To ruin an Omega

Chapter 258: Gut feeling 3

PAULINE

I raised an eyebrow. “For such a foward stance, you could have fought back the first time he tried to take you.” I took another step closer. “Do you pick and choose which ideology to stand on?”

She met my gaze. “It’s clear you’re threatened by me. To put on all this show.” She gestured around us. At the trees. At the sentinels. At the clearing that had become her cage. “If you’re going to get rid of me, do it quickly. I’m frankly bored of this game of yours.”

The slap cracked through the clearing before I’d even consciously decided to do it. My palm connected with her cheek and her head snapped to the side. A red mark bloomed across her skin in the perfect shape of my hand.

The audacity of the low born.

“You think I don’t want to kill you, bitch?” The words came out low and venomous. “I want to. Badly might I add.”

She touched her cheek. Her fingers trembled slightly.

“I confirmed with my whore of a husband and what he said to me…” I leaned in close. Close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes. “Oh. It told me you need to be gotten rid of quick. You will not rise from the ranks of Omega to fucking Luna. We weren’t made to walk the same shoes. And a small man with a cock for a brain will not be the reason that happens.”

“Please.” Her voice broke. The defiance crumbled like wet paper. “Please. I’ll disappear. I’ll leave the territory. I’ll never be seen again. I swear it. I swear on the Moon Goddess. I have a family.”

I reached out and stroked her hair. She flinched but didn’t pull away. She couldn’t pull away with the sentinels holding her.

“I assure you,” I said softly. Gently. Like I was comforting a child. “You will disappear. You will never be seen again.”

Her breath hitched.

“I was literally able to lure you from pack grounds pretending to be my husband.” I continued stroking her hair. “You like the power he gives you. Perhaps even his penis too. I can’t leave things to chance. If he puts a baby in you, a boy even from that matter. I’m fucked. I can’t be fucked. I only have a daughter at the moment. Chance is a cruel set up. And fate does love making bitches of the strong and defiant.”

My hand stilled on her head.

“I crawled here chipping my nails and scraping my knees.” The words came out quiet. Almost thoughtful. “You have been great pain to me as a woman. And now you will be useful. You’re going to suffer for a very long time. You will beg for death and chances are it won’t come soon enough.”

I nodded to the sentinels. They moved immediately.

Athena tried to run. She twisted between them and almost broke free. Almost. But they grabbed her and slammed her down onto the ground. She screamed. The sound pierced through the trees and sent birds scattering from their roosts.

“You can get rid of me!” Her voice came out ragged and stretched raw. “But I will haunt your narrative and your family till your blood dies out. You will never forget this face. You hear me! No matter how much time casts a spell on you. I will fucking haunt you!”

The sentinel shoved the bag back over her head. Her screams became muffled. Then distant as they dragged her away through the trees toward the waiting car.

I stood alone in the clearing and listened until the sounds faded completely into silence.

***

The memory released me and I found myself back in my chambers. Back in Silver Creek. Back in the present where Athena was long gone and yet somehow still here wearing a different name and a different life.

I pulled away from the window.

My phone sat on the nightstand. I picked it up and scrolled through my contacts. My thumb moved automatically. Muscle memory guiding me to the name I needed.

Valentine Blossom.

The head warlock of the Primrose coven. The man who’d taken Athena off my hands all those years ago. The man who’d promised she would suffer. Who’d promised she would disappear so thoroughly that not even magic could help her when he was done.

I opened a new message. My thumbs hovered over the keyboard.

What did I even want to know? That she was dead? That she’d suffered as promised? That whatever experiments he’d conducted had been thorough and brutal and final?

Or did I want confirmation that somehow, impossibly, she’d survived? That the girl wearing her face wasn’t coincidence but something far worse?

I typed slowly. Each word deliberate.

“I know I never really asked. But whatever happened to the Omega I gave you? I’m not sure if you still remember. Her name was Athena.”

My finger hovered over the send button. I read the message three times. Four times. Looking for any hint of weakness or desperation in the words.

It seemed neutral enough. Curious but not concerned. Interested but not invested.

I hit send.

The message disappeared into the void and showed delivered. The read receipts were however turned off because Valentine was paranoid like that. I’d get a response when he felt like responding and not a moment before.

I set the phone back down on the nightstand. My hand shook slightly. I clenched it into a fist until the trembling stopped.

“Mistress. Good morning.”

The voice came from the doorway. Quiet and respectful. Exactly the tone Number Four had been trained to use.

I looked up and there she stood. Backlit by the hallway light. Her form was soft and blurry around the edges.

A tell that I hadn’t slept well at all.

There was also the start of a pulsing headache behind my eyes just staring at her.

Number Four… The healer… and the girl who’d failed me.

My jaw tightened. Every muscle in my body went rigid with the effort it took not to lunge across the room and wrap my hands around her throat.

She was supposed to be competent. She was supposed to be reliable. She was supposed to have killed that girl and instead here we were. The target alive. The plan exposed. Aldric breathing down my neck about loose ends and consequences.

All because this incompetent bitch couldn’t handle one simple assassination.

I stared at her standing in my doorway. This fucking disappointment. This waste of money, trust and carefully laid plans.

And I smiled.

“Good morning,” I said. My voice came out sweet. Pleasant. The kind of tone that made people nervous because they knew something terrible was hiding underneath. “Come in. Close the door. We need to talk before you get your pills.”