Page 11 of Caged

“They said she just vanished. She wanted to visit the Apothecary at a Farmer’s Market. Their Omegas are always so fiercely guarded that the Alpha assumed she’d taken the opportunity to slip away for some alone time. When they still hadn’t found her after two hours, they called their pack Alpha.”

“This happened two days ago?” Evander asks, glancing at the Omega’s photo before passing it to Ford. “How have we not heard about it until now?”

Gavran answers before I can. “The wolven are secretive. They always have been. They’re not our enemies, but they’re not our friends, either. Once the treaty was signed and our species stopped fighting, the wolven made their homes in packlands and basically ignored everyone else. They’re happy like that—alone with nature. But blood remembers, and even if it didn’t, they’re nearly as long-lived as we are. They won’t forget the crimes vampires committed against them, just as we won’t forget what they did to ours.” His eyes take on a distant look, like he’s remembering those days in vivid detail.

I’d barely been in my first century of life when the wolven/vampire fighting came to a head, but Gav is a bit older than Caelan, Vae, and me.

And he’s much older than Evander, Silas, and Ford.

I was alive when the treaty was signed, and know the history well, but those three are too young to grasp what actually happened. They understand it no better than they can understand what it was like to live through the American Revolution or the Jacobite Rebellion.

It’s a story in a history book to them, but we were alive to see the devastation that led up to the signing.

“I’ve met the Alpha for the Eastern pack a few times. He’s an honorable male, and his son, Soren, seems to be taking after him. Alpha Fenric would want to keep this contained. He was there at the treaty signing, same as I was, and he remembers all too well how dangerous things were for the wolven leading up to it.” Gav shakes his head, taking another sip of whiskey.

No one speaks. Gav rarely discusses his life before my pack met him a few centuries back, and he’s not the kind of male you push for answers. Nor is he the kind of male to be free with his words.

“They wouldn’t reach out to anyone on the outside unless it was a last resort. Even then, they’d reach out to other packs across the US and Canada before they’d allow word to get out to us.”

Silas scoffs. “That seems ignorant. If we can help, why wouldn’t they ask us? Is this Fenric’s pride more important to him than that Omega?”

Ford shoots Silas a disapproving look, but doesn’t admonish him for his outburst. Silas tends to open his mouth first and think never. He’s the best tracker I’ve ever met, though, and loyal to a fault.

Even if he makes me want to sew his damn mouth shut. Permanently.

“The way Alpha Fenric handles his pack is up to him,” Gav’s words sound more like a warning for Silas to tread carefully than an answer. “I said I knew the male, and I do. He’s honorable and genuinely cares for the thousands of wolven under his protection. I can promise you his pride doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Then why⁠—”

“Enough.” Gavran slams his tumbler on the table hard enough to shake the whiskey in my glass, and pins Silas with a glare. After a long moment, he shifts that glare around the room, meeting each of our eyes before speaking again.

“We will do what we need to do to help find all fifteen of these Omegas, including the wolven. We need to be on top of this. Should have made it a priority yesterday. This isn’t a Species-only situation, so don’t make it one. We work to find and rescue all the Omegas, understand? I don’t care if they’re human, vampire, wolven or an alien from planet Nebeneeser.”

“Bless you,” Vae replies, not missing a beat.

Gav glares at my packmate, but Vaelenor’s gaze meets mine from across the table, green eyes twinkling with mischief. I ignore him. Vae always turns to humor to lighten up tense situations. It’s how he copes.

“Something doesn’t make sense,” Ford cuts in. “What do these two things have to do with one another? The Severed don’t deal in trafficking. They’ve never had any interest in Omegas before.”

I clench my jaw as memories from my past try to surface and beat their way out of the box I have them locked in. I refuse to let them out. That situation has nothing to do with this, anyway.

“It’s too much of a coincidence to be random,” I explain, forcing myself to focus on the present and leave the past where it fucking belongs.

“The timelines match too perfectly. Severed have also never met multiple times with a human. The fact that there’s been such a massive uptick in missing Omegas since the meetings between Alexander and Jonathan Varenthrall started is enough on its own. Add in that the location of the missing Omegas correlates perfectly with a ninety-mile radius around the human’s estate?”

I let the implication hang in the air.

“You’re right,” Evander speaks up. “This isn’t random. It just feels off, somehow.”

Caelan clears his throat, then asks the one question that’s been bothering me the most. ”What do they want with the Omegas, though?”

I shrug, sighing in irritation. “I don’t know. That’s what I need to figure out. That’s what’s bothering me so much about this. It could be plain old greed for money from the sales, or it could be the human that wants them.”

I grind my molars, the familiar ache of irritation bubbling to the surface.

This is what I’ve been trying to understand for hours. Days. What do they want the Omegas for? What’s the purpose? Why bother going after more supernatural Omegas than human Omegas? Is Varenthrall working for the Severed, or are they working for him?

“I need more information,” I bite out.