“What’s going on?” someone called out in the hallway.
Sidian eased off the bed and crept toward the door, holding his breath so as not to be heard. If the power was cut, were thecameras offline? What happened to the security on the doors? If he pushed one of them open and made a break for it, would anything alert the rest of the staff? There weren’t that many people in the building at night, just a handful of nurses and Barnes sometimes, because omegas didn’t need armed guards. Pretty, docile, empty-headed bitches weren’t that dangerous.
Except for Sidian.
Go.He tried to urge himself into the hallway, peering out just to see a pair of nurses whispering to one another in the hall. Neither of them was Tanner, just a pair of female betas who he’d seen in passing. Had Tanner already gone home for the night? Was he somewhere else in the building?
Not that it mattered. Sidian could run for it. He didn’t know how far he’d get or what he’d do once he was outside, but he could run. He could do it.
“What is the meaning of this?” Barnes’s voice echoed down the hallway, and Sidian shrunk back into his room on instinct, pressing himself against the wall next to the open doorway. “I was just sending off an email to the Board when the power cut. What’s happened?”
One nurse stammered in confusion. “We were just doing our rounds. How are we supposed to know?”
“This is the one time none of you are carrying your phones on the floor.” Barnes huffed in indignation. “There are flashlights at the nurse’s station. Go grab some. We need to secure the patients and call for help.”
Sidian stuck his head out into the hallway after the nurses rushed past, debating his chances. Barnes stood in the middle of the hallway, either waiting for the pair to return or not sure what to do with himself. He was there late some nights, and he was likely regretting making tonight one night he stayed behind. He could have been at home in bed and not having to deal with an unexplained power outage at his precious omega factory farm.
Someone from another room called out. “Doctor Barnes? What’s going on?”
“There’s nothing to be concerned about,” Barnes said. “Just a power outage. That’s all.”
Something lurking at the end of the hallway caught Sidian’s eye; he lowered his head and leaned further out, narrowing his eyes to squint through the shadows to get a better look at what it was. Something… Big. Something huge moved through the darkness with the lupine grace of a predator, footsteps silent as it advanced, though Sidian couldn’t make out any discernible details from where he stood.
One of the nurses? He didn’t know all of them, but somehow doubted it. Maybe it was someone new just come to see what was going on, except… No. The figure moved with far too much confidence, avoiding a rolling cart left in the hallway. Whoever it was could see where they were going.
Barnes turned in that direction, his voice sharp and irritable. “I understand that this is an odd occurrence, but everyone, please stay in your—”
“Richard Barnes?” The voice that answered him came from the figure—Sidian was sure of it—though the sound set his knees trembling beneath him.
The voice was smooth and dark, pitched low, a husky rasp that threatened to draw a whine from his lips.Alpha,his hindbrain all but purred, as a relief swept through him and left him breathless. And then he remembered where the fuck he was and stepped out of the room, trying to stay low and out of the alpha’s line of sight. Whoever he was, he wasn’t here for Sidian, and Sidian had no desire to give him any reason to change his target.
Why would an unknown alpha be creeping around in the middle of the night?
“What?” Barnes scoffed in response. “Of course I am. Who are you to be skulking around my halls like this?”
The alpha moved so quickly that Sidian could barely make out the movements in the dark, but the wet, crunchingripfollowed by the anguished scream told him that was for the best.
Omegas all around him yelped and shrieked and cried out in surprise. Sidian watched, mesmerized, as Barnes fell to his knees, a curious nothingness where his right arm used to be. The right arm that the alpha swung upward in a high arc before bringing the still-jetting stump down on the top of Barnes’s skull.
The purr that stumbled from Sidian’s lips shocked him, as did the moment the alpha’s head whipped up in his direction, features obscured by what looked like a mask of some kind. Before he could so much as take a step back, a rumble answered him, so much deeper, pulled up from a broad chest whereas Sidian’s own just vibrated its way up his throat.
Fuck that. Freedom was within his grasp. He had to go.
So without a second thought, he turned on heel and bolted for the stairs and the promise of freedom waiting for him to grasp it.
Chapter Four
The sweet, trilling purr of an omega struck Roman with all the cadence of a chorus of angels serenading the damned as they writhed in the flames of hell.
Every ounce of his attention shifted from the groaning, sobbing beta at his feet to focus on the little slip of a shadow in the hallway before him. The silhouette carved a delicate shape through the darkness, a petite creature whose waist looked swallowed beneath the width of Roman’s hands. That gorgeous sound spilled from the omega’s lips, arousing a response from Roman’s alpha before he could stop himself. His own deeper rumble crawled up from his gut, the entirety of his torso buzzing with the force of it.
An automatic reaction beyond his scope and control, a response that could only mean one thing for it to be instinctive.
It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t possible.
“There are no records of him we can find. Not sure what that means, to be honest, but we’re going to keep looking, Roman. I promised you that much. We won’t stop looking.”
All the time the Vipers had been searching, and Sidian Vey had been in the middle of a fucking breeding center.
