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"Sir, those clouds look nasty," the driver says, ears flattening against his skull. "Maybe we should consider?—"

"Just drive," Kain snaps, though tension bleeds through his voice now. "The faster we clear this pass, the sooner we transfer the asset and return to civilization."

Asset. The word hits like a physical blow. Not person. Not nurse. Not even prisoner. Just valuable property to be delivered intact.

The van speeds up again, the driver pushing beyond safe parameters in his eagerness to escape the approaching storm. Another mistake to add to my growing list of potential advantages.

Wind begins to buffet the high-sided vehicle, rain drumming harder against the metal roof. I count seconds between lightning and thunder—the storm racing toward us faster than anyone anticipated.

Eight years I've survived as an unregistered omega in a world that considers my biology property. Eight years of evading detection, building a life, helping others escape similar fates.Captain Kain thinks he's transporting valuable cargo, but what he's really carrying is something far more dangerous—someone who's already lost everything and has nothing left to fear.

The transport van hits another section of deteriorated road, the impact rattling my bones. I let my head loll forward, fully committed to the sedated performance while listening to the wind's rising howl outside.

Nature itself rebels against containment, against control.

I understand that feeling intimately.

CHAPTER 2

STORM-SCATTERED PREY

Amelia's POV

The storm hits like the fist of an angry god.

One moment we're winding through the treacherous mountain pass, the next the world erupts in primal fury. Lightning tears across the sky with a violence that turns night into blazing day, then plunges us back into absolute darkness. The afterimage burns across my retinas—jagged white lines that dance behind my eyelids like electric snakes.

"This route was supposed to be clear!" the driver shouts, his voice barely audible over the wind's howling rage. His feline ears lie flat against his skull, pupils blown wide with fear as he fights the steering wheel.

The van rocks on its suspension as crosswinds hit us broadside. I brace my feet against the floor, metal cuffs cutting deeper into my wrists as I leverage what little stability I can find. Through the rain-lashed windshield, our headlights catch the lead vehicle's taillights wavering like drunken fireflies.

I count heartbeats after the lightning flash. One. Two. Thr?—

Thunder explodes directly overhead—not the distant rumble of approaching storm, but the bone-deep crack of celestial artillery fired at point-blank range. The sound waves hit the vanlike a physical blow, vibrating through the metal frame and up through my spine. Windows rattle in their frames. The driver's hands slip on the wheel.

That's when I see it—a massive pine tree, ancient and thick as a house pillar, falling across the road ahead like a closing gate. The lead vehicle's brake lights flare crimson in the downpour, but physics and momentum have already written their verdict.

"Brake!" Captain Kain's roar cuts through the chaos, but it's too late.

The world fractures into a kaleidoscope of destruction. Our headlights catch the lead vehicle's final moments as it clips the fallen tree, launches sideways off the narrow mountain road, and disappears into the void beyond the cliff edge. Metal screams against stone, a sound like the mountain itself crying out in pain.

Our driver yanks the wheel hard left, tires shrieking as they lose traction on rain-slick asphalt. The van slides sideways toward the same drop, and for a terrifying heartbeat I can see nothing but empty air beyond my window.

Time dilates, each second stretching into eternity. The guard beside me releases his weapon, reaching desperately for his safety harness. Survival instinct overriding protocol—exactly what I've been waiting for, though not under these circumstances.

We slam into something solid—a boulder, a tree, I can't tell which. The impact hurls me against my restraints with bone-bruising force, the metal cuffs slicing deeper into flesh already rubbed raw. The van tilts up on two wheels, balances for an impossible moment, then tips past the point of no return.

The world becomes a nauseating carousel of violence. Up becomes down becomes sideways becomes meaningless. The guard beside me becomes a human projectile, his body slamming into surfaces with sickening wet sounds. Glassexplodes inward like crystalline rain. My medical kit breaks free from its mounting, supplies scattering in a deadly hail of metal instruments and chemical bottles.

Something hard strikes my temple—a first aid box, maybe, or the guard's elbow. Darkness floods in like black water, and consciousness abandons me to the storm's mercy.

Awareness returns slowly, accompanied by the iron taste of blood and the pressure of gravity pulling in the wrong direction. I'm hanging upside down, the seat belt cutting into my chest like a dull blade. Blood pools in my head, creating a pounding pressure behind my eyes that makes every heartbeat agony.

Rain pours through the shattered windows, turning the overturned van into a waterlogged metal coffin. Each breath is a struggle against the harness cutting off circulation and the growing pressure building in my skull.

Lightning strobes outside, illuminating the devastation in stuttering snapshots. The guard beside me hangs motionless in his restraints, head twisted at an impossible angle. A jagged piece of window frame has opened his throat from ear to collarbone, the wound no longer bleeding—heart stopped, circulation ceased. My clinical training catalogs the injury automatically: complete cervical severance, instantaneous death.

Lucky bastard.