6. Product Disclosure
Chapter six
Product Disclosure
Cass
Cass turned to face Riot, suddenly hyperaware of how small the space was, how the strawberry and cream scent filled every corner until he could taste it on his tongue. Another wave of heat rolled through him, making him sway. He really needed to lie down.
“So,” Cass said, trying for normalcy. “Those were the professional bad people I read about before I came here.”
“Yeah.” Riot moved to the window, glancing out before pulling the curtains closed. “And now they know you exist.”
“They seemed very interested in you.” Cass settled onto the edge of the bed, immediately regretting it when the movement sent another uncomfortable ache through his muscles.
“They want leverage on me. My friends and I used to work for them, and they’re not happy we left.” Riot began to pace, his large frame making the small room feel even smaller. “Now they’re using you to get to me.”
“But I’m nobody important.” Cass shook his head, which made the room swim. “I’m just a failed missionary who can’t recruit anyone. Why would criminals care about me?”
Riot stopped pacing. His nostrils flared, and his whole body went rigid—that predator-stillness Cass had seen before, like a hunting animal that had spotted movement.
“Princess,” he said slowly, “when’s the last time you had a heat cycle?”
The question was so unexpected and so personal, that Cass felt his face burn. “That’s—I don’t—that’s not possible.”
“Not possible?”
“I can’t go into heat without my sacred bond partner.” Cass said it like it was obvious, because it was. Everyone knew that. “Unbonded Omegas don’t experience cycles until they’re spiritually prepared for partnership. Brother Matthias explained it when I was sixteen.”
Riot just stared at him, then closed his eyes as he took in a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Show me your medication,” he said after he exhaled.
“My what?” Cass was getting whiplash from the conversation changes. “I don’t take medication. Just wellness supplements for spiritual focus and good health.”
“Show me.”
There was a command in Riot’s voice that made Cass’s hands move; he grabbed the bottle from the nightstand and held it out.
“I only have a few left,” he said as Riot took the bottle. “But if you want some, I suppose they could help keep you healthy too.”
Riot looked at the Elysian Dynamics lotus logo, then opened the bottle and poured a few pills into his palm. Cass pressed his palms flat against his thighs, then lifted them, then pressed them down again—unsure what to do with his hands.
“I think they have spiritually harmonious roots and flowers,” he offered. “Echinacea and kava kava—”
Riot popped one into his mouth and chewed.
“You’re supposed to swallow them whole,” Cass said, wincing. “They’re quite bitter—”
“These aren’t vitamins, princess.” Riot poured the pills back into the bottle and handed it to Cass, his voice flat. “These are industrial-grade heat suppressants. The kind they use in corporate programs to control Omega cycles.”
Cass stared at the bottle in his hands. The familiar logo. The pale tablets he’d been taking every morning for eight years.
“That’s not possible,” he said. “Brother Matthias said—”
“How long have you been taking these?”
“Eight years.” The words came out small. “Since I started partnership preparation with Honey.”
Riot made a strange sound, like he was tired, and ran his hand through his pretty red hair.
“Princess, you’re going into heat right now.
That’s why you’re feverish, why your scent is changing, and why everyone in the marketplace was watching you.
Your body is trying to cycle through suppressants that should have made that impossible. ”
“No.” Cass shook his head, clutching the bottle tighter. “That’s not—I can’t go into heat. Not without Honey. That’s not how it works.”
“That absolutely is how it works.”
“But the Elders…no, they wouldn’t lie about that.” His voice was rising, panic threading through it. “Elysian is about natural harmony and spiritual truth. They don’t even let us eat modified vegetables. Why would they give us—”
Another wave of heat crashed through him, stronger than before, and he had to grip the edge of the mattress to keep from falling over. Maybe the supplements were blocking negative energy. Maybe without them, the Neutral Zone’s disharmony is affecting my spiritual frequency.
But even as he thought it, the explanation felt thin. Flimsy. Like a paper wall trying to hold back a flood.
“This is just the flu,” he whispered. “The Neutral Zone has diseases that don’t exist in Elysian territory. That’s all this is.”
“It’s not the flu.”
“You don’t know that.” Cass could hear how desperate he sounded and couldn’t stop. “You’re not a doctor. Maybe Berserkers just don’t understand Elysian medicine, or maybe you’re confused about what suppressants look like, or—”
“I spent years working for Gensyn.” Riot’s voice cut through his spiraling. “I know exactly what corporate control drugs look like. I’ve seen them used on hundreds of Omegas. Those pills in your hand are designed to keep cycles suppressed until someone else decides you’re ready.”
Until someone else decides.
The words didn’t make sense. Cass was the one preparing for partnership. Cass was the one working toward spiritual readiness. Nobody else was deciding anything for him. He wanted to continue on his path to enlightenment. He wanted to be with Honey.
Right?
His head hurt too much to think about it.
“That’s not—Elysian doesn’t do that to people like that. We form sacred partnerships based on spiritual compatibility and—”
“And what happens after the partnership is formed?” Riot asked. “After the bonding ceremony? Do they explain what comes next, or is that a separate program?”
Cass opened his mouth to argue, then stopped.
Connection counseling. That’s what they called it.
It was a separate program that bonded pairs enrolled in together.
He’d never thought to question why it was separate.
It just was. But now Riot was looking at him like the answer should be obvious, and Cass’s head was swimming, and he couldn’t remember what he’d been about to say.
“I don’t...” He couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t think clearly. The heat was getting worse, coming in waves now, and his body felt like it belonged to someone else—doing things without his permission, responding to stimuli he couldn’t control.
This is what happens when you stray too far from harmony, a voice in his head whispered. It sounded like Brother Matthias. Your body rebels against your spirit. This is why you need guidance. This is why you can’t trust yourself.
“What’s actually happening to me?” The question came out broken, scared. “What does heat even—I don’t understand what’s happening.”
Riot moved closer, his scent made his head clearer and fuzzier at the same time, like it was helping and hurting.
“Your body is trying to do what it was designed to do,” Riot said, his voice slightly softer. “What those pills have been preventing. It’s going to be uncomfortable, but it won’t kill you.”
“But I can’t go into heat without Honey.” Tears slid down his fevered cheeks. “If I can respond like this without her, what does that mean? We’ve been trying for years to develop proper spiritual alignment, and I never—she’s wonderful and brilliant and everything I should want, but I never felt—”
He couldn’t finish the sentence. It was too shameful.
All those nights lying awake wondering what was wrong with him.
All those meditation sessions trying so hard to feel what he was supposed to feel.
He wondered why he was so broken, so unable to do things other people his age seemed to be able to do, like focus and sit still and learn things without having special attention.
No other twenty-four year olds in his community still needed spiritual guides… just him.
“Maybe she’s not meant to be your partner,” Riot said quietly.
“But we’re destined. The compatibility scores said—”
“The compatibility scores lied. Just like the pills. Just like everything else Elysian told you.” Riot exhaled slowly, controlled, like he was measuring each breath. “You’ve been raised in a corporate cult, princess. Everything you believe is built on lies designed to control you.”
Cass’s vision blurred with tears. Riot was saying things that contradicted everything Brother Matthias had taught him. They couldn’t both be right.
“I don’t like this, Riot,” he choked out. “Everything feels wrong and people are treating me differently and you’re saying my whole life is a lie and I can’t think—”
He was sobbing now, overwhelmed, his body shaking with the force of it, rattling his aching heart in his chest. He knew his mission to this place was going to be hard, that he was more sensitive than he was supposed to be, but he didn’t think it was going to be like this. This was too much. It was all too much.
Riot moved.
Later, Cass wouldn’t be able to say exactly how it happened. One moment Riot was standing several feet away, the next his hand was buried in Cass’s hair, fingers tangling in the golden strands, gripping firmly and pulling hard.
Cass gasped.
The tug on his scalp sent electricity cascading down his spine—not pain, or not just pain, but it was bright and sharp in a way that made his whole body light up.
His tears stopped from the sheer shock of his head snapping back and he found himself tilted back, staring up at Riot, close enough to watch the gold swallowing the green in those eyes.
“What—” Cass breathed, but he didn’t finish his statement because he felt himself twitch.
It felt good.
The realization crashed through him. Riot’s hand in his hair, pulling hard enough to sting…heavens, it felt good. Better than good. It felt like relief, like the first cool water after days of thirst, like a need he hadn’t known existed being finally, finally met.