Chapter 4 Four
Four
Brea
Cotton balls filled my skull. Stuffed to the brim. Thick fuzz slowed my thinking as I woke. Awareness bled in like blood through wispy fibers.
When did I sleep?
Wait. I hadn’t slept.
I was running. And then—
“Taryn!”
I bolted upright, which set off a flash of lightning behind my eyes. I hissed, raising my hand to my pounding and spinning head to feel a bandage at my temple.
Questions for later. Right now, there was one question and one answer only that interested me.
“Taryn?” I called again, moving to swing my legs over the side of the overstuffed sofa I’d apparently slept on. Wearing a gray knee-length cotton night shirt I’d never seen before.
“Better move slow.” I whipped my head around, groaning again at the agony that lanced my skull. “You were split like a melon when I found you.”
A young woman sat at a small round table barely big enough for two. Sharp green eyes locked onto me. A long blonde braid wilted over her shoulder like a sundried vine. Two plaid-covered arms folded onto the table, and frail fingers wrapped around a crude ceramic mug.
I swallowed, doing my best to canvass the room without alerting the stranger to my observation. “What happened?”
“Found you at the base of Falcon’s Edge. Thought you were dead. You should be dead”—Her tone was downright accusatory—“if it was Falcon’s Edge you actually fell off.”
Bits and pieces came back to me. Hiding with Taryn in the cave, venturing out to go hunting for supplies, some help. Choking on dread as I heard what sounded like footsteps too damn close. Sprinting and making a racket so they’d follow me, even though I’d left the cave hours before.
Then the misstep and the tumble down the ravine. All went black after that.
Wait—Falcon’s Edge?
It was a famous cliff. Views were supposed to be spectacular. Maybe in another life, after a normal heat had ended, we could’ve driven over to experience it ourselves.
And drive we would’ve, because the Edge was nearly thirty miles from Caine’s cabin.
“I couldn’t have fallen off Falcon’s Edge,” I murmured as I rubbed my forehead. “We’re nowhere near there.”
“It’s about a half-hour walk out that door,” the woman said as she nodded to her small shack’s single door.
A moment later, she shrugged. “River’s been high with all this rain.
And fast.” I strained my memory, but there was nothing.
It was the only option that made sense, though.
“Bond mark on your neck’s the only reason I didn’t leave you where you lay. ”
My hand covered Taryn’s bite, fingers running along the ridges like I could summon her with the touch. I swallowed my frustration, my fear, and nodded once.
By all appearances, this random stranger had saved my life. “What’s your name?”
The woman stiffened, her hands tightening around the mug.
“I’m Brea,” I added by way of reciprocation.
Narrowed eyes watched me, like a burrowing animal assessing a visitor outside their nest. I must’ve passed her internal measure, as she eventually answered, “Nova.”
“Thank you, Nova,” I said, infusing my words with sincerity. “But I have to go. My omega is on her own, and it isn’t safe—”
“Taryn Maddox?”
I was on my feet and snarling in Nova’s face before I’d made the conscious decision to stand, head trauma be damned. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, showing no fear. She gestured to a sideboard behind her, covered with receivers and monitors and a whole bunch of tech I wasn’t familiar with. “But they’re looking for her.”
“Have they found her?”
“Nope.”
I gave Nova my own assessment. “Do you have a vehicle? I need to get back and find her, like, yesterday.”
She chewed the inside of her lip, eyes darting from mine for the first time. Only then, as her anxiety spiked, did I get a good whiff of her scent. Or maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention.
Hazelnut and cardamom, with a hint of saffron.
“Shit,” I muttered, taking a step backward. “You’re an omega.”
Distrust clouded her face once more. But she didn’t deny it. Couldn’t, really, not with her scent now filling the room.
“Where are we?”
“Where they won’t find us,” she answered, standing at last. She was tall for an omega, the crown of her head right at my eyeline.
I shook my head, ignoring the pounding behind my eyes. “How long have I been here?”
“Sit down befo—”
“How long?”
“If I told you two hours, would you lay down?”
“Not if it’s a lie.”
She sighed and took a long draw from her mug, setting it on the table. “Two days.”
Shit.
“I have to go,” I said, limping toward the door. For all I’d apparently been resting for days, my body screamed at every movement. “She’s been alone for two days. I have to find her, get her somewhere safe—”
“There’s no such thing as ‘safe’ anymore.” There were ghosts in her eyes as she stepped toward me like she was ready to grab my arm if I tried to bolt. “Not once they’ve set their sights on you.”
“You wouldn’t have brought me here if you weren’t willing to help me.” Like a partner in a dance, I tried to sidestep so I’d have a clear shot at the door. “You knew my omega is out there, vulnerable. And you brought me back because you want to help her.”
Neither of us made a move or a sound.
I didn’t want to hurt her, but if she tried to keep me here, I’d fight. And I’d win, even weak as I was.
Still, I had no clear where we were. If we were as far from the cabin—and the cave—as she said, I'd definitely need some direction to get back.
And, fuck it, she seemed to know a lot. Maybe she knew something useful to us.
Moving slowly, I sat in the chair opposite from hers and folded my hands on top, waiting. In silent accord, she followed.
“You know about who’s chasing us?”
Nova’s jaw clenched, and she took a drink.
I shook my head. My pulse thrummed in my fingertips. I massaged them together. “We barely know about who’s chasing us, or why.” I squeezed my fingers into fists, letting my nails bite into my own palms. “God, we don’t know a damn thing.”
It was true. We knew about the medical testing Taryn’s mother had undertaken when she was pregnant, a clinical trial performed by Phoenix Labs, commissioned by Wainwright Corp.
And we knew about the omegas who’d been born to mothers from that trial—omegas who’d gone missing within months of their presentation and Registration.
All part of their long-game experiment to try and discover the designation gene.
Discover, and manipulate.
But beyond that? We were clueless why they cared so much about our omega. Why they were willing to offer bounty hunters up to half a million bucks to bring her to them.
If Nova had anything to share, any light to shed on what and why and where and who, I would play nice to get it out of her.
She seemed to consider her words. She sat with unsettling stillness, none of the fidgeting or readjusting I was used to with Taryn. Chills crawled up my spine at the thought of what would’ve instilled an instinct to such stillness in this omega.
“Wainwright Corp. has been dabbling in designation eugenics for decades,” she finally said, eyes on her mug. I sat forward, ready to commit every word she uttered to memory.
Nova cleared her throat, then continued, “At first, it was choosing the primary sex. Then they started promising all sorts of miracle treatments that would make male alphas bigger and stronger and more dominant, that could heighten omega pheromones, could dampen female alpha instincts so they’d be easier to mold and bend.
“It’s only been relatively recently that they’ve shifted focus to embryonic research and finding the designation gene.”
“Why?”
“Money. Why else?” Nova snapped. “Do you know how much those rich fucks would pay for a female omega embryo? To be guaranteed a status symbol like that?”
Bile coated my stomach as I shook my head. “They aren’t though,” I muttered. “Status symbols. Not anymore.”
“How cute of you to think that,” Nova replied before draining her mug and slapping it back to the table. “Designation neutrality is a more fragile idea than you realize. A gift,” she chuckled darkly, “from the alphas.
“When you have one omega for every hundred alphas, the unlucky ones don’t just go home to die alone.
They flouted the laws. Took their male lovers, mated their betas, invited female alphas into their packs.
They rallied for the laws banning all those things to change, and they won.
Only after all that did they turn to omega rights.
“Omegas have always been commoditized. They were a limited resource.” Nova’s stare bore into my soul.
“But what happens if the ultra-rich, the ultra-powerful can produce omegas?” Unease ran down my spice like dripping ice.
“What happens when the fuckers who’ve always viewed omegas as trophies and fuck dolls can literally create as many omegas as they want?
Give them away or sell them as they please? ”
My breath was barely a wisp in my lungs. “They take the money.”
Nova nodded. “We are only free because they thought we were disappearing. Few enough of us that even the richest aren’t guaranteed one of their own. At least, not without sullying their hands to get it. The moment that changes…”
Nausea burned through my gut. I had to get back to Taryn, but I had to know more. Her life—her freedom—depended on it. “How do you know all this?”
Nova hesitated, the first flicker of uncertainty behind her eyes. She rubbed her temples, squeezing her eyes shut and sighing.
Why it hit me that moment, I didn’t know. Maybe the way a strand of gold hair fell across her face as she looked up at me, or the suddenly youthful vulnerability that shone there.
I’d seen this face before.
“Wait, Nova…” A photo, printed and placed on my coffee table. One ghost among many. It had been a little fuzzy, a few years younger. “Nova Morgan, from Farendale?”
She said nothing, which was confirmation enough. One of the other omegas—like Taryn—born to mothers in the drug trials. One of the eight missing omegas.