance.
My phone buzzes. Dorian, texting from his destroyed room: Timeline?
Response: Day 3 of program. 11:47 PM. Walking route from theater to dorms. Clean vehicle acquired.
His response is immediate: Good.
"He's getting worse," Oakley says quietly. "The destruction, the obsession, the shrine of her things—"
"We're all getting worse." The admission slips out before I can stop it. "The biological imperative is absolute. Without intervention, systemic failure is inevitable."
"You mean we'll die."
"I mean our bodies will cease to function in the absence of their recognized mate." The laptop closes, exhaustion hitting suddenly. "Death is simply the terminology for that cessation."
Oakley studies me with those too-perceptive eyes. "When's the last time you actually slept? Not just dozed at your desk, but actually slept?"
"Sleep is inefficient when—"
"Corvus." He moves closer, and his scent hits—pack and comfort and not-her. "You're burning yourself out trying to solve this like an equation. But this isn't a problem set. It's biology."
"Biology follows patterns. Patterns can be predicted, manipulated, controlled."
"Not this." He reaches out, his hand settling on the back of my neck. "This is beyond control. Hers and ours."
The touch makes something in me crack, the careful walls I've built starting to crumble. "I can feel her," I admit. "Even from here. The bond pulls constantly, demanding I find her, fix this, make her ours properly. My body doesn't understand why I'm not hunting her down right now."
"Because you're not Dorian," Oakley says. "You think before you act."
"Thinking doesn't make it easier. Just more complicated." The touch gets a slight lean into it, allowing myself this single moment of weakness. "I've run 1,847 scenarios for how this could play out. Only twelve have acceptable outcomes."
"Acceptable meaning?"
"She survives. We survive. The pack remains intact."
"And she accepts the bond?"
Quiet for a moment, then: "That only happens in three scenarios. The rest involve... alternative arrangements."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning we find ways to manage the biological imperative without her full consent. Proximity without acceptance. Survival without submission."
It's not ideal. It's not even good. But it's better than the alternatives calculated—the ones that end with obituaries and empty rooms and a pack that couldn't protect its omega.
"We can last," Oakley says.
"We'll last as long as necessary." The laptop opens again, pulling up the Columbus Theater schedule. "She has a callback for Medea on day two. She'll get the role—the director has a preference for omegas in tragic female leads. Rehearsals will begin immediately, running until midnight most nights."
"You've hacked their system."
"I've thoroughly researched their patterns." The distinction matters, legally speaking. "By day ten, she'll be exhausted from the schedule, weakened from ongoing rejection symptoms, isolated from any support system. Optimal conditions for acquisition."
"You're talking about her like she's a hostile takeover target."
"The methodology is similar." Another spreadsheet appears, this one tracking the logistics. "Identify the asset. Analyze weaknesses. Plan the acquisition. Execute with precision."
"And after?" Oakley asks. "After we take her, when she's at the lake house, what then?"
"Then we demonstrate that resistance is ineffective." The words come out cold, clinical, but inside something twists. Something that knows this is wrong, that knows she'll hate us for it, that knows we're choosing our survival over her autonomy and calling it inevitable.
But the alternative is dying without her, and I've never been good at accepting defeat.
"The bond will reassert itself with proximity," I continue, voice steady despite the turmoil underneath. "Biology will override psychology. She'll accept because the alternative is mutual destruction."
It's what I tell myself when the fever spikes at night, when my body shakes from withdrawal, when I catch phantom traces of her jasmine scent and nearly lose my mind. That this is temporary. That biology will win. That we'll all survive this if we can just get her back.
"I should check on Dorian," Oakley says, but he doesn't move yet. "Make sure he hasn't destroyed anything else."
"He destroyed the bathroom mirror an hour ago," I inform him. "I heard it through the walls."
"And you didn't check on him?"
"You're better at emotional management. I'm better at strategic planning. Division of labor."
He squeezes my neck once more before letting go. "Take care of yourself too, Corvus. We need you functional."
After he leaves, screens and data and careful calculations return—making this seem logical instead of desperate. The transportation route from Columbus to the lake house. The sedative dosage for a female omega of her weight. The security protocols to keep her contained without causing harm.
Planning a kidnapping with the same methodical precision I use for everything else. But my hands shake as I type, and the fever makes it hard to focus, and every cell in my body screams that I shouldn't have to plan this at all. She's ours. The bond makes her ours. She should be here.
My phone buzzes with an alert from one of my monitoring programs. Her father's credit card just purchased gas in Columbus. He's driving her there himself, making sure she arrives safely. A good father. Protective.
It will make things more complicated when she disappears.
The calculations expand—how long before he reports her missing, what he'll tell police, how we ensure there's no trail leading back to us. The clean vehicle is registered under a shell company. The lake house isn't in any of our names directly. We've been careful.
But careful doesn't mean foolproof. And if she fights us as hard as I expect she will...
The fever spikes again. Desk gripped for stability.
Time. We just need time.
And then, one way or another, this ends.