To ruin an Omega

Chapter 263: Sight for sore eyes 1

CIAN

I waited in the silence. The seconds stretched out, marked only by my uneven breathing. My hands had finally stopped shaking, but the echo of my mother’s voice still lingered in my head. The delicate had proven herself. Proven that she could reach into the past and pull out the most painful moments a place had witnessed.

Now I needed her to do it again.

Ronan moved toward the door. He paused with his hand on the handle and glanced back at me. “Are you sure about this?”

“Get them,” I said.

He studied my face for a moment longer, then pulled the door open and disappeared into the hallway. I heard his footsteps fade, then return a minute later accompanied by softer ones. The handler entered first, supporting the delicate who still looked unsteady on her feet. Her face was even paler now, almost translucent in the morning light. The tears had dried on her cheeks but her eyes remained red and puffy.

“Alpha,” the handler began. “She needs time to recover. What she experienced was traumatic.”

“I understand,” I said. The sympathy in my voice was genuine. I did understand. She’d lived through my mother’s worst moment, felt every ounce of that consuming grief. But I couldn’t let her rest. Not yet. “But I need her help now. People died. Someone tried to murder someone I care about. If she can do what she just did, she can help me find who’s responsible.”

The delicate lifted her head. Her large eyes focused on me with unsettling clarity. “I can continue.”

Her voice was stronger than before. Steadier. Whatever the handler had done with that device had pulled her back from the edge.

“Good.” I moved toward the door, expecting them to follow. “We’re going to the morgue first.”

Ronan fell into step beside me. “The morgue?”

“Yes. The sentinels first.” I told him before I turned back to them.

“Two sentinels died,” I said. The words tasted bitter. “They went through great trauma while they passed. I assume that would be strong enough for you to get something.” I directed this at the delicate, who walked between her handler and me. “A face. A name or a connection.”

She nodded but didn’t speak.

“If not,” I continued, “we’ll go to the wrecked cars next. Then the accident scene if we have to.”

We made our way through the house and out to the grounds where the morgue sat in a separate building. I’d always hated this place. The smell of antiseptic and death. The cold metal tables. The knowledge that bodies of people I’d known, people who’d served my family, were stored here until their funeral rites could be performed.

The morgue keeper met us at the entrance. He was an older wolf with gray streaking his beard and eyes that had seen too many dead. He nodded at me without speaking and led us inside.

The temperature dropped immediately. They kept it cold to preserve the bodies. My breath misted in front of my face as we walked down the narrow corridor. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in a harsh white glow.

“Here,” the morgue keeper said. He stopped in front of a door marked with a number. “The two sentinels from the accident.”

I looked at the delicate. “Can you do this?”

“Yes.” She pulled off her gloves again, folding them carefully and handing them to her handler. Then she removed her veil. The morgue keeper’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of her face, but he said nothing.

The door opened. Two bodies lay on separate tables, covered with white sheets. The morgue keeper pulled back the first sheet, revealing a young man with dark hair and a face frozen in an expression of surprise. His neck sat at an unnatural angle.

The delicate approached slowly. She extended one pale hand and placed it on the sentinel’s forehead.

Her eyes closed. Her breathing slowed. The room fell silent except for the hum of the refrigeration units.

Nothing happened for almost a minute. Then the delicate’s fingers twitched. Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open.

“Fear,” she whispered. “Sudden and sharp. He didn’t see it coming. One moment there was the road ahead. The next moment, impact. Metal screaming. Glass shattering. His neck snapping like a fucking twig.”

I felt my jaw clench. Ronan shifted his weight beside me.

“He felt pain,” the delicate continued. “Brief but intense. Then nothing. All he had left was the darkness.”

She pulled her hand back and moved to the second body. It was another young sentinel, this one a woman with blonde hair pulled back in a braid. The delicate placed both hands on the woman’s chest.

The process repeated. There was a teese silence at first before the delicate spoke again.

“She felt it longer,” the delicate said. Her voice had taken on that distant quality again. “The pain lasted. Her ribs broke. Punctured her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. She tried to scream but there was no air. Just blood filling her throat. Drowning her from the inside. Her body did try to heal. But it wasn’t fast enough.”

My hands curled into fists. These were my people. They’d died protecting Fia, even if they hadn’t known that was what they were doing.

“She thought of her mother in those final moments,” the delicate said. Tears slipped down her cheeks. “Wished she could say goodbye. Then the darkness took her too.”

The delicate stepped back. She swayed slightly and her handler caught her elbow.

“Was there magic?” I asked. My voice came out rougher than intended. “Did you sense any spells? Any hexes?”

The delicate shook her head. “No. I felt their fear and their pain and their deaths. But there was no magic. It was just a car driving into them. It was… for lack of a better word, just an accident.”

“Fuck.” The word exploded out of me. I turned away from the bodies, from the delicate’s haunted expression, from Ronan’s concerned gaze. “The cars then. Now.”