43. Wes Osprey
Wes Osprey
The woman screams again. This time, the sound ends beneath the hard slap of a hand. My alpha surges toward it.
Roman catches the back of my vest before I move. “Water team,” he says. “Thirty seconds.”
Thirty seconds is too long.
Scarlet stands between us, with one hand locked around mine and the other pressed to Roman’s arm. Her breathing comes too fast. The harsh lights beyond the trees turn the swamp white in broken flashes, catching on dark water and wet cypress trunks.
The generator vibrates through the soles of my boots. Sweet chemical residue hangs low over the channel, enough that my alpha wants Scarlet nowhere near it.
“We take her back,” I say.
“No.” Scarlet’s answer is adamant.
Another muffled cry carries across the water.
She looks toward it. “That woman may be dosed.”
“She may be bait.”
“Both can be true.” Roman moves closer to Scarlet’s back. “The boat team is coming from the east. If we wait for them, we hit the site from both sides.”
A flashlight blinks twice across the hidden channel. Then once. Tom’s signal.
The second team is in position.
Scarlet points toward a narrow line of roots beneath the water. “The ridge continues there. The channel only looks deep because the bank collapsed.”
“How sure are you?” I ask.
“My grandmother’s survey marks a crossing before the site.”
That isn’t an answer I like, but it’s the only one we have.
Tom signals forward.
We enter the water. Cold mud closes over my boots. The bottom drops, then rises beneath a submerged root shelf exactly where Scarlet said it would. I keep one hand around her waist while Roman steadies her from behind.
The generator covers our movement. Twenty feet ahead, floodlights surround a circular patch of raised ground between two channels. The old vow site.
White thread runs between cypress trunks in a rough perimeter. Marigolds and swamp lilies cover the mud in deliberate rings. Portable fans push mist from a metal basin toward the center. The sweet smell thickens.
At the center of the clearing, Myrtle kneels beside a young omega tied to a wooden chair. Maribel.
Her head hangs forward. Her hair is damp with sweat, and a treated sweetheart charm rests against her chest.
Sullivan Mercer stands behind her with a pistol.
The Love Stone lies inside the basin. The damn thing isn’t a stone at all. It’s a carved gator tooth nearly the length of my forearm, surrounded by cloudy liquid and crushed flowers.
My alpha wants blood.
Scarlet makes a broken sound beside me, and Sullivan turns. He rises the pistol.
I shove Scarlet and Roman behind the widest cypress as the first shot cracks through the swamp. Bark explodes beside my face.
Deputies return fire from the eastern channel.
Myrtle throws herself over Maribel, and Sullivan reaches into the basin.
“Move and I drop it!” He lifts the carved tooth with both hands, holding it above the chemical mixture.
Everything stops.
Scarlet presses against my back. “Don’t let him put it back in.”
“Why?”
“The basin is wrong.”
Sullivan hears her. His face twists. “You don’t know what you’re looking at.”
Scarlet steps far enough around me to see him. I catch her waist. She covers my hand but doesn’t retreat. “The protection rite never used standing water,” she says. “It used moving water so the pack could choose whether to remain or release.”
Myrtle lifts her head. Confusion cuts through her expression.
Sullivan’s grip tightens around the tooth. “The artifact anchors bonds.”
“No,” Scarlet says. “That is what the town legend claims.”
Maribel’s body jerks against the chair. A low, terrified whine escapes her.
Roman moves at my other side. “She recognizes someone,” he says.
I follow his attention. Ellis stands with the boat team across the channel, held behind the deputies. Maribel’s eyes keep finding him, then sliding away as the mist reaches her face.
Recognition. Loss. Recognition again. The experiment is happening in front of us.
Scarlet sees it too. “The Love Stone is not stabilizing her,” she says. “The moving air is dosing her over and over.”
Myrtle looks toward the fans, then the basin. “What did you change?” she asks Sullivan.
He doesn’t answer.
Her face collapses. “You increased it again.”
Sullivan swings the pistol toward her. “The lower dose failed.”
Myrtle’s hand tightens on Maribel’s shoulder. “You said the site would make it hold.”
“It will, if everyone stops interrupting me.”
Sullivan had the money, trucks, couriers, and GatorX operation.
Myrtle had Heritage Hall, the old records, and the belief that the Love Stone could preserve what the drug was destroying.
They came to this through the same family loss.
Lenora was Myrtle’s sister, and her dead alpha was Sullivan’s brother.
Myrtle wanted to prevent another bond from ending the way Lenora’s had.
Sullivan kept escalating the experiment to make that happen.
Tom gives a subtle hand signal.
Roman sees it too. His fingers squeeze my arm twice.
Scarlet’s attention shifts to the white thread around the clearing. Her grandmother’s warning moves through my memory. “What happens if the thread breaks?” I ask.
Scarlet studies the pattern. “It opens the circle.”
“Does that stop the mist?”
“No. But the old rite required an opening toward the water.”
Roman follows the thread to a knot tied beside our tree. He draws his knife.
Sullivan sees the movement. “Don’t.”
Roman freezes.
The pistol turns toward Scarlet. Every part of me goes cold.
Sullivan smiles when he sees what that does to me. “She is the one who keeps ruining the results.”
Scarlet’s fear floods the air beneath sage and rain.
My alpha roars against my restraint.
Sullivan points the gun directly at her chest. “You recovered too quickly at the greenhouse. We needed a full omega response on an emerging bond.”
I move in front of her, and he fires.
The impact slams into my vest and knocks me back against Scarlet. Pain flashes across my chest. She screams my name.
Roman cuts the thread, and the ring falls open. Wind rushes through the gap and drives the mist sideways.
Maribel coughs.
Myrtle drags the charm from her neck and throws it into the water.
Tom’s deputies fire.
Sullivan ducks, dropping the Love Stone into the basin as he runs for the generator.
Scarlet tears away from Roman. “Stop him!”
I catch her wrist too late. She runs toward the basin.
My alpha loses every civilized thought.
Sullivan kicks the generator cable loose, and the floodlights die. Swamp darkness crashes over the clearing.
Maribel screams.
Gunfire cracks from the far side.
The fans wind down, but the chemical mist hangs close to the ground.
“Scarlet!”
“I’m here!” Her voice comes from near the basin.
I reach her as Sullivan rises out of the dark. His hand closes around her hair. The pistol presses beneath her jaw.
My entire world narrows to Scarlet’s eyes: wide, terrified, still focused.
“Back up,” Sullivan orders.
Roman appears behind him without a sound.
She stops fighting Sullivan and lets her weight sag. He adjusts his grip. Roman drives his shoulder into Sullivan’s knees, and the pistol fires into the trees.
I pull Scarlet free.
Tom and two deputies take Sullivan down in the mud. He keeps fighting until a knee pins his arm, and the weapon disappears beneath an evidence bag.
Scarlet clings to me for one breath. Then she twists toward the basin. “The Love Stone.”
The liquid is draining through the opening Roman created in the thread circle. The carved tooth rests against the rim, half submerged in cloudy water.
Myrtle reaches for it.
Scarlet catches her wrist. “Don’t.”
Myrtle looks up at her. Tears cut through the dirt on her face. “I was trying to save them.”
“You were trying to keep bonds from breaking. That’s not the same thing.”
Myrtle’s gaze lowers to Maribel, who is sobbing in Ellis’s arms now that the deputies have cut her free.
“She felt better,” Myrtle says. “Lenora did too. For a few hours, after everything got bad, she came back to me. She could eat. She could sleep. She could say my name without crying.”
Scarlet’s grip softens without releasing her. “The drug relieved her pain. That doesn’t mean it repaired the bond.”
Myrtle looks toward Maribel. “If we could stop the recognition loss, no one would have to go through what Lenora did.”
“So you tried to make the bond hold no matter what the person inside it needed.”
Myrtle flinches. “The stone was supposed to make it safe.”
“The Love Stone was never meant to force people to stay connected.”
Myrtle looks toward the carved tooth.
Scarlet follows her gaze. “My grandmother restored the release path because protection without choice becomes a cage.”
The wind changes. The last of the mist pulls through the opened thread and disperses across the moving water.
Maribel looks at Ellis and says his name. Recognition holds as the dose disappears.
Scarlet’s theory works in the simplest, ugliest way possible. The forced protection failed. Opening the circle and removing the compound allowed Maribel’s mind to return.
Tom secures Myrtle while the evidence team approaches.
I lift Scarlet away from the basin. Her legs give out as soon as the danger passes. Roman catches her with me.
She shakes between us. “I thought he shot you.”
“He did.”
Her hands fly to my chest.
“The vest caught it.”
Roman checks the plate while I hold her. “No penetration,” he says. “He is going to bruise like hell.”
Scarlet’s breath breaks. She presses her forehead to my chest and cries.
My purr tears through me.
Roman wraps around her back and presses his face to her hair.
For several seconds, the three of us stand in the ruined ritual while deputies move around us and evidence bags fill with the town’s oldest lies.
The Love Stone is recovered. Sullivan is in custody. Myrtle doesn’t resist when Tom leads her away.
Scarlet lifts her head. Mud streaks her cheek, and tears cling to her lashes. Her scent is full of fear and exhaustion. “Take me home,” she whispers.
I gather her into my arms. Roman stays against my side as we cross the opened circle and leave the release site behind.
Forever isn’t a clenched fist that traps love; it’s an open hand that allows it to live. We carry her home, not as an omega claimed but as one who chose us.