Omega

by Susannah Sandlin

  The tears started again. “He and Aidan think if they kill Matthias, the Tribunal will arrest them and let the rest of us go. Or at least they’ll buy us enough time to get help for the people who are sick. Will, you’ve got to stop them.”

  Damn it. They had worked too hard for this—all of them—to have Aidan and Mirren do something without thinking it through. “OK, let’s stop and think. If they go after Matthias, what will happen?”

  “He’ll kill them and make it look like it was self-defense or they were trying to escape.” Cage leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table, his shoulders hunched. “Or they succeed, and the Tribunal tracks them down. They won’t overlook another Tribunal member being killed. At best, they’d have to go through a trial, and there are still too many against them right now.”

  “They’re also wrong about it ending with them.” Randa absently rubbed Krys’s arm, but she was looking at Will. “Matthias wants Will. He wants revenge against you, Cage. He’ll be after Melissa and Glory and Krys because all of them know too many of his dirty dealings. He’d kill Hannah and me because we’re loyal to Aidan and know too much. If Krys is right and this illness is something we just have to wait out, they’re throwing everything away for what—the ability to get antinausea medication?”

  “Agreed.” Will looked at Cage, who nodded. “Then we have to stop them until they’ve had time to think.” He could believe Mirren was going off half-cocked—he’d think he was saving Glory. Aidan surprised him, though. Through this whole ordeal, for four months now, he’d been patient, calculating, careful.

  Maybe he didn’t see any other way to end it. Not just the water contamination, but the whole siege. Time had been on Matthias’s side from the beginning, and it still was.

  Not acceptable. “Glory, would you be willing to be locked in the silver cell with them?” The room had a small bathroom and a slot in the door to push food through. Krys could probably get Aidan to go into the room on some fabrication, but the only way they could wrangle Mirren was to dangle Glory as bait.

  “But she’s sick.” Krys brushed Glory’s hair away from her face and felt her forehead.

  “The only way you’ll get Mirren in that room is if I’m there.” Glory had a strong practical streak, one reason Will had always admired her. The woman never flinched. “And if they’re as stubborn as I think they’ll be, Aidan and Mirren might have to stay in that room awhile and might need to feed. I’m the only one who can do it, sick or not.” She looked apologetically at Krys, who nodded.

  Will needed strategic help on this one. “Randa, you and Cage are our military experts. How should we play this?”

  Randa didn’t hesitate. Her straight posture was rigid, her eyes bright and alert. She loved this stuff, and Will felt badly that he’d spent so long being threatened by her instead of learning from her.

  “We need to get them in the room just before daysleep, when their guard is down,” she said. “Our energy levels will be down as well, so we have to make sure everything’s in place. Who has a key to the room?”

  “I do,” Will said. “The only one—I never had time to have duplicates made before we came into Omega.”

  Randa nodded. “Then you make sure the door is unlocked and be waiting in the storage room across the hall to lock it once Mirren and Aidan are both in there. Krys, tell Aidan that Glory is in the silver cell and she’s upset and wants to talk to you about Mirren. He’ll want to do damage control.”

  Krys frowned. “I hate tricking him. After all the lies he told me when we first met, we promised we’d never lie to each other again.”

  “Would you rather have him honest and dead or tell a lie to save his life?” Will knew he sounded harsh, but time was short and everything was at stake. “With any luck, you’ll have plenty of time to apologize.”

  She looked at the floor with a slight nod.

  Randa watched her for a moment, then turned to Glory. “As soon as we see Aidan go in the room with you, Cage can tell Mirren that Glory’s in there.”

  Better Cage than Will. “Tell Mirren that Glory’s crying or sick,” he said. “It will get him moving faster.”

  That earned a weak smile from Glory.

  “Which leaves me.” Randa looked at each of them in turn. “I’ll run interference in the common room and make sure no one else goes down that hallway.”

  Cage had been listening quietly with his arms crossed and a bemused expression. “What think you, Doc?” Will asked. “Will this work?”

  “It’s a good plan,” he said, smiling at Randa. “But I hope that’s a soundproof room, because Mirren Kincaid is gonna make some noise.”

  Randa checked her watch—4:30 a.m.—and sat in the chair at the edge of the common room nearest the corridor to the hallway. Most of the fams were asleep, and the vampires were already in their rooms or on their way. Four still played cards, seated around a game table against the far wall.

  Glory, looking a little wobbly and pale, held up crossed fingers as she passed Randa on her way to the silver-lined room. Randa prayed she’d be able to talk some sense into Mirren and Aidan before she got sicker. Krys had already put bottled water, crackers, aspirin, and instant ice packs for fever in the room.

  Will had taken his place inside the doorway of the storage area across the hallway from the silver cell, key in hand. On the other side of the common room, Cage sat, ostensibly reading. But his shoulders were rigid, his feet on the floor, ready to move in an instant. He scanned the room over the top of his book.

  Randa couldn’t believe she’d finally gotten to plan an operation for the scathe and it involved locking up Aidan and Mirren. She should have felt ashamed, but her adrenaline was pumping; her body hummed with it. She’d missed this kind of rush.

  Krys emerged from the medical ward, nodded at Randa, and headed toward the room she shared with Aidan. She must have done a good acting job; Aidan passed Randa less than a minute later, headed toward the silver cell with purpose in his stride and a grim set to his jaw.

  So far, so good.

  As soon as Aidan passed him, Cage tossed his book onto the side table and headed for the generator room, where their advance scouting told them Mirren was tinkering with the machinery.

  Tears worked every time. Mirren barreled past Randa without looking at her. She gave a thumbs-up to Cage, rose to her feet, and followed Mirren at a distance, Cage close behind her.

  The only thing they hadn’t counted on was Mirren’s fast reflexes. Before Will got the door shut, Randa saw a scuffle, and Will flew across the hallway and crashed into the wall, crumpling to the floor and leaving a chipped place in the concrete.

  Cage looked at her and grinned. “Plan B,” he said, and started running. As Randa reached the doorway, she scooped up the key Will had dropped and turned just as Cage gave Mirren a hard shove back into the room.

  Will climbed to his feet and helped Cage hold the door shut by propping his feet against the wall. Randa slid the key into the lock and turned it.

  Then the yelling, cursing, and threats began, and it wasn’t just Mirren.

  Damn, but Mirren Kincaid could pack a punch. Will sat on the edge of his bed in the room he now officially shared with Randa, massaging his swollen jaw. It felt like he’d had a face-first collision with a freight train. Melissa and Mark had moved into his old room with Cage since Mel was treating the vampire like a security blanket anyway, which was probably beyond awkward for all three of them.

  Randa came into the room with a towel wrapped around an instant ice pack from Krys’s medical kit. “You’ll heal that in daysleep, but this will help the swelling. Lie back.”

  Funny how Randa’s bossy qualities didn’t bother him nearly as much as they used to. Will stretched out on the bed, and she reclined beside him, holding the makeshift compress to his face.

  “You do know Mirren will probably beat the crap out of me when this over, right?” He set the compress aside—it was cold, and ice reminded him of their poisoned water supply, wh
ich pissed him off all over again. He fingered his jaw, making sure no bones had been broken. “Cage too. We did all the dirty work. Mirren doesn’t even know you’re involved. Aidan and Mirren have both been cursing and calling me names inside my head that I can’t repeat in polite company.”

  “Oh, you poor little soldier.” She kissed his jaw. “It was my turn to be general. I devised the strategy, so it was my job to watch my minions carry it out. Big, bad Glory will protect you.”

  He turned to face her. She had been pretty spectacular tonight, and the two other master vampires had finally fallen silent, so he could think. He needed to get some tips on how to shut them out. Later.

  “Yeah, I’ll show you what a minion can do to a general.” He buried his face in the curve of her shoulder and neck, tasting his way down. “Got those sexy bikinis on tonight?”

  Randa’s heartbeat sped up as his teeth found her hard little nipple through her T-shirt and bit. “Uh. Not exactly.”

  He raised his head. “You’re wearing army-general panties, aren’t you?” Before she could wriggle out of his grasp, he had her jeans unbuttoned and a hand inside. He tugged at the waistband and glanced down. He performed his best wolf whistle. “Ooh, sexy. Gray. That’s practically like silver. On another planet.”

  Randa slapped at him, laughing. “Stop it. And if you keep stretching them, I won’t have any at all.”

  He pulled his hand out of her pants with great regret. “We only have a few minutes before daysleep, and as much as I’d love to explore the ins and outs of gray general panties, I want to run something past you.”

  She propped on her elbow and rested her hand on his thigh, then moved it higher. “Go on.”

  Shit. That was not helping him be serious. “Ah…I can’t think when you do that, sir.”

  She gave him a squeeze. “Haven’t we thought enough for today, soldier?”

  “We need to talk about your father.”

  “Jeez, Will. Talk about a mood killer.” She flopped onto her back. “OK, shoot.”

  It was probably a bad thing to spring on her right before daysleep, but it wasn’t like they dreamed—or not often, anyway. Wasn’t like she’d lie awake fretting all day. But he wanted her to think about this. Their lives might depend on her answer.

  “What would his reaction be if you went to see him? If we went to see him.” Because no way he’d let her go alone.

  He waited for her to argue. Maybe hide behind a wall of snark. But she was quiet—so quiet, in fact, that he raised his head to make sure she hadn’t already dropped into daysleep. But her eyes were open, her gaze fixed on the ceiling.

  “I have been thinking about it, ever since the whole Richard thing came up with Hannah.” She shifted around to look at him. “I honestly don’t know what his reaction would be. He might be supportive. He might see us all as a huge threat to life as he knows it. He might spare me and kill everyone I’ve come to care about. I’m having trouble separating my love for him as my dad from my fear of him as someone who could destroy us while thinking he was doing his duty.”

  Will slipped an arm underneath her shoulders and pulled her to him. She nestled into his chest, and damned if she didn’t feel perfect there. “You don’t know if he’ll react as a father or as a colonel?”

  Randa’s nod was a sweet scrape of soft curls against his collarbone. “That’s it exactly.”

  No doubt just as Will had planned it, Randa went into daysleep thinking about her father and woke at dusk with his image in her mind. Tall, broad-shouldered Rick Thomas, who had his boys on the firing range by the time they were old enough to hold guns but never quite knew what to do with his daughter. She’d learned early that her best tactic was, as much as possible, being one of the boys.

  Will had fed from her on waking, before going to check on the water system. But he’d stopped her when she’d tried to feed from him, telling her the story about how Glory and Mirren accidentally became mates by having a blood exchange after sex. “We don’t want another accident,” he’d said.

  Randa clamped down on the urge to point out they’d barely found time to have sex in any normal sense of the word, although what time they’d managed to find for each other had been amazing.

  She wasn’t sure how she felt about his “accident” remark. On the one hand, she felt rejected, which she knew was stupid. They’d never gone into this thing—whatever they had—with any long-term plans. After months of sniping, they’d finally learned to enjoy each other’s company. She respected him and knew she’d misjudged him, and thought he felt the same. He was sexy and an amazing lover, from what she’d been able to see, although she didn’t like to think about how much practice he’d had.

  So she had no right to be hurt that he wanted to avoid mating with her. Not only did Will have a lot of issues surrounding his father that he’d mostly avoided dealing with, but he reacted to perceived threat the same way she did—by putting up a wall of words and attitude.

  She sighed. Everyone had baggage. They would be a freaking disaster as a real couple, so why did she feel so disappointed?

  A knock at the door broke her out of her funk, and she opened it to find Krys—smiling for a change. “I think Aidan is ready to talk without yelling, and he’s promised Mirren won’t hit anybody.” She glanced down the hall. “Although, I probably wouldn’t hold him to that part.”

  Randa nodded. “Think they’ll agree to talk inside the silver cell? It’s fairly soundproof, and Will and I have an idea we don’t want too many ears to hear.”

  “This have something to do with what Hannah said yesterday? Want me to get her?”

  “Definitely find her and Cage.” Will appeared in the hallway behind Krys. “Fumes are worse in the water-filtration room this morning. I put a sign on the door telling everyone to stay out because of a malfunction, and cut off the water supply to all the pipes.”

  He led the way down the corridor to the silver cell and unlocked the door. Randa waited a heartbeat to make sure Mirren wasn’t going to barrel out, fist first, but when nothing happened, she opened the door and went in.

  Mirren sat on the floor in the corner, with Glory’s head in his lap, stroking her hair away from her face. He narrowed his eyes at Will and Cage, but didn’t say anything.

  Aidan kissed Krys, and Randa felt a stab of jealousy at the long look they gave each other, full of love and forgiveness. No time to mourn what would never be. She believed people were put on earth for different reasons, including vampires, and she’d accepted a long time ago that her role was not to be a soul mate to some adoring male. She suspected she’d be unsuited to it.

  Once Hannah and Cage arrived, Will closed the door and took a seat on the floor next to Randa. They all sat on the painted concrete except Glory, who’d moved to the bed next to Mirren, her hand draped over his shoulder.

  “First, don’t ever pull a fucking stunt like that again.” Mirren’s gray-eyed glare shifted from Will to Cage and back. He didn’t give Randa a second look.

  “It was my plan.” By God, she was not going to be overlooked, even if it meant getting chastised or punched. “Call it a mutiny if you want to, but we all agreed you and Aidan weren’t thinking as leaders. You were thinking as friends and mates.”

  The room’s silence fell thick and tense. Aidan stared at her with raised eyebrows, and she’d definitely gotten Mirren’s attention. Except, instead of scowling, his mouth finally curved up in something approximating a smile. “Well, well. Aidan, you were right. About damned time, little soldier. We’ve been waiting for you to come to the party.”

  Randa would have turned the color of a carrot and sunk into the floor had either been possible. Will coughed into his hand in a pathetic attempt to cover up a laugh, and she glared at him, daring him to make a smart-ass comment.

  Aidan had been quiet, but he took back authority with a single look. “I can’t say I like your methods, but you did what you thought was right. With some time, and Glory’s persuasion, we realized going direc
tly after Matthias wouldn’t save the rest of you. You’d always be looking over your shoulders. So, thanks. Just don’t do it again.”

  A wave of relief washed through Randa. The practical side of her knew Aidan would take this calmly, but some insecure core feared he’d send her back to the rank-and-file scathe or would at least regret making her one of his inner circle. He might feel that regret, but he wasn’t showing it.

  Krys cleared her throat. “I think Will and Randa have an idea.”

  They’d talked about it after waking from daysleep. It was so risky she couldn’t imagine Aidan going for it. But she and Will had agreed: they had to make it Aidan’s call. Penton had been his idea, his dream, had been made possible by his hard work and, sometimes, sheer force of will.

  She nodded at Will, reflecting that, even as recently as two weeks ago, she’d have chafed at letting him take the lead. Now she not only trusted him, but recognized that he was more likely to be listened to by Aidan and Mirren, not because he was better than her or because he was a man, but because Aidan and Mirren had known him for decades. He’d already earned their trust.

  She’d wasted a lot of time being childish and stupid, but she could make up for it now.

  “Hannah, remember what you said about Randa and me and someone named Richard finding a way out of this mess?” Will asked.

  The girl nodded, her eyes somber. “I dreamed it again last daysleep.”

  Will and Randa exchanged glances. “The only Richard either of us knows is my father.” Randa took a deep breath. “He’s a retired army colonel, a tough-guy special-operations type.”

  Mirren stood up and went to lean against the wall, hands in the pockets of his black combat pants. His defensive stance.

  “It’s obviously risky,” Will said. “And I’m not even sure what we’re asking him for, if we decide to talk to him and he agrees to help us. Do we ask for help defending against Matthias in some kind of private capacity? Or would we be asking him to help us strategize?”