Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
MAYA
C illian screams, the sound splintering through the too-white walls of the lab like breaking glass.
I close my eyes against the fluorescent lights burning overhead—the kind that turn skin sallow and make the rust spots on the concrete floor look like old blood.
My cage is too small to pace, barely big enough to fold myself into a crouch, but I move anyway.
Side to side like a caged wolf, watching the Inquisitor through the bars.
Thane hadn’t bothered to blindfold me for the trip here, even though his drug wore off during the trip. He had us hogtied in the back of a truck. But no hoods, no pretense of discretion, just the cold confidence of a man who doesn’t expect their victims to walk out.
The lab smells like antiseptic and something faintly sweet beneath it, something cloying. It clings to the back of my throat, making every breath taste like medicine.
Across the room, Cillian convulses against the restraints on the gurney. Straps bite into his wrists, ankles, his pale hair darkened with sweat against his forehead. His pupils are blown wide, barely a ring of blue left around them, tracking nothing as the Inquisitor leans over him.
“Fascinating,” the Inquisitor murmurs, adjusting a tool that glints silver under the lights. “The bond is resisting severance more aggressively than anticipated. We’ll need to remove the glands entirely to break it.”
Cillian screams again, a raw, broken noise that sets my teeth on edge.
Through the bond, I reach for him. Or try to.
But there’s... nothing.
No pain. No fear. No searing agony as the Inquisitor peels him apart. Just silence, like a phone line gone dead in the middle of a call.
Even Logan is silent now. After that brief flare of rage, he’d vanished from the bond entirely, as if a door slammed shut between us.
The Inquisitor glances at me, flat-eyed, clinical.
Like I’m a specimen under glass. “You should count yourself lucky, little Omega. Normally, we’d have started with you.
” His lips quirk in the parody of a smile.
“But your genetics make you far too valuable to risk. His?” He nods at Cillian’s writhing form.
“Different story. But he’ll serve as a perfect guinea pig for the bond severing procedure.
Then I’ll have to decide which pieces of him to save as lab samples. ”
I grip the bars until my knuckles whiten.
“You smell like formaldehyde and the shit on my shoe, Thane. No wonder you have to chain people down.”
The Inquisitor’s fingers still mid-cut.
For a heartbeat, the only sound is the beeping of monitors and Cillian’s ragged breathing.
Then he sets the scalpel down with deliberate care. “You think provoking me will distract me from him?”
“It’s worth a shot.” I rock back on my heels and offer him a cold smile. “Why don’t you come over here and we can discuss it.”
“You’re in such a hurry to be back on my table, then?” He picks up a syringe, tapping it to clear the air bubbles. The liquid inside is amber, thick like syrup. “Never fear, darling. Breaking you will be the crescendo of my masterpiece.”
Cillian whimpers—a thin, desperate sound.
“Hey. Hey!” My voice cracks, sharp enough that the Inquisitor looks up. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it. Stop playing with your food like a cat with a half-dead bird.”
The Inquisitor tilts his head. “And if I told you I wasn’t planning to kill you? That what comes next will be so much worse?”
A shiver skates down my spine.
But I bare my teeth wider. “I’d say let me out of this cage and hand me that scalpel, so we can really have a conversation.”
The Inquisitor sighs. “Ah, Maya. Still fighting. Still delightful.” He thrusts the needle into Cillian’s arm. “Pity Logan couldn’t break that out of you.”
Cillian seizes, back bowing off the table. His scream this time is soundless, mouth stretched wide, veins standing out in his throat.
The bond stays silent.
And I realize, with a sickening lurch, it’s not just that the bond has broken.
It’s that Cillian is dying.
I stare at the Inquisitor through the bars, my throat dry as sandpaper. “Why would you expect Logan to break me when you couldn’t?”
The words come out steadier than I feel. My fingers grip the cold metal until circulation cuts off, but I keep talking because silence feels like surrender.
“I nearly killed you the last time we were alone together, or don’t you remember?”
Thane’s eyebrows lift with genuine surprise, then settle into something like appreciation. He holds up the scalpel, pointing it directly at me through the bars.
“Your bad behavior will be addressed, I assure you.”
The blade catches the fluorescent light, throwing silver reflections across the sterile walls. I’ve seen that instrument before, felt its bite against my skin in this very facility. My stomach clenches, but I force myself to meet his gaze without flinching.
He lowers the scalpel back to Cillian’s exposed chest, tracing a line just above his heart. “First, we finish what we started here.”
“You must be so disappointed,” I call out, letting mockery drip from every word. “After all the time you devoted to trying to make me the perfect Omega.”
Thane’s hand stills. A thin smile spreads across his lips, cold and calculating.
“Oh, my dear Maya.” He sets the scalpel aside and turns to face me fully. “You have no idea just how much time I devoted to that cause.”
Something in his tone makes my blood run cold.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
His smile widens, revealing teeth too perfect and too sharp. “How much do you actually know about your own birth, Maya? About the circumstances that led to your particular...gifts?”
I roll my eyes despite my growing unease. “I assume you’re about to tell me.”
“I’ve been experimenting with the population on the king’s orders for years,” he says grandly, like a man revealing his life’s work to an eager audience. “Without me, there likely wouldn’t be any Omegas left in Melilla at all.”
“You’re lying,” I spit, though uncertainty creeps into my voice.
“The Omega shortage required creative solutions. Infertile beta women were particularly eager early test subjects—so desperate for social advancement, so willing to risk anything for the chance of birthing an Omega daughter. Including your mother.”
I shake my head violently. “That’s not possible.”
“Charlotte Tantamount was one of dozens of betas who volunteered for my experimental treatments. All hoping to improve their genetics, to guarantee their daughters would present as Omegas. Charlotte responded to the treatment quite spectacularly, I always knew she would produce something special.”
“No.” The word feels torn from my throat. “It’s not true.”
“Such a dedicated mother,” he continues, ignoring my denial.
“The injections were quite painful, I’m told.
But she endured them all, so determined to give you the best possible future.
” His head tilts, studying my reaction with scientific interest. “She succeeded beyond even my wildest projections. That’s why I had to bring you back when you ran from Logan the first time.
I had to be sure that the aberrations in your behavior were not the fault of my design. ”
The laboratory spins around me. My knees buckle, and I slide down the bars until I’m crouched on the floor of my cage.
Charlotte’s face flashes through my mind.
Her desperate social climbing, her obsession with my presentation, the way she always seemed so certain I would be an Omega, even when I was too young for any hint of my designation to show itself.
She wasn’t just betting on my presentation. She was collecting on an investment she’d made in my genetics before I was even born.
“Too bad you’ll never have the chance to hear the truth from her yourself,” Thane adds with mock sympathy. “I’m sure she would assure you it was all for the greater good.”
My vision blurs with tears I refuse to let fall. Everything I thought I knew about my life—my birth, my mother’s expectations, even my own biology—has been a lie. I’m not just an Omega. I’m an experiment. A test subject bred for this exact purpose.
“Charlotte understood the value of genetic investment,” Thane continues, returning his attention to Cillian. “Unlike her daughter, who seems determined to waste her considerable potential.”
“She got for the experiment, didn’t she?” I say, my voice hollow as the pieces fall into place.
Thane’s smile widens. “She was quite pragmatic about compensation. The other volunteers were often motivated by desperation alone, but your mother negotiated quite favorable terms for herself.”
The betrayal cuts deeper than any scalpel. My own mother, selling my genetic future before I was even old enough to understand what it meant. Trading my autonomy for social advancement and cold, hard credits.
But there’s something else lurking behind his words, something that makes my skin crawl.
“You said this was all done on the king’s orders?” I ask, forcing myself to stand despite my shaking legs. “Why?”
Thane’s laugh is sharp and brittle. “You must be truly stupid not to know our kingdom is on the precipice of war. King Leopold used the promise of Omegas to gather Alphas to his cause when he unified the neighboring provinces, a promise that he cannot fulfill. Not without me and my science.”
He turns back to Cillian, running the flat edge of the scalpel down his pale cheek with almost tender precision. Cillian’s eyes roll back, showing only white, his body convulsing weakly against the restraints.