Omega's Run (25 page)

Fuck… How could I let this happen?

I shuddered beneath him as he slipped free of my body and sighed. He immediately gathered me against his chest like some kind of porcelain doll and as much as I wanted to be pissy about it, I couldn’t. It felt too good.

“Make you a deal,” he said, voice low; the timbre of it soothing… which automatically made me suspicious.

“Depends on what it is,” I said carefully.

“We protect each other. I’ll protect you, you protect me… partners, from here on in. As far as I see it, Ava, we’re there already. What do you say?”

I turned it over in my mind and nodded slowly, carefully against his chest.

“Okay, we can try that,” I agreed, and he squeezed me a little tighter.

“Okay, it’s a deal,” he murmured and sounded, dare I say, at peace? I turned it over and over in my mind and I couldn’t for the life of me say that I felt any different. It felt right, it felt strong and we needed to be strong.

“Partners,” I whispered once again, tasting the word like candy.

“Equals,” he murmured back and I really liked the sound of it.

“If we’re that, then we need to talk. No more keeping information back, no more not telling the other important things.”

“I agree.”

“So who goes first?”

“I believe I’ve told you a hell of a lot more than you’ve told me, Baby,” he followed this up with a hasty, “Not that I blame you.”

“Okay, what do you want to know?”

It was a long conversation, mostly carried out in whispers. One that was interrupted by first Remus holding out his hand and pressing it down twice in the classic sign for a request for quiet. There was a tapping at the door, ending our back and forth, though thankfully, as we were both winding down, the talk nearing completion.

“Yeah?” Remus called out, pulling the sheet over my body to shield it.

The door popped open and Markus dropped my bag of clothes onto the carpet from the truck, which I hadn’t bothered to lock the night before.

“Quite the armory you got out there,” he commented dryly.

“We’re going to need it,” I said levelly.

He raised an eyebrow, “Get dressed and get out here, the both of you. The food’s on.” He backed out the door and shut it, and Remus tossed back the sheets for me. I stood up and stretched but good.

“You really think there could be?” he asked, and I eyed him before heading to the bathroom.

“I’m a hunter, and I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Remus frowned and I went in to shower, when I stepped out, he was rinsing the last of the residual shaving cream off his face.

“I like this look much better,” I smiled.

“Noted. If it
is
a problem, what do we do about it?”

“Kill them,” I said lifting a shoulder into a shrug.

He didn’t look surprised by my answer, and I smiled thinly without humor, letting him have the shower. I got dressed, and just as I was tying the laces on my boots the door opened, the lady of the house leaning a shoulder against the frame.

“Doing okay?”

“Jim Dandy, fucking wonderful.” I performed weapons check and she raised her eyebrows.

“Didn’t sound like it last night,” she mused.

“None of your fucking business, Princess.”

“Oh I’m not a princess, Sweetie,” she smiled a thousand watt smile, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m the motherfucking queen, and you’re in my husband’s – that would be the King’s, house. So you might want to show a little respect.”

I gave her an appraising look, “Sorry, old habits die hard.”

“Old habits?”

“You’ve been called ‘The Little Princess’ behind your back since the day you were born. I know, I was thirteen and already into my training by about six years.”

She crossed her arms and leaned a little harder into the doorframe, “Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“Doing what?”

“Helping Remus, helping the pack.”

I shrugged, “Because Daddy’s a dick.”

“Your father or mine?” she asked frowning.

“No, Chloe, you’ve got it all wrong…
Our daddy.
At least he was in the way that Declan was William’s father. Mathias pulled me and James out of the system when we were six.”

She stared at me, blue eyes wide beneath her copper hair. I could tell she was mulling it over, I could also tell it was hitting her hard, even though she was trying to hide that part. Remus came out of the bathroom rubbing a towel over his hair.

“Brought these,” Chloe murmured and reached down to the floor outside the bedroom door, tossing in some clothes and boots.

“They’re William’s, so on you they’ll fit. Sorry, it’s the best we could do.”

I gave her a nod and she inclined her head in return and walked stiffly up the hall. I stared after her and asked, “You get all that?”

“You hear me asking what you girls were talking about?”

“Nope.”

“Then there’s your answer.”

He tugged lightly on my waistband and I turned, letting him tow me up against his body.

“Curb your attitude with her just a little?” he asked gently.

“Working on it,” I promised.

“Thank you.”

I nodded and let him kiss me, even though it was awkward for me, knowing the door stood open at my back. He let me go and smiled a knowing smile.

“Thank you for that, too.”

“No problem,” I lied and he gave me that rakish grin that set my panties on fire, or maybe that was just my little white lie.

He dressed and we went out to the dining room where several of what had to be the pack were milling around.

I took a deep breath and stopped, pulling my right gun, sighting and firing. The shot landed true, the dude’s head snapping back; a Goth girl next to him screaming and I gritted my teeth. I guess it was time to see if Remus and I were partners for real.

Markus snarled and lunged but Remus shoved me behind him as I pushed it out of my mouth in a bellow I hoped would carry over the din, “He was a Crusader, I mean a Hunter! He was a plant and I can prove it!”

Remus held Markus who was half shifted off of me and I put up my gun, holstering it in a show of good faith. I put up my hands, using one and sweeping my hair away from the back of my right ear, exposing the tattoo behind it.

“Check behind his ear, if it’s not there, try the arch of his foot.”

“Nothing behind the ear,” Craig said and started working on the boots. He pulled off the guy’s sock and there it was.

“How did you know?” the Goth girl asked. “How did you know Eamon was one of…?”

“Because we trained together and occasionally fucked when I was sixteen, until James beat his ass.”

“Who’s James?” Markus demanded, scowling. At least he’d backed the fuck off Remus and was more human than not.

“My brother. Mathias had him killed in revenge for questioning his authority; now I want Mathias seven different kinds of dead for hamstringing my twin and letting y’all use him as a chew toy. It’s a whole different kind of crusade I’ve got going on over here, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that jazz.”

The wolf-kind in the room all stopped and stared, even Remus. I looked at him and he nodded once. It suffused me with an emotion I had no name for. Not pride, not exactly, it was foreign but it felt good so I mentally shrugged it off and looked at all of the people left gathered in the room. There had to be twenty-five of them here.

“We work in teams, Kids. So if he was here, there are more and the Order is too big for me to know them all by looks. Your salt-the-earth protocol is pretty much a sham.” I looked at William and Chloe who were standing at the kitchen island, “What are all of these people
doing
here anyways?”

“They wanted answers,” Markus growled and I raised my eyebrows.

“I’m starting to see why it was so easy for the Romans to pick you off in the first place.” His brows crushed down even further into a heavy scowl, and I jolted when I realized he seriously didn’t know what I was talking about.
Hunters really
did
know more about their history than they did…

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I muttered, “You don’t even know where you come from? Okay, I’ll give you the ‘too long; don’t read’ version of it. The first were–” I stopped myself and corrected, “Wolf-kind, were druids. The Romans and the Catholic Church were sent to wipe you guys out; it didn’t exactly go according to plan, because whatever nature deity y’all’s ancestors worshiped back then flipped some sort of primal switch and turned you guys into whatever you are to save your furry asses. It’s been the mission of the Crusaders, that’s what we call ourselves, to wipe you out ever since. Okay?”

Silence, Markus looked like he was going to have a fucking heart attack, his eyes met mine and his voice, gruff with emotion, said “Tell us more, tell us all of it,” I shook my head.

“No time, you need to mobilize if you want to survive and we need to hit their central nervous system. Knock out their comm’s and destroy their data storage. That’s only if you want any hope of survival now.”

“I suppose you know where all that is?” Chloe asked.

“Damn right I do,” I answered giving her what could probably be described as a wolfish grin. “There’s more than one facility like the one in Indiana. The center we need to go after is going to be more heavily guarded. They know I’m helping you now, in some capacity or other. This shit is going to be harder, not easier. The only thing we have going for us is the element of surprise.”

I thought about it for a minute and drew breath, “We’re going to have to hit more than one facility at once in a coordinated attack.”

My idea was met with silence and grim looks and I looked at everyone present in turn. This wasn’t going to be easy. Not by a long shot. It was like arming farmers with pitch forks and sending them in against the might of the U.S. Military, which, by the way, had nothing on the Crusade.

People were going to die… but that was the nature of war, now wasn’t it? If these people wanted to survive the genocide Mathias Young was bringing to their door, then they needed to get on board with that. I exchanged a grim look with Remus and he nodded. I guess it was time to impart some grim reality onto these people, as if the body of the Crusader cooling on the floor weren’t reality enough.

Why did I always net myself the shitty jobs?

“Why are you doing this?” The Goth girl asked and I raised an eyebrow at her.

“I told you, Mathias had my twin brother killed. You have no idea what that’s like. Having the other half of your being ripped away. Mathias wanted to make an extra special point, so he sent me and my team in to clean up the mess. I found James like that, after one of you…” I sucked in a shuddering breath, hands twitching. Remus’ hand landed on my shoulder and I jumped. He immediately took it back.

I pursed my lips, “Mathias needs to die and if the other Crusader’s want to get in my way, then I have no problem going through them.”

“Why do you keep calling them Crusaders?” William asked.

“Because that’s what we are,” I swept my hair aside so he could see the red Templar cross tattoo behind my ear again, “The order has different splinter cells in each country. Our splinter cell is a descendant from the Knights Templar. The rest of the world at large thinks the Catholic Church tried to wipe us out for being corrupted; which is where they get their little Friday the Thirteenth legend. The
truth
is, wolf-kind actually managed to mobilize for once and you guys nearly succeeded in taking us down. We crawled out of the ashes though, and socked it right back to you.”

“Holy shit, this is a lot to process,” Chloe said and placed her hands flat against the countertop leaning into them.

“Sorry, Princess. It was a bitch and a half keeping it from you, but Mathias had an entire team dedicated to keeping you oblivious. All your nanny’s, the butler, even plants in your school.”

William gathered his wife to his chest and she leaned back into his support.

“How do we know where all these facilities are?” he asked.

“Ever see a Red Cross?” I asked and the wolf-kind all looked at one another startled.

“As in the American Red Cross?” Markus asked.

“That would be the one.”

“Fucking-A,” Craig muttered.

Wow these guys were clueless. I exchanged a look with Remus and he finally spoke up, “We can’t talk about this here. We need to find neutral ground, but we need to ferret out any of their operatives first.”

“Agreed,” William nodded, “Time for plan C.”

“What’s plan C?” someone asked.

“Good question,” Markus said and a lot of frightened looks were traded.

It was going to be a long day.

Chapter 23

Remus

“Seriously, why is the old cow coming with us on this? We need people that can move and we don’t need to be held up because she broke a hip,” Ava muttered, crossly as she glared out the back window of the FJ Cruiser.

“Sharon is a lot tougher than she seems. She might have been around the block a few times, but she’s still wolf-kind,” Markus growled from behind me.

“Doesn’t make any sense. Aren’t there any more like you and Remus back home?” she asked Craig where he sat in the seat behind her. He didn’t say anything so I assume he shrugged or shook his head. Ava let out a frustrated sigh and turned back around in her seat. “That’s just great. I wouldn’t mind a little more muscle on this field trip yah know. They’re going to realize we found their facilities eventually.”

“And if we play our cards right, we’ll be inside causing trouble before they do,” I reminded her. “Now just settle down. We’ll be there in ten minutes.” She glared at me but huffed and crossed her arms.

A glance in the rearview mirror showed that both Craig and Markus were staring at Ava. Not with the wary distrust from the day before though. I hesitated to think it, but Markus actually looked in awe of her.

After her bombshell about our origins, and how we had Hunters that’d been turned wolf-kind planted in our own damn pack, we’d had to figure out how to ferret them out without tipping them off. In the end, it had been relatively simple, if slightly distasteful to some of us.

There were seventy-three members of the Pacific North-West Pack on the peninsula at the time. So we called them, five at a time to come to William’s house. As each one arrived, Chloe would lead them into the downstairs workshop where we had moved all the tables to give us space and five of us stood around in Hybrid form. We told them to show us the bottoms of their feet and behind their ears or we would look for ourselves. Those that argued with us on it, we found out were more often than not, marked as a hunter.