Page 5 of Omega Hunted

Chapter Two

CASSIAN

The shattered remains of our bond tightened in my chest, that old, relentless ache settling beneath my ribs as another perfect winter morning arrived without the soul I’d been born to love.

Fresh snow covered the mountain, softening everything until, for a moment, I could almost see the life we should have had. Raff and me finding this house by accident. Two wolves tearing through the drifts, chasing each other between the trees until we collapsed together in the snow. Standing here afterward, cold and breathless and stupidly happy, already knowing this was home.

Years we thought were ours. Summers on the mountain. Winters buried beneath snow. Arguments and laughter and ordinary mornings when neither of us appreciated how precious ordinary could be. We were supposed to grow older here. Fill this house with memories. Make it a safe space for omegas like him. Wake up beside each other until neither of us remembered what it was to sleep alone.

None of it happened, and three years after losing Raff, the mountain was still here, the seasons still turned, and the house still waited for a future that would never come. Somehow, I was still here too, going through the motions of a life I no longer understood how to want.

Big flakes drifted through the pines surrounding the property as I trotted the eastern fence line, nose down, paws breaking through the crisp, untouched white beneath me. Six more inches overnight, maybe ten in the drifts, and the worst of winter was here. By afternoon, it’d be sloughing off the cedars in wet sheets. The creek carried its sharp mineral scent where the current still ran beneath the frozen edges. A rabbit had crossed the trail before dawn. A fox had followed, and the fox had won. I caught the coppery note of the kill at the base of a cedar and circled it, marking it with my own scent. Mine. Mine. Mine.

I worked the perimeter—methodical, clockwise, no shortcuts. Past the western gate, past the old stone wall where the ground dipped, and the cameras had a blind spot I’d patched twice and didn’t trust. Past the place I’d hauled a fallen birch out of the road in November.

Nothing on the wind. Nothing in the dirt. No prints I hadn’t put there.

Raff’s grave sat at the last stop on my patrol, tucked beneath the pines at the edge of the property where the snow drifted deepest if storms rolled in from the north. I slowed when I reached it, paws sinking deeper through snow as I circled once before stopping beside the stone. No dates. No scripture. No lies about him being somewhere better.

Just his name.

RAFFERTY MOREAU

Three years later, I still ended every patrol beside him.

Three years later, I still didn’t know how to leave.

Snow had settled overnight into the engraved letters, and my scent ringed the grave from the week’s patrols until the ground around him smelled so strongly of me it would’ve warned any stranger away long before they reached the house. I lowered onto my haunches beside the stone, barely feeling the cold through my thick fur as snow clung to my legs and chest and the wind moved softly through the pines overhead, then leaned forward and nudged the top of the headstone with my nose, brushing the fresh powder from the granite.

I huffed, and my tail thumped once against the snow.

And then I spoke to him.

The generator’s serviced. Water filtration is done. I finally replaced those rotten fence posts you kept telling me would fall over one day. You were right. Three of them snapped as soon as I put any weight on them.

I rested my chin on the cold stone.

You would tell me the house is ready, Raff. Better than it was when you first drew the plans on the back of that takeout menu.

Back then, it had been Raff’s idea.

We’d come back from another rescue, both of us filthy, exhausted, and angry because we’d had nowhere safe to take the omega we’d rescued from an SED run facility. We’d bounced him between safe houses, praying each one would hold long enough for the Haven Network to move him again.

Raff had looked at me over a mug of terrible station coffee and said, “We should build our own.” Somewhere warm, anonymous, and forgotten by the rest of the world. He’d started drawing plans, and I’d fallen in love with Raff’s dream because I’d already fallen in love with him.

This mountain sat barely ten miles from the northern border, close enough that Raff had seen possibilities in the peace and quiet. We’d spent evenings in the vast empty place with maps spread across the table while he sketched plans that grew more ambitious every time we talked. He’d wanted this house to become more than our home. He’d wanted it to become one of the quiet places whispered about as part of the Haven Network. Somewhere frightened omegas could disappear for a while before heading on to the next safe house, another link in the chain carrying them north and out of reach of the families and organizations that hunted them.

I’m not ready yet.

I can’t let omegas into this house.

I can’t be this person anymore.

Everything I’d done to this place since he’d died had simply been keeping a promise we’d made together.

Your coffee maker’s dying again.

You remember? The one we had in our apartment?