Page 106 of Omega Hunted

The force of the impact threw it sideways as though it weighed nothing at all. It hit the trunk of a spruce with sickening violence. The tree shuddered. Snow exploded from its branches.

The hyena collapsed into the drift at its base, dead, and the bear turned his head slowly towards me, dark eyes settling on the tree pinning my hindquarters before drifting to the blood soaking my chest. He glanced at Ronan, taking in the wounds, the dead hyena lying beside him, the rifle still inches beyond his reach.

Only when he’d assessed the entire clearing did he move.

He crossed the distance in half a dozen unhurried strides, each one making the ground tremble beneath me. Reaching the fallen pine, he gripped the trunk between both forepaws.

I’d spent every ounce of strength trying to lever that tree off me.

The bear lifted it as though it were little more than kindling.

He carried it several feet away, then dropped it onto the snow with a heavy thud. The pressure vanished from my trapped leg so suddenly that I almost tried to stand. My legs buckled, and I had to catch myself before my muzzle hit the snow.

The bear watched me for another moment, then he shifted.

The change was quick for something so large. Bone folded. Fur receded. The massive shape compressed into a broad-shouldered man with iron-grey hair, a beard thick enough to hide half his face, and the same calm eyes that had stared across the clearing moments before.

“Cassian?” he asked, and I lowered my head, and he turned to Ronan, who was unconscious. “Friend?” I whined a yes. I needed to change back but fuck, the pain was so insane, and I needed a moment. “Okay then, seems like you boys decided to redecorate my mountain,” Sheriff Ray Decker said, his voice as dry as gravel.

He stalked over to the trees behind, retrieving jeans and dragging a flannel shirt over his shoulders, then boots, unhurried, as though finding half-dead wolves and dead hunters on his mountain happened every week.

Only when he’d buttoned the shirt did he glance towards the hyena and nudged it once, confirming what we’d all already known. Dead. He checked out the clearing before lifting his gaze towards the house hidden beyond the trees, and when he spoke again, all trace of humor had disappeared.

“No one comes onto my mountain to hunt people. I’ve been sheriff for six years, and nobody leaves it after trying.”

Then he stared at me.

“Now,” he said quietly, “let’s get you both home, and maybe you can tell me what the fuck is going on.”

Chapter Thirty-One

SOREN

I sat on the sofa exactly where Cassian had left me, Asha swaddled in the oversized sweatshirt she’d claimed as her favorite blanket, and every few minutes she made a tiny sleepy noise and flexed her fingers against the fabric before settling again, completely unaware. Yannick’s wolf was tucked between us, and I stroked its furry head, trying to settle my breathing and stop the rising swell of panic.

I checked the clock again. Over two hours now, and there was nothing to do but wait.

My gaze kept drifting to the open gun safe as Asha wriggled, searching for the bottle, before she sucked some more and then settled with a tiny sigh, and I smiled despite everything and brushed a fingertip across her cheek.

There was a dull vibration somewhere beyond the walls, faint enough that I nearly convinced myself I’d imagined it. I held my breath and listened, muscles tight, and the silence came back, and I let the breath out slowly and told myself it could have been anything, a door closing, something falling, an old house settling under snow.

Then it came again, a heavy thud through the floor beneath my feet, followed seconds later by another one farther off, both muffled by concrete and steel and earth but carrying enough weight to lift the hairs on the back of my neck. Something was happening.

Careful not to wake Asha, I crossed to the monitor by the hidden door. Every external feed had gone black, and Cassian had told me the system defaulted to blank screens if the cables were damaged or the power failed, which didn’t make the black screens any easier to see. I stared at them too long before I made myself look away.

My eyes went to the folded map beside the radio instead, with the red line marking a narrow escape tunnel through the rock, emerging into a concealed shelter half a mile off, with warm clothes, a satellite phone, and a snowmobile waiting.

I glanced from the map to the sleeping weight in my arms and asked myself the only question that mattered. If someone came through that door and it wasn’t Cassian, where would I go even if I went through the tunnel? Not another safe house. Not another alpha. Just miles of snow-covered forest, freezing air, and me carrying a baby.

It should have terrified me. Instead, it settled into something steadier, some old instinct that had kept me alive long before Cassian ever pulled me out of the snow. Whatever waited outside that tunnel was still better than my brother or Center 14.

Something scraped faintly beyond the tunnel door. The sound was swallowed by the stone, impossible to place. It could have been someone approaching from the hidden entrance, or someone coming from the house. I shifted Asha closer and waited.

The handle from the tunnel door turned, and I spun so fast Asha stirred, her tiny sigh making me tighten my hold on instinct. Cold air spilled into the room as the door opened, and for one impossible heartbeat, relief hit me so hard my knees nearly gave way. Cassian. Then the man stepped inside, and everything in me froze.

My brother was exactly as I remembered him, his dark coat immaculate despite the snow outside, his steel-grey hair smoothed in the same style as always, and cruel calculation in his eyes. Emric closed the door behind him with slow, deliberate precision before finding me, then settling his gaze on Asha and keeping it there, and it made my skin crawl.

“There she is.” Emric’s mouth curved, the closest he ever came to warmth. “So, you’re not dead then.” He studied me, cold and precise. “Exposure, a blizzard, a body nobody needs to produce. Almost elegant.” His gaze flicked toward the window, toward the noise still carrying from beyond it. “I never believed it for a second.” He lifted his watch to check it. “Time to leave.”