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“There is a prisoner. In your compound.”
“What?”
He didn’t flinch at the anger in my voice. The boy growled again but otherwise didn’t move. “A prisoner. Someone with a great and terrible power. You must go to him. You must end his life. Only then will everything become clear.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I demanded. “Do you know what—”
“Step. Back.”
I hadn’t even realized I was moving.
A hand appeared from underneath the blanket. The claws were sharp as they scraped along the floor. Black hair burst up along the back of the hand before it receded and the hand pulled back under the blanket.
A clear warning if there ever was one.
I did as asked, standing near the door.
“I know you’re confused,” Malik said, voice barely above a whisper. “And I know you’re scared.”
“I’m not—”
“I can smell it on you,” the boy growled.
Goddamn kids. “Fine. Whatever. I’m scared. But how the fuck else should I—”
“Focus, Robbie.”
I shouldn’t have come out here. “How do you know there’s a prisoner?”
Malik’s mouth twitched. “I wasn’t sure until now. Thank you for confirming it for me.”
“Oh, fuck you.” I wasn’t impressed. I wasn’t.
“He is the cause of this.” He nodded down toward the boy. “Somehow. It’s an infection, and you must stop him while there’s still time to keep it from spreading.”
I shook my head. “That’s impossible. There are wards in place. Ezra put them up himself. There’s no way the prisoner can ever—”
“This boy is part of my pack. Our pack.”
“He can’t be,” I said, and a wave of dizziness washed over me. “He wouldn’t be an Omega if he was. His eyes would be orange and—”
“And yet they aren’t,” Malik said simply. “He is Omega, even though his Alpha is Shannon. His brothers are Jimmy and John in all but blood. And he belongs to me just as much as I belong to him. He is ours. There are bonds between us all, threads that tie us together, rotted and fetid though they are. They’re tenuous, but they gain strength every day because he wants them to. This isn’t because he doesn’t have anyone, Robbie. I assure you he does. It’s because of what has been done to him. He is a wolf diseased, and there is only one cure: the death of the person who has infected him and all those like him.”
His words struck me cold. “All those like him.”
“Yes.”
“Meaning there are others.”
“Yes.”
“How?” I asked helplessly. “We would know if there were. If Omegas were rising, if something was happening to cause them to be this way. We would know.”
And then he said, “They do,” like it was the easiest thing in the world, like he wasn’t upending everything. “They do, Robbie.”
I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t. It would mean…. Christ, I didn’t even want to think about it. “Why should I believe anything you’re saying?”
Malik looked disappointed, as if it should be obvious. “I have taken great risk to bring you here. All it would take would be for you to turn around and report everything you’ve seen. To wake your witch and bring him here.”
