suspected that the more powerful I became, the less that mattered. I was always ready to handle a Loup. I didn’t need my hands to alert me to their presence.
Jarret growled and lunged forward, taking down the first Loup in his way. He grabbed on to the scruff of his neck, and I winced, thinking how disgusting that must taste. Some things were better when I was in my full-on wolf form. I wouldn’t consider that sort of thing if I could shift.
Rainer lifted an eyebrow at me as more and more sick werewolves charged out of the house. It was amazing that his neighbors hadn’t caught Ross with that many Loups hanging around. Or maybe they were all under his control.
“Ready?”
I nodded but a thought had dawned on me, and I needed to deal with that, too. “Anton,” I called out to him, and he swung around, letting the Loup he’d been dealing with go. Preston immediately grabbed the sick wolf and dragged him toward the water. Was he going to drown him? I flinched. I couldn’t deal with that. I had to trust them to know what they were doing.
Anton strode over to me quickly, and I bent over to stroke the fur under his chin. “They’ll have guns. He didn’t have them shoot at us very much, but the humans who will be next will have guns. Take proper precautions. I won’t have anyone hurt, and I can’t fix anyone until after I’m done with Ross.”
He nodded once and then head butted me. I laughed. This was such a serious time. Nothing should have been funny, except that it was.
They’d all follow Anton’s lead. He didn’t have to talk when he was a wolf, they could all understand him perfectly, like I could all the time. There was something beautiful about our lives. If the humans could understand without terror, they’d envy us our connection. In so many ways, they lived lonelier lives.
“Ready?” Rainer asked again.
“I am.”
I was sure of it.
I walked ahead of Rainer, swerving out of the way of wolves fighting to subdue Loups. I darted left, getting swiped at by a Loup twice my size. I rubbed at the wound for a second as it stung, seeing my own blood on my fingertips. It all came down to blood, always. To DNA. The ways that we were the same, the ways that we were different. Somehow, it brought on our psychic connection.
Ross understood that. He used it against us, took Anton as a baby. Maybe others, too. I’d know soon. He wouldn’t exploit our strengths and make them weaknesses again. If nothing else, he’d exposed us to humans. The scientists who’d directed us. He’d taken the wolves he’d controlled and sent them on missions to increase his financial worth.
That was so repulsive to me that it created a bad taste in my mouth—the same as what Jarret must be tasting having bit into the Loup.
He would pay. As wolves, we didn’t have judges or juries. We were all each other’s peers. And I was the Omega.
I wasn’t offering him forgiveness.
I stepped through the door.
Gunshots rang out behind me, and I almost turned around. Rainer put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t. Trust them to handle themselves.”
They were wolves who hadn’t been wolves again for long, if they ever had been before. Maybe some things were natural. I nodded. I couldn’t be everywhere. I had my role. They needed to play theirs.
The house was a mess. Things were strewn everywhere, and the smell of Loup was everywhere. Acrid. It made my nose burn to match my hands.
“The Omega is always a strong woman. But she’s never alone.”
One of the Omegas in my mind whispered in my ear. I didn’t know which one. The floor creaked as I stepped over things to get out of the way of the overturned furniture, frayed rugs, and broken glass. It could have been the Loups who did this, but I had a feeling it was just one all on his own.
On the outside, Ross looked like a put together man, but the inside had madness. Centralized, focused madness. His external environment matched his inner turmoil. I felt all sorts of smart for thinking that. Of course, it could also be that he’d had some kind of fit and thrown his shit around. I wasn’t a psychiatrist. Just an Omega trying to figure things out.
I made it to the backdoor and paused. “Rainer, this could go one of two ways.”
“No.”