Chapter Twenty-Two
Drazien
The bedroom door shut with a hiss that seemed far too quiet for the weight it carried. I stared at the metal separating us, waiting for it to open again, but it didn't.
The silence within the room was suffocating. I knew Elaina was angry with me. Worse than that, I had hurt her.
Anger passed but hurt lingered.
My feet refused to move. I remained exactly where she'd left me, my gaze fixed on the closed door as if I could somehow undo the last few moments simply by replaying them enough times.
She wasn't leaving.
It was the first thought I had once I processed what she’d said. The declaration had been absurd, reactionary, and she’d only said it because she had been upset and had wanted to wound me.
Somehow she'd found the one weapon capable of doing it.
But she didn’t mean it.
The pressure in my chest eased as I assured myself it wasn’t true. She had spoken from anger, but she would sleep, morning would come, and I would make things better. We might argue again, but I would remain calmer, and I would explain what I'd failed to explain tonight.
She would understand.
Right?
The certainty lasted all of three breaths. She had been reluctant from the beginning, avoiding me at the gala and barely speaking to me unless she was forced to. She had asked specific questions about how long the serum took to work and how long she would have until her first heat.
At the time I'd assumed simple curiosity, but had it been?
Or had she been calculating how much time she’d have before she made her escape?
A cold sensation settled beneath my ribs, but I tried to assure myself it couldn’t be.
She had kissed me.
Let me feed her.
Allowed me to pleasure her.
None of that fit with an omega intending to leave.
My thoughts caught on the memory of her words.
“I was planning to leave...”
Not was leaving.
Was planning.
Past tense. She hadn't spoken impulsively, she’d been prepared to leave from the moment I chose her.
My eyes closed and I swallowed hard. The ache in my chest was worse than a knife wound, but I refused to acknowledge it.
It wasn’t there.
I forced myself to move. One slow step, and then another. The home I’d been so proud of, that had seemed more than large enough, suddenly felt too small when I was forced to turn and pace back the other direction.
Elaina’s robe lay folded over the chair where she'd left it when she’d dressed that morning.
One of my books rested open on the table, a strip of woven fabric marking the page she'd been trying to translate. There were pillows on my couch that hadn’t been there before she arrived and a new sculpture on the shelf that held my weapons.
She hadn't intended to leave immediately. She’d planned to keep learning. Maybe I could have convinced her to stay…
My throat tightened and my tail whipped behind me, knocking the shelf over.
She had planned the moment perfectly. She would have waited, with me believing the bond inevitable, until the last moment, then she’d have disappeared before I could claim her.
No confrontation, no argument, simply...
Gone.
The bench to my table was next, crashing into the wall, the vezhakk horn splintering.
Every assignment I'd ever accepted had begun with the same principle. Understand the target, predict behavior, and control the outcome.
I had done exactly that, except somehow I’d gotten Elaina completely wrong. I had thought I understood her. I’d thought she was the perfect submissive omega, even though she’d shown me from the beginning that wasn’t who she really was.
She was quiet and careful, but she was curious and tenacious, with a will as strong as any warrior’s.
I had watched her learn a new language in days, learn defense techniques that used her size to her advantage, and question traditions without insulting them.
She solved problems by gathering information no one else noticed, yet somehow, I'd never considered she might be gathering information about me, about the Morrak, so she could leave.
Because I had wanted to believe that coming here with me meant accepting me as her alpha.
It was pure arrogance.
The realization tasted bitter. I had mistaken her curiosity as a desire to learn her new home even though I’d known she was more than the shipping analyst her paperwork claimed she was.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and tried to control my temper.
She had never lied, as much as I might have wanted to accuse her of it. She'd never said she intended to stay, because I’d never bothered to ask. The probability of her rejecting me had been too low.
I almost laughed, but the sound died before leaving my throat.
She’d probably misunderstood.
They probably wouldn’t attack during Khavren.
They probably didn’t want to hurt other Morrak.
Probability had nearly killed her.
The room suddenly felt unbearably small, but I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving. There wasn’t much risk of anyone getting in to hurt her, but I didn’t want her to come out and be alone.
Even if she might not want me there.
The robe taunted me and I snatched it from where it rested, bringing it to my nose.
Her fruity scent had taken on an herby note after the serum in addition to deepening with omega pheromones.
Just the smell of her lingering on the fabric made my mouth water and my shaft twitch, but holding the robe was likely the closest I was going to get to her anymore.
My thoughts returned to the rebels and what I was going to do about the mission. No matter what had happened, I still needed to find out who was behind the attacks and stop them. If the Torvakai or Torashkar lost their korravai, it would put all of Morrakan at risk.
Not telling Elaina of her part had been a mistake, but using bait to lure the rebels into the open was still a good plan. The attack on her proved I was right and that they would go after any Human they could, but it also showed me they were still escalating.
The attempt on Serenya had been made prior to bonding, so it wouldn’t have affected Kael, but the attack on Taryn after she’d been claimed had placed Rhydek at risk as well.
The other attacks had been confined to the Human and their alpha, but this one showed they were fine with hurting other Morraki to get what they wanted.
I gripped the stone ledge of my table until my claws scraped faint grooves across its surface.
How long would it be before the dissenters decided killing the Humans was worth as many Morraki lives as it took.
Would they risk an entire cavern?
A whole level?
The plan had been sound, strategic, but the thought of placing any of the Humans at risk sickened me in a way it hadn’t before. I needed to think of something else, but my thoughts refused to escape the loop they’d fallen into.
I looked toward the closed bedroom door again. Elaina believed I had wanted a toy. She thought an omega was a thing to be owned. She didn’t understand the power an omega held over her alpha.
Had I given her that impression?
I replayed every word that had passed between us, cringing when I confirmed I’d made it sound that way.
“I wanted an omega.”
I closed my eyes and cursed myself. To a Morraki, the sentence carried the weight of an entire future. Of home, and family, and belonging.
But Elaina wasn’t Morraki, even if she’d become an omega. To a Human, it sounded as interchangeable as they treated their spouses.
Replaceable.
When I had meant I wanted her, she heard I wanted any female. As if any omega would do and she wasn’t the one who made me think that perhaps the bond was real.
The guilt I already carried settled heavier in my gut because I understood exactly why she'd heard it that way.
And because, at the gala when I’d made my selection, it had almost been true.
I had read the candidates profiles’, calculated their usefulness, and made a list of possibilities who fit the mission’s needs. I had narrowed the options with logic even if it had been my own desire that made me choose her.
Time passed while I paced, planned, erased everything and began again. Every solution I constructed ended the same way, with Elaina leaving and me having to hold myself together long enough to hunt the rebels to extinction.
And then…
And then I would face the Veyr’vokkar and attempt to atone for what I’d done, or at least be an example to other alphas of what not to do.
The thought left me feeling hollow, but I stopped trying to convince myself otherwise.
If she wished to return to Earth, then I couldn’t stop her.
I’d make sure she was on a ship crewed by nothing but betas and a kethral to help her with the effects of weathering her heat alone.
There was nothing else I could do, because forcing her to remain would only prove every terrible thing she believed about me.
The decision hurt more than I expected, because I finally understood what Kael and Rhydek had meant, and why they’d scoffed at my plan.
Claiming an omega was not possessing them. Bonding was a choice, and even if I wanted her, I had to accept that she might want a life that didn’t include me.
The thought felt like someone driving a blade beneath my ribs and twisting, and I almost called a kethral for myself. Surely if something hurt that much, there had to be a physical cause.
I checked the time, ready to call Rhydek and explain everything. I would take responsibility for the failure of the operation and find another way to reach the rebels. I had spent my entire life sacrificing what I wanted for the good of Morrakan, and this would simply be one more instance.
But he had a mate to hold through the night, and it wasn’t yet dawn.
Turning to the mess I had made, I cleaned away the broken pieces and returned Elaina’s items to her containers.
I hadn’t given her much time to unpack, but the full containers were more evidence that she hadn’t planned to remain.
The only things of hers in my home were what I had insisted on buying her, and packing them away tore at my chest violently enough that it sent me to my knees.
The crystals in the ceiling began to brighten, revealing the rising of Vorrashan. I had not slept, and when Elaina suddenly appeared in the open doorway, it appeared she hadn’t either.
I surged to my feet before I could stop myself, breath held as she stared up at me. She was fully dressed in a set of her Human clothing, dark circles shadowing her eyes. She looked exhausted, but determination was written in every line of her body.
She folded her arms, her brows creased as she glared, but for the first time, I didn’t find amusement in her irritation at me.
“If I'm going to be bait, then I'm done being kept ignorant.”
I’d been prepared for her to demand to leave immediately, so it took a moment for her meaning to fully process, and my first thought was to deny her.
“You don't get to make plans for me anymore. I’m going to be involved in everything.”
I opened my mouth, but she held up a hand, stopping me before I could speak.
“I understand why you did it. If I can help prevent an attack on anyone else, I want to. And I would have said that, if you’d bothered to ask.”
My words stuck in my throat. I didn’t want her to be bait any longer, didn’t want to put her at risk, but it was still the best plan I had.
And she was right. I should have explained the situation from the beginning and asked if she was okay with it, because if she knew what was going on, she was in a better position to survive.
The strategist inside me immediately started turning over ideas. Elaina lacked training and knowledge of what the rebels might do, but she was competent. I had no doubt that she could help me come up with a trap sure to draw the rebels out so we could catch them.
But what was the price?
She was still here, still willing to place herself at risk, but could I live with myself if I let her gamble her own safety.
And could I survive the distance that had formed between us?
Or was there a chance to repair the damage?
For the first time since the bedroom door had closed the night before, I allowed myself the smallest, most dangerous thing imaginable.
Hope.