To ruin an Omega

Chapter 224: Vital

CIAN

I stood there staring at my phone, at Garrett’s message, still smiling like an idiot. Fia would be home soon. Everything was falling into place. The weight I’d been carrying was gone, and now she’d be back where she belonged.

A knock at my door pulled me from my thoughts.

“Come in,” I called out.

An Omega pushed the door open and bowed her head slightly. Her hands were clasped in front of her.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Dinner is ready, Alpha Cian. The Grand Luna requests everyone at the table.”

I nodded. “I’ll be right there.”

She stayed in the doorway for a millisecond waiting while I glanced at the waste bin beside my drawer where the broken frame had landed.

“Actually, can you help me toss this out?” I gestured toward the bin.

She bowed again and stepped inside to retrieve it. I left the room then and made my way down the hall, my footsteps echoing against the walls.

The dining room was already full when I arrived. Elara sat near the head of the table, her posture perfect. My mother was seated beside her, looking more relaxed than I’d seen her in days. Ronan occupied his usual spot, and even Madeline and Wilhelm were present. Madeline’s eyes met mine briefly before she looked away.

I found an empty seat and settled into it.

“Uncle Aldric isn’t here,” I said, scanning the table once more.

Elara shook her head. “He had to leave to attend to some matters at our estate.”

I nodded. It made sense.

My gaze shifted to my mother. “Should we be worried about this semi mandatory dinner?”

She chuckled, the sound warm and familiar. “No. I just missed this, I guess. It’s been a while since we’ve all sat together like this.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It has been.”

More Omegas entered carrying trays laden with food. The scents hit me immediately. Rich, savory, with hints of herbs and spices I recognized from childhood. This wasn’t the usual formal dinner fare. This was home cooking. My mother’s cooking.

They moved around the table, placing dishes and plating food with practiced efficiency. When one of them set my plate in front of me, the aroma made my mouth water. Roasted meat with a glaze that caught the light. Vegetables seasoned exactly the way I remembered. Fresh bread that was still warm.

“Did you cook this?” I asked my mother.

She smiled. “I did.”

I picked up my fork and took a bite. The flavors exploded across my tongue. Familiar and comforting in ways I couldn’t put into words.

“I missed this,” I said.

“Me too.” Her eyes softened. “Is Fia not yet back?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. But they’re close. They should arrive in an hour at most.”

“That’s good.”

I turned back to my plate, cutting another piece of meat. The conversation around the table hummed quietly. Ronan said something to Elara that made her laugh. Wilhelm was focused entirely on his food. Madeline picked at hers, pushing vegetables around with her fork.

When I brought another forkful to my mouth, that was when pain exploded through my chest.

It hit like a freight train, sudden and devastating. My throat seized and I choked on the food, but this wasn’t choking. This was something else entirely. Something wrong and deeply unsettling.

The fork clattered from my hand.

“Cian?” someone said.

Ronan was beside me in an instant. His hand slammed against my back, once, twice, trying to dislodge whatever he thought was stuck in my throat.

But the pain only intensified. It spread through my chest like wildfire, burning, tearing and ripping at me. My hands clutched at my shirt, fingers digging into the fabric.

This wasn’t my pain.

It was Fia’s.

The mate bond vibrated with agony. Every nerve in my body screamed. My vision blurred at the edges and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except feel the overwhelming wrongness of it all.

She was… she was dying.

The knowledge slammed into me with absolute certainty. Somewhere out there, Fia was dying, and I could feel every second of it through the bond that connected us.

Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the pain vanished.

It did not fade. Or suddenly lessen. It was completely gone.

And in its place was nothing.

I reached for the bond instinctively, the way I’d done a thousand times before. That constant awareness of her, that pull that let me know she existed somewhere in the world.

It wasn’t there.

The space where it should have been was empty and hollow. It felt like I was reaching for something in the dark and finding only air.

My chest felt wrong and incomplete. There was a void where something vital should have existed.

I stared at the table. At my plate. At the food I’d been eating just moments ago. The room had gone completely silent.

My mother’s voice cut through the quiet. “Cian, what’s wrong?”

I looked up at her… At Ronan standing beside me with his hand still raised… At Elara’s concerned expression… At Madeline and Wilhelm watching with wide eyes.

I pushed back from the table and stood. My legs felt unsteady, like they might give out at any moment.

“Fia,” I said. My voice sounded strange. Distant. “I can’t feel her.”

The words hung in the air.

Then I was moving. Running. My feet carried me through the dining room, down the hall, out the main doors. The night air hit my face but I barely registered it.

I needed to get to her. Now.

The cars were parked in the circular drive. I headed straight for the nearest one, fumbling in my pocket for keys I didn’t have.

“Cian, wait up!”

Ronan’s voice came from behind me, followed by the sound of his footsteps pounding against the ground.

I yanked on the car door handle. It was locked.

“Damn it,” I hissed.

Ronan caught up to me, breathing hard. “What are you doing?”

“I need to get to her.” I pulled at the handle again like it might magically open this time. “Something’s wrong. Something happened.”

“Okay. Okay.” Ronan pulled out his phone. “Let me call Garrett. Find out what’s going on.”

“There’s no time for that.”

“Cian, you can’t just—”

“The bond is gone, Ronan.” I turned to face him. Whatever he saw in my expression made him stop mid-sentence. “I can’t feel her anymore. At all. She’s either…. She is either dead or something so catastrophically wrong happened that it feels like the mate bond severed.”

He stared at me. Then he was moving, pulling keys from his pocket and heading toward another car.

“Get in,” he said.

I didn’t need to be told twice. I wrenched open the passenger door and threw myself inside. Ronan slid into the driver’s seat and jammed the key into the ignition.

The engine roared to life.

He threw the car into gear and we peeled out of the drive, gravel spraying behind us. The estate gates loomed ahead, already starting to open.

My hands were shaking. I pressed them against my thighs, trying to steady them, but it didn’t help. Nothing helped. That emptiness in my chest was growing, expanding, threatening to swallow me whole.

“Call Garrett,” Ronan said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “See if he answers.”

I pulled out my phone with trembling fingers, found Garrett’s number and then hit call.

It rang once. Then twice. I started to lose count after the third time.

But the damning part of it was Garrett wasn’t picking.

“Come on,” I muttered. “Pick up. Pick up.”

He didn’t. And the call went to fucking voicemail.

I ended the call and immediately dialed again.

The same endless ringing happened. It ended with the same voicemail mess.

“He’s not answering,” I said.

Ronan’s jaw clenched. He pressed harder on the accelerator and the car surged forward. Trees blurred past the windows.

I tried the bond again. I reached for it desperately, hoping maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe it was just weakened somehow. Maybe if I focused hard enough I could find that thread that connected us.

But there was nothing.

Just that horrible, yawning emptiness.

My throat tightened. My chest felt like it was caving in on itself.

“She’s okay,” Ronan said. “She has to be okay.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer. Because I didn’t know. And the not knowing was worse than anything else.

The road stretched out endlessly before us. Every second felt like an eternity. Every mile might as well have been a thousand.

And somewhere out there, the thought that Fia was either dying or already gone burned through my very soul.

I couldn’t take it.

My hands were shaking so badly I had to steady my wrist with my other hand as I unlocked my phone again. Logic had already told me this was pointless. Fear did not care about logic.

I dialed her number.

It rang.

Once.

Twice.

The sound drilled straight into my skull. Each ring felt heavier than the last, like it was pressing down on my chest, stealing air from my lungs. I leaned forward in my seat, as if getting closer might somehow make her answer.

“Please,” I whispered. I did not know who I was begging anymore. “Fia, please.”

The ringing stopped.

For half a second, hope flared so sharp it hurt.

Then her voicemail picked up.

“Hey, you have reached Fia,” Her voice filled the car, calm and familiar, so painfully alive that something inside me snapped. My vision blurred. The sound became unbearable, like salt in an open wound.

“No,” I choked. “No, no, no.”

I ended the call and stared at the screen, my reflection warped and shaking. My chest seized, breath coming in broken, ugly gasps. The emptiness from the bond surged again, vast and merciless, swallowing every thought.

“Fuck!” A raw sound tore out of me before I could stop it. Rage, terror and grief all twisted together until I couldn’t tell them apart. I reeled back and hurled my phone with everything I had.

It smashed into the windscreen in front of me.

Glass cracked with a violent snap, splintering outward in a jagged spiderweb that crawled across the pane.