Page 5 of Racing the Storm

In all honesty, I was surprised I recognized him. I hadn’t caught his scent in the crowd—or if I had, it wasn’t one I recognized. He had visibly aged, just like most of the Alphas who had spent their formative years on the front, and he looked world-weary and only half-willing to continue this battle. But he had his shoulders straight and his eyes front and was every bit the leader.

It was difficult, at least in that moment, to remember what he’d been like that night. A wave of heat crept up the back of my neck as I remembered through—the way his hands felt, his body, his knot. I remembered him in the bond after that, the way he pushed back, the way he filled my days and nights with his own regret.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to be strong enough to face him, especially if he remembered. After all, what was that night to him? A way to pass time with a desperate, horny Omega lost to the throes of a heat? He had been my first—and the way my body was progressing, he would also be my last.

I made an attempt to escape the introductions afterward, but Zane was quick to grab my arm and pull me toward the new council. He skipped Lior Miller, though the only surprise there was that the weaselly politician was even on the council at all. He was well known across all circles as the Wolf who only wanted to make a power-grab, so I had a feeling my brother and the other Alphas were up to something.

I managed a quick hello to Theo and Francisco—the bonded Alpha pair who looked more exhausted than anything. I appreciated the way that Theo kept shooting dark looks at Lior though, but I couldn’t focus.

Not when my Alpha was standing a few feet away from me. I met his gaze one last time, but there wasn’t even a hint that he knew who I was.

His face was passive as Zane marched me in front of him, and it was out of habit more than anything that I tilted my head to bare my neck. I saw nothing—felt nothing other than the quiet heartbreak of knowing I wasn’t even worth a quiet memory.

“This is my brother, Danyal,” Zane was saying, entirely oblivious only because I had managed to block the bond. I had a weak grasp on it though, and I knew I had to get out of there before Zane picked up on it. “He’s our only doctor right now, but he’s working on a genetic program that will hopefully get us better spies in DC. Danyal, this is Mikael Ayala—right now he’s acting Head Alpha.”

Mikael. His name was Mikael. I extended my hand, wondering if it would trigger anything when our palms touched. His skin was warm against mine, and the ghost of familiar, but his eyes remained dead as they met my gaze. He said nothing, keeping the handshake short, just like he did with every other Wolf my brother had paraded in front of him.

Because to him, I was nothing more than one more Omega who would be barely useful in this war. To him, I was probably one of a sea of Omegas he used to pass the time when he was on leave, trying to escape the long months at the front.

To him, I was nobody. And when push came to shove, when all hope was lost, I knew that Mikael would be the one Wolf who wouldn’t come for me.

I supposed, in a way, it was apropos that I was taken the way my brother had been—fooled by humans and overpowered before I had the chance to defend myself. I remembered the impact in the car hitting first, then the scent of chemicals, then a sting of a needle piercing my neck before the world went dark.

When I came to in the stone room, surrounded by pitch black, I almost laughed at the irony. The text message I had gotten from Zane—which was now obvious wasn’t from Zane at all—flashed in front of my eyes. My desperation to find him and bring him home safe had gotten the better of me, and I had no damn excuse for my reckless actions.

If Kor let me rot here—wherever here was—it was no less than I deserved. I reached out through the bond, but it was obvious I was too far away for either of my siblings to get much beyond the fact that I was unharmed. For now. Zane’s connection was feeling a lot less fractured and reckless, which meant he was likely safe, and Talia’s was overcome with worry.

I used that to soothe myself as I pushed up from the floor and began to navigate the small room that was filled with a lot of nothing. For a short while I thought maybe I was blind—the darkness was all-encompassing, but it didn’t take long for me to spot the smallest sliver of light through a crack in what had to be a door.

Which meant I was a prisoner they wanted kept alive.

For now. For as long as I was useful.

It didn’t take a huge logic leap to know they wanted me for my work on the genetic program. I’d started to suspect someone had hacked into my workstation just a few days before, and my progress with Orion’s experiment would be obvious to anyone who knew what they were looking for.

It also didn’t take a huge logic leap to know it was Misha’s father who was behind both the spies in Corland and my capture. Kasher was a brilliant scientist—if not a complete sociopath and an absolute monster. But there was something wrong with his work—which was obvious the moment I had a full genetic work-up of what he’d done to Misha. It was obvious his son wasn’t the first of his experiments—and not the only experiment he had going. But I had a feeling that Misha was the most important and the one that had been so close to right that the failure and Misha’s escape were probably more than gutting.

Getting him back had turned into an obsession.

Still, there was more to worry about than turning humans into Omegas, and I was more than aware of that. The reports we’d been getting from our Omega spies in the city all said that they were working on something to weaponize Wolves and give humans more power, but I didn’t think it was possible. Wolves—perhaps. Our bodies were meant to host change, but unless each human turned out like Misha had, they would die.

And it was likely many did without even attempting a shift. Their organs couldn’t handle the stress. Misha wasn’t special as a human—at least, not as far as I knew. He was just fortunate. The Omega DNA was easier for a human body to accept, but Beta or Alpha would have easily been a death sentence in a matter of hours—days if they were particularly unlucky.

So, I knew I needed to prepare myself. They’d use something moral to try and incentivize my cooperation, along with threats of torture. They’d likely go through with some of it, though any one of them worth their salt would know they could only take it so far before they rendered me useless—and I was the only geneticist in our world who had come this far with my research.

I had to play it smart. This was an opportunity to gather as much information as I could because I knew Kor would come after me. He would send an entire team, if he needed to. My best bet was to play along—let them think they’d won and kill time before the rescue could get to me.

I just couldn’t give in too easily. Kasher was reckless, but he wasn’t ignorant. He knew how to play the game just as well as any of us. He might have been a scientist like me, but he was the product of the First War, the same way we all were.

After making certain the only thing in this little room was me, I began to scream. I let my claws out and dug at the crack in the door and did everything I could to put up a fuss. They wouldn’t come for me until I’d exhausted myself, but they needed to hear me trying.

They needed to believe I was desperate.

It didn’t take much for me to be convincing, though. In reality, I was shit-scared. My brain could slip into logic and focus on what needed to be done, but I was hurting. There were drugs in my system, I was dehydrated, and there was no telling when they’d let me out. Being unable to see, unsure of where the hell I even was, it was too easy to panic.

Eventually, I exhausted myself and laid in the center of the floor. I kept my eyes fixed on that sliver of light because when the door open, I’d be effectively blind until I adjusted. They clearly knew how to keep a Wolf, because all of my senses were dulled. It didn’t bode well for me or anyone else they had captive, and I’d have to outsmart them and keep myself alive until Kor could send in his reinforcements.

I reached through the bond for my brother again and felt him safe and sleeping, and I allowed myself to cry just a little knowing that Orion had managed to get him out. I was afraid of what I’d find when I was finally taken home, but knowing he had survived was enough.

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