To ruin an Omega

Chapter 379: Ouroboros

ALDRIC

The silence dragged on, thick enough to feel.

Every eye in the hall settled on me, unblinking, expectant.

Cian sat rigid in his chair, his face drained of color. His hands clutched the armrests so tightly the tendons stood out, his knuckles stark and bloodless. He looked like he might snap if he moved.

Gabriel remained at the center of the hall, his chest rising and falling hard, as though the words he had just spoken had taken something out of him. The accusation still hung in the air, sharp and undeniable, meant to ruin me beyond repair.

And I had nothing to counter it.

Because it was true.

I had killed my brother.

I had arranged his death, dressed it up as an accident, and let rogues carry out the part no one could trace back to me. Involving the Alpha King had only made it cleaner and safer for me. It shifted attention and built a story that people accepted without question.

No one had looked deeper.

Until now.

Still, I was not about to let Gabriel have this.

Not here. Not like this.

I straightened, slow and deliberate, and let my gaze move across the room, meeting faces one by one.

Then I tapped my fingers lightly against my leg.

Three short. Three long. Three short.

That was the signal.

Pryce would catch it. The others would too. They had all agreed on what it meant.

It was time.

For a moment, nothing changed.

The silence held. No one moved.

Then Pryce rose to his feet.

The scrape of his chair against the stone floor cut through the room, loud and jarring. Heads turned toward him at once.

He slipped a hand inside his coat.

When it emerged, there was a gun in his grip.

The hall broke apart.

Voices rose into screams. Chairs dragged harshly across the floor. People lurched back, pushing away from him, from the sudden threat that had taken shape in the center of the room.

Pryce lifted the gun and aimed it toward the gallery where Cian sat. Fia moved instantly, stepping in front of him, her body a shield. The sight of it made something twist in Cian’s expression, something sharp and almost repulsed, as he shifted himself back into the line of fire.

And then Pryce hesitated.

He didn’t fire.

Instead, he looked around.

His gaze moved across the hall, searching, waiting for movement, for anyone to rise with him.

No one did.

Not a single person.

The confusion came first, plain on his face. Then it sharpened into something closer to panic.

“What the fuck?” he said.

His voice carried, unsteady.

He turned slowly, scanning the room again, as if he had missed something the first time.

“What the fuck?” he repeated.

I felt my chest tighten.

My eyes swept the hall, faster now, searching for the others. The ones who were meant to stand. The ones who had sworn themselves to me. The ones who had taken what I offered and promised they would act when the moment came.

None of them moved.

They remained in their seats, hands folded, expressions carefully blank, as though they had never seen the signal, never heard it, never been part of anything at all.

Something cold settled deep in my stomach.

“Did you bastards not hear me?” I said.

The words came out louder than I intended, edged with something harder than control.

“Stand up and fight.”

No one stood.

I turned toward them fully now, toward the faces I knew too well. The men and women who owed me, who had accepted my money, my favors, my silence, and given me their word in return.

“My nephew already knows there are more traitors in this room,” I said. My voice rose despite myself. “Stand with me and fight, you spineless losers.”

Still nothing.

Gabriel’s voice broke through the quiet.

“That was easy.”

I looked at him.

He was smiling.

Not with triumph. Not with cruelty either. If I noticed anything, it was just a calm, steady certainty he had plastered on, as if this outcome had never been in doubt.

“The fear of using the Alpha King and getting away with it is the beginning of wisdom, is it not?” he said. His tone remained even. “No one will stand by you. I am sure they are that smart.”

I stared at him.

Of course. My own sealed protection had come back to bite me hard. Gabriel’s mention about Cian’s father’s death would lead to questions and a reopening of the case at an international level. If the Alpha King realized he had been manipulated by me and given an unjust verdict. Heads would roll.

So the backstabbing was actually a smart move. They had chosen survival over loyalty.

But it was at my own expense. And I could not have that. I felt my hands curl into fists.

Gabriel stepped closer.

“No one is coming for you, Aldric,” he said quietly. “You are alone.”

I turned back to him.

“You bastard.”

He gave a small shrug.

“Nothing personal.”

A strangled sound came from Pryce.

I looked over. He was still on his feet, the gun hanging in his hand, but his arm trembled now. The color had drained from his face, leaving him ashen.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Fuck. I fucked up. Please, spare my family, Alpha Cian. They did not know. They had no idea.”

He turned the gun.

The movement was slow and deliberate.

He raised it to his head and pressed the barrel against his temple.

“Pryce, no—”

The shot cut me off.

It cracked through the hall, deafening the whole space. Even the echo clung to the air long after the sound itself should have died.

Pryce’s body gave out beneath him.

He dropped hard to the floor. Blood spread beneath him at once, dark and quick, seeping across the stone.

The hall dissolved into chaos.

People shouted, voices rising into sharp, panicked screams. Chairs scraped and overturned as they pushed back, desperate to put distance between themselves and the body lying at the center of it all.

I did not move.

Pryce was dead.

He had chosen it, chosen to end it himself rather than face what came next.

Beside me, Ronan let out a broken sound.

“Goddess,” he whispered. “We are fucked.”

He turned toward me, his face drained, his eyes wide with something close to disbelief.

“What did you do, father?”

I said nothing.

There was nothing left to say.

Everything had fallen apart.

The coup had failed before it could even begin. The people who had sworn themselves to me had stayed in their seats, and the only loyal one, Pryce, now lay dead on the floor.

And Gabriel was still there, still breathing, still ready to speak.

Something inside me gave way.

It felt like a thread snapping, something that had been holding everything together, finally breaking under the weight.

I cannot lose now.

The thought repeated, relentless.

I cannot. I cannot. I cannot.

My body moved before the thought finished forming.

The shift began in my chest, a heat that spread outward, sharp and consuming. It moved through my limbs, through bone and muscle. I felt everything change at once, bones cracking and reshaping, muscles pulling tighter, thicker.

I stopped before it completed.

So it only came through halfway. But that was enough to make me stronger. Enough to make me faster.

The sentinels reacted at once.

Three of them stepped forward with their guns raised.

“Revert now,” one of them shouted. “Revert, or we will shoot.”

I lowered my gaze to my hands.

The chains were still locked around my wrists.

I pulled.

The metal groaned under the strain, a sharp, protesting sound as it bent and twisted.

Then it gave.

The chains snapped.

The broken lengths fell to the ground with a heavy clang.

The sentinels fired.

The shots came fast, one after another. I moved before they could land cleanly, twisting out of the line of fire. One bullet grazed my shoulder, another struck my side, shallow, painful, but not enough to slow me.

I ignored it and, with everything in me, drove forward.

Gabriel still stood in the center of the hall. He had stepped back at the first shot, but it had not been enough.

He was weak.

Starvation and dehydration had stripped him down to almost nothing. His body could not respond the way it once had. He could not shift in time. He could not defend himself.

I hit him before he could react.

My hands closed around his throat as I dragged him back against me. He was lighter than I expected, his weight giving too easily. I could feel his ribs beneath my grip, the sharp outline of bone through skin.

I pulled him tight and turned, positioning him between myself and the sentinels.

“Back off,” I said.

My voice came out rough, distorted by the shift still clinging to me.

The sentinels stopped.

Their guns remained raised, steady, but they did not fire.

Gabriel struggled weakly in my grip. His hands came up and clawed at my arms but he did not have the strength to do any real damage.

I tightened my hold, and he stopped struggling.

“This is not how I go out,” I said. My voice was louder now. Steadier. “This is not where I end. I am indomitable.”

Gabriel let out a choked laugh.

“No,” he rasped. “You are a weak wolf who cannot stand on business and die with honor. Your head rolls today anyway, whether you choose to let it roll with dignity or not.”

The sentinels had begun to move.

They circled slowly, measured in every step, their formation tightening without ever breaking. Their guns remained fixed on me, steady, unshaking, but none of them pulled the trigger.

They could not.

Not while Gabriel stood between us.

I tightened my hold on him and dragged him closer, forcing his back flush against my chest. Then I dipped my head, bringing my mouth close to his ear.

“I still have the ring,” I whispered.

Gabriel went rigid in my grip. Completely still, as if even the smallest movement might betray him.

“And you are still my little bitch,” I continued, my voice low, controlled. “Because I know you did not tell them. Some kind of hero you are.”

I felt the tension ripple through him, sharp and immediate, his body locking as the words settled in.

Then I moved.

My hand rose, the one bearing the ring. The blood-red stone caught the light, glinting for a brief second.

Then my claws dragged across his throat.

The resistance lasted only a moment.

The cut opened clean and deep.

Blood burst from the wound at once, hot and forceful, spraying across my hand and soaking into the front of his shirt. It came in a thick rush, spilling over my fingers, running down his chest in heavy streams that darkened the fabric almost instantly.

Gabriel’s body jerked in my hold.

A wet, choking sound forced its way out of him, uneven and broken, as the air he tried to draw in tangled with the blood flooding his throat. His hands came up weakly, instinctively, grasping at nothing, at me, at the space in front of him, as if he could hold himself together.

The sentinels froze completely.

For a fraction of a second, the entire hall seemed to stop with them.

I held him for a moment longer. Then I shoved my hand into the flow of blood. I pressed the ring against the wound. Let the blood soak into the stone. Let it coat the metal band.

The hall erupted into chaos.

People were screaming now. Really screaming. Not just shocked exclamations. Full-throated terror.

The sentinels were shouting.

“Drop him!”

“Let him go now!”

I ignored them.

I kept my hand pressed against Gabriel’s throat. Kept the ring submerged in the blood.

I intended to rise above this. No matter what.