16. Honey
Honey
It’s over. My heat has passed. Like every time before, it’s only been three days. So many omegas have impure times lasting seven or ten days, but as I am, it is always three days.
Afterward is so different this time though. I’m not exhausted to the brink of collapse. I have hunger, but I’m not starving. I’m not parched. My body doesn’t feel like I’ve been torn apart and stitched back together a hundred times over.
My head, however, is a new story. It’s a constant back and forth. Between feeling satiated and shameful.
Should I have let them sequester me? I know what the teachings said. The outside world, as told to us by the apostles, is a sinful place. Their warnings speak to exactly what just happened.
I was pure, and now I am not. I took their knots, and now I’ve been tainted. There will be consequences.
Consequences from whom? The one from before, the blond bear the omega told me to find? He’s the leader. I am sure it will be him to dole out any punishment as necessary.
But are the punishments necessary? The apostles made it sound like the outside world doesn’t care about an omega’s purity. They made it sound like the polytheists were only there to chase what felt good. Their leader said they could take me and . . .
What we did felt so good. And wrong.
“And what are you doing out here?”
His deep voice draws me from where I’ve been staring at the cup of coffee. Lazarus stands at the edge of the kitchen, coming from a hallway I haven’t been down but assume leads to where he sleeps, since he was not in the other bedrooms on this side of the apartment.
“I —” I cut off the excuse, sliding off the counter-height stool I had been seated on, and turn to go back to the bedroom I’ve been in with the twins.
“You do not have to go.” Lazarus stops me as footsteps on the floor indicate he moves closer. “It is unexpected to see you, not forbidden.”
The reassurance, those words. He talks, and my brain understands. The memory of coming to this place and talking with him, the one I need to see, and the others, is foggy at best. But Lazarus knew I was from the House of Apostles.
Rotating on the balls of my feet, I turn back to him and keep my head bowed, respectfully.
“Your season has passed so soon.”
It feels like a question and a statement all at once.
“It is always short,” I whisper and pull my head up to see him.
His long salt-and-pepper hair is down and framing his face.
I explain the short cycle in the only way I know how.
“There is something wrong with me. The apostles believe it to be necessary that I do not spend time with disciples until I’m assigned to an apostle. ”
“Mmm.” Lazarus steps to where my mug is on the counter, and he presses the back of his fingers against the ceramic, which has gone cold. “Shall I refresh this for you?”
The wastefulness has me shaking my head. “No, I can still drink it.”
“You’ll do best if you forget half of everything you’ve ever known.” Lazarus lifts the cup from the counter and pours the black liquid down the drain. “Come, sit. We’ll talk.”
As instructed, I move back to the stool. The leather cushion is luckily still warm from where my butt had heated it. The T-shirt I found to wear covers me, but it’s still thin against the cool air of the apartment.
“I cannot teach you everything you need to know about being an omega in the outside world.” Lazarus, with ease, operates the coffee machine that took me twenty minutes to figure out.
I watch him carefully, trying to memorize his movements to make the cup of coffee, but I’m enamored by looking at him instead.
He wears jeans that rise close to his waist. They’re cinched with a black leather belt, and his dark gray button-down shirt is tucked into them.
It’s typical for a faithful to wear these style clothes, but black is a forbidden color even for a belt.
It’s a color that comes in abundance here, and it suits Lazarus.
While the coffee device makes the sputtering sound, he pulls his salt-and-pepper hair from lying loose along his shoulders up to a bun at the back of his head.
When he turns, I drop my eyes to the counter again.
“You’ll have to stop doing that first and foremost.” Lazarus scolds me.
“Sorry, Alpha.” I hunch my shoulders, trying to become smaller.
“They don’t want omegas to be quiet, seen and not heard. They don’t want you to look afraid all the time.” He sets the cup of steaming coffee down before me. “Shoulders back, head high. To alphas of the outside world, omegas are prized possessions to be shown off and coveted.”
I correct my posture slowly. It takes a long time for me to find the courage to look at his face again. It’s more striking than I remembered. A longer face with a prominent nose and brow. He’s handsome.
Why did he not join during my heat? He’s the leader of this pack? Does he not want me?
“You’ll be expected to provide direct answers promptly.
Without apology or placation. They don’t like it when you’re overly polite, and it’s seen as rude to remain silent in a conversation.
Joining in, regardless of having nothing worth contributing, is important to them.
” Lazarus steps back to the coffee machine, and I study the buttons more this time.
Is that what he wants from an omega? I try to do as he says, listening intently.
“Perhaps you should meet with Evangeline. She’d be best at explaining.” Lazarus murmurs something else, but I don’t catch it.
The bedroom door I had closed earlier opens.
“She’s out here.” A groggy-sounding Zephyr shuffles toward me. Once he’s close enough, he wraps his hands around my middle.
He tips his head and kisses my neck.
His attachment feels wrong. None of the last few days have been holy, but this doesn’t feel acceptable. It feels nice, but it isn’t proper.
“Hey.” Zephyr stops and spins me in the stool to look at him. He brings the back of his hand to rest against my forehead. “How are you not in heat?”
“I have short seasons.” The answer comes out in a placating tone. I’m everything Lazarus told me they don’t want in omegas in this world. I try again, this time straightening myself and projecting my voice. “They’re only a few days long at most.”
“You’re still in rut.” Lazarus’s statement draws both Zephyr’s and my attention.
“Obviously.” Phoenix yawns, coming into the main space with us.
Like Zephyr, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me toward him. This time I’m nearly taken off the stool into his embrace.
It takes a few moments of him snuggling against my rigid body for him to come to the same conclusion. “She’s not in heat.”
“How does this happen?” Zephyr grits his teeth. He looks between Lazarus and me.
I look to the older alpha in the same hope that he has answers.
“I am uncertain.” Lazarus studies the three of us as if to calculate something unseen. “It’s best we see your brother in this situation.”
“Ugh. Fox will have a field day with this.” Phoenix squeezes me a little harder around the middle. It feels like he’s pleading with me as he nuzzles his head against mine. “You’re sure you’re not in heat? We could go back to bed. There are still so many things we could do together.”
I force myself to breathe. I remember wanting him. I remember needing him. But without the haze of my impure time, I’m blatantly aware of how wrong that was of me. It goes against all the teachings.
“Get off her.” Lazarus’s voice is low. It’s growly and threatening as he narrows his eyes just above me, looking at Phoenix. “She’s not in estrus. She doesn’t want what you’re offering. Until we are certain she is healthy, you will need to handle your own rut.”
“Why does that feel like an ‘I told you so’?” Phoenix peels himself off me. “Like he told us to not get involved with the omega, and now we’re suffering. Did you plan this?”
“I would not spend time worrying about how to punish the two of you. Nor would I be so cruel as to drag an omega into this.” Lazarus doesn’t deny that he punishes the twins, and he goes back to the machine to fetch his own cup of coffee.
He sips it. “I will stay with the omega, you go and fetch your brother.”
“But —”
“No,” Lazarus barks. “I cannot trust the two of you alone with her, and I don’t want to risk her slipping back into estrus following me through the compound.” His words turn darker again; they’re more direct. “Go and get Fox.”
That order, not directed at me, I recognize the feeling of. I almost slide off the stool to go with them to escape the overwhelming power of the command.
He is not an apostle. He is not hurting you. He is keeping you safe. I draw steadying breaths, trying to repeat the words and make them ring true.
Phoenix lets go of me, and Zephyr tugs on his shirt, dragging him back to the bedroom. Two silent minutes pass before they re-emerge, dressed in clothes more suited for going out in public, and then leave. They cast backward glances at the two of us, and I can feel the heat of desire in their gaze.
The door closes, and Lazarus speaks. “Lord, I am not worthy, but please grant me the strength to handle each challenge as it presents itself.”
“Thank you for saving me,” I say quietly after he finishes his prayer.
“I didn’t save you.” Lazarus draws a sip of his coffee, then shakes his head. “I stopped them. You’re not safe, not even with me.”
“I feel safe with you.” I argue with him, forgetting my place or maybe subconsciously trying already what he has instructed me to do: forget half of everything I’ve ever known and be less polite.
“But you’re not.” Lazarus reiterates as his knuckles turn white with his grip on his coffee cup. “There is very little difference between the two of them and me. I didn’t save you.”
It feels like it though. I don’t argue with him further but try to let the conversation go.
“I’m selfish and wanted to be the first to knot you. While you were in estrus, every flat surface tempted me to spread you out on it. I am still resisting temptation.” Lazarus sets the cup down on the counter. The black liquid sloshes, threatening to spill out with the force.
“Why?” I whisper, shaking my head.
These words contradict the alpha I’ve seen. Flashes of him during my estrus flash through my mind, providing food and coaxing me to drink water, so caring and in control.
“Why what?” Lazarus picks the cup up, checking to see if it spilled, and wipes the counter with his hand.
“Why are you resisting?” Where I ever got to be so bold, I’ll never know. But something in me is wrong, and it confuses me. I know, though, that feeling has to do with Lazarus.
“Because no alpha should be twenty years the omega’s senior.
It’s unhealthy and exactly why you were leaving the House of Apostles.
” Lazarus sips from the cup. His face is drawn and pensive.
“It’s why you’ll ask for the club president and vice president to traffic you away from here.
You’ll ask for them to get you someplace safe, with a pack that can love and care for you, one that isn’t made up of twins or a single male.
They can’t give you what you need. I can’t give you what you need. ”
The gravity of his words and the seriousness of what he says weigh on me. I don’t understand it all, but I do know what he is saying. He wants me away from here in a pack without him, Phoenix, and Zephyr.
“Do you understand?” Lazarus asks firmly.
Like so many times in my life before, I nod and behave as expected of me.