Page 31 of The Omega

11

Dorian

“Where else could she have gone?” I stood behind the chair while the security tech pulled up multiple camera feeds on the computer.

The squirrel shifter—Griswold or something was his name—was illuminated by the bluish glow of the screen as he checked different angles, replaying the videos from the last almost twenty-four hours. I’d knocked at Opal’s door before breakfast yesterday and then after lunch, and searched the grounds all afternoon.

My wolf kept me from sleeping last night, growling at me until I’d finally dragged myself out of bed and called in a favor from this shifter. He’d approached me at the beginning of the show, claiming some sort of long-lasting devotion to one of my performers, and I’d shrugged it off until now when I needed some inside help.

This happened more than I’d like to admit—perks of knowing people all over the world. But when everyone knew your name, they also tended to think that meant they could have a piece of you.

The early morning skeleton security crew gave me a wide berth as I hovered behind the shifter’s chair, watching the videos until my eyes burned. Opal had gone to the medical office, but then the feed cut, playing on some sort of spliced loop.

I knew she was still here, could feel the tug in my chest, but I didn’t know what she was hiding or why she was hiding from me.

“Check again. You’re missing something,” I growled at the squirrel.

A cough came from the darkened corner of the room and I glanced in its direction, seeing a burly wolf shifter with a scar on his face furiously typing away. Something was off about the dude. Shifters that big and beastly didn’t normally work in tech. But his scent was mated and he seemed busy with his own work, so I only felt the need to keep one eye on him.

“She talked with that Cindy girl and went to Medical. Then the feed cuts out. Check the parking lot,” I said.

Grissy pulled it back up again. “No one coming or going.”

Something caught my attention in the parking lot. Not that any vehicle was moving, but a black van sat parked right outside with three older Alphas I’d never seen before waiting inside it.

Something is going on.

My wolf senses were tingling.

“Pause right there.”

Griston did as I commanded, leaning forward to see the screen through his thick glasses. “I don’t see anything.”

They’d seriously let anyone be security.

“Never mind.” I rocked back on my heels. “Can you pull up the live feed outside her room?”

Grishmel clicked a few buttons to show the empty hall.

“And now the cameras inside her room…” I pressed.

It was already quiet, but a graveyard hush fell over the office. Even the big guy in the corner stopped typing.

“There aren’t cameras in the contestants’ rooms, sir,” Grizzly-boy sputtered.

I figured there weren’t, but it couldn’t hurt to make sure. “That’s not what I heard about last season.”

“Last season they broke so many laws that half the production crew was fired,” he hurried to explain. “And it was that one crazy Alpha who managed to sneak a camera in.”

“Crazy Alpha?” I arched a brow, having been called worse a time or two.

“Alpha McCaw,” the deep voice of the wolf shifter spoke from behind me.

“McCaw? Sounds familiar.” I stepped to the side to keep both males in my field of vision, feeding them a half-truth. It wasn’t that I’d never heard of McCaw. I’d been on a crash course of studying shifter politics for the past two years and Alpha McCaw was a name for the books.

I’d first heard about him when Ava had sent a letter that she was safe and gotten a position within his pack, saving me from having to hunt the remainder of Benson’s offshoot circus down. That shitshow disintegrated soon after I’d gotten rid of the cancerous head.

Then after last mating season, with his new Luna by his side, Alpha McCaw managed to take over half the Pacific Northwest. Word was that he’d gotten the infamous Tulia Pack under his thumb somehow and their empire was crumbling.