To ruin an Omega - Chapter 413: Unethical 2

Chapter 413: Unethical 2

ALDRIC

I went back to where I had left her beneath the leaves and earth, and I made the grave deeper. Not deep enough to hide her forever, but deep enough to buy time. Enough time to let the pieces I had set in motion do their work. Enough time to get far away before anyone started asking the right questions.

I had smoothed the dirt carefully and covered it with fresh leaves, making it look like nothing more than a patch of disturbed ground in a forest full of disturbed ground. If someone found it, they would find it. But it would not be today. It would not be this week.

And by the time they did, I would be gone. Or so I thought.

“I cannot just sit here,” Cian said, his voice cutting through my thoughts. “I need to join them. I need to scour the place myself.”

I blinked and refocused on the room. Morrigan sat across from me, her tea forgotten. Fia had gone still beside Cian, her hand resting on his arm in a way that was meant to be grounding.

“You should calm down,” Fia said gently. “I am sure nothing happened. Elara probably just needed space and went somewhere quiet to think as she prepared to leave.”

“My heart is not at peace,” Cian said, shaking his head. “I will go.”

“Then I will join you,” Fia said, already starting to rise.

“No.” Morrigan’s voice was firm. She set her tea down and looked at Fia with the kind of maternal authority that left no room for argument. “You should stay. You should remember you are with a child. You do not need the stress.”

Fia hesitated, then sank back into her seat. Cian leaned down and kissed the top of her head, his hand lingering on her shoulder for a moment longer than necessary.

“I will be back,” he said quietly.

He turned to me then, and I saw the question forming before he even opened his mouth.

“Let me join you,” I said, keeping my tone light and concerned. The kind of thing a recently freed uncle would say to his nephew who was clearly spiraling.

“You should stay, Uncle Gabriel,” Cian said. “Just eat and rest.”

I wanted to argue. I wanted to insist. If I could get out there with him, I could steer the search away from the places that mattered. I could make sure no one got too close to the forest line. I could ensure that even if they found something, it would not be today.

But Cian was adamant.

His jaw had set in that way Alphas did when they had made up their minds, and I knew pushing further would only raise suspicion.

So I let it go.

I smiled at him with warmth, which also did the work of reassuring. The kind of smile Gabriel would have probably given.

“Of course,” I said. “I understand.”

Cian nodded once, then turned and left the room. The door closed behind him with a soft click, and the silence that followed felt heavier than it should have.

I sat there with Morrigan and Fia, the two of them exchanging quiet words I did not bother listening to, and I considered my options.

It would be easy to kill them both.

Morrigan first. A quick snap of the neck before she even had time to scream. Her teacup would fall. It would shatter against the floor. And in that brief moment of confusion, before Fia even registered what had happened, I could be on her.

She was pregnant, which would fuck up her common sense and make her slower. All those hormones and overwhelming empathy. It made people vulnerable. It would do the same for her. She would be more vulnerable than she had been a day ago. The instinct to protect the child would make her hesitate. It would make her second-guess. And in that hesitation, I could do whatever I wanted.

I could take my time with her if I chose to. Make it hurt. Make it last. Make it the kind of thing that would break Cian so completely that he would never recover. The thought of his face when he came back and found them both dead brought with it a flicker of satisfaction that I did not bother suppressing.

He would crumble. He would rage. He would tear the world apart looking for answers that would never come, even if he did take me and Gabriel to the afterlife in the most brutal way imaginable.

It was tempting.

So very tempting.

But then reality settled back in, cold and unwelcome.

Death hurts.

I had died once now, and that one time had been worse than anything I had experienced while alive. I still remember it clear as day. The way and manner Cian had ripped my head out in the clearing, while my own body betrayed me. I had felt every second of it. The tearing. The blood filling my lungs. The darkness creeping in while my vision narrowed to a pinpoint.

The pain did not end when the body stopped. It lingered. It clung. It followed you into whatever came next, and there was no escaping it.

No rest from it.

No mercy in it.

And I did not want to go through that again.

Not so quickly.

Not when I had just gotten back. Not when I had only just started to regain some semblance of control.

The rune was unstable. The witch had made that clear. If I died in Gabriel’s body now, there was no guarantee what would happen to my soul, and she was not sure why I was gambling with such dangerous magic, as the magic itself, with the state of the rune now, had the capacity to unravel completely. I might be cast out into the void with nowhere to anchor.

That fear was enough to keep my hands still.

So I smiled at them instead. I picked up my fork and took a bite of the eggs that had been sitting untouched on my plate. I made small talk. I asked Fia how she was feeling. I complimented Morrigan on the breakfast spread. I played the part of the grateful, recovering uncle who was just happy to be alive and free and sitting at a table with family.

They bought it.

Of course they did.

People always bought what they wanted to believe.

Morrigan was still talking about nursery colors when I felt it. A shift. A pull. Something deep inside the body that was not mine to control.

I had felt it before. In the moments when Gabriel pushed back. When he tried to claw his way to the surface and take back what belonged to him. But this was different.

The pull hurt because of how forceful it was.

The pull grew stronger. Sharper. It dragged at me with a force I had not anticipated, and I barely had time to brace myself before everything tilted sideways.

I tried to hold on. I tried to dig my claws into the edges of consciousness and keep myself anchored, but it was useless. Whatever this pull and move that Gabriel was making now, it was stronger than me. Stronger than the rune. Stronger than anything I had prepared for.

The last thing I heard before I lost my grip was Morrigan’s voice, bright and warm and completely unaware of what was happening.

“Gabriel, are you alright? You look pale.”

Then everything went dark.

And when I came back, I was not alone anymore. No… That was not it. It was the fact that I was not in the driver’s seat or the one turning the wheel anymore.

Gabriel had taken over his body once again.