Page 102 of Knot Gonna Lie
Seth reached us first, medical composure shattered. His hands flexed, scarred and shaking. “Chloroform variant sedative. Professional grade. Engineered for omegas. She’s—”
“Alive.” Jaxom said, voice low and lethal. “Northwest. Moving fast. Vehicle.”
How he knew, I didn’t question. Jaxom’s mind worked in patterns and calculations beyond normal comprehension. If he said northwest, then northwest we hunted.
“The clan.” My voice had stabilized into something cold, controlled. The alpha who’d built an empire from nothing. The alpha who’d survived the stations’ worst. The alpha who would burn the world for his omega. “Mobilize everyone. Full tactical. Someone took what’s ours.”
“Ours,” Seth agreed. His eyes gleamed with the same murderous clarity.
We were pack. We were fury. We were death coming for whoever had dared touch her.
Eli stepped back, his expression shifting from concern to something like awe. Or fear. “This is what you become for an omega?”
I turned to face my brother, knowing he saw something inhuman in my eyes. The careful control I’d maintained for decades had shattered, revealing the primitive alpha beneath. “This is what I become forher.”
My scent had gone wild—feral—coconut and dark spice twisted into something aggressive. Even Eli flinched, his own alpha instincts recognizing a superior predator.
“Help us. Or get out of the way.” The ultimatum hung between us, brother bonds secondary to mate bonds.
His hesitation lasted a heartbeat. Eli’s jaw clenched. Then he nodded, sharp and decisive. “What do you need?”
“Port contacts. Security feeds. Every camera between here and the shopping district.” I was already moving, Seth and Jaxom flanking me. “Someone planned this. Professional extraction. They knew she’d be there.”
“Alpha Zeke.” Jaxom’s calculation clicked into place. “This was him.”
The name crystallized my rage into purpose. Zeke. The alpha who’d dared. He thought he could take what wasmine.
He’d learn differently.
“Get me a location,” I commanded, not asking. The clan was already responding, Sylas and Tobias appearing with weapons, Xavier pulling up surveillance on his vidtablet.
Through the bond, Elara’s heartbeat fluttered—steady but slow. Drugged. Contained. But fighting even in unconsciousness, her omega instincts raging against separation from her pack.
“I can track her scent.” The admission came out raw. Something no civilized alpha would admit—that I could hunt by smell alone, like an animal. But civilization had no place here. “She’s mine. Her scent is burned into my brain. I can find her.”
“Then we hunt.” Seth’s agreement rang final.
Eli pulled out his communication device, already making calls. “I’ll have every eye on the planet looking. They won’t get far.”
But I was already moving, following invisible threads through the air. Vanilla and lavender, twisted with fear but still hers. Still calling to me through every particle between us.
The villa fell away behind us as we ran—not like men, but like the predators we’d always been beneath the surface. Through gardens, over walls, following a trail only I could sense while Jaxom calculated trajectories and Seth prepared for whatever medical attention she’d need.
My omega had called, and her clan had answered.
And Alpha Zeke would learn the cost of touching what was ours.
CHAPTER FORTY
ELARA
Consciousness returned in fragments—silk against skin, amber light filtering through crystal, the absence of pack-scent like a physical wound. My tongue tasted copper and chemical sweetness. Whatever they’d used to subdue me lingered in my blood, thoughts swimming sluggish and slow.
The bed beneath me could have graced a queen’s chamber. Ivory sheets draped around me, cool and perfect, too soft to be real. Thankfully, I was still dressed in the marketplace clothes that carried ghost-memories of freedom.
My fingers found the tender throb of Luca’s mark, pressing hard enough to send sparks of bond-pain, bond-need, bond-defiance.Find me.
Sitting brought vertigo, but I forced myself upright. The room unfolded in layers of calculated luxury—walls of pale gold stone, furniture carved from what looked like driftwood bleached white by alien suns, a balcony beyond sheer curtains where purple sky bled into twilight.
