To ruin an Omega

Chapter 235: Old Blood, Older sins 1

LYSANDER

The car rolled past the gates, and I pressed my forehead against the cool window glass. The gates of the Lily of the Valley estate were wrought iron and ancient, twisted into patterns that told old tales. Beyond them, the grounds stretched out into old money perfection. Every hedge was trimmed. Every stone was placed with intention. It was beautiful in the way a mausoleum was beautiful.

I was still thinking about her hair.

It was ridiculous, the way my mind kept circling back to it. The dark strands that had fallen loose during the trial. The way she had pushed them back with an impatient hand when Hazel started screaming. There was something about the gesture that felt more real than anything else in that chamber. More real than the blood on the stones or the spiritual elder’s prayers or the way Hazel’s body had convulsed like something was being ripped out of her from the inside.

Fia Donlon was stubborn. That much was clear. The kind of stubborn that got people killed or crowned, depending on how the dice fell. She had stood in front of the elders and suggested a punishment for her sister without flinching.

With no hesitation or second-guessing. The certainty she had carved into every word made her interesting.

I wondered if she knew how dangerous that was. Certainty like that made enemies faster than cruelty ever could.

The car lurched to a stop.

I straightened and blinked away the thoughts that had been clouding my head. The Beta, my father’s representative, turned in his seat. His face was lined and serious, and from experience, I knew this kind of serious only came when he was about to deliver news I wouldn’t fancy.

“Your father requires your presence in his study,” he said.

Fuck. I was exhausted to the bone. But I would brave it. I had something to tell my old man anyway.

I nodded and stepped out.

The air outside was colder than it had been at Silver Creek. It always was here. Something about the elevation or the way the wind came down from the mountains. The estate loomed ahead, plastered with white stone and high stained glass windows. It was grand. Nothing like Silver Creek. Columns lined the entrance, carved with names of former presiding Alphas. The fountain in the courtyard was silent now, the water drained for the coming winter. The gardens were skeletal. Bare branches reached upward like they were begging for something they would never receive.

I hated this place.

Not because it was ugly. It was not. It was because it was exactly what it was supposed to be. Perfect and cold to the touch.

I walked through the main entrance and the guards at the door bowed without making eye contact. Inside, the foyer stretched upward into a vaulted ceiling painted with scenes from the age of legends. Wolves running beneath a full moon. The goddess with her hands raised in blessing. Healers tending to wounded warriors. It was all propaganda dressed up as art.

My boots echoed against the marble as I made my way to the staircase. The study was at the top of the estate. My father liked it that way. He liked being able to look down at everything. To see the whole of his territory spread out beneath him like a map he could fold up and put in his pocket.

I climbed the stairs two at a time. The hallways up here were narrower, more intimate, but no warmer. You still couldn’t escape the dead though too as portraits of past alphas stared down at you from the walls. Their eyes followed as I passed. I had always hated those paintings. They made it feel like I was being judged by ghosts.

When I reached the top floor, I saw sentinels lying in wait. Two of them stood on either side of the door to the study. They were the hardest wolves we had. The kind who did not flinch when ordered to kill. They bowed when they saw me.

One of them knocked on the door in three sharp raps.

“Alpha Lysander is here,” he said.

“Let him in.”

The voice was baritone and smooth, like aged whiskey. It belonged to a man who had never had to raise it to be obeyed.

The door opened.

The study was exactly as I remembered it. Bookshelves lined three of the four walls, filled with texts I was not allowed to touch as a child. The fourth wall was a window that stretched floor to ceiling, offering a view of the entire estate and the forest beyond. My father’s desk sat in front of that window. It was made of dark wood and looked older than the estate itself. Papers were spread across its surface, maps and documents weighted down with fine stones.

My father looked up from his work and smiled.

“How was it, son?” he asked. “Did you succeed?”

I collapsed into one of the chairs across from his desk. The leather creaked beneath me.

“When have I ever failed you, Father?”

His smile widened. Maybe it was the look of pride or perhaps it was just satisfaction. I could never tell the difference with him.

“I knew you would understand the stakes,” he said.

I leaned my head back and stared at the ceiling. The wood beams up there were carved with more symbols. More propaganda.

“Except I don’t,” I said.

He tilted his head, waiting.

“We’re affiliating ourselves with a pack ninety feet down because of what?” I straightened and met his eyes. “A pack ranked twenty-eight promised you a healer. We have a talented spiritual guide. More connected to the goddess than most of the others. And our healers with knowledge of medicine are undisputed. What more do we need healers for?”

My father set down the pen he had been holding. He folded his hands on the desk and looked at me with the patience of someone explaining basic arithmetic to a child.

“These are not just healers,” he said.

I frowned.

“The healers the world has now are but pale imitations of what once was.”

I swallowed. The way he said it made something cold settle in my stomach.

“Continue,” I said.

He leaned back in his chair. The leather groaned softly.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the stories,” he said. “You have even seen the portraits. Even the healers we have now cling to them because they yearn for the moments of power their bloodline carried during the age of legends.”

I scoffed. “Are those stories even true?”

“Of course they are.”

He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Those healers were an integral piece for an Alpha in a pack. They had a stronger connection to the goddess than the spiritual guides we have now. They had a better sense for herbs, could even perform healings on wolves using the source and that two-way line communication they had with the moon goddess. They helped packs win wars. But even then, some were stronger than others.”

He paused. His gaze drifted to the window, to the forest beyond.

“Like all good things, they slowly became abused. Alphas began to war over claiming already housed healers if they found out they were stronger. They were violated to create Alphas and Lunas with those exquisite healer genes. And soon, the goddess started to frown at the great wickedness. So she took it all away and gave us these pale imitations.”

I stared at him. My mind was racing, trying to piece together what he was saying.

“If the goddess took them away,” I said slowly, “how are you going to get one? Did a bloodline somehow survive a goddess-blessed extinction?”