Omega Bound Chapter 251

Thane

"CODE BLOOD MOON!" I yell and mind-link while bolting for my office door, drowning out the questions around me. I hear chairs upheave and footsteps bounding behind me as I mind-link the code pack wide, each member knowing what it means and what to do. 

The Luna has been abducted.

The pack has lost its light.

There will be bloodshed.

*"CODE BLOOD MOON...CODE BLOOD MOON....SHADOW WOLF ERIC GRAYHART, I REPEAT THE SHADOW WOLF IS ERIC GRAYHART."* I mind-link the pack again, letting them know that the traitor lurking in the darkness, hiding in plain sight, is our fucking head healer. 

It was like someone had reached inside me and turned down the volume on my own soul. One moment, her presence thrummed inside of me. Warm, steady, a tether that never wavered. The next, it was fading, slipping into a silence that felt wrong in my bones. The mate bond wasn’t supposed to go quiet; it was supposed to be constant, a living heartbeat between us. Now it was like shouting into an empty canyon and hearing nothing back. 

The absence clawed at me, cold and heavy, and I knew something was terribly, irreversibly wrong.

*"ON MY WAY!"* Damon yells through the mind-link. Please let Amani be okay. 

It'll break all of us.

"IT WAS A FUCKING DISTRACTION. ALL OF IT!" Cyrus yelled from behind me, and he is right. We got played from the first fight.

The stairs were too damn slow. Every second felt like a chain dragging me back, and I didn’t have chains to spare. I pivoted toward the nearest window and went straight through it, glass shattering around me. My body twisted midair, a clean flip to keep my landing light, boots hitting the ground with a sharp thud that rolled through my legs. I straightened and took off without a pause. The long way down was for people who could afford to waste time. I wasn’t one of them.

"DAMON'S TRUCK!" I yell, letting my team know what to jump into. Which is easy since it is missing three of its four doors.

*"He would know the generator system for emergency management. He is on the disaster relief team."* Tyler mind-links me. I can't believe we didn't see it.

Eric is ten years older than us. I thought he was too old.

He would also be able to poison and would have no security clearance for bombs or ammunition.

One by one, we jump into the truck, and I floor it.

"Can you feel her?" Cyrus asks.

"No," I growl, although I keep mind-linking her repeatedly, refusing to give up.

"I'm going to kill that bastard," Cyrus growls, punching the dash.

"Where is Raven?" I ask, fishtailing around a turn.

"I sent her to the clinic to find information. She's not sane right now. Fireball may kill everybody there." Damn it, I should have sent her back to my house as soon as I heard Damon left.

"I would give up everybody for Ayla," I say, attempting to correct around another curve.

"I know." He would do the same.

Cyrus and the team held on tight, eyes scanning the road and rearview mirrors like their lives depended on it because they did. Every second that ticked by was a second closer to her, to Ayla. Ronan snarls with a desperate urgency.

Then it happened. 

A sudden, violent explosion erupted ahead, a fireball licking the road, debris flying like shrapnel aimed straight at us. The explosion ripped through the road like a living thing, a violent bloom of fire and smoke that clawed at the sky. Shards of asphalt and twisted metal flew in every direction, hissing as they hit the ground and air. The shockwave slammed into the truck, rattling every bone in my body. For a split second, time slowed, and all I could see was the fiery chaos consuming everything in its radius, a brutal reminder that every second counted and that Ayla’s life was hanging in the balance.

I jerked the wheel hard, tires skidding and throwing gravel, narrowly avoiding the detonation, but the truck didn’t make it unscathed. Metal screamed and buckled under the impact, and I knew we weren’t going to make it any further in this tin coffin. 

*"CODE SHOCKWAVE NIGHTSHADE ROAD!"* I mind-link.

Without a second thought, bones and muscles shift, fur erupting across my body as I transform. Black fur, claws, and a wolf’s instinct took over. We shift as the truck starts to roll, Ronan and the others leaping out doors between rolls and hitting the ground. I launched into a sprint, legs eating up the distance with the speed only a wolf could command, lungs burning, ears pinned back, heart focused entirely on finding my Luna, Ayla, before it was too late.

Our paws tear through the forest as one guard post after another reports they haven't found Eric or Ayla. We bust through the tree line heading straight for our home. I can smell Eric's scent the closer I get. 

I feel white hot rage.

My wolf snarls loudly.

Our black fur stands up along our back.

Damon darts out of the house carrying a shivering Amani in his arms. "I CAN'T FIND HER. SHE'S NOT....FUCK THIS IS MY FAULT...SHE'S NOT HERE....I CAN'T...I HAVE TO GET HER OUT OF HERE!" Damon yells on the porch as Ronan runs past him, scenting Eric throughout his den.

*"Go,"* I mind-link him to get his mate out of here as quickly as possible.

Room after room, Ronan tears through looking for his mate. Each one empty brings us an inch closer to insanity. Our thoughts fill with every possible way we plan to gut Eric and Stevens.  We freeze in our spot, straining our shifter hearing to its breaking point. A whisper sounds from outside, faintly in the breeze. Something that we know shouldn't be here. Ronan barrels down the stairs, the whisper becoming louder once he leaps off the porch into the front lawn, racing as fast as he can, claws puling deep into the ground toward the back of the house.

Ronan looks up in time to see a Sikorsky S-97 Raider, a near-quiet, experimental stealth helicopter, take off from somewhere deep within the forest. 

My life is on that helicopter.

My entire world is on that helicopter.

I can faintly feel the bond in my chest as it lifts away.

Ronan lifted our head to the sky, letting the howl tear out of us raw and ragged, each note carrying every ounce of fear, anger, and heartbreak twisting in our chest. It didn’t matter who heard it. This wasn’t a call for help; it was a warning, a scream that our Luna had been taken. The sound rolled across the trees, echoing through the valleys, shaking the night itself, carrying with it the weight of loss that no words could hold. 

Every wolf in the territory would know without question: something sacred had been stolen, and the pack had to rise. My throat burned, lungs ached, but I didn’t stop because this howl was the only way to tell them, to summon them, to make them feel the emptiness that her absence left behind.

One by one, the pack answered, their voices weaving together into a chorus of anguish and fury that shook the forest. Each howl carried a piece of their fear, their anger, their loyalty to the Luna who had been taken, and it raced across the territory like wildfire.