Chapter 17 #3
"It's fear," Cole said. "They don't know what we are. What she is. They just know something's changed."
We found Rae in her office.
She looked up when we entered, and for a moment, her expression was unreadable. Her eyes swept over the group—taking in the five men with their new rings, the bite marks visible on my neck above my collar, the way we moved together like a single unit.
Then she smiled.
"You made it through," she said.
"Barely." I dropped into the chair across from her desk. "It was... intense."
"I can imagine." Her eyes lingered on the marks.
"Neal has data."
"Of course he does." She nodded at him. "Show me."
Neal spread his findings across her desk. Charts and graphs and photographs. The timeline of my heat. The corresponding changes in feral behavior. The before and after comparisons that showed improvement across every measurable metric.
Rae studied it all in silence.
"This is remarkable," she said finally. "The correlation is impossible to dismiss."
"It's not correlation." Neal's voice was firm. "It's causation. Lumi's heat triggered a biological response in every feral within range. Their cortisol levels dropped. Their shift stability improved. Gray's neural patterns showed more integration in three days than in the previous three months."
"Gray spoke," I added. "A full sentence."
Rae's eyebrows rose. "What did he say?"
"He asked where I was." The memory made my chest tight. "When Cole came to get Stone, Gray apparently became agitated. He said, 'Where is she? I need her.'"
The room was quiet.
"The council will need to be updated about this," Rae said slowly.
"Twilson's already asking questions." Cole's voice was hard. "I got seventeen messages while we were at the cabin. Demands for explanations, reports, containment protocols."
"Containment?" I sat up straighter. "He wants to contain me?"
"He wants to understand what happened. And control it, if he can." Cole's jaw tightened.
"Let him be scared." James's voice was a growl. "If he comes near her—"
"He won't." Rae held up a hand. "Not yet. The new council isn't Emory's council. They're cautious, yes, but they're not genocidal. They'll want to study this, understand it, before they make any decisions."
"Study her?" Stone had been silent until now, but his voice cut through the room like a blade. "She's not a lab rat."
"No. She's not." Rae met his eyes calmly. "But she is unprecedented. The first confirmed Omega in three decades. With documented, measurable effects on feral wolves. The council will want answers."
"Let them want." I leaned forward. "I'm not hiding what I am. I'm not pretending the heat didn't happen or that the ferals aren't improving because of me. The data speaks for itself."
"It does." Rae nodded slowly. "And that's exactly what worries me."
"Why?"
"Because data can be interpreted in different ways.
" She folded her hands on her desk. "Twilson will see this and think 'threat to be neutralized.
' Others might see 'resource to be exploited.
' Very few will see what you actually are—a person, with rights and autonomy, who happens to have abilities that could help our entire species. "
"Then we make them see that." I stood. "I'm done hiding. I'm done waiting for permission to exist. The council can accept what I am or they can try to stop me. But they can't pretend this didn't happen."
Rae was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was soft.
"They can try."
The words hung in the air.
"We need to be strategic about this," Cole said. "Twilson is already positioning himself. If we let him control the narrative—"
"He won't." I turned to face my pack. "We have Neal's data. We have the ferals' improvement. We have five bonded wolves with rings around their pupils that prove what happened." I looked at each of them in turn. "We have the truth. That's more than Twilson has."
"The truth didn't save the Omegas before," Cole said quietly.
"Because they were alone. Scattered. Easy to pick off one by one." I felt the bonds pulse in my chest—strong, unbreakable. "I'm not alone. And I'm not going to be quiet about what I am."
"What exactly are you planning?" Rae asked.
"I don't know yet. But I know it starts with the ferals.
" I moved to the window, looking out at the Healing Center grounds.
"They're proof. Living, breathing proof that Omegas aren't a threat—we're a solution.
The council spent thirty years trying to fix the feral crisis they created by eliminating us.
Now they have a chance to actually solve it. "
"And if they refuse?"
"Then we make it impossible for them to refuse." I turned back to face the room. "Neal, I want you to compile everything. Every piece of data, every measurable improvement, every documented change. I want it irrefutable."
"Already on it."
"Cal, I need you to talk to the other ferals. Gray, Ben, the ones who showed the most improvement. Find out what they experienced during the heat. What they felt."
Cal nodded. "Done."
"James, Stone—I need you to stay close. Twilson's going to make a move eventually. I want to be ready when he does."
"We're not leaving your side," James said.
Stone just growled in agreement.
"And Cole." I met his eyes. "I need you to contact your mother."
He went still. "Why?"
"Because she's been hiding for thirty years. Living in fear of exactly what's about to happen." I crossed to him, took his hands in mine. "She needs to know there's another Omega now. That she's not alone anymore. And maybe... maybe she knows something that could help us."
Cole was quiet for a long moment. I felt his emotions through the bond—fear, hope, uncertainty. Finally, he nodded.
"I'll reach out. But I can't promise she'll respond."
"Just try. That's all I'm asking."
Rae stood. "I'll buy you as much time as I can with the council. But Lumi—they will come. Twilson won't let this go unanswered."
"I know." I looked around the room at my pack, my allies, the people who had stood with me through the most transformative experience of my life. "Let them come. We'll be ready."
We filed out of Rae's office, moving as a unit through the Healing Center. Staff still stared. Whispers followed us down every hallway. But I didn't shrink from the attention anymore.
Let them look.
Let them see what an Omega looked like. What a bonded pack looked like. What the council had tried so hard to erase from existence.
We were here. We were real. And we weren't going anywhere.
The east wing doors opened, and the scent hit me immediately. Ferals.
Gray was waiting in the common area.
He stood the moment I entered, his eyes finding mine with an intensity that made my breath catch. And then he did something he'd never done before.
He smiled.
"You came back," he said. His voice was rough from disuse, but the words were clear. "I knew you would."
I crossed the room and pulled him into a hug. He stiffened for a moment—touch was still hard for him—then melted into the embrace.
"I'll always come back," I said against his hair. "That's what pack does."
Behind me, I felt my mates watching. Felt their approval through the bonds. This was what I was meant to do. Not hide. Not fear. But help. Heal. Anchor.
The council could study me. Twilson could scheme. The whole world could try to understand what an Omega really was.
But in the end, it came down to this: Gray smiling for the first time in months. Ben calm and quiet instead of pacing and whining. Stone and Cal finally at peace after years of chaos.
They could try to pretend this didn't happen.
But the evidence was right here, impossible to deny.
And I was done letting anyone else decide what I was worth.