Ryker's POV
I watched Nyx fall, and my entire world stopped.
One second she was standing at the cliff's edge, eyes wide with terror. The next, her legs gave out and she was gone—tumbling backward into the darkness like a broken doll.
"NYX!"
The scream tore from my throat before I could stop it. I lunged forward, reaching over the edge, but my fingers closed on empty air. Below, I heard the sickening splash of her body hitting water.
Then silence.
"What the hell, Ryker?" Damon grabbed my shoulder, yanking me back from the edge. "It's just an omega. She—"
I shoved him so hard he stumbled. "Just an omega? Are you insane? We just killed someone!"
Around us, the crowd of students stood frozen, phones still recording. Their faces showed shock, confusion, fear. This wasn't supposed to happen. Rejections were meant to hurt, to humiliate—not to murder.
Kade stood perfectly still, staring at the spot where Nyx had disappeared. His face was white as snow. "She... she just fell. I didn't push her. I didn't—"
"You rejected her!" I shouted. My hands were shaking. No, my whole body was shaking. "You spoke the formal rejection at the edge of a cliff! What did you think would happen?"
"She was supposed to accept it," Ash said quietly. For once, his usual smirk was gone. "Omegas accept rejection. They don't just... fall."
But I knew better. I'd studied the old texts, the prophecies my pack guarded. A true rejection could destroy an omega's wolf, make their body shut down. If Nyx's wolf had collapsed at the same moment her body did—
She never had a chance.
"Someone call for help!" A girl in the crowd screamed. "Call the pack healers!"
"No." Kade's voice cut through the panic like a blade. He turned to face everyone, and his alpha authority rolled over the clearing. "Nobody calls anyone. Nobody speaks about this. Ever."
"But she could still be alive down there," someone protested.
"Nobody survives that fall," Damon said, but his voice sounded hollow. "The rocks, the current... she's gone."
"Then we leave," Kade ordered. "Now. Everyone deletes their videos. This never happened."
I stared at him in disbelief. "You're just going to leave her down there?"
His ice-blue eyes met mine, and for the first time in our friendship, I saw something that looked like fear. "What choice do we have? If anyone finds out we were here, all four families go down. Our futures, our packs—everything our fathers built. Is that what you want?"
No. But I also didn't want Nyx Ashford's death on my conscience.
Too late for that.
"Ryker." Ash's hand gripped my arm. "We can't help her. But we can protect ourselves. We have to."
The crowd was already moving, students hurrying back to their cars, deleting evidence, creating alibis. In an hour, they'd all convince themselves this was just a bad dream. That's what rich wolves did—they erased their mistakes.
But I couldn't erase the image of Nyx falling. Couldn't unhear my own scream. Couldn't forget that for just a second before she went over, I'd reached for her.
Why had I reached for her?
"Move," Kade said, already walking toward the car. "We have exactly two hours before anyone notices she's missing."
I looked over the cliff one more time. The water below was black and endless. If Nyx was down there, she was probably already dead. The fall alone would've killed most wolves. Add in the freezing water, the sharp rocks, the current dragging her out to sea...
"I'm sorry," I whispered to the darkness.
The drive back was silent. Ash stared out the window. Damon kept clenching and unclenching his fists. Kade gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turned white.
And I couldn't stop thinking about the prophecy.
When the Primordial Omega awakens, four alphas will either claim her or destroy her. Choose wrong, and the entire pack world burns.
Three years ago, when Nyx first arrived at the academy, I'd felt something. A pull, like my wolf recognized her even though we'd never met. I'd searched through my family's ancient books and found references to Primordial Omegas—a bloodline so powerful they could bond with multiple alphas at once.
I'd convinced myself Nyx couldn't be one. She was too weak, too broken, too nothing. Primordial Omegas were supposed to be strong, fierce, unstoppable.
But what if I'd been wrong? What if the weakness was a disguise, a curse hiding her true nature?
What if we'd just killed the most powerful wolf our generation would ever see?
"Stop the car," I said suddenly.
"What?" Kade didn't even slow down.
"Stop the damn car!" I grabbed the wheel, forcing him to brake hard. We skidded to a stop on the forest road. "We have to go back."
"Are you crazy?" Damon twisted in his seat to glare at me. "We're not going back."
"What if she's alive?"
"She's not," Ash said flatly.
"But what if she is?" I looked at each of them. "What if she survived and someone finds her? She'll tell everyone what we did. Our families will be destroyed anyway."
That got their attention. Kade's jaw tightened. "Fine. We go back. We make absolutely sure. Then we leave and never speak of this again."
We drove back in tense silence. The cliff clearing was empty now—everyone had scattered like rats. We parked and approached the edge carefully.
"There's a path," Damon said, pointing to a narrow trail that zigzagged down the cliff face. "Hunters use it. We can climb down."
It took twenty minutes to reach the water. Twenty minutes of loose rocks and near-falls and my heart hammering against my ribs. When we finally reached the bottom, the black water lapped at a small rocky beach.
"Spread out," Kade ordered. "Look for... for a body."
We searched. The moonlight barely touched the water's edge. Every shadow looked like a corpse. Every rock formation looked like a broken body.
But we found nothing.
No body. No blood. No torn clothing. Nothing.
"The current must've taken her," Ash said, but he sounded uncertain.
I walked further down the beach, playing my phone's flashlight across the rocks. That's when I saw it.
A handprint.
Pressed into the wet sand, fingers splayed, fresh enough that water hadn't filled it yet. And leading away from it—faint footprints. Unsteady, dragging, but definitely there.
"Guys." My voice came out strangled. "She's alive."
They crowded around me, staring at the evidence.
"That's impossible," Damon breathed.
"Nobody survives that fall," Kade repeated, but now it sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
Ash knelt beside the handprint. "These tracks lead into the forest. She's injured but moving."
"We have to find her," I said.
"And do what?" Kade's eyes were wild. "Finish the job?"
The question hung in the air like poison.
"We could..." Damon started, then stopped. "We could call the healers. Say we found her hurt. Make up a story about an accident."
"Or we could leave," Ash said quietly. "Right now. Let nature take its course. She's hurt, alone, in hostile territory. The odds she survives more than a few hours—"
"I'm not leaving her." The words surprised even me.
Kade studied my face. "Why do you care so much? You hated her as much as we did."
Had I? Or had I just been terrified of what she might be, what she might mean?
Before I could answer, a sound echoed through the forest. Not quite human, not quite wolf. A howl of pure agony that made every hair on my body stand up.
We all turned toward the sound.
"What the hell was that?" Damon whispered.
The howl came again, closer now. Louder. And mixed with it was something else—a pulse of raw power that made my wolf cringe in submission.
"Run," I said.
"What?"
"RUN!"
We bolted back toward the cliff path as the third howl shook the trees themselves. Something was coming through the forest, something massive and angry and—
I looked back once.
And saw eyes glowing in the darkness. Not the gold of an alpha or the amber of a beta.
Violet. Burning violet like nothing I'd ever seen.
Then they vanished, and we were scrambling up the cliff path, stones cutting our hands, breath coming in panicked gasps.
We didn't stop running until we reached the car.
"What was that?" Ash demanded as Kade peeled out of there.
Nobody answered. Because none of us wanted to say what we were all thinking.
That hadn't been Nyx Ashford dying in the woods.
That had been something waking up.