Omega Bound Chapter 261

Ayla

They dragged Raven’s limp body into the glass cell beside mine. My palms press against the cool barrier, my heart hammering, because she’s here and she’s alive. Her head lolls, her hair a red mess across her face, but it doesn’t matter; just seeing her breathing is enough to make relief sting my eyes. A smile tugs at my lip, despite the nightmare we’re trapped in. I’m not alone anymore, and that changes everything.

She is also one more wolf to get out of here.

Raven stirs awake as I joke about needing the bathroom, rattling off every hidden danger like she’s reciting a grocery list. There are cameras recessed in the ceiling, vents laced with a gas, a floor rigged to sense the slightest twitch of a toe, and glass that isn’t glass at all but some reinforced nightmare. Raven sits up on her cot, eyes locked with mine, before they go to my real father behind me in his cell. “Oh great, there are two of them.”

“How are you awake right now?” Mikhail asks.

“Worry about how you are going to continue breathing once I get a hold of you,” Raven growls toward Mikhail. His eyes go wide, and his mouth parts slightly in shock.

“Surprise....my father, the ring master, is actually my uncle.” I throw my thumb over my shoulder. “Turns out, he’s my real father.” Raven eyes him suspiciously.

“He’s been here the whole time?” Raven stares around me now, toward Mikhail with a look of disdain on her features. “You couldn’t get out this whole time?” Her tone drips heavy with judgment.

“It’s a long story,” Mikhail says as he studies her.

“Pee on the floor in front of your door.” Raven shrugs her shoulders, and I dip my head back in confused disturbance.

“Excuse me....what?” I respond with my nose scrunched up in disgust.

“I second that,” Mikhail says from his cell. “But I also support your need to do that....in your condition.”

“Yuck.” I respond.

“If you piss there, somebody will slip in it when they enter your cell. Then you pounce and put your fangs in their necks while you rip their dicks off.” Raven gestures toward her throat, where my fangs should go.

“Is there something wrong with her?” My father asks quietly, but not quietly enough.

“There will be something wrong with you when I get out of here. I’m killing you on principle.” Raven threatens my father. “There are two of you, and I don’t care to sort out the truth. You both failed Ayla as far as I am concerened.”

“You can’t kill him when I just met him. They have been taking his gifting and making gifted shifters with it,” I say slowly to Raven, letting my words sink in that she has my father’s stolen gifting genetically altered with her DNA in a way none of us truly understands.

“Somebody is coming,” Raven states, and soon we hear the faint footsteps growing closer, with Eric walking in through the double doors.

The moment my eyes land on Eric, something ugly coils in my gut. He’s supposed to be a healer, someone who brings comfort and mends wounds, but all I see is the man who ripped me from my pack, from everything safe and known. His face, once familiar in passing, twists into something monstrous now, every line of it tainted with betrayal. My skin crawls just looking at him, a cold rage thrumming beneath the fear, and I realize I’ll never see him as anything but the hand that stole me.

“Ahhhh, look, a family reunion. Raven, you’re not supposed to be awake right now. That will need to be studied. Good thing you can’t run out of your cell.” Eric taunts Raven.

“You will lose whatever hand you touch me with. In fact, when our mates get here, I will enjoy watching Cyrus unhinge your jaw and piss down your throat.” Raven threatens Eric while I let her words settle within my mind. I try not to give myself away when I realize what she is reminding me of.

Her ass tracker.

“Yes, I am aware that the entire Midnight Pack is probably looking for you two. The pack will be virtually powerless to stop the takeover coming. Can’t stop what you aren’t there to defend against.” Eric smiles his one beautiful, boyish smile.

I meet his gaze, steady and unflinching. “Eric, throwing your life away over Della’s rejection is ridiculous. Anyone deserves better than that. You deserved better than that. Thane and I searched her apartment, and we found her journals. Page after page, she wrote about her obsession with him, all the way back to when she was just a pup. She would’ve rejected anyone, no matter who it was. That wasn’t about you. She was sick, fixated, and it isn’t your fault she couldn’t see past it. You were ten years older, Eric. She was never going to give you what you wanted. Della was too young to understand what she was doing, but ruining lives over it? That won’t change the past. It’ll only destroy you.”

Eric’s face shifts as my words sink in. First a flicker of pain, then anger, then something colder, harder. His jaw tightens, eyes narrowing, and for a moment, I think maybe I’ve cracked something open in him. But then he exhales slowly, the edge of a smirk twisting his mouth. “You think you’ve pieced it all together, Ayla,” he says, his voice low and bitter. “But you don’t know a damn thing. Maybe I should have waited for Della to come of age, to feel the bond like I was supposed to. Fine, I’ll admit that. But don’t fool yourself into thinking her rejection was the cause of this.” His gaze sharpens, burning into me. “I was always going to come for Thane. Always. Rejected or not, that pack was mine to claim, and nothing you say will change that.”

“Why?” I shoot off the cot, walking to the glass that separates us. “Why are you doing this to everybody?” I plead with him.

“Because your fated mate killed my father. You can’t see that I am actually doing you all a favor when I take the pack over. I’m saving the she-wolves from themselves,” he says, eyes hard as steel. “They can’t handle power, position, responsibility. They need to be kept in their place, subdued and obedient. Their purpose is simple: to serve, to care for their mates, and to be ready whenever I or any proper alpha requires them. Anything else is chaos. I’m giving them order, structure, whether they realize it or not.” His words hang heavy in the air, and I feel a chill crawl down my spine. “She-wolves are for mating and breeding. That is it. Once proper structure has been established, they will all come around. There will be no choice.”

“Your father was the pack beta before Cyrus, wasn’t he?” I piece the clues together, the similar thinking toward she-wolves.

“Yes. He had an affair and impregnated my mother. The pack didn’t know, but I always knew. He was a father to me, and Thane took him instead of recognizing him as the better Alpha, the better leader.”

“You’re insane, Eric. She-wolves deserve rights.” I growled at him.

“Careful, it may be time for your next dose of Wolfsbane. Can’t have you using that pesky shield to get out of here.” Eric tsks at me. “In fact, why don’t we do that now,” Eric states and I hear a whirl above my head, white gas already pumping into my cell.