All Chapters of Rogue's Omega: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Voss's footsteps stopped directly above us. One floorboard creaked. Then another. Archer's hand clamped over my mouth before I could make a sound.I didn't fight him. I didn't move. My back was pressed against the damp stone wall, and Archer's palm was warm and rough against my lips, and the only thing I could hear was my own heartbeat slamming against my ribs. The lantern was dead. The darkness was absolute. I couldn't see Archer's face, but I could feel his chest pressed against my shoulder, rigid with fear."I know you're down there." Voss's voice drifted through the floorboards, calm as still water. "There's no need to hide. I only want to talk."Archer's hand pressed harder against my mouth. His lips brushed my ear, so close I felt the shape of the words more than I heard them. "Don't. He's lying."The bond with Bastian screamed at the back of my skull. I could feel him throwing himself against the bars of his cell, the silver chains burning his wrists, his rage and terror floodi

Elara Crowe took one look at me and said, "You've been pushing the bond too hard. Your body is eating itself."The medic tent was quiet in the early morning, the winter sunlight filtering through the canvas walls and turning everything pale gold. I sat on the edge of a cot while Elara's knotted hands moved across my shoulders and down my arms, pressing at points that made me wince. Her silver braid hung over one shoulder, and her warm brown skin was lined with decades of concentration."Here," she said, pressing a spot just below my collarbone. "And here." Another press, near my ribs. I hissed through my teeth. "Micro-tears in the muscle. Your wolf is retreating deeper to conserve energy. You sent too much to the rogue during the fight, and now your body is cannibalizing itself to recover.""I didn't know what else to do." I gripped the edge of the cot. "He was losing.""The bond is a tool, child. Not a weapon." Elara stepped back and reached for a jar on her shelf. The contents were

Archer was on his knees before the council, Voss's hand wrapped in his auburn curls. "Confess," Voss said, almost gently. "Tell us who helped you." I pushed through the crowd at the council hall entrance, and my heart stopped. The chamber was packed with wolves, their bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder, their faces lit by torches that blazed despite the grey daylight seeping through the high windows. Archer knelt on the stone floor with his hands bound behind his back and a bruise blooming across his cheekbone. His hazel eyes were bright with fear, but his jaw was set. He hadn't spoken yet. Voss stood over him, his silver hair swept back from his gaunt face, his pale eyes gleaming with something that looked almost like pleasure. The council members sat in a semicircle behind him, their robes dark and their faces grim. Halden Crowe was among them, his silver beard and broad shoulders unmistakable, but his eyes were on the floor. He wouldn't look at Archer. He wouldn't look at anyone

By the time I reached the cell block, the walls were on fire. Smoke rolled through the corridor in thick black waves, and the heat hit me like a wall before I even turned the corner. Guards were running, shouting, some dragging wounded wolves and others just fleeing. The torches on the walls had become weapons, and the old timber supports were cracking and spitting embers into the dark. Kellan was behind me. I could feel him through the new bond, a sharp spike of alarm and command as he shouted orders at the enforcers pouring down the stairwell. But I wasn't listening to orders. I was listening to Bastian. The first bond screamed with his fury and his pain. He was alive. Trapped. The silver chains were still on him, and through the link I felt the burn of them compounded by the heat of the fire. He wasn't afraid of dying. He was afraid of dying before he could reach me. I pushed past a collapsing beam and choked on the smoke. My eyes streamed. My lungs burned. The cell block was a

The manor didn't look like a house. It looked like a tomb. Grey stone rose out of the frozen earth in blunt, ugly lines, and the windows were narrow slits that leaked thin yellow light into the dark. The eastern cliffs dropped away behind it, a sheer fall into black water. No trees grew near the walls. No grass. Just packed dirt and frost and the kind of silence that meant something had been killed here and the ground hadn't forgotten. Rook crouched beside me in the shadow of a dead oak, his shaggy black hair tied back, his dark eyes fixed on the guards at the entrance. "Two at the front. Rotating every ten minutes. There's a side door past the kitchen garden, but it's bolted from the inside." "Then we unbolt it," Bastian said, and his voice was a rumble of restrained violence. He had refused to stay behind. The stitches in his side pulled with every movement, and he didn't care. "Silence." Kellan's voice cut through the dark, low and cold. He pointed at a figure moving across the