Omega Free

Omega Free
Thane

The road ended several miles into the forest.
Gravel deteriorated into loose rock first, then roots crossed what remained of the old track until there was no point taking the SUV farther. I stopped the engine and looked through the windshield at a trail nearly reclaimed by the trees.
Cyrus opened his door.
“Charming.”
I got out without answering.
Nikolai was secured in the back with Stevens and what remained of Eric. Cyrus opened the rear door, caught Nikolai by the chain between his cuffs, and pulled him down hard enough that he nearly went to his knees.
Eric came out next.
I dragged him.
Ayla had left him incapable of controlling most of his body. His healing had kept working after she destroyed the structure supporting him, but it hadn't fixed what she'd done. Bone had joined where it shouldn't. Muscle pulled against angles it couldn't use. He could breathe, see, and make noise when pain gave him enough air for it.
That was sufficient.
Stevens climbed out without being told. He had been silent for most of the drive, but the moment he looked beyond the SUV toward the trees, his attention sharpened.
He knew something.
Cyrus noticed too.
“Oh.” He took hold of Eric's restraints. “Somebody recognizes the neighborhood.”
Stevens said nothing.
We started walking.
The trail narrowed quickly beneath the trees. Years of pine needles softened the ground, and the chains on the prisoners became the loudest sound around us. Cyrus hauled Eric behind him without attempting to make the trip comfortable. Raven walked on his other side, watching the terrain while I kept Nikolai and Stevens ahead of me.
Nikolai tried once to slow down.
“Walk.”
He did.
The forest grew denser as we descended. Moss covered fallen trunks and stone, and the old trail twisted around sections where roots had broken through it. I remembered enough of the route that I didn't need markers.
Ronan did too.
He had been quiet since we left Midnight.
There was no uncertainty in him about why we were here.
Cyrus glanced down at Eric after his damaged leg caught on another root.
“You know, I used to think healing like yours sounded useful.”
Eric's eyes moved toward him.
Cyrus stepped over the root and dragged him across it.
“I've reconsidered.”
“Cyrus.”
“What?”
“Walk.”
He grinned and did.
Raven hadn't said anything since we left the vehicle. Eric looked at her once, holding the stare longer than he should have.
She noticed.
“Don't.”
Whatever he had been considering disappeared from his face.
We continued downhill.
The smell reached us before the clearing did.
Old blood was strongest. Waste. Damp stone. Rot.
Nikolai stopped.
Cyrus's chain went taut when Eric's body stopped behind him.
Stevens made a sound through his nose.
I looked at him.
His face had lost what little color remained.
So he had known.
Movement carried up from somewhere below us. Scraping against rock. A shout that dissolved into laughter. Metal rattled, followed by enough snarling and voices that separating one from another was impossible.
Nikolai turned toward me.
“What is this?”
“Keep walking.”
“Thane.”
I put my hand between his shoulders and shoved him forward.
The trees opened onto the pit.
The land dropped into a wide depression surrounded by exposed stone. Iron grates covered the entrances cut into the rock below, while heavier sections crossed openings farther down. The place had been expanded over the years wherever the natural formation allowed it.
The wolves below noticed us almost immediately.
Bodies crowded beneath one of the grates. Hands wrapped around iron. Faces lifted toward the light, some still recognizably wolf and others damaged badly enough that I didn't look twice trying to decide what had happened to them.
Nikolai gagged.
Stevens stopped again.
This time I let him.
Eric stared.
Cyrus moved beside him. “There it is.”
Eric's breathing changed.
That interested me more than anything else had.
Fear had finally gotten through.
Footsteps approached from the trail behind us.
I smelled the Hermit before he emerged from the trees: smoke, old leather, damp earth, and the same cabin he had apparently been living in for longer than anyone could convince him was reasonable.
He came up beside me and looked at the prisoners.
Then he looked into the pit.
“They're worked up.”
“You have company,” I said.
His eyes returned to Eric.
“That the one who can't stay dead?”
“He heals.”
“Poor bastard.”
There was nothing sympathetic in the way he said it.
Cyrus smiled.
The Hermit walked toward the nearest grate and struck the iron twice with the heel of his hand.
Several bodies below surged toward the sound.
Nikolai backed into me.
I caught the chain attached to his cuffs.
“No.”
He looked over his shoulder.
For the first time since I had known him, nothing was calculating in his face.
“This isn't justice.”
I almost laughed.
“You believe you are entitled to discuss justice with me?”
His mouth closed.
I turned him toward the pit again.
I didn't need to remind any of them what they had done. Nikolai knew. Stevens knew. Eric knew better than most.
Ayla knew too.
So did every wolf who had come out of their cages.
“I could have killed you days ago.”
Nikolai stared below.
“You should have.”
“Yes.”
His head turned sharply.
I looked at Stevens next.
He had stopped trembling. His face had changed in the way frightened wolves sometimes did when fear became too large to keep showing.
Then I looked at Eric.
His body lay twisted where Cyrus had left him, but his eyes followed me.
“Ayla left you alive.”
His jaw worked before sound came out.
“She—”
“Do not say her name.”
His mouth closed.
I crouched in front of him.
“You took from her for years. Her blood. Her body. Her wolf. Her power. Then you took something from her again because you believed anything inside her existed for you to use.”
Eric's eyes flicked away.
I caught his jaw and forced him to look at me.
“She put you on that cavern floor and left you breathing.”
His breath came faster.
I released him.
“What your healing does with the rest is no longer her concern.”
That was the only explanation he received.
The Hermit unlocked the first section of the grate.
Noise rose from below.
Cyrus looked into the opening, then unfastened Nikolai's restraints from the transport chain.
Nikolai began fighting immediately.
He had waited too long.
I caught him by the back of his shirt while Cyrus took one arm. Nikolai kicked at the ground, twisted, tried to throw his weight backward, and shouted something about treaties, authority, and execution.
None of it mattered here.
“You cannot do this.”
I looked at him.
“You spent years depending on wolves, believing exactly that.”
Cyrus laughed once.
Then we threw him in.
His scream followed him down.
Bodies rushed toward the place where he landed, and I stepped away from the edge before I saw more than I needed to.
Stevens watched all of it.
When I approached him, he didn't fight.
That surprised me.
He looked at Raven instead.
She met his eyes.
There was history there that belonged to her, not me.
Stevens tried to speak.
Raven cut him off.
“No.”
One word.
Nothing else.
His face crumpled anyway.
Cyrus opened the restraint at his ankles.
Stevens looked at Raven one last time.
She didn't move.
I shoved him over the edge.
The pit swallowed the sound of his landing beneath the reaction below.
Eric was last.
Cyrus returned to him and crouched.
“Well.”
“Don't.”
Eric's voice was barely understandable.
Cyrus looked delighted.
“He talks.”
“Cyrus.”
“Right.”
He stood and hauled Eric toward the opening.
For the first time, Eric truly fought.
His body couldn't do much with the command, but what still obeyed him tried. One hand clawed at dirt. His shoulder twisted. His legs jerked uselessly behind him while his healing continued its miserable work beneath skin that no longer knew what shape it was supposed to maintain.
“No.”
Cyrus kept pulling.
“No. Thane.”
I followed.
Eric's eyes found mine.
“Kill....me.”

I stopped beside him.
Ayla had begged wolves like him to stop.
She had begged for things far smaller than death.
I had no intention of making her suffering into a speech for his benefit.
“No.”
Eric made a raw sound and tried to dig his fingers deeper into the ground.
Cyrus peeled his hand free.
Together we lifted him.
He screamed before we dropped him.
The sound continued after he hit.
I stood at the edge long enough to see movement close over him.
His healing flashed blue beneath damaged skin.
Then he disappeared beneath bodies.
The screaming continued.
The Hermit shut the grate and locked it.
Cyrus stood beside me, looking down.
After several seconds, he started unfastening his pants.
Raven caught the back of his shirt.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“I had plans.”
“I know.”
“It would've been meaningful.”
“It would've been urine.”
Cyrus considered that.
“Both can be true.”
“Zip your pants.”
He did, muttering about artistic suppression.
The Hermit checked the lock again.
“How long you want 'em kept?”
I looked into the pit.
“As long as they live.”
His gaze shifted toward the place Eric had disappeared.
“That might be a while.”
“Yes.”
The Hermit nodded.
That was all.
We walked back through the trees.
Cyrus and Raven argued quietly behind me about whether urinating on an enemy constituted symbolism. I stopped listening.
Ronan had already turned toward home.
So had I.
Ayla would be there with Tessa and Tarrick.
Three days earlier I had pulled my mate out from beneath a mountain and watched her give birth in my arms. Tonight I had finished the last task that still required me to look backward.
I didn't feel better.
I hadn't expected to.
Nikolai screaming in a pit could not give Ayla back a single day of her childhood. Stevens suffering could not undo what he had done to Raven. Eric could hurt for a hundred years, and it would not erase one scar from my mate's body.
That was not why I had brought them here.
They could no longer reach her.
They could no longer reach anyone.
That was enough.
I kept walking toward the vehicle.
I wanted my mate.
I wanted my pups.
I wanted to go home.