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“I’ll report when I find her.” I leave my brothers and Craig in the gazebo, desperate to escape the air the omega stained.
Thank the gods she doesn’t give off pheromones, but I can still scent the chlorine embedded in her skin.
I retreat to my second-floor office. It’s always been crowded with files and gear, but since I took over our team’s tech from Orion, the monitors have tripled. I’m glad to sink into my leather chair, surrounded by the faded scents of my packmates and the calming whir of electrical fans.
I check the house cams first.
Odds are, she’s already climbing into one of our beds.
But the rooms are empty of anyone except Orion, who’s busy pacing a landing strip in his bedroom carpet.
Orion’s fraying. I’d comfort him, only then he’d know that I am too.
She’s not in the kitchen or anywhere upstairs.
The basement’s just as empty.
A ragged duffel sitting in the grass is the only sign that Lilah was ever here.
I pull the drone feeds up on the big screen.
I have them zig-zagging our acreage when one of the perimeter alarms starts to sing.
“There you are.” I flick to the cam view and catch a glimpse of a girl sprinting like she’s being chased by monsters. Every few steps, she glances back, then speeds up, cutting a wild trail through the forest.
She’s as eerie as her speed.
The girl looks like a warmed-up skeleton. She shouldn’t be able to cover so much ground so fast. Maybe she’s trying to look pitiful. Trying to earn sympathy.
She won’t get any from me.
I pin a drone to her, silently following her desperate run. She’s well off our property by the time she hits the lakeshore.
Lilah barely stops.
She whips off her sweats and sneakers, and already wearing a one-piece bathing suit for some inconceivable reason, dives straight into the water.
She doesn’t come up.
I grip my chair arms, scanning the screen.
Still, she doesn’t come up.
Thirty seconds later and fifty feet farther than I was expecting, her tangled brown hair finally surfaces. She freestyles toward the island at the center of the lake.
I’ve made a point of avoiding omegas, but after a lifetime of their simpering, their fake smiles, lies, and manipulations, I know exactly how they are. Omegas want attention and love. They want whatever they want, whatever calms their hormones and satisfies their insane instincts.
Lilah is no different. So I don’t understand why she’s running away.
The only possible answer is, she already has a pack. Maybe she’s meeting them on the island with plans to flee.
I can’t think of a better ending to this bullshit.
“Atlas.” I ring him on the com. “You’ll want to see this.”
I’m expecting his dominance to roll through the room. Instead, I’m wrapped in cider sweetness as Orion slips inside, moving to my shoulder. “What’s happening?”
“She’s running.”
