Kade's POV
"This shouldn't be possible."
I paced the private suite like a caged animal, my wolf clawing at my insides. The other three watched me—Damon sitting with his head in his hands, Ash unusually quiet by the window, Ryker leaning against the wall with that knowing look I'd learned to hate.
"Alphas don't share mates," I continued. "It's basic pack law. One alpha, one omega. The bond is exclusive. So why did all four of our wolves claim the same woman?"
"You felt it too?" Damon looked up, his gold eyes wild. "I thought I was going crazy. The second I touched her hand, my wolf went insane. MATE. Over and over. MATE."
"Same," Ash admitted, running a hand through his platinum hair. "I've shaken hands with a thousand women. Never felt anything like that."
I stopped pacing and faced them. "So we're all experiencing the same impossible thing. Which means either we're all crazy, or something about Valdis is different."
"She's not Valdis," Ryker said quietly.
We all turned to stare at him.
"What are you talking about?" I demanded.
"Those eyes. That power." Ryker pushed off the wall, his expression grave. "I've been searching through the prophecies since we got back to the room. There's only one explanation." He pulled out his phone and showed us an ancient text. "Primordial Omega."
The words hit me like a punch to the gut.
"That's a myth," Damon said, but his voice wavered.
"Is it?" Ryker met each of our eyes. "Primordial Omegas were real once. The first of our kind. Powerful enough to bond with multiple alphas simultaneously. They could amplify their mates' abilities, create unbreakable packs." He paused. "They've been extinct for three hundred years. Or so we thought."
"You think Valdis is—" Ash started.
"I think Valdis is Nyx Ashford," Ryker interrupted. "And I think Nyx Ashford is a Primordial Omega."
Silence crashed over the room.
"That's insane," I said, but my mind was racing. The silver-white hair. The violet eyes. The power that made even alpha warriors submit. The impossible strength in someone who looked so delicate. "Nyx was weak. She could barely fight back. There's no way—"
"What if that weakness was a disguise?" Ryker's red-amber eyes bored into mine. "What if something was suppressing her true nature, and when we rejected her, when she nearly died..." He let the implication hang.
"We broke whatever was hiding her power," Ash finished, his face pale. "We activated a Primordial Omega."
"And now she's back for revenge," Damon added grimly.
I sank into a chair, my mind spinning. If Ryker was right—if Valdis really was Nyx—then we hadn't just bullied an omega. We'd tortured and tried to kill the most powerful wolf in generations. The one wolf destined to be our mate.
All four of our mate.
"What do we do?" I asked.
"We confirm it first," Ash said. "Ryker could be wrong. Maybe Valdis just resembles her, maybe—"
"I'm not wrong." Ryker's voice was certain. "I recognized her the moment she turned around. I've been having nightmares about those eyes for five years."
Guilt twisted in my chest. We all had nightmares about that night. About watching her fall. About searching for her body and finding nothing. We'd told ourselves she was dead, that we could move on.
We'd been lying to ourselves.
"If it is her," Damon said slowly, "and she's here for revenge... what's her endgame?"
"To destroy us," I said simply. "Everything we are, everything we've built. She wants to watch us burn."
"Can you blame her?" Ryker's question was quiet but devastating.
No. I couldn't. We'd been monsters. Young, cruel, entitled monsters who'd used her as a punching bag for our own frustrations. I'd convinced myself she deserved it—that her father's debt made her property, that her weakness made her worthless.
I'd been so wrong.
"We need to talk to her," Ash said. "Confirm who she is. Figure out what she wants."
"And then what?" Damon challenged. "Apologize? 'Sorry we tortured you for three years and threw you off a cliff, but hey, turns out you're our destined mate!' That'll go over well."
"We have to try." I stood up, decision made. "If the mate bond is real, she's feeling it too. It's incomplete, which means it's hurting her as much as it's hurting us." Already, I could feel the pull—an invisible string connecting me to her, yanking at my chest. "We find her. We talk. We figure this out."
"She's not going to make it easy," Ryker warned.
"Good," I said. "We don't deserve easy."
Nyx's POV
I barely made it to my suite before my legs gave out.
The mate bond was killing me. Actually, physically killing me. Every cell in my body screamed to go back to them, to let the bond snap into place, to claim what was biologically mine.
"No," I gasped, clutching the edge of the dresser. "No, no, no."
MATES, my wolf howled. GO BACK. NEED THEM. OURS.
"They tried to kill us!"
MATES. FORGIVE. BOND. COMPLETE.
"I will never forgive them." I slid down to the floor, wrapping my arms around myself. The pain was worse than breaking bones. Worse than drowning. Worse than anything because it came from inside, from the deepest part of my nature trying to override my will.
This was why Cain had warned me. The mate bond didn't care about revenge. It didn't care about justice. It only cared about completion.
But I was stronger than biology. I had to be.
I forced myself to breathe through the pain, to push it down into a box in my mind and lock it there. Five years of training. Five years of becoming someone they could never break.
I wouldn't let a stupid bond undo all of that.
A knock at the door made me freeze.
I stood slowly, smoothing my dress, schooling my expression. When I opened the door, Ryker stood there alone. His red-amber eyes were haunted, his jaw tight.
"We need to talk," he said.
"Do we?" I kept my voice light, bored.
"You're not who you claim to be." He stepped closer, and I felt the bond pull harder. "You're Nyx Ashford. And you're a Primordial Omega."
No point denying it now. I let my eyes glow violet. "And you're not the confident alpha everyone thinks you are. You're a coward who pushed away his mate because he was afraid of a prophecy."
His face went white. "How do you know about that?"
"I know lots of things, Ryker." I leaned against the doorframe. "I know your mother was an omega who killed herself after your father rejected her. I know you found her body when you were ten. I know you've been terrified of the mate bond ever since."
"Stop."
"I know you suspected what I was from the beginning," I continued mercilessly. "You found the prophecy. You knew. And you still hurt me. Because you decided it was better to destroy me than risk being destroyed yourself."
"I was wrong!" The words burst out of him. "I was a scared, stupid kid who made terrible choices. But Nyx—"
"That's not my name anymore." I stepped closer, using my height to my advantage. In heels, I was almost eye-level with him. "Nyx Ashford died five years ago. I'm Valdis now. And Valdis doesn't forgive. She doesn't forget. She just waits for the perfect moment to strike."
"The mate bond—"
"Is torture. Yes. I feel it too." I showed him my hands—they were shaking. "Every second I'm not with you four, it feels like I'm being ripped apart. But you know what? I've felt worse. And I survived."
Ryker's expression crumbled. "I'm sorry. God, Nyx, I'm so sorry."
"Your apology means nothing." I started to close the door.
He caught it. "The others know. We figured it out."
"I'm aware. Ryker always was the smartest." I smiled coldly. "Let me guess—now you all want to talk, to apologize, to make it right. As if anything could make this right."
"What do you want from us?"
The question hung in the air between us.
What did I want? Revenge, yes. To watch them suffer, absolutely. But as I stared into Ryker's anguished face, I realized something terrifying.
Part of me—a small, stupid, hopeful part—wanted them to fix this. Wanted the bond to complete. Wanted the fairy tale ending where the monsters became princes and everyone lived happily ever after.
That part of me was dangerous. It would ruin everything.
"I want you to feel what I felt," I said finally. "Helpless. Broken. Rejected." I met his eyes. "I want you to understand what it's like to want something so badly it kills you, and know you can never have it."
"Even if it destroys you too?"
"Especially then."
Ryker looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. "You've changed."
"You broke me. Then you rejected me. Then you threw me off a cliff." I smiled without humor. "What did you expect?"
He reached out slowly, and I should've pulled back. Should've maintained distance. But when his hand cupped my face, the bond surged so powerfully that I gasped.
"I see you," he whispered. "The girl you were, the woman you've become. Both of them. And I'm so goddamn sorry for every second of pain I caused."
For just a moment, I let myself lean into his touch. Let myself feel the bond trying to heal itself.
Then I stepped back.
"Sorry doesn't bring back the dead, Ryker." I closed the door in his face. "And Nyx Ashford is very, very dead."
I pressed my back against the door, breathing hard. On the other side, I heard Ryker's footsteps retreat.
My wolf was screaming. The bond was screaming. Everything in me was screaming to open that door, to run after him, to let this complete.
Instead, I pulled out my phone and texted Cain: They know who I am. Moving to Phase Two.
His response came immediately: Perfect. Now they'll trust nothing. Keep them off-balance. Make them choose between duty and desire.
I stared at the message, then at my hands—still shaking from Ryker's touch.
This was supposed to be simple. Revenge, pure and clean.
But nothing about the mate bond was simple.
And nothing about facing the Four again was clean.
A second knock made my heart jump. I opened the door, expecting Ryker.
Alpha Aldric Blackthorn stood there instead, Kade's father, with ice in his eyes and murder in his smile.
"Hello, Nyx," he said pleasantly. "I think it's time we had a chat about your miraculous resurrection."