The Unwanted Omega: Claimed by the Shadow Alpha Chapter 08

The Unwanted Omega: Claimed by the Shadow Alpha Chapter 08

Axel POV: 

I stood in the center of Ember’s empty room, the 

silence pressing against my eardrums. 

Saturday evening in Norway. 

I closed my eyes, forcing my mind back to that 

moment. We were on the deck of the glass igloo 

hotel. Ryker was inside getting drinks. I was setting up 

the camera. 

“Axel, look at the lights!” Willow had cried out. 

She was holding my phone. She said she wanted to 

take a selfie with the aurora because her camera had 

low battery. 

I remembered seeing the screen light up. remembered her turning away, walking to the edge of the deck. 

“Who is calling?” Lhad asked. 

“Just spam,” she had said, tapping the screen. “I declined it.” 

I opened my eyes. My hands were trembling so hard I could barely unlock my phone. I went to the call log. 

Nothing. 

I went to the ‘Deleted Calls‘ folder. 

There it was. 

Incoming Call: Home. Duration: 42 seconds. 

She hadn’t declined it. She had answered it. 

“Axel!” Ryker’s roar from downstairs shook the floorboards. It was the roar of a wounded animal. 

I ran downstairs. 

Ryker was in the living room. He had ripped open a cardboard box that was sitting on the coffee table. It was the package Derek had mentioned. 

Photos were scattered everywhere. Documents 

covered the floor like confetti. 

Ryker was holding a USB drive in one hand and a 

piece of paper in the other. His face was a mask of horror. He looked like he had aged ten years in ten 

minutes. 

“What is it?” I asked, stepping over a photo of Willow… 

smoking a cigarette behind the orphanage? 

Ryker didn’t speak. He pointed to the TV. He had 

plugged the laptop in. 

On the screen was a video. It was grainy, security 

footage from the airfield. 

It showed Ember. She looked thin. Frail. She was 

walking toward a jet with the logo of a silver sun. 

“Do you know what that logo is?” Ryker whispered. His 

voice was broken glass. 

“Silver Dawn,” I said. “It’s a government research 

project.” 

“It’s a suicide mission,” Ryker choked out. “It’s the 

Deep Earth Bunker. They study the most volatile silver 

isotopes. The radiation… it kills wolves. Slowly. Over 

decades.” 

“No,” I shook my head. “She’s a healer. She wouldn’t.” 

“She did,” Ryker sobbed. A tear, hot and heavy, rolled 

down his cheek. “Look at who she is with.” 

On the screen, Derek stood by the plane stairs. He took Ember’s hand. He looked at her like she was the 

most precious thing in the universe. 

“She left with him,” Ryker said. “To die.” 

“Why?” Lscreamed. “Why would she do that?” 

Ryker threw the papers at me. They fluttered against my chest. 

“Read them!” Ryker yelled. “Read, them, you idiot! Because we killed her! We drove our baby sister into 

a radioactive tomb because of HER” 

He pointed a shaking finger at the ceiling, toward 

Willow’s room. 

I picked up a document. It was a DNA test. 

Subject A: Willow ‘Blackwood‘. Subject B: Arthur 

Blackwood (Deceased). 

Result: 0% Match. 

I picked up another paper. A death certificate. 

Name: Willow Thorne. Date of Death: August 12, 2019. 

Cause: Congenital Heart Failure. 

I couldn’t breathe. The room was spinning. 

“It’s a lie,” I stammered, my mind rejecting the reality. 

“Derek forged this. He’s trying to break us.” 

Ryker didn’t look at me. He just handed me a small, crumpled receipt. “And did he forge this? Found in her 

trash can.” 

I took it. It was an invoice from an underground 

apothecary. 

Item: Wolfsbane Extract (Scent Masking Grade). 

Qty: 12 vials. 

My knees gave out. Wolfsbane. That explained the faint scent. That explained the ‘weak‘ vitals. I hadn’t 

been treating a sick wolf; I had been treating a human 

masking her scent with poison. 

“I’m a doctor,” I whispered, the realization crushing me. “And I missed it. I let her drug herself right under my 

nose.” 

I looked at the TV screen again. The video was ending. Ember looked back at the camera. Her eyes 

were dry. There was no hate in them. Only a terrible, 

empty peace. 

Then she turned away and walked into the dark.