Page 83 of Omega Hunted

The knot in my stomach that never fully unwound these days pulled tighter.

THE ARCHIVIST: The increase came out of the Kastor accounts, which implies the Emric Kastor isn’t buying the story I sold everybody else.

IRONPINE: Or he’s chasing ghosts

THE ARCHIVIST: Desperate

IRONPINE: I need information on the Dalton family.

The typing indicator blinked for several seconds before the reply arrived.

THE ARCHIVIST: Interesting choice.

IRONPINE: Why?

THE ARCHIVIST: Depends on what they’re looking for. On paper, the Kastors and the Daltons are almost identical. Foundations. Hospitals. Political donations. Enough philanthropy to convince the outside world they’re pillars of society. Underneath, they’re still two of the three bloodline Houses controlling the northeast, and nobody reaches that level with clean hands.

I leaned back in my chair.

IRONPINE: So, there’s no difference.

Another pause.

THE ARCHIVIST: I didn’t say that. People who survive working for the Kastors rarely speak about them. People who leave the Daltons sometimes do, and the stories aren’t the same.

IRONPINE: Meaning?

THE ARCHIVIST: The Kastors inspire fear. The Daltons inspire loyalty. Whether that loyalty is earned or bought… I still don’t know. I don’t have an answer, but I know this: Malachai, the Dalton alpha, died in a car accident along with his omega. Rumor is it wasn’t an accident, but intel says the Dalton family shut down the investigation.

The typing indicator blinked.

THE ARCHIVIST: Watch for Malachai’s omega brother, Wren Dalton. He has feelers out for information on the accident. Incidentally, he was last seen in the same city as your missing Ronan.

I hesitated before typing.

IRONPINE: You’re tracking him?

THE ARCHIVIST: I track everyone.

IRONPINE: And you think Wren is tracking Ronan

THE ARCHIVIST: I didn’t say that.

The conversation closed before I could ask more. My phone vibrated, and I snatched it up, hoping it was Ronan, but it was Brec.

“The north route should reopen at the end of the month,” Brec said. “I’ve got a contact who’s keeping an eye on the crossings. As soon as there’s a safe corridor, he’ll let me know.”

“The bridge will open soon. I need to get Soren and Asha out of here as soon as we can.” Despite there being too many unknowns waiting beyond the mountain, I had good, sensible reasons why we needed to leave. I already had a destination in mind—Raff’s family just outside of Quebec would shelter him and the baby long enough for me to find something else. The thought of leaving this house, this place that Raff and I had chosen, hell, leaving Raff’s grave, was an ache that wouldn’t leave, but I knew what I needed to do.

Chapter Twenty-Five

SOREN

Cassian found me in the kitchen before I’d finished my tea and set a single folded sheet of paper on the table between my mug and my hands as if it might bite.

“I want you to see this before it reaches you some other way I can’t control.”

I unfolded it slowly, and it took a moment for the words to arrange themselves into something I understood. A screenshot, printed from something called Skinside. I’d heard the name—it was some kind of forum for Alphas, I thought, and not something I’d ever seen. This was a conversation between names I didn’t recognize, discussing an omega they’d never met, confirmed unaccounted for since the raid on Center 14, presumed lost to exposure in the blizzard that followed. A moderator asking people to stop speculating about the identity out of respect for a family already grieving. Then at the bottom, the identity of the deceased omega was revealed.