CLAIMED BY THE RUTHLESS MAFIA

JABARI'S POV

The sun, a malevolent eye, was exactly where I expected it to be, a blinding white wound tearing across the pale, unyielding canvas of the Désert Oméga sky. Two weeks. Two weeks since I’d felt the last, faintest whisper of a current in the wind a familiar shift that meant Amare was somewhere out there, moving towards our designated drop point. Two weeks of silence from the only link to the world I had consciously chosen to abandon. Silence was a luxury I craved, but from Amare, it was a threat and a worrisome sign

My rig, a salvaged monstrosity of reinforced steel and jury-rigged filters, groaned a complaint as I coaxed it over another ridge of sun-baked dunes. Its engine hummed a guttural lullaby, the only consistent companion I’d allowed myself in this self-made purgatory. Dust, fine as ground bone, coated everything: the dashboard, the ancient, cracked maps, the worn leather of the steering wheel beneath my calloused hands. It coated my skin, my lungs, my very soul. This was the curse of the Omega, the last of the Zaire line, forever exiled in the world's final wasteland.

My gaze, honed by years of solitude and survival, swept the horizon. The sand shimmered, playing tricks with the light, twisting distant rocks into skeletal giants. My human eyes saw the mirage, but my inner wolf, the silent, ever-present beast I kept locked down, felt a flicker of unease. Not the familiar dread of a sandstorm, nor the distant tremor of a dune collapsing, but something colder, sharper. Predator.

We had a routine, Amare and I. A specific rock formation, a specific time, a message buried in a weathered tin box, and it was the only ritual I allowed myself, a tenuous thread to a past I both mourned and resented. He was my Beta, loyal beyond reason, strong beyond measure. He believed in a world beyond the Omega Desert, beyond my self-imposed penance. He believed in me. I had only ever given him my silence and my despair in return.

The drop point was empty, and my gut clenched, a cold fist of foreboding. Amare was meticulous, a stickler for the rules we’d established. He never missed a rendezvous, never arrived late, and certainly never left me guessing. My Omega wolf, usually so placid, so resigned to its lonely existence, began to stir, a low growl echoing in the chambers of my mind. Something was wrong, terribly wrong.

I killed the engine, the sudden silence deafening. The only sound was the rasp of my own breathing, the frantic thrumming of my heart. My senses, sharpened by the wilderness, stretched out, searching for any anomaly in the vast emptiness. The desert held its breath. Then, a scent. Faint, almost lost to the wind and the baking heat, but undeniably there.

Blood.

It was thick, coppery, mixed with the acrid tang of burnt earth and something else… something chemical, metallic. La Règle. My blood ran cold, then hot with a familiar, searing hatred. They had found him. They had found my Beta, and I scrambled out of the rig, my boots sinking into the soft sand. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to bury myself deeper in the unyielding embrace of the Désert Oméga. This was what I deserved for clinging to a ghost, for allowing a single thread of connection to the world that had stolen everything from me. But another instinct, older, more primal, pulled me forward. Pack. My Alpha might be gone, but my Beta was something I was not ready to accept. I followed the scent, my pace quickening, ignoring the burning sun that beat down on my exposed skin. Over the next dune, the ground dipped into a shallow, desolate basin, a natural amphitheatre of despair, and there he was.

Amare lay sprawled, half-buried in the shifting sand, his body a broken mockery of the powerful shifter I had known. His usually vibrant skin was bleached by the sun, cracked, and peeling. His clothes, once sturdy desert gear, were torn, revealing gaping wounds not from beasts, but from human weapons. Blood, blackened and caked, stained the sand beneath him like a morbid shadow. His eyes, though filmed with dust, were open, staring blankly at the merciless sky.

A guttural roar tore from my throat, a sound I hadn't made in years, a blend of human anguish and wolfish fury. My Omega beast thrashed against its chains, desperate to break free, to howl its pain to the indifferent heavens. But there was no pack to hear, no Alpha to lead the chorus. I fell to my knees beside him, the scorching sand burning through my worn trousers. "Amare!" My voice was hoarse, raw. I reached for him, my hands trembling. He was alive. Barely. His chest rose and fell in shallow, agonizing gasps.

"Jabari…?" His voice was a dry, brittle whisper, like sand grating against stone. His head, heavy with pain, turned fractionally towards me, his eyes flickering with a faint spark of recognition, then something else… urgency.

"Don't speak," I rasped, my hands already moving, tearing strips from my own shirt, trying to staunch the blood that still seeped from a wound in his side. It was useless. He was too far gone. My shifter healing, strong enough to mend broken bones in hours, was impotent against this much damage, this much time under the unforgiving sun.

Amare gripped my arm, his fingers surprisingly strong, his eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that burned through the pain. "They… they found it," he choked, a tremor running through his body. "La Règle… new Alpha…"

"Who?" I demanded, my face close to his, desperate to catch every fragmented word. "Who did this?"

"Marius… Lacroix," he gasped, the name of a poisoned dart. "He… he leads them now. Not like his father. Worse. He seeks… L'Oasis Kani."

My blood ran cold, colder than the desert night. L'Oasis Kani. The sacred heart of my family, the source of our true power, was locked away for generations. "Why?" I whispered, my voice barely audible.

Amare fought for breath, a painful rattling in his chest. "The Perfect Alpha… he wants… absolute… dominance. Not just power… over us… Overall." He coughed, a terrible, wet sound. "Jabari… you must… stop him. He knows… the true potential. He hunts… for a legend… a force to bend… every will. Yours… mine… the world's."

His grip on my arm weakened, his eyes glazing over. The last spark of life began to fade.

"No!" I pleaded, shaking him gently, desperately. "Amare, hold on! I'm here! We'll get out of here!"

But he was already gone. His eyes stared past me, past the horizon, fixed on an unseen future. His last breath hitched, a faint sigh, and then his body went slack. The Omega beast within me let out a silent, heartbroken howl, rattling the very foundations of my sanity.

My Beta and my last link were gone. The silence that followed was immense, crushing. The sun beat down, indifferent to my pain, to the senseless waste of a good life. La Règle. Marius Lacroix and they had not just taken my family years ago; they had come for the last thread of hope, for the only person who still saw me as something more than just a survivor. My hands clenched in the sand, knuckles white. The sand burned, but the fire inside me was hotter. Remorse had kept me prisoner, had held my wolf in chains. The time for silent grief was over, and the time for the Omega to hide was f*ck*ng done.

"Marius Lacroix," I snarled, my voice raw, broken, but laced with a new, terrifying resolve. "You came for my family. You took my Beta. You want L'Oasis Kani? You want the power of The Perfect Alpha? Then you'll have to come through me."

I pressed my forehead against Amare's cooling skin, a final, desperate act of connection. A tear, hot and defiant, traced a path through the dust on my cheek. It was a promise to the dead, and a declaration of war to the living. The Omega was finally broken free, and it hungered for vengeance. And somewhere, deep in the desert, my wolf howled, a sound of fury and grief that only I could hear. My exile was over, and my hunt had begun.

The sun was a blister on the horizon when I finished. I worked without ceremony, without ritual, driven by a raw, mechanical need. Amare deserved the sand, a clean burial in the land he loved, not to be scavenged by the desert's teeth. My hands, still trembling, placed the last rough stone, completing the cairn against the indifferent vastness. No tears came, and there was only a hollow ache where my heart used to be, now filled with the metallic tang of rage.

I didn't turn back, and looking was to break. My gaze, cold and clinical now, swept the basin. La Règle’s calling card. They hadn't just killed Amare; they’d left a message, scorched into the sand beside his body a crude, stylized symbol, barely visible beneath the shifting dust. It was the sigil of the Lacroix family, overlaid with a snarling wolf's head: power, Dominance, and a threat.

I dropped to a crouch, running my calloused fingers over the sand. Not just the impression, but the subtle disturbance around it