To ruin an Omega

Chapter 415: To wear a man

FIA

I watched Gabriel’s expression shift.

The conviction that had been there seconds ago when he pressed the fork toward his throat dissolved into something calmer. Saner. His breathing evened out, and when he spoke again, his voice had lost that frantic edge.

“I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his hand from where it had frozen mid-air. “I don’t know what came over me. I guess… My mental health is still in a very bad place, I think.”

The fork clattered against the table.

Morrigan moved closer, her hand hovering near his shoulder but not quite touching. “Gabriel, that was—”

“Terrifying,” he finished for her. “I know. I’m sorry for scaring you both.”

I studied his face.

His words before had been muddled. Panicked. Like someone drowning and trying to scream for help, with water already filling their lungs. But now he sounded reasonable. Almost clinical in the way he described his own mental state.

Underneath it all, though, I felt something else.

A simmering rage that pulsed just beneath the surface of his skin. It felt familiar in a way I couldn’t place, like a scent I’d caught once in passing and never quite forgotten.

I turned to Morrigan. She was nodding along with whatever Gabriel was saying now, her expression softening into sympathy.

“This feels wrong,” I said.

Both of them looked at me.

Gabriel put his head down, his elbows bracing against the table. “I know. I know it does.”

He covered his face with his hands, and when he spoke again, his voice came out muffled. “I still get haunted by my brother. I didn’t think it was that bad. But it is.”

My chest tightened.

The unease didn’t lift. If anything, it dug deeper, settling into my bones like ice that wouldn’t melt no matter how much warmth I tried to pour over it.

“You knew about the delicate?” I asked.

His hands dropped slightly, just enough for me to see his eyes. They were red-rimmed, tired, but something in them sharpened when I said the word.

“Yes,” he said. “When I was in my cell, Aldric mentioned it. He talked about a lot of things while I was locked up. He planned to use the girl to figure you out… I believe.”

I reached across the table before I could second-guess myself. My hand closed over his, and I squeezed gently.

It looked like an act of kindness. Comfort for a man who had been through hell and was still crawling his way out of it.

But inside, I prayed.

I prayed to the goddess with every fiber of my being to show me something. Anything. To alleviate this sickly feeling that had lodged itself in my chest the moment Gabriel looked directly at me and said you’re going to die.

I wanted a vision. Sure, it had only happened once. But I needed one.

Because I didn’t know why my heart and mind were suddenly turning against someone who should have been safe. Someone who was family.

Nothing came.

No flash of insight. No sudden clarity.

Just the feel of his pulse beneath my fingers, steady and strong.

“What about the letters?” I asked, keeping my voice light. “What could that be about?”

He looked up, and for a split second, I saw something cross his face.

Death.

Cold and absolute and utterly devoid of mercy.

But then it was gone, smoothed over so quickly I almost convinced myself I’d imagined it.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It just came from some buried trauma, I think.”

I rubbed my thumb over the back of his hand. “What triggered it? Just now, I mean.”

His gaze flicked to the fork still lying on the table.

“The knife and the fork, I believe,” he said quietly. “I had self-harm thoughts while I was in his prison.”

I looked down at his hands. At his wrists where the sleeves of his shirt had ridden up slightly.

There were no scars.

Not a single mark.

My fingers shifted, pressing more firmly against the inside of his wrist, feeling for his pulse again. It beat strongly and even beneath my touch, no irregularity, no sign of distress.

“And the people he killed too,” I said.

His pulse spiked. then

It was brief but unmistakable. A sudden jump that made my own heart stutter in response.

“Who?” I pressed.

Grand Luna Morrigan’s voice cut in before he could answer. “Fia, maybe we should get him to the infirmary.”

Gabriel’s head snapped toward her so fast it should have given him whiplash.

“I agree,” he said immediately. “I feel strange.”

I hesitated.

Maybe I was overthinking this. He would have seen Aldric write letters, wouldn’t he? He’d been imprisoned by the man for years. He would have witnessed things. Heard things. Maybe even seen Aldric hurt people.

Maybe.

But he’d said killed

someone. And he’d added his own before cutting himself off mid-sentence.

His own what?

I didn’t press.

“Right,” I said slowly. “The infirmary.”

I stood and moved around the table to help him up. Morrigan joined me on his other side, and together we guided him to his feet. He swayed slightly, and I put my hand on his back to steady him.

The moment my palm made contact with his spine, blue light erupted from my fingers.

It wasn’t gradual. It wasn’t gentle.

I did not feel that usual beat that came before the flow of power.

This… It blazed bright and hot and immediate, flooding through my hand and into him before I could even process what was happening.

Gabriel screamed.

The sound tore from his throat, raw and agonized, and he collapsed forward. His knees hit the floor hard, and I barely managed to pull my hand back before he went down completely.

The panicked voice returned.

That same desperate, drowning tone from before.

“It’s you,” he gasped, his head jerking up to look at me. “You’re the reason I still have any control over this body.”

Morrigan and I both froze.

“What?” Morrigan breathed.

“Aldric has stolen this—”

He stopped.

Just stopped mid-sentence like someone had slammed a door shut on the words.

I watched his expression shift again. That calm, reasonable mask slid back into place even as his body stayed rigid on the floor.

Then I saw it.

Blood.

It seeped through the back of his shirt right where my hand had touched him, spreading in a dark stain that grew wider with each passing second.

I stepped back, my arm shooting out to push Morrigan behind me.

“What’s going on?” she asked, her voice climbing higher.

I didn’t take my eyes off Gabriel.

“That’s no longer Uncle Gabriel,” I said.

“What?”

I shifted my stance, keeping myself between her and him. “It’s Aldric in control now. Isn’t it?”

Gabriel’s head tilted.

Slowly. Deliberately.

No. This was not Gabriel.

Then he smiled.

It was wrong. Everything about it was wrong. The curve of his lips didn’t match the coldness in his eyes, and the way he looked at me made my skin crawl.

“You always ruin my plans,” he said.

His voice was still Gabriel’s, but the cadence was different. Sharper. More controlled.

I recognized it. My accusation stood firm because I had been right.

He moved.

One second, he was on the floor, the next he was lunging toward us with a speed that shouldn’t have been possible for someone who’d just collapsed.

I shoved Morrigan hard to the side and threw myself in the opposite direction.

He missed us both by inches.

His body slammed into the table, and dishes went flying. The crash of porcelain shattering against the floor filled the room, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was already turning, already adjusting his trajectory toward me.

I scrambled backward, my hands reaching for anything I could use as a weapon.

My fingers closed around a chair, and I swung it up just as he came at me again.

It connected with his shoulder, knocking him off balance, but he recovered too quickly. His hand shot out and grabbed the chair, ripping it from my grip and throwing it aside like it weighed nothing.

“Fia, run!” Morrigan’s voice came from somewhere behind me.

I couldn’t.

If I ran, he’d go after her. She was closer to the door, and pregnant women weren’t supposed to be running from murderous souls wearing stolen bodies.

I planted my feet and raised my hands.

The goddess blessed me, and blue light flickered at my fingertips.

He saw it and laughed.

The sound was harsh and grating, nothing like Gabriel’s warm chuckle.

“You think that will stop me?” he asked. “You couldn’t even finish the rune properly. All you did was make things harder for both of us.”

I did think it would work again. Gabriel. The real Gabriel had given me something to work with. My healing touch did something to Aldric. It hurt him in a way.

He lunged again.

This time, I was ready.

I drove my palm forward, aiming for his chest, and the moment I made contact, the blue light exploded outward.

He screamed.

It was the same agonized sound from before, but this time, he didn’t collapse. He staggered back, clutching at his back, which was odd because that was not where my hand had touched. I saw smoke rising from beneath his fingers.

The smell of burning flesh hit me a second later.

“You bitch,” he snarled.

I needed that shirt off. Something was going on under there that I needed to figure out.

That was, of course, if Cian and all the sentinels of the pack did not get here first.