Page 39 of Advocate Omega (Unforeseen Paths #1)

Lucan

Zander already serves as a distraction.

An omega on the precipice of a heat will mess with both Ulric and Ryker. Despite Ulric claiming to have bonded with Ian, he is still an alpha. And as for Ryker, well, he’s not immune to the scent either. I’m banking on it making the pair more passive, more likely to bend to my orders.

I just wish Thalira were in bed already.

Squatting down to catch her mid-air, I gather her into my arms, nuzzle into her cheek like she loves, and listen to her sweet, tinkling laugh. “I miss you,” she says through giggles. “Where was Lulu?”

“With my mate,” I say easily. “How are you, sweetheart?”

Her brown hair is loose today, hanging in messy waves. “Not tired. Father says I have to go to bed,” she whines. “Bed is for losers.”

I bark out an easy laugh, but it quickly fades. Ian stands in the doorway with Ulric looming behind him. Ryker has yet to come out. “Go to your father,” I tell Thalira gently and put her down.

She looks up at me with her big brown eyes. “Why?”

“Do as you're told.” I push more authority into my voice, and she whines.

“Thalira.” Ian hurries down the porch steps.

Zander’s scent punches my nostrils a moment later as he exits the car. I glance over my shoulder to catch his worried, forced smile. “You brought the Sorrel omega?” Ulric finally speaks, pushing past Ian and his daughter to march over to me. “Done with him already?” he spits.

I snarl on instinct, straightening to my full height and battling my instincts. “Do not speak to him or about him, is that understood?”

Ulric’s eyes go wide. He shakes his head, almost as if he needs to clear out water from his ears. Squaring off his shoulders, he points past me. “Come here, boy.”

The command is unmistakable. And I know this conversation is not going to be had without blood spilled. Zander, to my surprise, manages to hold his ground. “Not today, fucker.”

I slap Ulric’s hand out of the air. Pushing into his personal bubble, I try to recall a time when I didn’t despise him.

Back when he was my kin and not my enemy.

The memories are hazy and unimportant as I stand between him and my mate.

“You are relinquishing control over the clan as of this moment.”

Again, his eyes stretch to their limit. I watch his throat bob and the muscles feather in his jaw. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he spits. “You’re a sigma, Lucan. No one will follow you.”

“Fight it all you want,” I growl. “You are finished.”

It takes effort, but he does fucking fight it. He looks past me again, directly at Zander, so I grab him by the front of his shirt and lift him off the ground. “Eyes on me, Ulric, or lose them.”

The sound is faint, and to lesser wolves, undetectable, but Zander’s groan of lust pricks my ears. “You’re a fucking fool,” Ulric barks. “Bringing an omega on the verge of a heat? What kind of mate would allow that?”

I crash my head into his. His nose bursts on impact. “Lulu!”

“Oh, shit. Um. Hey, Ian and…Thalira. Can I talk to you two?” Zander squeaks out.

“Do not ,” Ulric bellows.

“Submit,” I counter. “Submit now and be done with this, Ulric. You can’t fight me.”

His eyes bounce to Ian and his pup, then back to me. “The hell I can’t!” With a guttural roar, he sheds his human form, and a wolf slams me into the ground.

Jaws immediately clamp onto my throat, teeth piercing the flesh.

I hear screaming, Thalira crying, but the pain keeps me focused.

If I shift, I’ll kill him. There will be no stopping me, not with my mate nearby.

Bringing my knee up, I slam it into his belly, successfully getting a yelp out of him.

Ulric doesn’t let go, though. He chomps down harder, my warm blood staining the dirt under us and leaking into my lungs.

"Release me, Ulric," I thunder. Every muscle tenses but the stubborn bastard doesn't obey. He's going to fight tooth and nail until I take him out.

I push with all my strength and roll onto my side, dislodging his muzzle in the process.

He scrambles to his four paws, growls, and bares his jaws.

In a squat, I palm at the wound on my throat and glance up to see Zander pushing Ian and Thalira into the car.

Ulric lunges. I dart out of the way. In the back of my mind, I know Ryker should be coming to help his alpha, but he hasn’t shown himself.

His scent is present, but it’s…faded—no… it’s stale. Old. Wrong.

“Where is Ryker?” I ask the wolf, knowing he won’t understand or answer.

“Luc,” Zander whines, holding his stomach.

A potent wave of his pheromones hit the air. Damn it.

Ulric stalks me, snarling and frothing at the mouth.

His tail whips back and forth with agitated swipes.

Thalira is banging on the car window, begging me not to hurt her sire.

I elongate my claws, feel the tension coiling up my arms, and wait for his next move.

When he lunges again, I dive and slice open his belly.

The wolf howls in pain, falling to the floor.

Seeing my opportunity, I leap on top of him, curl my arm around his thick, furry throat, and squeeze.

His legs flail, head thrashes in my hold.

I squeeze harder and harder. Eventually, he’ll pass out.

Zander slumps to the floor, his back to the side of the car, and his knees to his chest. Tears well in his eyes, but he quickly wipes them away.

I need to take care of my mate, not wrestle with a stubborn alpha.

Not wanting to waste any more fucking time, I apply more pressure to his blood flow, and the wolf goes limp.

I release his body, check for a pulse, and then get up. Thalira and Ian get out of the car. It’s only then that I notice the tremor in Ian’s hands and the swollen lids of his eyes, as if he’d been upset well before we got here.

“I’m sorry,” he tells me. “I’m sorry, Lucan. You don’t understand.” Still keeping his daughter in his arms, Ian closes his eyes and trembles.

“Luc,” Zander rushes me, and I hold him close with my free arm.

“Where is Ryker?” I demand, and Ian quivers. Squeezing Thalira tightly, he blinks up at me.

“He’s…” I watch his mouth silently finish the sentence. Dead.

“What!”

“Please, I don’t want her to know or hear.”

Blood seeps around my fingers, trickling into my shirt. We have an unconscious wolf, a dead one somewhere close by, and two omegas weeping. Fuck. I take a breath and nuzzle into the top of Zander’s head. “Precious…”

“What do you need me to do?”

Stop smelling so sweet, that’s what.

“Go inside while I restrain Ulric.”

“With Ian?” He looks up at me with a frown.

“Yes, baby. With Ian.”

The omega in question gives a weak, timid smile.

“And then what? There’s a… corpse ,” he whispers, “in there.”

“What’s a corpse, father? What’s wrong with Sysy? Why is Lulu fighting!”

“Shh, sweet girl. Sysy is fine. He’s just…sleeping.”

“Go,” I tell Zander. “Please.”

“Hurry up.”

“I will.”

It’s been so long since I set a single foot inside this house, and here I am, dragging a bound, unconscious wolf into the living room.

Besides the old scent of Ryker, everything else seems just as I remember it.

At one point, I was sure that being in a place that harbored so much longing and hurt would absolutely destroy me.

I’m relieved that those feelings are gone.

I feel nothing .

Zander is waiting for me with a wash rag, and I can hear Ian putting Thalira to bed upstairs. I dip my head in thanks before placing the rag over my wound.

“How much longer?” Zander whispers, looking around the space with his nose scrunched. “Can we just go?”

I pull him to me, thrilled with how easily he leans into my touch. He nuzzles my chest and fists my shirt.

“I need to speak to Ian. Find out what happened to Ryker.”

“It’s pretty easy to put two and two together,” he mumbles before dragging his teeth over my pec. “Ulric got jealous and killed him.”

My brows pinch as I glance down at him. “ Jealous ?”

Slipping his sneaky hands under the back of my shirt, he kneads at my flesh, a soft whine in his throat. “They were fucking. It’s obvious. And I—” He groans before dropping his hands and squeezing my ass.

“Precious, I think you just have something else on your mind. There’s no way that—”

Ian descends the stairs, and when our eyes meet, I see so much. The purple bags highlight his lack of sleep, the way his hair seems dull, and how much weight he’s lost. “Lucan, we need to talk,” he says quietly, his brown eyes fixed on the floor.

“Ugh!” Zander whines and growls at the omega. “Make it snappy.”

I kiss the top of his head and gesture for Ian to speak.

Giving a weak nod, he leads us into the kitchen, and I take a seat before pulling Zander into my lap.

He purrs happily and buries his face in my throat.

Ian swallows roughly, scrubs at his face, and then eventually slumps in his seat.

“Ulric killed Ryker after he came back from tracking you two. I…well, I couldn’t stop him obviously.

” A self-deprecating laugh. “He failed and Ulric didn’t like the competition anymore. ”

“Competition?”

Ian hesitates. He glances at Zander, completely enthralled with my neck and uninterested. Any other time, and I’m confident I’d have had to throw him over my shoulder to keep him from attacking Ian. “Finally found your mate, then.”

I don’t detect jealousy, which I didn’t expect there to be any. Ian made it clear six years ago that I was just a spare knot. “I have.”

“He doesn’t have much time,” he nods at Zander, “his heat is coming fast.”

“I’m aware. Why did Ulric kill him? He knows Ryker could never take me in a fight.”

Chin wobbling slightly, Ian looks at his lap. “After I had Thalira, Ulric stopped…everything. He never bonded with me, never cared. I was a tool to keep the clan looking to him for answers and to keep you in check.”

I don’t respond. Zander, however, must still be listening because he stops his scenting of my throat and lifts his head. “That’s how come you fell in love with Ryker, huh?”

Ian whimpers. It’s a sound I’ve never heard him make before.

“Ryker was there . He helped with Thalira during her infancy. He made sure I wasn’t alone.

It was hard not to, especially since I knew Ulric would never pick me.

I’m sorry, Lucan, I am. So many times over the years, I wanted to tell you everything about how he would pretend to be me and text you horrible things, how he used me every chance he could to push you further into the dirt.

At first, I agreed to do it. But I was in love. I wanted him to be my mate.

“I never wanted to be passed around, Lucan. Never. And Ulric promised that if I did it long enough, it would just be the two of us. I…I believed it.”

“Well, fuck,” Zander comments. “That’s some twisted shit.”

“And Thalira? Is she his or Ryker’s?”

“She’s an omega,” he says hotly. “Of course, she’s Ulric’s. I didn’t…Ryker and I never…not until two years ago.”

“So why kill him now? Why not do it two years ago?”

“Because I don’t want to live this way anymore.

He constantly threatens me with Thalira.

If I don’t do what he wants, he’ll take her and toss me to a new pod.

The first heat after her birth, the worst one of my life , he locked me upstairs and left.

I told Ulric I was done when Ryker came back half dead. ”

My gaze flicks to the wolf in the living room, and I have the sudden urge to kill him while he sleeps.

“Okay, so what I’m hearing is, Ulric is an abusive fuck, Ryker was…going along with it to spare you, and Thalira is just the innocent involved in it all.” Zander hums thoughtfully and cups my face. “Let’s bring them with us and kill Ulric.”

“If you two hadn’t shown up tonight, I was planning on running the moment he left Thorn Valley to hunt you down.”

I dig my fingers into Zander, flashes of an alternate fate that would’ve surely taken him had he not found me that first night rush through my head.

I had no clue Ian was going through all of this.

Too focused on my rejection and then the aftermath, I wouldn’t have thought twice about the nature of his relationship with Ulric.

But now that I have the missing pieces, it all makes sense.

Ian is an innocent, at least in this moment.

“Please,” Ian rasps. “Whatever you have planned, do it. Just let me keep Thalira. I’m not a bad father…you know I’m not.”

“I’m not taking your pup away, Ian.”

“Gods, why would we do that?” Zander tacks on.

“You’re a Prime Alpha. It’d be as simple as telling her a few words, and she’d never come back. It's why I tried so hard to get you to back off. I was afraid—”

I stare at my former lover directly in the eyes. “ No one will take your daughter. I swear it.”

He nods and swipes at the few tears on his cheeks. “I don’t care what happens to him,” he snarls, “just don’t let her see it.”

Ian stands, casts one final, hateful glare at Ulric, and retreats upstairs.