Chapter 48 First Omega;
After a short while, Lily had arrived at Grandmother Agnes's house, located right at the entrance of the town. But the moment she stepped out of the car, she sensed that something was off. She hadn't had many chances to see Agnes, unlike the other townspeople, Agnes never came to the doctor. For that reason, Lily had long suspected that Agnes possessed healing abilities. She took great care of her health and mostly kept herself going through her own alternative remedies.
But… once, Agnes had broken her leg badly. Back then, Lily had come to visit her regularly for a month. And every time she came, the ducks and chickens by the door, the windows thrown wide open, that liveliness filling the house with spring, all of it would greet her.
Now, despite it being winter, the silence felt strange.
She walked forward a little, crossed the veranda, and knocked on the door. But no sound came from inside. Frowning, she moved closer to the window. Shielding her eyes with her hands, she peered in. Everything was in its place. But there was no one inside. She stepped back with a scowl and began looking around.
Just then, someone from the other house on the same property, roughly two hundred meters away, had noticed her. It was Elly's mother, Mrs. Bridget. The woman tried to get her attention by waving from a distance, then called out to her.
Lily squinted and spotted her. Seems like they're living together, she thought. She wondered to herself, Is Agnes all right? She figured Agnes might have moved in with her daughter-in-law because of the cold. She got straight into her car and drove along the dirt path to the other house.
A short while later, she stopped the car in front of the other house and stepped out.
"Hello, Mrs. Bridget. I'm sorry to disturb you. I came to check on Grandmother Agnes," she said with a smile.
The woman's smiling face fell in an instant. "Well… welcome, Lily," she said in a distant voice. "I don't think you've heard what happened…"
Her mind seemed to be drifting between things. Her gaze went blank for a moment. Then, as though struggling to remember, she murmured: "We… buried Agnes."
Lily paused. From the woman's detached state, she understood that Mrs. Bridget no longer had the memory she once had. In the beginning it had been called depression, but clearly things had progressed further.
But what was truly shattering was something else. Agnes was dead.
"Well… I don't want to press you, but she was in good health. What exactly happened?" Lily asked. Because the last time she had seen Agnes, she was a healthy, energetic woman. She couldn't make sense of this sudden passing.
Mrs. Bridget bit her lip and hung her head. She gave a small nod as though trying to remember. But then her face crumpled and her eyes drifted into the void. "I can't remember…" she whispered.
She tapped her fingers against her forehead, trying to force the memory back, but couldn't manage it. After a moment she raised her head.
"Eleanor. Would you talk to her? My daughter knows everything. She's a very smart girl," she said with sudden eagerness.
Lily didn't want to press her any further. She felt sorry for the state the woman was in.
"Of course. How can I reach her?" she asked.
The woman immediately extended her index finger and murmured,
"There's a phone number… inside. Right next to the phone. A little notebook… you'll find it there," she said.
When Lily looked in the indicated direction, she spotted a phone resting on a side table and nodded.
"Alright, I'll grab it right now," she said and headed inside. A few steps later she reached the old phone in the corner. Sure enough, a small notebook was sitting beside it.
When she opened it, she saw the number. Written in large letters on the first page:
"My daughter Eleanor" with a number beneath it. She took out her phone, saved the number, and put the notebook back in its place.
When she stepped back outside, Mrs. Bridget was on the veranda, eyes closed, listening to the wind. Lily approached her with a gentle smile.
"Thank you so much," Lily said. "And how are you?"
The woman answered without opening her eyes.
"I'm fine… I think."
Lily didn't want to leave her standing outside any longer. It seemed like, left to her own devices, the woman could stand here for hours.
"I think you've had enough fresh air. You should go inside," she said, taking her by the shoulders.
The woman turned her eyes to her and gave a sincere smile, nodding.
"You're right… safe travels, Lily," she said, and went inside.
Lily stood in place for a few seconds. She now had a number. But the real question gnawing at her mind was something else entirely.
If Agnes was dead… who had taken her place?
Who was the new guardian?
She found herself hoping that Elly, a descendant of the guardian bloodline, would be worthy of it. Because from the stories her father used to tell her, she knew all too well what awaited this town if there was no guardian.
As if to shake herself free of the thoughts, Lily gave her head a small shake, then got into her car and drove off.
But the moment the car turned from the dirt path onto the main road, a vehicle waiting at the corner had already begun following her, without her noticing…
Meanwhile, Elly and Joe had left the hotel. Joe quickly borrowed the car from the elderly hotel owner, Lumberjack Mike, just for a short while. The moment he got the car, he jogged over to Elly.
Elly stood there, nose red from the cold.
"If you shifted, wouldn't it be faster?" she asked.
Joe didn't even answer, he simply opened the car door and gestured for her to get in. Elly climbed in without argument. Joe's expression had hardened. He settled into the driver's seat, started the engine, and muttered,
"Where we're going is very crowded. Going in wolf form would be an open invitation to hunters."
That answer only piqued Elly's curiosity further. But not wanting to ask more questions, she pulled her coat tighter around herself and fixed her gaze on the road ahead.
A little while later, they left the hotel on the mountain slope and headed into the forest. They parked the car at the furthest point they could reach and continued on foot. Before long, they encountered the crowd.
Elly looked around in astonishment. Nearly half the town was here. People were speaking among themselves, anxious and unsettled.
A woman who spotted and recognized her came straight over.
"Oh, Eleanor! Thank goodness you're here!"
It was Jessica, the owner of the small café Elly frequented in town.
"Hi Jessica, what's going on?" Elly asked, her eyes still scanning the surroundings.
The woman was worried, like everyone else. She began explaining with wide, sweeping gestures.
"The kids… all of a sudden, either they drank too much or something else happened. This morning the families were looking for them. We found them in the forest… half-dressed. When we asked, they couldn't remember anything."
From the woman's manner of speaking, Joe had already gathered that she was an ordinary human. Because the families here who carried wolf blood knew the truth: the ritual had been completed on the full moon, the curse had been lifted. All of them now had the power to shift into wolf form.
Joe caught Elly's eye. He gave her a look that said, let's not linger.
Reading the message, Elly gave a small nod. She squeezed the woman's arm with a warm smile.
"Thank you, Jessica. Let me go talk to the others for a bit," she said, and walked away with Joe.
A little further ahead, Joe spotted the kids. There were around fifteen of them, ranging between sixteen and twenty years old, most of them teenagers.
While Elly examined the surroundings, Joe crouched down beside one of them. He reached out and touched his arm.
"Hey, you okay?" he asked.
The moment Joe approached, the boy was triggered, he locked his eyes on Joe. But it wasn't a normal stare. It was as though he had fallen into a trance. Small beads of sweat ran down his forehead, and his pupils were dilated.
Joe frowned. He could tell something was wrong, but couldn't piece together what it all meant. The townspeople hadn't been able to shift for centuries. This couldn't be blood hunger. The full moon cycle wouldn't cause this either. Then what happened to these kids? he wondered.
He raised his hand and waved it in front of the boy's eyes. "You okay?" He snapped his fingers. No reaction at all.
Then he realized, the young boy wasn't breathing.
He was just staring at Joe.
Elly had noticed too. She rushed over and tried to shake him awake. Then she checked his pulse. And in that moment, her eyes went wide.
"Joe… he's not breathing. He's just staring. What's happening to them?" she said frantically. She squeezed the boy's palm, trying somehow to bring him back.
But Joe had already understood. He knew that if they wasted any more time, this boy would die. Without letting anyone around him notice, he locked his eyes onto the boy's. His Alpha aura became visible in his eyes a deep, blazing blue.
"Breathe… calm down," he murmured.
The boy, who had felt as though his heart was about to explode, suddenly drew a deep breath. His shoulders dropped and he slumped against Joe's arm as though about to faint.
Elly had been left in stunned horror. But to keep from showing it to everyone around her, she immediately leaned in close.
"My God… what just happened to him?" she whispered.
Joe let out a long breath, closed his eyes, then opened them. He wasn't happy about this either.
"Apparently this idiot kid chose me as his Alpha," he said.
Elly's mouth fell open. "That can't be. No guardian Alpha has ever had a pack before," she said.
Joe was just as baffled. He shook his head and muttered, "Looking at me from over there, do I seem like someone who's read the instruction manual for this, Elly?" (Ahh, my little wolf, calm down. I did read it.) 🤭
Elly, as though all the stress in the world had suddenly crashed down on her at once, buried her face in her hands and growled,
"Oh, fk!… Kael is going to kill us."
It seemed the book of supernatural legends written by Eva and Kael centuries ago was being rewritten all over again, in this very town…