Omega Bound Chapter 263

Thane

We lost Raven's location the closer we got to Clarke's territory. The tracker’s silence gnawed at me like a dull blade. It wasn’t broken; this was interference according to Tyler. Natural, maybe, or deliberate. Either way, it cut us off from Raven, and with her gone, Cyrus was holding himself together by threads. He completely demolished the dashboard of the SUV when the tracker stopped pinging. He ripped the whole thing apart and chucked it out the window.

By the time our forty-vehicle convoy rolled into Pack Clarke’s territory, my patience had frayed to nothing. We pushed a sixteen-hour drive into ten, but the only thing I can hear in my head is the clock. Twenty-four hours since Ayla was taken. Twenty-four hours of gods-know-what being done to her.

I stepped out of the lead SUV, my wolf pressing hard against my skin, demanding to break free. Clarke was waiting, his warriors flanking him. He offered a nod of welcome, and I forced myself to return it. Courtesy was a thin leash around my fury. “Thank you for receiving us,” I managed, voice hoarse from grinding my teeth. “We won’t waste your time. We need to plan. Now.”

Inside Clarke’s war room, with maps and documents spread across heavy tables, I didn’t waste a second. My fist hit the wood hard enough to rattle ink bottles and make the Clarke warriors tense. “Mikhail and Stevens are altering DNA. They’re stealing power from gifted wolves to build themselves an army, and they’re performing experiments on every shifter they can get their hands on. I believe they are experimenting on trafficking victims, and if the experiment fails, they discard their bodies.” My stomach clenches and bile rises thinking of my sister as a failed experiment. “They have Ayla. My Luna. She’s gifted, and pregnant.…” My voice broke into a growl, low and dangerous. I didn’t finish. I couldn’t. The thought of them touching her, of them touching our child, had my vision flashing red.

I forced myself to meet Clarke’s gaze, to make him understand the weight of what I was asking. “And Raven, Cyrus’s mate, is with her. That makes this personal for both of us. We aren’t just looking for missing wolves. We’re looking for our mates. Our family. Any shifter is in danger as long as this experimentation and ring are still functional.” The thought was enough to make my vision tunnel, my jaw clenching until I tasted blood. I forced myself to focus, forced my voice to steady

Clarke leaned over the maps, his expression hardening as he studied the borders. “If what you say is true, then they’ll need medical-grade facilities to keep up with this kind of experimentation. Labs, infirmaries, hidden installations. The northern territory is your best bet. There are old research outposts scattered there, some abandoned, some forgotten. If they’ve set up anywhere, it’ll be in one of those places.”

I wanted to roar, to smash the table into splinters, to rip through the walls and run until I found her. My body trembled with the need to act, but this wasn’t my territory, and I couldn’t lose control here. Not in front of Clarke’s people. Not when they were the ones who could help us.

I exhaled through my teeth, sharp and ragged, the sound closer to a growl than a breath. Hold it together, I told myself. For her. For our pup, but inside, I was already unraveling.

“Tyler, I need you to keep working on that tracker.” he nods as he continues clicking away on his computer. I understand the pressure he is under. We need that location, and I can tell he is feeling the weight of what we need resting on his shoulders.

“They took her in a stealth, experimental helicopter. That kind of money and reach means this operation is far bigger than we realize. I won’t pretend to tell you I know the numbers we are up against. Truthfully, we are probably outnumbered, but we brought all we have and emptied our armory. I have heard nothing from the other alliance members. They are either in on this or too cowardly to fight for the good of our people.” I explain to Clarke and his pack. I need them to understand the severity of the situation we are walking into.

“Wow, that is quite the inspirational speech, your majesty.” Cyrus snarks sarcastically, twirling a knife in his hands. He’s already unhinged, and the moment we find our mates, he’ll unleash himself, feral, merciless. I think the two of us could probably wipe out he entire territory without flinching if it brought us a step closer to our mates.

I look at all of them and let the silence stretch until they could feel the storm clawing through me. Then I bared my teeth. “Mikhail and Stevens think they’re clever. Think they can hide in their cages and labs, splicing wolves apart, stealing what doesn’t belong to them. They think they can take our mates. Our Luna.” My voice broke into a growl, “But they don’t understand what they’ve done. They didn’t just steal. They didn’t just experiment. They signed their death warrants.”

The air vibrated with the sound of my wolf breaking through, the dominance spilling into the crowd until warriors bowed their heads, their own wolves snarling in answer. I let the feral edge rise, let it ride my voice.

“When we find that facility, we are not knocking on doors. We are not negotiating. We are going to storm it. We are going to tear it to the ground, brick by brick, body by body, until every last one of them is slaughtered. Do you hear me? There will be no survivors. No mercy. Only a massacre.” A rumble built through the crowd, low and dangerous, until it turned into snarls, growls, and shouts. I raised my hand, silencing them for one last strike. My vision burned, the thought of Ayla in their hands threatening to rip me apart.

“They dared touch what’s mine. What’s ours. For that, we will make them bleed. We will make them beg. And then we will burn their entire empire to ash.”

The roar that followed shook the ground, wolves answering my rage with their own. For the first time since Ayla was taken, I welcomed the madness. Because when we found that place, there would be nothing left but ruin.

I won’t be alone. Cyrus is right there with me, just as rabid with the need to get Raven back. He’ll carve his vengeance into their bones, peel every scream out of their throats before he lets them die.

Clarke stepped forward once the snarls and growls of the packs had quieted. “You have my word, we will stand with you in this. Not just for your mates, not just for your families, but for the good of every shifter who still walks free. What Mikhail and Stevens are doing is not just an attack on your Luna, it is an attack on all of us. On our way of life. On the very blood that runs in our veins.”

Cyrus stepped forward, his eyes holding a psychotic gleam he gets before he kills somebody, “I’ll tell you this, I don’t care how deep we have to dig or how many bodies we have to stack, I will bring them back. I’ll bleed the walls of that place red. Every scream they ripped out of them, I’ll return a thousand times over. I will rip it all apart until there’s nothing left but ash and corpses.” The packs growl, howl, snarl, and cheer.

I turned to Cyrus, nodding in agreement and speaking to him directly, “How is that for a rally speech?”

“Not too bad. Maybe we should go into graphic detail. You know, making them eat their own spleens and watching them choke on their eyeballs...” He shrugs, looking over the crowd. Normally, I would shake my head, but right now, I have never been more grateful to have him at my side.

“If something happens, you get Ayla out,” I instruct him. “No matter what, get her out.”

“Same for Fireball. Leave me to die, but take her with you.” He holds his hand out, and I throw mine in it, an understanding that we do what we need to do to get them free. I don’t tell him that he is included in that. I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to get all my people out. Even if that costs me my life.

Tyler’s eyes are darting between multiple screens. “I’m pinging the last known coordinates, running a recursive trace on all open channels. Nothing yet. Huh… someone’s jamming the uplink, or there’s interference from geomagnetic noise. Standard crap. But I can work with it.” He tapped commands faster, eyes narrowing. “Alright, I’m running a triple-layer packet sniff, overlaying signal vectors with satellite uplinks, thermal anomaly tracking, and, oh, jackpot....cross-referencing with local comms... If Raven’s transponder is still active, I’m gonna ghost in and triangulate her exact position.” Tyler leaned back for half a second, muttering to himself. “Yeah… I see the drift. Signal bouncing off high-frequency interference… It’s weak, intermittent, but alive.”

“Does anybody have a nerd translator?” Cyrus growls as Tyler rolls his eyes, tapping away at his computer.

“I’ll tighten the loop, extrapolate trajectory, filter out the noise… bingo. Got a pulse....I have the area narrowed down.” Tyler throws his fist in the air, “I’ve got a radius.”

“Gear up,” I instruct the packs as I now lead them both, preparing for battle.