“Fuck,” Preston snarled. “But you’re totally depleted. I can smell that. How are you supposed to finish like this?”
I didn’t know if any other Omega had had to do exactly this before. This Hunter problem was a new thing. It wasn’t like there were records anywhere to tell me of other Omegas’ experiences. And the one who raised the Sisters I’d helped had told them nothing about her powers. Oh, it dawned on me fast, maybe this was the pain they’d meant.
“I’ve got to just do it.” I forced myself to my feet. I didn’t so much as walk as slump myself over toward my brother’s cage. Shifting hadn’t seemed to make sense before but now I was going to try it. I was stronger as a wolf.
“When this is over,” I looked at Rainer, “I want a steak. Okay. Can I have a steak? A big, juicy, semi-raw steak.”
He nodded. “Count on it. Don’t die. We can’t live without you. We love you. We can find a way to deal with the pain while you recoup. If you have to stop, stop.”
“I love you guys, too.”
I wasn’t sure there was anything else to say. I had to do this. “Open the cage. I’m going in.”
Anton’s eyes were wolf when he did as I instructed. I managed to speak through the ringing in my ears. “If this was something I somehow chose to do, to be this Omega, I must have been drunk when I agreed to it. Why would I have said yes to this? Why would I have done this to the four of you?”
I didn’t want reassurances. They could tell me they’d pick me, pick this all day every day. There would never be a time I would really believe it. We couldn’t even get through lunch without having an issue. Who in their right mind would raise their hand and say choose me?
I shifted and rushed through the cage door, throwing myself at my sleeping brother. His eyes opened fast and then wide, and I closed mine, letting my Omega power fill him. Even if it depleted me of my own. If I had to fix him all at once, then that was what I would do. He was my brother. He’d bandaged my knees when I scraped them, held me when I’d been sad, beat up a boy who hurt my feelings. When I’d needed money to pay to go to a concert and my own meager check hadn’t covered it, he’d paid for it. This was a man who’d taken care of me even when he’d been nothing but a boy.
As my mind drifted away, scurrying from the pain, from every complicated feeling I had about what had to happen, I had to wonder if I’d be as apt to throw myself into potential life ending moments with a stranger? What if it wasn’t my brother lying here? What if it was someone I didn’t know?
* * *
I was sitting up in a chair in the living room. I looked around. How and when had I gotten here? My brother sipped a drink. He looked worse for wear, but he was upright. I rubbed at my eyes. “How long have I been in this chair?”
Agustin put his finger to his lips, indicating that I should be quiet. I looked where he pointed next and saw Preston was asleep in the chair next to me. Agustin smiled at me, and I answered with one in return. He was awake, his eyes were clear, and he was acting like himself. I’d obviously gotten the job done.
He got to his feet and headed toward me on quiet feet. It didn’t seem to matter because Preston reared awake, jumping to his feet like he had to battle. I grabbed his arm. “Pres, it’s okay.”
He looked between Agustin and me before he sunk back down in his chair. “Sorry, I fell asleep.”
I kissed his cheek. “How long have I been… in my human form and sitting here?”
Preston tugged on my hair. “Not long. Rainer went to go buy steaks. Jarret is patrolling around the exterior, looking for danger. Anton is writing. The rest of the family have gone to the other house. They’ll all be back tonight. Then Agustin is going to give us what details he remembers, and we’ll take it from there. You shifted back maybe half an hour ago. And we like him.” Preston looked at Agustin. “A lot more now that he doesn’t stink like death and isn’t trying to hurt you. You were pretty out of it, and he seemed to care if you were okay.”
Agustin finished walking toward me until he stood right in front of me. “Listen, I get it. You’re a big tough wolf. You’re her mate. All four of you have threatened me since I’ve been up. I hurt her although I don’t remember it. So I’m going to say, Kenzie, I’m so sorry I hurt you, little sister. You know I wouldn’t do it on purpose. You see…” He glared at Preston. “I’ve loved her a lot longer than the four of you have, and I’d cut out my liver before I caused her any pain.” He stared back at me. “These guys had better be good to you, or I’ll be beating the shit out of them. I can speak for the whole family on that end. And, wow, you’re an Omega. How did that happen? But then I think… of course it’s you. You’re Kenzie. You take care of everyone. Always have.”
Preston took my hand in his. “We won’t hurt her. But you’d be in for a rude awakening if you thought you could fight me.”
This was going to get old fast. I shot them both a warning look. “Agustin, would you believe it looks like I picked this? Somehow?”
My brother smirked at me. “Idiot.”
Yep. That was pretty much how I felt. But there was this other part. He was up and moving; he was going to be okay. I’d done that. So as crazy as this was, I might as well just embrace the ride. If such a thing was possible.
Chapter 17
Rainer lived up to his promise, and he cooked steak. It was delicious. Our kitchen table hardly fit everyone, but we squished chairs around it, and the entire Lejeune family plus the newly formed Harper family and my brother sat around it eating. Eventually, when his stomach was full, Agustin spoke.
“Can you guys help me with this wolf thing? I’ve only ever been one under the direction of the Hunters.”
It was Gus who answered him. “I’m going to need a refresher course. We all are. Rainer? You prepared to give lessons?”
“I could, but I think Anton would be better at it.”
As though that was the most ridiculous thing Anton had ever heard, he rolled his eyes.
“I’m serious. He’s really good at it, and I think he was living with his wolf instincts intact even before he had an active wolf. That being said, if he doesn’t want to, I will gladly do it. One of us can get you healthily shifting. That goes for all of you. Gus, I think you’ll find it just comes back.”
Gus smirked. “We’re old, Rainer. I’m not sure anything comes back as quickly as it used to. Enjoy your youth while you have it.”
They would probably feel bouncier after they shifted. Truth was, at their ages, they were pretty young for werewolves. I set down my fork, my belly full. “What happened with the Hunters? What did they do to you?”
My brother furrowed his brow. “I’m not sure how to describe it. They took you… as you know.”
I nodded. “I don’t remember being taken. I don’t remember any of my time with them. Just the days before, the normal time, and then lapping up blood and seeing Gus. Even after that it gets blurry until just before I was here.”
Jarret squeezed my hand. “Some of that is the shift blur.”
“Right, but the stuff before? No.” I hadn’t given it much thought. Too many things had happened to make my head spin, but I needed those memories back and there was no sign that they were going to return, maybe ever. They likely would have by now.
“They took you from work. That was the most we could garner. We had to play it off like you were okay because we couldn’t afford to have the humans investigating wolf business. Mom and the dads were frantic. We all were. There was a lot of discussion about whether or not it had just been a regular kidnapping. Like you were taken by some human psycho.”
Rainer snorted. “She was taken by a human psycho.”
“Right. But like one that had nothing to do with werewolves. You married some funny guys, Kenzie.” Agustin rolled his eyes.
I patted his shoulder. “Mated. Not married. And yes, I find them very amusing.” I winked at Rainer. He so infrequently made jokes. I wanted to encourage the instinct. It had to be a good sign that he was feeling ve
ry comfortable.
“Whatever. Same difference. We grew up with the human lingo.” He groaned. “We were frantic. Didn’t know what to do. One of our fathers, Ruben, he still had some wolf ability to smell things. I hadn’t known that. No one did. But he confessed it. So he went to your work and smelled around. But all we could scent was humans.”
Kevin shook his head. “I can’t imagine the anxiety of not knowing what to do.”
“We heard at that point that other wolves had been taken and knew then that it had to be wolf-related. So Mom reached out to you, Gus. We didn’t know you, but you had that reputation for finding people, and she took a risk.”
He nodded. “I was glad to get the call. Went searching. We had a little bit of intel on Hunter locations, and I went looking. Wasn’t sure I’d find anything. They were old locations. However, since I’ve now found you and MacKenzie in old buildings, we think they’ve gone ahead and opened up all their old places. They must need the space. Anyway, go on. Yes, that was when I found Kenzie. You guys were already taken.”
Agustin visibly swallowed. “We tried to be careful. Even considered going into hiding. We never got to make that decision. They came to our house. I mean… how did they know where we lived? How did they know where Kenzie worked?”
“Betrayal,” Aurora whispered. “Someone on the inside gave them information. What else could it be? They emptied Colorado of werewolves.”
“And yet whatever they did to Agustin didn’t happen to me.” Why had I managed to get away when he and no other member of my family had so far?
Agustin smirked. “Oh, they’re worked up about that. I was in a lab with three others. Two of them I didn’t know. A female and a man. Father and daughter. I never got their names in between screams. And Isaac.” He paused for a beat as my heart tightened. “Our oldest brother. Anyway, they’re fully aware you got away. They’re fully aware that whatever it is that they do to us didn’t work on you. And they’re obsessed about it. They say Omega like it’s a bad word. Apparently, that offers you some resistance to whatever they’re doing. Then I can’t really describe it. Such pain. In my ears. Loud noises I couldn’t stand. Smells that were overwhelming. I shifted. Again and again. Then… I don’t know. It was like my head wasn’t my own. I couldn’t control my thoughts. Isaac, I think he did better than me. They moved him. Somewhere else. In the end, they knew you were coming. They left me there for you to get me. Knowing I’d do what I did.” He looked away. “I’m sorry, Kenzie.”
“I know you are, and you’ve said it. I forgive you. No more sorrys. They took over your head. I really don’t get it. Does anyone?”
No one answered, which only told me they didn’t. How was it even possible to get taken over in that way? I’d fixed my brother. He was okay now. They’d taken Anton when he was a baby. What was it they wanted? “What’s the point of any of this? Hunters… hunt. Okay. They think that we’re monsters. That they need to kill us. Okay. Take gun. Point. Shoot me in the head. I’m dead. Why pick us up? Take us to labs? Kill us? That isn’t what Hunters do.”
“That isn’t what Hunters used to do.” Gus nodded. “It was the kind of thing that we used to deal with. I mean, my whole life.” Cristian nodded, and Gus kept talking. “We always had Werewolf Hunters. There are all kinds of tales about that with things that scare humans. Look at Van Helsing and the vampire myth.”
I smiled to myself. I loved when werewolves talked about other things like they might not exist. We were here. Maybe vampires were somewhere. Still, that was neither here nor there at this moment. The point was made. Humans made heroes of people who hunted monsters. We just happened to be one of those monsters.
“I don’t know why they started doing this or what the point is. I’m afraid the good butchers in those labs didn’t share the history of their organization with me. They did however have one thing they wanted very much.”
Preston leaned forward. “What was that?”
“My sister. They want my sister. They want all the Omegas dead. They thought they had that. Now? They have to take out Kenzie. We have to keep her hidden.”
Rainer’s eyes turned wolf, and Kevin whistled. “I may never get used to seeing you guys do that. We never wolfed as easily as the five of you do.”
My oldest mate ignored his father. “She’s hidden. As hidden as I can make her with Loups showing up in the middle of the night and the Council getting involved in our lives.”
The loudest noise I ever heard sounded through the room. It was mind shattering. Everyone at the table grabbed their ears, and before I could even think, I was on my knees next to the table, screaming. I couldn’t hear myself yell, not even in my own head. What was happening?
I looked by the door. Standing there, wearing headphones, was Brennan. I growled, anger fueling me. What was he doing? Men rushed in next to him holding guns. They were humans. My ears were useless, but my nose was fine. Whatever this noise was they couldn’t hear it. There was nothing stranger than not being able to hear what happened around me.
Someone grabbed me from behind. It was Rainer, and he dragged me backward. How was he doing this? I couldn’t take my hands off my ears. His were totally uncovered. With a slight shove he passed me to Preston. Rainer hit the ground, but Pres was up. We were heading for the backdoor when the noise abruptly stopped.
That wasn’t good news. The backdoor was blocked.
“Now everyone, calm down.” Brennan took off his earphones. They had to be noise cancelling. What was that? Some kind of frequency only we could hear and not the humans? Like a fucking dog whistle? “Or we’ll have to put it back on.”
Kevin frothed at the mouth but wiped it away. He spit at the ground. “What the fuck are you doing, you piece of shit? I always knew I hated you. Running that Council like you were some kind of demigod of werewolves. What the fuck do you think…”
He never got to finish what he was going to say. Brennan nodded to the guy next to him and the man who was just another human scent in the room to me shot Kevin in the head. Rainer’s biological father fell to the ground. Aurora started sobbing, and the overwhelming horror of what I’d just witnessed hit me like a sledgehammer in my gut. They’d shot him. They’d done that.
“Quiet,” Brennan said again. Aurora dove for him, but Gus pulled her back, holding her so tightly I doubted she could breathe let alone get away. I reached for Rainer, but he wasn’t close, and Preston pulled me back. Where were Anton and Jarret? By the table. I could see both of them. Okay. Okay. This was a nightmare, but they still breathed.
“Let’s try this again.” Brennan cracked his neck. “No one else has to die, but I would like to point out that I have no problem killing everyone in this room except the Omega, and I am happy to make it so that every single one of you is dead except her. I don’t think MacKenzie wants that. Do you, honey?”
I growled. “You would know, you piece of shit.”
He sighed. “Everything I have done has been to keep us all alive. You think I like this?” He pounded on his chest. “You think this is fun for me? For decades, I have kept us alive by dealing with these people. Now, all they want to do is take the Omega. That’s not a problem. They’ve taken every other Omega and managed to kill the others. Then the rest of us can get on with our lives. We give them a little. They leave the majority of us alone. We stay out of their way. We don’t shift. I made this agreement with them, and they let us live. If we don’t do what they want?” He pointed to Kevin. “That will be all of us. When we don’t do what they say? They take our children. They kill us. One by one.”
The man raved, and I wasn’t sure he made any sense except that I was getting the gist of it. He’d made a deal. A lot of conditions. And somehow the fact that I existed meant that the deal had been broken.
I pointed at him. “What’s the bottom line? They can kill and take the werewolves in Colorado and no one will care? Take them from… where else? Alaska? No one will notice. Just so long as your chosen few in New Orleans are left alon
e. How did you pick who got to live and who got to die?”
Tears rushed down my face. I didn’t know when they’d started. I wasn’t sad so much as angry and sometimes my tears didn’t know the difference. I cried either way. Behind me, Preston’s body vibrated. He held onto me like he’d never let me go, and I hoped he didn’t.
“Whoever stayed with us got to live. Period. Your family left. They didn’t like the swamp, didn’t care for the way things were done. They thought they could make it better on their own. They left the pack. Don’t you understand, MacKenzie? Pack is everything.”
I wasn’t going to dignify that with a response. This man was madness. I’d smelled it on him, I wasn’t above believing he’d found a way to dissolve pack life just so no one would know how evil he had become. If I got through this, I was going to claw his eyes out. One at a time. While he stayed awake. My mouth watered. Then I might… eat his kidneys. While he stayed alive.
“They don’t really want to kill us. Not all of us. They want to study us, to make us useful to society.”
Jarret sucked in a large breath. “This is like a videogame. They want to make us what? Super soldiers for their wars?”
“Not the government.” He kicked Jarret in the knee. “It’s always corporations. There isn’t a government in the world who can outdo the very rich. You know that, right? While we were living in this swamp, while we were shifting and killing those idiots with shotguns, some of their children grew up to be billionaires. Our fathers, our grandfathers, couldn’t have imagined this. But it happened. They have money and they want us. To fight their wars. But not for the good of the country. It’s always the almighty dollar. Or whatever currency they happen to prefer.” He shrugged. “So now you’re all going to go off quietly so that I don’t have to kill anyone else. And do what they say. It hurts less. I am going to go back and reacquire the Council.”
It was laughable except it wasn’t. This had clearly been going on for a full generation now and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Except die. Or not. They didn’t want me dead? Why not? They wanted me alive?
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