To ruin an Omega - Chapter 331: Push

Chapter 331: Push

FIA

I pushed my chair back before I could stop myself.

The scrape of wood against stone was louder than I meant it to be, but no one called after me. Cian had already slipped out of the dining room, easy and unhurried, like he had not just told a table full of people that a woman vanished from the estate before dawn.

Not that anyone aside from Aldric seemed genuinely disturbed about it.

I caught sight of his back as he turned down the corridor, and I followed.

He was halfway through the second turn when I reached him.

“Wait.”

He stopped without looking annoyed, which somehow unsettled me more. When he turned, the warmth from breakfast was still on his face, that soft almost amused expression he wore when he wanted people to feel at ease. It looked arranged now, like something he had put on carefully before stepping back into the house.

“You could have told me,” I said, lowering my voice so it would not carry back through the doors. “You did not have to let me find out like that.”

His mouth tilted at one corner. Not quite a smile. Not quite an apology. “I know.”

That was it. No explanation.

I glanced back down the hallway. I could sense the doors were shut, and the voices I could make out were muffled into a dull hum. No footsteps seemed to have followed us. No one was watching. Only then did I let out a breath and faced him again.

“So did she really leave?” I asked. “Or did you do something?”

The question felt dangerous the second it left my mouth, but I could not swallow it back.

“Do not worry about it.”

It was too quick and far too smooth. It slid over the surface of the truth without touching it. He did not deny it. He did not confirm it either. He just left me standing there with the weight of it.

He studied me for a moment, head tilted slightly as if I were something he was trying to understand. “Did you see how frightened Aldric looked?”

There was something in his voice. Satisfaction. A quiet kind of pleasure.

“He is going to start making mistakes now,” Cian went on. “Push the wrong people. If I have played this right, Valentine will be next.”

Valentine. That man?

The name hit me so hard I felt it in my throat. My chest tightened before I could stop it, fear rising sharp and fast, and I knew he saw it. I was not shielding. I had not expected to need to. The panic spilled out of me anyway, raw and unfiltered.

“Valentine?” I heard how thin my voice sounded and hated it. “Why would he be involved in this?”

I almost said more. Almost asked what he planned to do. I stopped myself because I could feel my face betraying me, I could feel the way my eyes must have widened. I hated that too. Hated that he could read me so easily when I had spent so long since recent revealations learning how not to be read at all.

He stepped closer.

His fingers brushed my jaw, light and almost careful, like he was soothing something fragile. The gentleness did not match the sharpness in his eyes.

“What is wrong?” he asked quietly. “Why are you afraid?”

I forced myself to breathe through it. To think of something reasonable, something that did not sound like I cared too much.

“I know what your uncle is like,” I said. The words came uneven, but I kept going. “I know how he reacts when he feels cornered. If another witch gets dragged into this, what do you think will happen?”

“I want Valentine dragged into it.”

He did not hesitate.

I stared at him.

“He either stands with me,” Cian said, each word measured, steady, “or his daughter dies.”

The corridor felt smaller after that. The walls closer. The air thicker.

“Do you mean that?” I asked.

There was a part of me that needed him to laugh. To say he was exaggerating. To tell me it was strategy, not intent.

I did want someone dead. But I wasn’t sure why. In whatever reality I could imagine, I couldn’t see him killing Madeline.

Aldric on the other hand was a ’need’.

“I hope it does not come to that,” he replied. “But there is no line I would not cross to protect my family. You.”

He let his hand fall away from my face as if that settled the matter.

There you go, his expression seemed to say.

I swallowed, trying to slow the rush of thoughts tumbling over one another. Protect my family. The words sounded noble on the surface. They always did. But protection could look like anything if you stretched it far enough.

“Where is she?” I asked, because I needed to focus on something solid. “Is she still on the grounds, or did you move her?”

His smile came slowly this time, curling at the edges in a way that made my stomach tighten.

“I will tell you,” he said. “If you tell me something first.”

I already knew I would not like whatever came next.

“I think I have been generous,” he continued lightly. “and you on the other hand, you have been very quiet about yourself. About what you are hiding.”

My pulse thudded in my ears. He was not guessing. He was circling.

“What secrets?” I asked, trying to sound confused instead of cornered.

He just looked at me, patient.

The corridor stretched behind him, empty and silent, and for a moment I had the strange sense that I was standing at the edge of something I could not step back from. If I told him anything real, I would not be able to take it back. If I refused, he would know that alone was an answer.

“I think I have given enough,” he said softly.

The warmth from breakfast was gone now. What stood in front of me felt sharper, clearer, stripped of performance.

I held his gaze and tried to decide which was worse, the secrets I kept or the ones he was willing to create.

I did not shield. I made myself keep my emotions in check, locked down as tightly as I could manage. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“I saw you last night.” His voice stayed even, almost conversational. “You left the room when you thought I was sleeping. After saying the most ominous thing I have ever heard.”

Heat prickled at the back of my neck. “You heard that?”

“Yeah.” He crossed his arms, leaning his weight against the wall behind him. “I also know, deep in my heart, that you did not go for air.”

“Maybe I did.”

“You didn’t.” The words were soft but unyielding. “I saw you enter the infirmary. I know Thorne was on seat. I also know he would know a lot about what you’re keeping from me. Because you trust him and Maren. But I am also his Alpha and he cannot refuse me. Not like that.” He paused, letting that sink in. “I was going to go over there and force his hand before you came here to accost me. And I just decided, you know what? Let us just hash it out here. What are you keeping from me, Fia? Just spill it. You are my mate. We shouldn’t have secrets. Not these kind.”

I held his gaze for as long as I could. Then I looked away, staring at a spot on the wall just past his shoulder. My throat felt tight. “You would not understand.”

“Why would not I?”

“You’ll get in my head.” The words came out sharper than I meant them to. “Convince me to stop it. I mean, Thorne has already tried. But he does not know what is coming.”

Cian’s eyebrow lifted. “What is coming?”

I felt the trap close around me. My pulse kicked up, panic flooding through me again. “I knew it,” he said, softer now. “That reaction you gave at the pool, you saw something.”

“That is not it.” The denial was automatic, desperate.

“What could it be then?”

I was cornered. Completely and utterly cornered. He was not going to let this go. I could feel it in the way he watched me, patient and relentless all at once. I had two choices. I could tell him about the vision, about watching him die at Aldric’s hand, about the future pressing down on me like a weight I could not carry alone. Or I could give him something else. Something equally uncomfortable but farther from the truth I could not afford to share.

I took a breath. Forgive me, mother-in-law.

“Remember what I said about Lady Selene?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“It is true.”

“I know. I believed you. I never doubted you.”

I swallowed. “I am not just an Omega anymore, Cian. And I wasn’t just lucky that the goddess decided to show me mercy that night.”

The words hung between us. He did not move. Did not interrupt. He just waited.

“When that delicate was blinded,” I continued, forcing the words out, “I felt her pain. I connected to her and I—”

“What?”

“I healed her.”

His expression shifted. Confusion first, then something sharper. “What? That makes no sense. She was blinded when she left here. I felt guilty.”

“I am sorry.”

“Why was that a secret?” His voice rose slightly, not loud enough to carry but enough that I felt the weight of it. “Why would that be a secret?”

I looked down at my hands. “Because the delicate girl drew something. Something she said you would have wanted from her.”

I saw the moment it clicked. The way his eyes widened just a fraction, the way his entire body stilled.

“Who did she draw?” His voice had gone very quiet.

I met his gaze and held it. “Valentine.”

The silence stretched out. I could feel my heart hammering against my ribs, could feel the fear still churning in my chest. I had thrown him off the scent of the vision, but I had given him something else instead. Something that would raise questions I was not prepared to answer.

Cian did not move. He just stood there, staring at me like I had said something in a language he was still translating.

“Valentine,” he repeated, testing the name.

I nodded.

He ran a hand through his hair, exhaled slowly. “The delicate drew Valentine.”

“Yes.”

“And you healed her.”

“Yes.”

“So she can see again.”

“Yes.”

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he let out a short, sharp breath that might have been a laugh if it had carried any humor. “Goddess,” he said quietly. “You just gave me more problems than solutions.”

I said nothing. There was nothing to say.

He pushed off the wall, took a step closer. “Where is it now? The drawing?”

I hesitated. “We have it. Your mother has it.”