Chapter 3
Three
Paloma
S ound was muffled down here. There was no warmth. No sunlight. Just a small room with a bed and a table. I hid beneath my veil, like a child would hide under its blankets. Like the intricate fabric walls hid me from the horror of the fact I was trapped down here.
The brand at the base of my throat was red and crusted, and I thought it might be infected, but I had no poultice to put on it and no voice to ask for it, even if I would. I’d woken up down here what seemed like forever ago, and other than another strange, weaselly-looking guy—who said his name was Joseph—coming to give me food once a day, I hadn’t seen anyone. The stubble on my head was starting to grow in, so it had to have been at least a week, maybe even two.
I could hear the sounds of animals faintly, and I often wondered if I was inside a zoo. Just another creature in an enclosure. I’d never seen a zoo, but I’d read about them. They were from the before.
I was beginning to wonder if there even was a before, or whether my whole life had been a lie. I’d seen the vehicle. Been inside it. They weren’t meant to exist anymore. I’d been taken by strangers. They weren’t meant to exist either.
They were almost like a dream now, or maybe a nightmare. I hadn’t seen any of those Alphas since they’d taken me. Perhaps they’d never existed, and it was just Joseph. Somehow, I found that reassuring. Joseph was undesignated, I thought. He couldn’t compel me to do things.
The sounds of the animals increased, and I frowned. They were especially loud today. Howls echoed around the space; I wondered if they were wolves. I pulled the veil closer to my body and curled up on the bed. It was cold tonight, and wherever I was, I was below ground, because the walls were solid and the cold damp came up from the ground. The only time I could be warm was if I rolled myself up in my blanket and lay in the middle of the mattress.
I missed my home. My sisters and brothers. I missed knowing who I was, my place in my world. If I could leave, I might even go home, beg Leader Malakai to take me back. I would be a better Omega. I’d be so good; he’d never have to punish me again.
Anything was better than this.
A steady thump pounded through the ceiling above me, and I looked up. Was it time for Joseph to come again? I looked over at the half-eaten rations on the table. Normally, I rationed out the food so I wasn’t hungry. The hunger in my belly was the only way I could partially judge the time, so I didn’t think it had been that long.
Fear rushed up to gag me. Unusual was not good. An optimistic part of my brain wondered if they were going to let me go, but every other part of me immediately shut it down. They hadn’t taken me from my home to keep me as a pet. Something worse was about to happen.
The hatch in the ceiling opened, and I curled up tighter in the bed, hearing the ladder squeak as someone climbed down.
“Fucking hell,” a voice growled, and I twitched. That wasn’t Joseph. I moved my hands from my eyes and lowered the blankets a fraction.
The man who stood in the room with me wasn’t one of the people who’d taken me from the Homestead. He was tall, taller than any man I’d ever met, and almost gangly. Like his arms and legs had grown out of control. His jaw was strong and smooth, and his eyes were dark, or maybe the shadows cast by the small battery-powered lights just made them look that way. He smelled like the slightly spicy Christmas cookies we used to make as kids.
“Omega?” he called softly, his voice now far more gentle than when he’d first jumped down. “I’m not going to hurt you. My name is Max, and I’m here to rescue you.”
Would he take me back to the Homestead? Despite my thoughts a moment ago, something inside me rebelled at going back to the place that had discarded me so easily.
As he took another step toward me, I curled tighter into a ball. This was my chance to leave this hole. But what if this man took me somewhere else? Did something worse?
He squatted down, so he wasn’t looming over me. “I promise you’re safe now. Do you have a name?”
I still couldn’t speak. Not since that smiling Alpha had told me to be quiet. So I said nothing.
The guy, Max, lifted the blankets a little. “We have to go. I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do, but you can’t stay down here.”
I sucked in a shaking breath. I had to be brave. He was right, this unfamiliar Beta. I couldn’t stay here, so I had to take a chance on him. I sat up on the bed, and the Beta shuffled back a little, his hands still out in front of him. As I pushed the blankets from my legs, his eyes ran over me. Not in the way that the Leader’s eyes had sometimes looked at me, but the way you might appraise an injured animal.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” I shook my head. “Can you walk?” I nodded.
He gave me a wide smile, and something stuttered in my chest. It was a nice smile. It made me feel… warm. Safe even, which was ridiculous, considering where I was.
“That’s so good, Omega. Now, we’re going to climb out of this hole, and I promise, no one will ever trap you again. Let’s go.”
I stood, making sure my veil was over my head, preventing him from seeing my face. I needed this curtain between me and this world I didn’t understand. He stood back up to almost his full height, his shoulders curling in a little, like he didn’t want to scare me by being tall. He could be five feet tall, and I’d still be terrified.
I moved toward the ladder on wobbling knees. A few weeks of poor meals and no space to move around had made my muscles weak. Climbing one step at a time, I felt Max move to stand at the bottom of the ladder.
“I’m here. I’ll catch you if you fall, I promise.”
It was oddly reassuring from a complete stranger. But I put one foot in front of the other, the soft, silky slippers on my feet providing very little grip on the rungs, and my long skirt getting caught on every step. When I slipped close to the top, large hands were on my waist, steadying me.
“Almost there,” he murmured, removing his hands as soon as I was secure.
Finally, I climbed over the top edge and into what looked like Leader Malakai’s office back at the Homestead. Big walnut desk. Spinning chair. A couch along one wall. Knotted rug that was rolled back to show a trapdoor.
Max was up over the edge behind me in seconds, stooping down to help me to my feet, but my legs felt weak. “Would it be okay if I carried you? If you need to get down, for whatever reason, just tap my shoulder twice and I’ll give you space.”
I didn’t want to be manhandled again, but worse than that would be staying here longer than necessary. Nodding, I raised my arms, and he grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around my shoulders. I hated that it smelled of Alpha, but I liked that it was one more thing to hide beneath. He slipped his arms behind my knees and under my back, then I was hefted into the air like I weighed nothing. He shouldered his way out the door, moving at incredible speed toward wherever we were going.
I could smell the fear and terror in the room we strode through, along with the burnt scent of anger. I turned my face into Max’s chest and breathed in his Christmas cookie scent instead, like my life depended on him.
I almost cried when I felt the cool breeze on my face a moment later, though the darkness remained. It was night time, that was obvious, and there was a cacophony of noise coming from a large box vehicle on my left.
“What the actual fuck is that? ” someone growled, and my whole body went stiff with fear.
Alpha. Another Alpha.
I whimpered and tightened my grip on Max. I needed to run. But I couldn’t outrun an Alpha. Max had said he would protect me, but so had Leader Malakai. What if he was just here to hand me over to another Alpha? The burning citrus in this Alpha’s scent made me want to lose the miniscule amount of food I had in my stomach.
I screamed silently at the injustice of everything.
Max tightened his hold on me. “Watch your fucking tone—you’re scaring her,” he snapped back in a whisper-yell. “Seems Anthony Small wasn’t just peddling animals. He’d moved onto Omegas too.”
The burning smell surrounded me in a thick cloud, until I thought I might choke. “I’m going to kill him,” the Alpha snarled so fiercely that I trembled harder. I listened to his footsteps as he stomped back into the building, but then Max was moving toward a vehicle. A car. That’s what they were. Cars. I’d read about them.
“Don’t worry about him, Omega. He’s mad that you’ve been treated so poorly. His anger is not for you.” He poured reassurance into his words, and I found myself believing him. “Let’s get out of here.” Opening the door to the car, he placed me gently into the back. As he slid the restraint thing across my chest, I tried not to shake too hard. “I’m going to sit up front so you don’t feel crowded.”
His eyes snapped to the front window as a huge man strode out of the building. Without even scenting him, I knew this was the Alpha from a moment ago. Even as I watched from behind the veil, he stopped outside the driver’s door and took a large breath, his barrel chest expanding, before his shoulders curled a little.
When he opened the door, his scent was less on fire—though still singed at the edges—and more citrus. Like barbequed lemons. His eyes met mine, though he couldn’t see me behind the veil. “Let’s go. We’ll get her back to Otillie-James, and they can take care of her.”
Max looked at me over his shoulder, and I couldn’t read his expression. “Okay. Hold tight, Omega. It’s almost over now.”
I didn’t know who Otillie-James was, or where they were taking me, but my gut said it had to be better than where I’d been.
Turns out, Otillie-James was an Omega. She was short, had wild blonde hair that stood up everywhere, and kind eyes. She also looked at me like I’d just spawned in front of her like Izuny crawling from the ground, somewhere between shock and horror.
“Human cattle? That’s what he said?” she hissed like a feral cat, and unlike the Alpha’s rage, I knew her anger was definitely on my behalf. She was hugging me tightly, and I kind of liked it.
The Omegas weren’t allowed to live in the same houses back at the Homestead, and I’d been the only one left after Omega Patricia had died three years ago. Plus, the Homestead discouraged displays of affection, though sometimes Nim and I had hugged in the closet while we read the magazines.
Maybe Nim wasn’t such an obedient Beta after all. I missed her so much.
Otillie-James—she’d said to call her OJ if I liked—looked at the big, scarred Beta who had kissed her like she was his only reason for living. “You burned it down, right?” she asked with such venom, I almost smiled.
Since we arrived, I’d been tucked into the corner of a sofa that felt too soft, and despite OJ trying to get conversation out of me, I couldn’t give her anything. Another Omega—a male Omega, could you imagine?—had also tried, but in the end, frustration got the better of me and I hid my face in the couch cushion. Now they were talking around me, and I was okay with that.
I didn’t understand anything. Nothing in this home made sense to me. Not the big black window on the wall. Not the white thing that was moving around the floor by itself, making a loud noise. Not the little rectangles they all looked down at occasionally, or had conversations into like the person was there. Or like the rectangles could talk back? Nothing made sense.
I jerked as a weird little dog jumped onto the couch beside me. Looking down at it out of the corner of my eye, I realized it only had three legs. Had these people taken its fourth leg? It didn’t seem scared of them, or me. It climbed onto my lap, its two front paws on my shoulders, and started licking my face on the other side of my veil.
I lifted my hand to push it off, but instead, I buried my fingers in its wiry fur. It was both coarse and soft. I scratched at its skin, and the dog wriggled its tiny butt happily. It seemed to… like me? So I scratched some more until it flopped over, putting three legs in the air and exposing its belly.
“That’s Doodles,” OJ said softly. “He likes belly rubs.”
Doodles? What a weird name. But still, I stroked the belly of the little dog. His fur there felt far softer than that on his back, and he lay there with his mouth open, his tongue falling out the side and his eyes closed. It was fortunate that I could feel the steady thump of his tiny heart against my fingers; otherwise, I’d wonder if he was dead.
The action was comforting, giving this small creature happiness and giving me something else to focus on. I wasn’t sure how long I stroked him for, but suddenly, OJ was in front of me.
“Hey there, would you like to shower? Maybe I could lend you some clothes?”
I felt disgusting. My hair was itching stubble, and my body odor was… not great. I looked down at the dog, realizing my hand was curled in his fur. I didn’t want to leave him.
OJ seemed to sense my reluctance. “Doodles can come. In fact, I think he’d insist on it. He really likes you.” She held out a hand, and I took it, allowing her to pull me to my feet. As she predicted, Doodles the dog leapt to his feet, fell over, then got back to his feet again. He hopped down the hall behind us as OJ led me to a room that smelled a little like her, but not like Alpha.
I couldn’t work out why the scent of another Omega was making me uncomfortable, but I wanted to escape already.
“There’s a bathroom through there. I’ll find you some clothes and leave them just outside the door. Do you have any injuries?” she asked quietly, and it was hard to miss the empathy in her voice.
Taking a shuddering breath, I slid my veil from my head. Her eyes widened when she saw my head, but I assumed that was because she already had her Alphas and therefore could grow her hair out without tempting others. I pointed to the base of my throat, and she let out a hissed curse. I watched her swallow her anger, before she nodded.
“I’ll bring you some antibiotic cream to put on it. It looks quite infected. Is that a brand?”
I nodded. That had been what they called it.
“Is that the reason you can’t speak?”
I shook my head, and OJ chewed her lip. “If I got you a piece of paper and a pen, could you write out your responses?”
I nodded vigorously, and she smiled widely at me, moving to a bedside table and pulling out a pad of paper and a pen, which she handed to me.
She let out a hopeful breath. “Firstly, do you have a name?”
I wrote my answer on the paper. Paloma.
“Paloma. That’s a real pretty name. Other than the wound on your throat, do you have any other injuries? Is there something I can do to help you speak, perhaps?”
I hesitated. I knew one of the Alphas could command me to speak, but I didn’t want that oily feeling over my body again, didn’t want someone else to be in control of me. But I didn’t want to be mute forever either. I wanted my voice back.
So I wrote it all down. The commands. What had happened. OJ didn’t ask questions, didn’t interrupt.
At the end, I wrote Is there an Alpha I can trust?
Nodding, OJ’s big, watery eyes met mine. “Okay, Paloma. How about you shower first, and we’ll work out everything else later, okay?”
Putting off my problems until they caught up to me later was definitely something I could do.