Page 1 of The Omega Switch: Part 2

Chapter 1

Hunter

My chest felt like it was going to explode. Everything was spiraling out of my control, and I hated it. I was never out of control.

The moment I stepped foot in that house, my body knew. I smelled the scent of our real match - the scent of Ivy - and all the pieces fell into horrifying place. Elias tried to explain that Ivy had been here and had an entire heat by herself, with no assistance - which was why the most beautiful fragrance I’d ever scented was tainted with pain and despair. He tried to tell me to keep my temper in check and not do anything rash as I drove to the hotel we’d booked for Arabella to stay in, under the assumption that she wasn’t safe at home.

“Hunter, don’t do anything crazy. I need you here to help find Ivy, not get yourself locked up.” He said as I raced through the streets, my knuckles white as I tried not to go absolutely feral with anger and vengeance.

Elias was a beta. He didn't have the intense, uncontrollable alpha urges that I had - the gut-wrenching, instinctual desire to destroy any threat to our mate. I could feel it in Ronan, too - his dark anger was barely held back through our bonds. This was beyond anything I could have imagined. Arabella had somehow used our own matching system to steal Ivy’s profile and lie to us. She had been urging us to bond with her much earlier than anyone was comfortable with, using her ‘fear’ of Ivy and manipulating our instincts to hasten a bond. We almost irreversibly bonded with her. It would have ruined our lives.

Worse, though, was what I was finally starting to understand about Ivy. She wasn’t crazy; she wasn’t a violent stalker like her family tried to make her out to be. She may have attacked her stepsister, but now I understood why. She was acting out because her own family, her flesh and blood, were sabotaging her entire life. One smell of her perfume in that house told me that this omega had been through hell. Nothing about the fragrance, as beautiful as it was, smelled healthy. She had been in extreme distress, and that killed me inside. I’d finally seen her room, so small and shabby compared to the rest of the house, and it told an even worse story. She had nothing compared to Arabella.

I’d torn that room apart looking for any hint of where she was. Not that there was much to look through - she had scant clothing in her tiny closet, a small bed, and only one comforter that smelled of her painful heat. The smell still burned inside my nose, even as I drove. That room was barely fit for anyone, least of all the daughter of a pack with the money that the Carringtons had. She had been neglected horrifically, and we failed to notice. We failed our real match. I’d let her family convince me that Ivy was unstable, jealous, and irrational.

Worst of all was that Ivy had tried desperately to tell us. At the event where Arabella claimed Ivy stole her necklace, I’d believed Arabella’s performance. Now I doubted every moment we’d spent together. Ivy made insane claims that Arabella stole her Bond profile, seemingly out of nowhere. I thought she was going through a breakdown at the time, especially when Arabella’s perfume came out. Elias later theorized that Arabella had used a scent duplicate, which made sense now that we’d visited the house. The only thing I couldn’t piece together was why Ivy hadn’t told us anything about it sooner. The only time she mentioned anything was her outburst at the launch party. Why hadn’t she said anything before? I was wracking my brain trying to figure it out.

We’d never even scented Arabella’s real perfume. And I never wanted to. I wanted Arabella, and the rest of the family, and anyone else involved in this scheme to pay for their sins over and over, until they felt as horrible as we felt, as pained as Ivy felt during her heat.

I was still seeing red by the time we reached the hotel. “Careful, Hunter,” Elias warned as I stormed up the stairs to Arabella’s room, a luxury suite paid for by our pack. “Do not do anything stupid. She deserves to pay, but keep your head on straight. Don't let your anger make this worse.”

I stopped halfway up the staircase, my hand gripping the railing so tightly the metal groaned beneath my grip. I could hear my own breathing, each inhale harsher than the last as I struggled to force my instincts back under control. Ronan didn't even pause, brushing past me with a purposeful stride. Elias remained beside me for a moment, looking at me with a cautious expression.

"Worse?" I barked. I looked at him, and I could tell by the concern in his eyes that my own expression must have been darker than I realized.

"They left our mate alone during her heat, Elias." My voice came out low and frighteningly steady. "They stole her profile. They convinced us she was unstable while they pushed Arabella onto us." My jaw tightened so hard it hurt. "And I believed them."

The admission tasted like poison.

"I Alpha barked her," I continued, my voice dropping even lower. "I looked into her terrified face and believed every lie they said. I told her to stay away from us forever! I lost her!” My voice was so loud now that I was yelling, my roar echoing down the hall.

I could still smell Ivy's bedroom, filled with her loneliness and desperation. I could smell the pain from the lingering traces of a heat she should never have endured alone. My alpha instincts burned beneath my skin.

"So no," I said finally, dragging a slow breath into burning lungs. "I will not keep my cool."

Elias frowned. I straightened, smoothing a hand over the front of my jacket even though it did nothing to settle the violence simmering beneath my skin.

"I won’t hurt her." My eyes drifted toward the hotel room at the end of the hallway. "But I promise you this..." My voice was almost normal now, which somehow made the words even colder. "By the time I'm finished with them, they'll wish I'd chosen violence instead."

Elias studied me for another long moment before giving a slow nod. He knew exactly what I meant. I was going to dismantle everything they'd built. Their company, their reputation, everything. They lied to us, and ruined Ivy’s chance at a match. They’d made her out to be crazy. They let her suffer alone, without any help. I intended to return the favor.

Chapter 2

Ronan

I pounded on the door, every muscle in my body trembling with adrenaline as Hunter and Elias joined me. We’d paid for this luxury suite at the nicest resort near our house for Arabella. We thought she wasn’t safe at home with Ivy there. Now I know that the opposite was true.

After a few moments, Arabella answered the suite door with a confused expression, a robe wrapped around her and her hair in a towel. Her expression brightened the moment she saw us, though it faltered ever so slightly when she noticed my demeanor.

"Ronan!" she said brightly. "What a wonderful surprise. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you." She said, eyeing us as we stood there silently. “Is something wrong?” She asked, her voice tinged with nervousness at our dark expressions.

I didn’t return the smile.

"We need to speak," Hunter said, his voice so serious with restrained anger that even I would have been nervous if it had been directed at me. The warmth vanished from her face quickly, then a flash of something suspicious and calculating replaced it, for just a moment. She gave us a smile and a nod, stepping aside and gesturing for us to come in.

"Of course," she replied smoothly. "Please, join me."

The suite was immaculate, decorated with expensive furniture, a truly luxurious space. Arabella walked to the sofa and crossed one leg over the other as she settled in, carefully arranging herself to look small and as seductive as possible. I suddenly smelled something - it was the perfume replica - the replica of Ivy’s perfume. It was a pale imitation now that I smelled the real thing, and it filled me with even more rage. How dare she wear the scent of our mate in an attempt to calm us down?