Summer Tempest (Cursed Omega #2)

Chapter 1 Orion

The hours since she was taken feel stretched into years.

I never thought I’d get a mate like Mona.

I always assumed we’d eventually settle down with some powerful alpha or beta.

She’d have pleasing features and a great scent, maybe come from another clan and have influence, notoriety.

Someone dominant who commanded respect, yet remained soft and family-oriented.

She’d fit into our lifestyle with ease, and nothing would be difficult or complicated.

What we got was Mona. A wrecking ball of epic proportions, she crashed into our lives and imploded our simple life. She’s beautiful chaos, funny, easy to annoy, a menace to our Lune, and I fell for her instantly—and I realized, quite quickly, that I don’t want someone who fits neatly into a box.

I want her. I want my mate.

But she’s gone.

She wanted to come with us to fight the witches—she begged. We said no, and she stayed behind. And now we’ve lost her, and I have to live with that decision.

There’s a well dug inside me, and it’s only growing deeper. My mind is shaky, my hands are sweating. I can’t think straight.

“Joey doesn’t remember anything. The kid’s terrified.

” The last anyone saw of my mate was when Cynthia, Kellen, and Mona found Joey, injured and spelled, in the woods near our home.

Mona, being Mona, rushed to help him. Cynthia took the boy and ran to the hospital, while Kellen and Mona returned to the cabin to call for backup.

That’s what was supposed to happen, anyway.

Grayson flexes his bloody fingers. It’s his own dried blood, though I know he wishes it was someone else’s. The wall took a beating. Mona wouldn’t approve.

Thoughts of her threaten to drown me again. I swallow and ask, “He okay? Healed?”

Gray nods, voice layered with the same exhaustion I feel in my bones. “He’s fine. Doc cleared the magic from his system, his shifter healing took over. I think he’s more traumatized than anything. Heather is beside herself.”

“Kellen?” I ask.

Gray shakes his head. “He doesn’t remember anything.

Was hit with a powerful knockout spell. Came to pretty quick, but by then, they’d already dragged Mona off.

Andrea…” He flexes his fist again, but I reach over and rest my palm over his.

He flinches but doesn’t pull away. “This whole fucking time she wanted Mona gone. She betrayed us. Our clan, our pack, our omega.”

Grayson gets up and slams his fist into the wall again, not that it does him any good. His alpha’s control is teetering, and I’m the only one aside from Kendrick that can stand to be in the same room with him without wanting to fall to my knees and choke on his rage.

After we got back from Deidre’s compound, we interviewed anyone who might have seen Mona before she was taken, or knew anything at all. Hilde told us about a confrontation between Andrea and Mona, where she explicitly told Mona she wanted her gone.

“I’m going to fucking kill her,” Grayson says, pacing. “I’m going to make her bleed, and talk, and after we get Mona back, I’m going to fucking kill her.”

Normally, I’m the one talking him off the ledge. “We have to find her first. She’s our only lead.”

Kendrick walks into the kitchen, stiff but deceptively calm.

“Lily?” I ask, and he shakes his head.

“She’s still unconscious. Doc says, physically, she’ll be fine. She’d been starved for so long though, and whatever magic they put her through, it could be weeks before she’s able to get up and move around.”

Physically, she should be fine. Mentally? Emotionally? I can’t imagine what Lily went through. What Silas went through…

We scented Silas at Deidre’s compound, we saw that fucking basement. And now we’re all compartmentalizing, focusing on what we can control.

“Andrea was one of my top enforcers. It never occurred to me that one of our own would turn on us. We won’t make that mistake again,” Grayson snarls.

“Don’t punish the rest of your wolves for the mistake of one,” Kendrick warns and takes a seat, looking old and weary for a man who could pass for thirty-five.

“Mistake?” I fume.

“Don’t go down this path. Don’t start losing trust in your people. That’s when they lose trust in you. For now, we focus on finding Andrea.”

We followed the scent of Andrea and Mona out past the cliffside. They had UTVs and drove through the mountains to evade capture. There were no other scents, the witches erased all traces of themselves.

Grayson’s phone vibrates in his pocket. Typically, shifters are too sensitive to have notifications turned on, but with Mona missing—he digs it out. “Yeah.”

I hear Eli’s words on the other line perfectly. And I move before he does. My clothes are half off and I’m shifted before I even reach the porch steps. My wolf bounds down the dirt road, around the bend. I hear Grayson’s feet pad behind me.

Distantly, I hear a truck start, Kendrick following along. I reach the heart in minutes, skidding to a stop in front of the last building before the road splits off down the mountain.

Shifting mid-leap, bones cracking, fur receding, I tackle Andrea to the ground in human form. My fingers dig into her shoulders as I pin her against the dirt, my face inches from hers.

“Where is she!?” My desperation tears from my throat.

Strong hands yank me up as Grayson steps in, hauling Andrea upright by her collar. She’s covered in blood, her shirt is filthy, but she appears unharmed.

Stepping back, I notice faint, recent scars coloring her wrists and neck.

It’s my alpha who pulls me back, always calm and in control, noting things I’m too emotional to see.

Like the slight tremor in her hands despite the steady beat of her heart.

Would she have waltzed right back here if she were guilty?

“Grayson,” I start, forcing my voice to level out. “Put her down. We need to talk to her.”

The crunch of gravel pulls him back. Kendrick parks the truck and hops out. He stands aside, quietly assessing. A few feet away, Eli waits with silver cuffs dangling from gloved fingers.

“Andrea, is it?”

She snarls, but the sound dies in her throat when she realizes who’s asking. Her eyes drop in submission. “Máni.”

Kendrick nods. Then, to Grayson, “Let her go.”

He does, but not without hissing and shoving her back. “If you had anything to do with—“

“Look at her wrists, kid.”

Andrea self-consciously rubs at her wrists, then straightens her spine, squares her shoulders. Tiredly, she holds her hands behind her back, at attention. Filthy, bruised, a little broken, and she’s still a model soldier.

“What happened?” I ask. “Please, if you know anything.”

She doesn’t even hesitate. “The witches were taking her to a secondary location just past the border into Canada. They dumped me in Jackman a few hours ago. I was bound in silver, there’s no way I could have—”

She doesn’t choke up, but takes a second to recompose. And when she does, she’s all business again. “It was one witch, male, low-level. Of average intelligence, too, if his inability to notice we were talking the whole time says anything. I overheard Stance—”

“Stance?”

She nods. “The witches hired him after he was exiled to help them sneak onto our lands. He—I don’t know the specifics, but they were bringing her to a safe house, and they zip-tied her, not in silver, so that tells me they want her unharmed.”

“What do they want with her, exactly?”

Andrea presses her lips together, shaking her head.

She doesn’t know. How could I expect her to, when the witches have been planning this for nearly twenty-five years?

They kept Mona safely tucked away, raised in ignorance amongst the humans.

A rare omega, born of one of the most powerful, ancient bloodlines in existence…

I can’t imagine what Deidre has planned.

I glance over at Kendrick. His face remains passive. It’s almost eerie.

“The Ghost is with her, I’m sure of it,” Kendrick says. “She’ll be safe enough for now.”

“I thought you lost contact?” Grayson asks.

He nods, scratching his neck. “I did.” He turns away, then looks up at the sky.

“They stole Desi from me, kept her power hidden from her. But then she came into her true omega form before they were ready. Now they’ve stolen her again.

Ghost was with Deidre, and she’s behind all this.

” He looks back at the three of us. He’s a few inches shorter than me and Gray, only a bit taller than Andrea.

But he commands all of us without effort.

“While we wait to hear from him and check in, let’s look at the trail from Jackman into Canada. Maybe we can get some idea of where they’re headed, meet them halfway.”

“You’re putting an awful lot of trust in a man that’s barely older than Mona. He doesn’t have the experience to—”

“He may be young, Grayson, but he’s smart. Quick. I don’t need to hold his hand and tell him what to do. If that were the case, we’d have met up with him at the compound after the attack. No, he left with Deidre. He’s following the trail. He’ll get to Desi.”

I nod, but Grayson doesn’t trust it. Which brings his wrath back to Andrea.

“Lock her up for now, just in case.” He tilts his chin toward the she-wolf.

Eli starts for Andrea, but she protests, “What! Why? Grayson, I can help—”

“That’s Lune to you! And you betrayed this clan, or have you forgotten already? You betrayed your vows. And you were the last one with my mate before she was kidnapped by witches!” he spits.

“I had nothing to do with that!”

“I don’t believe you. Be grateful all I’m doing is locking you up. I don’t trust you, Andrea. If you had anything to do with—”

“I didn’t! I would never work with witches, I had nothing to do with it.

I was out past the laundry house, and I thought I heard something…

I followed them through the woods to your cabin.

But Stance, he scented me. I had no idea he was with them, I thought it was just witches, they must have cloaked his scent.

They ambushed me, and then Mona was there, and… ”

“Can anyone corroborate your story?”

She grits her teeth. “You know there isn’t.”

“Andrea, if you had anything to do with this, I will kill you. No more chances. Are we clear?”

She looks like she wants to argue. But instead, she nods solemnly and says, “Bring a map to the cell. I’ll show you where they dropped me. I promised her I’d get her back. Mona was in—” Andrea starts, then stops, chewing on her lip, like she’s worried about something else.

“She was in what? Did they hurt her? Was she okay?”

She looks like she wants to say more. But she bites her lip and shakes her head. “I just promised her I’d find her. Bring me a map. I can help. Even if I am locked up,” she snarls at Grayson.

He bares his teeth, but rather than fight with her, he charges down the dirt road toward the office, where we keep maps of the region.

Eli nudges Andrea, and while I feel an inkling of guilt locking Andrea up again—I’m a wolf, I can sense when someone is lying, and I believe her—we can’t take the chance.

If she is somehow involved, she could get word to the witches and blow whatever plan we pull together.

“Take care of her, Eli,” I say instead. He nods. He doesn’t put the cuffs on her, and she walks with her head held high toward our jail cell.

When Kendrick and I are the only two left on the road, I confess, “I should have claimed her. I wanted to wait. For it to be special. To have a ceremony, wait for the next full moon. So fucking stupid. We might’ve been able to trace her, or at least know if she’s okay.”

Kendrick’s eyes grow distant. “I should have stepped back from clan duties. I should have been with Amy and Desi whenever they left our territory. I should have suspected the witches were behind her death. My grief clouded everything, and for years, I wasn’t thinking straight.

Had I been, I could have saved Desi long before they got to her again.

We all make choices that can lead us down a dark path.

But if you wade too often in regret, it’ll sweep you away.

You’ll become paralyzed with indecision.

And that’s far more dangerous than should-haves. ”

He starts walking toward the office, but pauses, turning to face me. “Now, let’s go find my fucking daughter.”