Page 2 of Omega Hunted

Run!

“I can’t leave them.”

Orders echoed up the stairwell and through the building, and I knew we were running out of time.

I stood there for one agonizing second longer, staring at the line of locked doors, hearing frightened omegas calling for help from rooms I couldn’t get into, their voices rising in panic while I stood uselessly on the other side.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, knowing they would never hear me over the alarms. “I’m so sorry.” Then I shouted. “I’ll get help!”

The apology and promise felt pitifully inadequate, swallowed by smoke and sirens before they’d even left my mouth, and I hated myself for turning away. My cat pushed at me from inside, frantic and insistent, driving me toward the stairwell, toward escape, toward help. Every step felt like I was abandoning them, but he knew what I couldn’t bear to accept: staying wouldn’t save anyone. If I remained, I’d become another omega trapped behind a locked door, waiting for my baby to be stolen from my arms or my next heat to be used to force another child into me.

The stairwell reeked of chemicals, and the odor grew heavier the farther I descended, forcing me to pull the neck of my pajama top up over my nose. The emergency lights now flickered, plunging each landing into alternating pools of crimson and shadow. Halfway down I almost stumbled over the first body. An SED agent—not one of the kinder ones—lay sprawled across the concrete with his rifle several feet away, his eyes fixed blankly on the ceiling. Another one lay farther down, slumped against the wall with blood spreading beneath him, and when he saw me, he reached for me, the same disgust I’d seen when he hurt us twisting his face before it gave way to fear, then despair, and after one wet, choking cough, he died right there in front of me.

I picked my way through the dead as fast as my aching body would allow, forcing myself not to look at the faces of men I recognized, men who’d patrolled the omega wing for months, who’d watched us suffer and done nothing, and kept moving because there was only one way out. The birthing level stood between me and the main entrance, and I slowed as voices cut through the smoke ahead, close enough that every instinct screamed at me to run.

“Protect the assets!” Adrian. The man who’d built this place to cage omegas, steal our babies, and turn our bodies into something he could use and sell, and the jailer who’d made sure none of us escaped. The sound of his voice rooted me to the spot. “I said move them!”

There was a burst of gunfire, close enough to send ice through my veins. I kept low and edged toward the open theater door, because I’d only ever seen the birthing suite, the doctor’s office, and the locked omega wing, but there had to be more than that, another corridor, another door, some way out of this nightmare. Somewhere beyond the rooms they’d allowed me to see there had to be a phone, a fire exit, anything I could use to get outside and bring help back for the omegas I’d left behind. My heart hammered so violently it drowned out everything, but the gunfire as harsh surgical light spilled through the open doorway and cut across the smoke-filled corridor. I checked inside the room where they’d hurt us, examined us, drugged us, and done things to our bodies we’d never consented to, searching through the horror for the door I knew had to be there before fear could stop me.

There was a body on a gurney.

Yannick.

For one impossible heartbeat, I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. The omega’s belly was flat beneath blood-soaked sheets, his babies gone, his body abandoned where they’d cut them from him, one arm hanging limply over the edge of the table and his head turned toward the door, eyes half-open and empty, as though he’d died still waiting for someone to come and save him.

“No…” I crossed the room in a daze, barely aware of anything except him. A stuffed wolf had fallen onto the floor beside the table, one stitched ear dark with blood, and I bent to pick it up. He’d carried that stupid little wolf everywhere, stubbornly holding on to it through every cruel joke and taunt because it was for his babies. It was my brother’s, he would say, over and over, as though that should have been enough to make them understand why it mattered. As though anything we loved had ever mattered to the people who kept us here. I rubbed desperately at the stained fur, trying to make it clean again, but the blood had already soaked too deep.

“No,” I whispered, looking back at his face.

He’d talked for weeks about his boys. About the tiny cabin he was going to find somewhere far away from his family, where no one could ever take them from him. About teaching them to shift and climb trees and howl badly at the moon until they all laughed themselves stupid. He’d built that future piece by piece, clinging to every impossible detail because believing in it was easier than accepting what this place intended to do to him. Yannick had been stronger than me. He’d dared to imagine a life beyond this place, while I’d never let myself picture anything for me and my daughter because wanting something that badly, only to have it ripped away, had been too terrifying.

“Wait!”

Adrian stood in the opposite doorway, the beta’s white coat streaked with blood, and when he saw me, fury twisted his face because the omega he’d drugged, bred, cut open, and controlled had somehow slipped his cage. A gunshot cracked through the corridor, and the wall beside his head exploded in a shower of plaster, sending him stumbling back as shouting erupted somewhere beyond him. Another shot thundered behind me, and this time Adrian jerked violently, his hands flying to his throat as blood poured between his fingers. For one terrible second, his eyes locked on mine, still furious, still accusing, as though even his death was somehow my fault. Then his knees gave way, and he crumpled to the floor.

Someone yanked me backward.

I cried out and twisted, every memory of hands restraining me crashing through my body at once. A broad-shouldered alpha filled the doorway, dressed in black tactical gear, his rifle covering the corridor behind him while his attention swept the room where Adrian lay dead, with a single glance. His face was hidden behind a black mask, leaving only his eyes visible.

My cat surged awake so violently it stole my breath.

Fight.

A gloved hand had closed around my forearm. Every instinct I possessed screamed that if an alpha had hold of me, I was already lost.

“No!” I screamed, wrenching against him with everything I had.

My shoulder burned, as I raked my nails across the exposed strip of skin above his wrist. He sucked in a sharp breath but didn’t retaliate. His grip tightened just enough to stop me from throwing myself past him.

“Stop!” he barked. “I’m here to help you!”

Lies.

I slammed my shoulder into his chest. We rocked backward, his boots slipping on the polished floor as he fought to keep us both upright. For the smallest fraction of a second, his grip loosened.

It was enough.

I threw my hand upwards, grabbing for anything I could reach. My fingers caught the edge of the black fabric covering his face.