Dodging Bullets (Offbeat Omegas #2)
Chapter 1
One
Paloma
“ P aloma, where are you?”
Sister Roberta’s voice sounded exasperated, but when wasn’t she at her wit’s end with me? Sometimes I felt like I’d crawled out of the womb as a disappointment.
I quickly pushed the magazine I was reading back into the secret pocket sewn into one of my traditional ceremonial skirts that hung in the closet. Luckily, the skirt was long and heavy, so the magazine didn’t even weigh it down. I rarely got the opportunity to wear the skirt, because if there was a ceremony going on, I was normally kept in my room, in case I embarrassed Leader Malakai. I didn’t mind. I didn’t like the ceremonies anyway.
Hurrying from the closet, I took a moment to ensure all the clothes hanging in there were perfectly inconspicuous before stepping in front of the small chest that held my everyday clothing. I quickly dragged on the long black skirt I’d draped over it, and when Sister Roberta appeared in my doorway, she just saw a vain child fussing with her clothes.
Despite the fact I was twenty and no longer a child. On the Homestead, we were all children until we were married.
Sucking her teeth in irritation, Sister Roberta grabbed the long veil of black lace from the stand in the corner. “The guests are arriving, yet you are nowhere to be found.” She didn’t say I was an embarrassment out loud, but she really didn’t need to. “And you are not even properly prepared.”
I still didn’t understand why I had to attend this ceremony, when normally, I was confined to my room. Or why I wasn’t in the same ceremonial skirt as Sister Roberta. Instead, I was in a plain black skirt, long and voluminous, with a long-sleeved lace shirt that clung uncomfortably to my upper body and itched at my armpits. I looked like a curtain.
“Sorry, Sister Roberta. I couldn’t get my skirt to sit right.”
A lie. Leader Malakai had spoken to me about my lies, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be right. I didn’t want to steal the small box of forbidden magazines I’d found in Leader Malakai’s office. But sometimes, the little voice in the back of my head that had bad ideas took control.
Sister Roberta looked at me for a long time, her eyes appraising, until I was squirming in my skin. It was her superpower; I was sure. Something flashed in her gaze, but it was gone before I could analyze it.
“Never mind that,” she snapped as she threw the lace veil over my face. It hung down to my wrists, making me completely unrecognizable beneath it.
The veil was the only part of this outfit that was familiar to me. Omegas were given the veil when our designation came in. It was another reason why I was a disappointment to the Homestead. I’d been born an Omega—the Betrayers, that was what our teachings told us. When our god, Izuny, rose from beneath the earth, he created the perfect environment for his love, the goddess Melize. However, when he returned below the earth, he found that Melize had betrayed him with his brother, Basric. Enraged, Izuny cast out Melize, cursing her and all her progeny to be base, animalistic creatures who couldn’t control their own urges. Omegas.
That was how the designations were born. Alphas were made in the image of Izuny, and were the supreme leaders in all things. All of our Leaders were Alphas, but Alphas were dying out. We hadn’t had an Alpha designated in decades. Betas became Brothers and Sisters. Some community members didn’t designate at all, and they were just Homesteaders—below the Brothers and Sisters, but still above the Omegas with the taint. If one of the community designated with the taint of Melize—an Omega—they were forced to wear the veil of mourning, so their temptation couldn’t sway any more brothers to betrayal.
Sister Roberta was pushing me towards the door. “Hurry now, Paloma. They’re waiting.”
I frowned back at the elderly Sister, but she was staring purposefully ahead, a determined tilt to her chin. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Who’s waiting?”
Huffing at me, she didn’t answer, just shoved me down the hall toward the main meeting room. There were people loitering around in the halls, and when I saw Nim, I tried to ask her with our own hand language what was going on, but she just shrugged, her eyes wide and concerned. Nim was a good, obedient Beta, but was somehow still my friend.
Despite my non-ceremonial dress, we ended up in the ceremony room. Leader Malakai was sitting at the head of a long table, a pleasant smile on his face, though I was an expert at reading the tightness around his eyes now. He was annoyed at being kept waiting, and I’d pay for it later on.
The other Leaders were there. Leader Victor, Leader Yahn, Leader Thomas. It was odd to see them all in one room together, unless it was a large gathering. But the Leaders were the only people in this room, except Sister Roberta, a couple of the other Brothers and Sisters, myself, and three men I didn’t know.
It was the men I didn’t know that gave me pause. It was odd. I knew everyone.
We’d learned in our lessons that we were the last people left after Izuny destroyed the world for our sins. It was why we had to be good. Had to be obedient to the Leaders’ teachings. Had to do… other things. Because we were the last of the humans, and it was our god-given mission to heal the world. It was why I was so addicted to those magazines—they were time capsules of the creatures and civilizations that existed before the Great Smiting.
We lived behind high walls that kept out monsters, in four separate houses, run by four separate leaders who made decisions that would keep us safe. It was the way it had to be.
It was why the appearance of three unknown faces was a shock to me.
Leader Malakai waved a hand. “Ah, here she is. Please, come closer.”
Fear tingled down my spine, though I wasn’t sure why. Something about the men in front of me had me on high alert. Still, Leader Malakai had always stood between us and the monsters outside, and if he wanted me to come closer, that was what I should do.
Stepping closer to the table and the strangers, I clasped my hands in front of me, the perfect show of obedience. I allowed my eyes to watch Leader Malakai, and happiness flushed through me at his approving look.
“Lift your veil, Paloma. Show these men your face.”
Shock had me freezing on the spot. Lift my veil? Show these men my face? That went against everything I’d been taught. Everything we’d all been taught.
“Leader?” I questioned, and the approving look on his face disappeared in an instant, to be replaced with one I knew intimately. Abject disappointment.
Growling, he leaned forward, like he wanted to leap to his feet and punish me as usual. Yet, he held himself back. “Do as you are told! ” he yelled, the sound echoing around the room. Shock at his anger had me quickly lifting my veil, letting it fall back until it caught around my shoulders.
Their eyes lingered on my head, which was completely shaven, as was the custom here for unmatched females. Your hair was for your Alpha only, when you were officially mated.
In this case, I was waiting for my mating with Leader Malakai, even though he was sixty and the thought of lying with him made my stomach feel queasy. But I’d like to have hair again, even if that was vain.
The large man on the right side of the table gave a hum of approval, his eyes lighting up with another expression I couldn’t understand, his dark eyes holding secrets that scared me. “Are you sure we can’t convince you to skip the brand thing? It significantly lowers the value of the merchandise.” He had a cadence to his voice I hadn’t ever heard before, and something about his words made me shiver.
Leader Malakai shook his head. He lowered his voice until I doubted the Brothers and Sisters behind me could hear. “Unfortunately, I have to insist. For the optics, you understand.”
I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. “What is going on?” I asked again dumbly. “Leader?”
But Leader Malakai isn’t listening to me. He waved a hand. “Sister Roberta, if you would?”
Whirling on my feet, I looked at the woman who’d all but raised me. I didn’t have a mother, per se, though I knew enough to know that one of the women in the community had physically birthed me. However, everyone was raised by the village, all children being progeny of the community and not a single person. Sister Roberta had been the maternal figure in the House of Malakai for as long as I could remember, and so I looked at her like a mother.
Which made her betrayal as she grabbed me and shoved me down into a chair all the worse. She was holding a long piece of metal, with a thick red handle and a long black cord. The end of the metal was glowing orange, and suddenly, the word brand made a lot more sense.
I struggled, but more Brothers and Sisters came forward to hold me. Only the elder ones, though, dutiful members of our community.
“Be still, child. It will all be okay,” Sister Roberta murmured, but the guilt in her eyes betrayed her. A hysterical whine burst from my lips as she stepped closer.
“Hold still,” Brother Ned grumbled, holding my chin so tightly that my jaw ached, yanking my head to the side and baring my neck. I screamed as I felt the hot press of the brand against the base of my throat. The scent of burning flesh fogged around me, my nerve endings lighting up with unimaginable pain.
“Izuny be damned,” Sister Roberta cussed, shocking me. “Hold her tighter so she doesn’t burn herself all the way to the muscle.”
And then there were more hands holding me too tightly, the sizzle of skin becoming louder. Finally, the long rod pulled away, and the hands released me quickly, stepping away like my fate might be contagious.
Desperate fingers pulled at the lace veil, and I dragged it up over my head, but the sensation of the scratchy lace on my abused skin made me want to scream again.
Leader Malakai stood, as did the three men with him. The guy on the left had a winning smile, with perfectly straight teeth that gleamed white under the oil-lantern chandelier. At any other time, I’d have even considered him handsome. “Thank you. If you have any further merchandise you’d like to dispose of, give us a call.”
The guy next to him was like a cornered animal, looking this way and that, like he was expecting an attack from the shadows in the room. The last guy, the one on the right, looked at me with hot eyes that burned against my skin, right along with the brand. They made me want to run away screaming.
I felt nothing now. Except maybe cold. Another part of my brain was aware of the excruciating pain at the base of my throat.
Leader Malakai stopped in front of me. “Please, Leader. I…” I didn’t understand. Even now, I could almost smell the stench of my fear and the negative emotions of the others over the burnt flesh scent.
Leader Malakai held up a hand, and like a well-trained dog, I stopped completely, the words shuddering to a halt in my throat. “Children marked by Melize are no longer welcome in the safety of our walls. You will go with these men, Paloma, and your actions will appease the torment of Izuny, and put us back into his favor.” He shoved me toward the dark-eyed man, who held me tightly in his arms like I might run.
He was right to believe that, because I struggled against his hold. Because the men weren’t just strangers, they were Alphas. Strange Alphas were holding me.
“Please, Leader!” I screamed as the dark-eyed man picked me up, throwing me over his shoulder, like the potatoes I’d hauled up from the storage sheds today.
All the Leaders turned their back on me, and that was it. I no longer existed to them.
I looked up, straining. “Sister!” I yelled at Sister Roberta, and again, guilt flashed across her face, before she dropped her eyes to the ground, unable to look at me.
Taking a door I’d never even seen before, the men carried me down a long, dark hallway.
“Help!” I screamed, until the handsome man who’d thanked Leader Malakai grabbed my ear and pulled me up so I was forced to look at him.
“Quiet!” I felt his words wash over me like an oily coating, and no matter how loud I screamed, no sound passed my lips.
We reached a large metal object, which I’d only seen in one of Leader Malakai’s magazines. A vehicle. They were all meant to be relics of the past, but this shiny black machine didn’t look like a relic.
My breaths felt like they were too big to leave my lungs, and I was panting. I couldn’t breathe. I was going to die.
Stuffing me into the back of the car, the dark-eyed guy stopped in front of me, his hands almost gentle on my cheeks. “Calm.”
It was a command; that much I could tell, but I didn’t understand why my body went lax like I was floating in one of the communal baths. Maneuvering my body, the Alpha strapped me in carefully. Just like that, my heart rate slowed, my muscles untensed, and my eyes got heavy. Something about this Alpha even began to feel safe.
“ Sleep,” he whispered, and no matter how hard I fought against the command, no matter how horrifying I thought being unconscious around these people was, I slipped into darkness.
I was being betrayed by my own body now.