Page 67 of Feral Omega

With a snarl of rage, I unleash a volley from my rifle, pockmarking the reinforced portal until smoke curls from the barrel. The air grows hazy, thick with gunpowder and the reek of spent casings as I empty magazine after magazine into that damned door.

Finally, an ominous grinding echoes from the other side as the mechanisms fail, the battered steel parting slightly. I seize the gap, peeling the door open with my bare hands until it shrieks in protest.

The financier cowers in the corner, his pistol trembling in his hand as I advance. "W-Wait, I can pay you! Anything you want, just name your price!"

I don't bother responding, simply closing the distance with two long strides and seizing him by the throat.

"You're right," I growl, tightening my grasp until his eyes bulge. "I don't know who I'm working for. Not really."

Not like this son of a bitch is going to tell me the truth anyway. Just the deluded ramblings of a desperate man grasping at straws, trying to cling to some twisted idea of control even as everything crumbles around him.

The Council may be a bunch of corrupt bureaucrats drunk on their own power. But they're still the closest thing to legitimate authority this fractured world has left.

Aren't they?

With a vicious squeeze, I crush his windpipe, holding that stare until the last flicker of life fades from his gaze. Then I let the lifeless husk crumple to the floor in a boneless heap.

The sound of savage snarling drifts up from below, grating and feral. I tense, recognizing that guttural timbre all too well.

"Fuck," I mutter, already sprinting for the stairs. If Wraith has slipped into an episode in the midst of this chaos, with Ivy this close…

I skid around the corner to find Wraith looming over the mutilated remains of what was once a human being, methodically smashing the corpse apart with a club. Blood spatters his clothes and mask, the floor around him a viscera-strewn abattoir of rended flesh and shattered bone.

No. Not a club.

A disembodied arm.

"Wraith!" I bark, leveling my rifle at his back. "Stand down, now!"

He pauses, his entire body stilling with unnatural poise. Slowly, he turns to face me, his icy eyes blank and devoid of all thought or emotion.

"Easy, brother," I murmur, tensing as that lupine stare bores into me. One wrong move and I'll have to kneecap him. "It's over. We got our target."

Wraith cocks his head, a low rumble building in his chest. He takes a lumbering step closer to me, the bulging cords of muscle in his arms and shoulders twitching and coiling beneath his scarred skin.

"Thane! Thane, come in!" Valek rasps in my ear.

I flinch. Keeping my rifle trained on my brother as he slowly stalks toward me, I tap my earpiece. "What is it? Kind of a bad time," I mutter.

"We have a problem," Valek growls into my ear. "It's the little rabbit."

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

IVY

Itear through the frozen underbrush, branches whipping my face as I flee deeper into the mountains. My heart thunders in my ears, each ragged breath burning my lungs.

But I can't stop.

Can't slow down for even a moment.

The weight of Valek's rifle slows me down, the strap cutting into my shoulder. His gear bag thumps against my hip with every stride, the contents clattering like loose bones. But I clutch them both tight, unable to shed the precious cargo.

They're my only lifeline in this savage wilderness.

Twigs snap behind me, the crunch of boots gaining ground. I chance a glance over my shoulder, dread coiling in my gut.

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