And then came the unimaginable.
Light filled his eyes.
It was violet.
An Omega.
Before I could even begin to process what I was seeing, he launched himself at me. My training kicked in and I fell to my knees, leaning back against the floor. His claws swiped at my neck, missing my throat but nicking my chin.
He crashed down on the other side of me, limbs flailing as he rolled into the other side of the silo near the door. He was already up and moving even as I rose. He hit my back, claws digging into my shoulder. I grunted and reached behind me, grabbed him by the armpits and flipped him up and over me until his back was against my front. He struggled, but I wrapped an arm around his chest, and my other hand went to his throat.
He immediately stopped moving, going limp as he sucked in air. He turned his head toward me, staring at me out of the corner of his violet eye. “It’s there,” he whispered. “Underneath it all. It’s still there.” He began to chant. “It’s still there. It’s still there. It’s still there.”
I pushed him off me as I staggered back. Malik caught the boy, holding him close as he muttered into Malik’s neck.
“Now you see,” Malik said quietly as he stroked the boy’s back. “This is your first lesson. Does it burn, wolf? Does it burn?”
The boy—once he determined I wasn’t an immediate threat—calmed, and his eyes faded to an emerald green that sparkled in the low light. He was pale-skinned with light-colored hair that hung almost to his shoulders. The sweats and loose T-shirt he wore looked mostly clean, though there were smudges of dust and bits of hay from when he’d attacked me.
He crawled back toward the hatch on all fours, his black claws the only sign of his shift. I thought he was gone for good as he disappeared into the hole, but he reappeared a moment later, dragging a heavy blanket behind him. I watched as he made a small nest on the floor. He growled at me before looking up at Malik. The older wolf sat down next to him as the boy pulled the blanket up and over him, hiding away underneath, his head in Malik’s lap.
I didn’t move.
“There,” Malik said, running a hand over the top of the blanket. “There we are. So much excitement for one day.”
“And it smells in here,” the boy muttered, voice slightly muffled. “Like shit. Like animals. I miss the barn.”
“I know. But it’s just for tonight.” Malik looked up at me. “Soon all will be well again.”
I had questions. Too many questions. They swirled in my head, who and how and why why why. The boy looked like he was eight or nine. But he was already shifting, which was impossible. He shouldn’t have been able to even half shift until closer to puberty.
And then there were his eyes.
Those violet eyes.
The question I asked wasn’t one I planned. “What’s his name?”
Malik was surprised. I could see that clear on his face. “Brodie.”
I nodded. “Brodie.” Then, “Is he yours?”
“Blood? No. Pack? Yes.”
The boy moved underneath the blanket, but he didn’t speak.
I felt helpless. The stench I’d smelled earlier, that sickness, was heavy in the air. It came from the boy. But other than being an Omega, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him. Still. It was enough. “This is why you cut off contact.”
“Not intentionally,” Malik said. “We… lost track of time. An oversight.”
It wasn’t a lie, but it felt like it was close to one. There was more, but he wasn’t offering it.
“How did it happen? How is this possible?”
The boy growled.
Malik hushed him gently, his hand moving up and down the boy’s back. “You need to open your eyes, Robbie. There is much to this world that has been hidden from you by design. Things you haven’t been told.”
Fuck him for being so vague in the face of all of this. “Maybe if you would just tell me, I could—”
Malik shook his head. “It’s not my place. The damage it could do would…. I fear it would be permanent.”
I scowled at him. “You aren’t making any sense.”
“There is a prisoner. In your compound.”
“What?”
He didn’t flinch at the anger in my voice. The boy growled again but otherwise didn’t move. “A prisoner. Someone with a great and terrible power. You must go to him. You must end his life. Only then will everything become clear.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I demanded. “Do you know what—”
“Step. Back.”
I hadn’t even realized I was moving.
A hand appeared from underneath the blanket. The claws were sharp as they scraped along the floor. Black hair burst up along the back of the hand before it receded and the hand pulled back under the blanket.
A clear warning if there ever was one.
I did as asked, standing near the door.
“I know you’re confused,” Malik said, voice barely above a whisper. “And I know you’re scared.”
“I’m not—”
“I can smell it on you,” the boy growled.
Goddamn kids. “Fine. Whatever. I’m scared. But how the fuck else should I—”
“Focus, Robbie.”
I shouldn’t have come out here. “How do you know there’s a prisoner?”
Malik’s mouth twitched. “I wasn’t sure until now. Thank you for confirming it for me.”
“Oh, fuck you.” I wasn’t impressed. I wasn’t.
“He is the cause of this.” He nodded down toward the boy. “Somehow. It’s an infection, and you must stop him while there’s still time to keep it from spreading.”
I shook my head. “That’s impossible. There are wards in place. Ezra put them up himself. There’s no way the prisoner can ever—”
“This boy is part of my pack. Our pack.”
“He can’t be,” I said, and a wave of dizziness washed over me. “He wouldn’t be an Omega if he was. His eyes would be orange and—”
“And yet they aren’t,” Malik said simply. “He is Omega, even though his Alpha is Shannon. His brothers are Jimmy and John in all but blood. And he belongs to me just as much as I belong to him. He is ours. There are bonds between us all, threads that tie us together, rotted and fetid though they are. They’re tenuous, but they gain strength every day because he wants them to. This isn’t because he doesn’t have anyone, Robbie. I assure you he does. It’s because of what has been done to him. He is a wolf diseased, and there is only one cure: the death of the person who has infected him and all those like him.”
His words struck me cold. “All those like him.”
“Yes.”
“Meaning there are others.”
“Yes.”
“How?” I asked helplessly. “We would know if there were. If Omegas were rising, if something was happening to cause them to be this way. We would know.”
And then he said, “They do,” like it was the easiest thing in the world, like he wasn’t upending everything. “They do, Robbie.”
I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t. It would mean…. Christ, I didn’t even want to think about it. “Why should I believe anything you’re saying?”