Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cassian stalks in front of the couch, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “Love, you ask too much of me. You ask me to risk your life and your freedom. Meeting with the resistance is treason, and you’ve seen what happens to those charged with treason.”
They don’t make it out of prison alive.
The resistance has lost three members to treason charges since the start of the year, and they’ve all been slain in prison by the Soldiers of Saint Aldous and their allies.
“The world already knows who I am, Cass. My father knows my affinity, the Soldiers of Saint Aldous know my affinity, and I’m sure they’ve already guessed that I’m with the resistance.
That I helped take down Rad’s facility. Like it or not, I’m a known entity.
I’ve seen what happens if I don’t stop them.
And it’s far worse than me dying in prison. ”
“What could be worse than that, my darling?” Ian murmurs, pulling me into his side on the couch and nuzzling my temple, marking me with his scent.
“You don’t… you don’t know what I’ve seen.”
“Because you haven’t told us,” Simon says gently. “You’re carrying the burden all by yourself.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. I still can’t. Trust me when I say this is all so much bigger than me. My father is up to something diabolical, and I have to stop him. Everything hinges on this. I haven’t seen why, but I know it’s true. If you don’t trust me, trust my affinity. Trust my magic.”
“Of course we trust you,” Luca growls, taking my other side and lacing his fingers with mine. “But this is risky. Cass is right. Your life is too precious.”
“My life isn’t the only life in the balance. It hasn’t been for a long time. I have to save these omegas. I have to save all omegas. I know I have to.”
“Why does it have to be you?” Simon asks, a pleading note in his voice.
“Because I’m the only one who can stop my father.”
If I’m going to make the world safe for the omegas I’ve taken into my heart and care—them and countless others I’ll never meet—I have to destroy the monsters that would do them harm, starting with my father.
Since the warehouse was compromised, the resistance has been meeting in an old, abandoned lodge on the mainland.
Ian and Simon have spent their few free moments warding it both magically and technologically.
Despite the wards and other protections, my pack is on edge when I step to the front of the lodge.
From my vantage point, I can make out what remains of the resistance after the slayings.
I feel the missing members like a hit in my stomach.
Between the slayings and recent treason charges, we’re down nearly twenty members, including the resistance’s previous leader, Franklin Carmichael.
Graeme and Jack have taken up his mantle, but I see their strain in the new lines around their brows, around their mouths.
Frank was slain on the Feast of Saint Jasper, along with thirteen others.
Killed right in front of his omega mate.
Michelle Carmichael sits in the front row, the surviving members of her pack around her, leaving a seat empty in honor of Frank.
I don’t have to imagine the horrors she’s seen: I’ve seen them in my visions.
I wonder if she still bears the faint scars left behind by the omega trap that held her as the Soldiers slayed her mate right before her eyes.
She’s not the only omega in attendance who lost a mate in the slayings.
They dot the crowd, beacons of courage and strength.
Of sorrow and loss. I can only vow to be as brave as they are in the face of our enemies.
I’ve seen the future, seen packs torn apart before their omegas’ eyes, all carried out in the sadistic manner the Soldiers are most fond of.
Can the future be changed? Or is the fight I wage against my father a hopeless struggle that won’t stop the tide of evil threatening to drown us all?
Saints, I feel like I know less and less for sure every day, but I have to try to change what I’ve seen.
For the omegas safely hidden away in Marmora Castle.
For the omegas my father is experimenting on.
I shift from foot to foot in front of the fifty or so gathered resistance members and finally gather my courage.
“My father has a history of experimenting on omegas, and not just within the confines of Rose Pharmaceuticals clinical trials. In addition to his own experiments, he provided test subjects for the facility we infiltrated a few weeks ago. His history of trafficking omega test subjects goes back much further than that, as does his history of experimenting on omegas. I don’t think I was his first test subject, but at sixteen, he kidnapped me and took me to a clandestine facility where he tried trial after trial to lock my magic. Eventually, he was successful.”
Images flash before my eyes. A tattooed serial number on an omega shoulder, a scalpel shining in the bright light of a makeshift operating theater.
IV tubes snaking under my skin and polluting my body with poison.
I can’t separate the thoughts he forced into my head from my own traumatic memories.
When I see blood welling up along omega spines, I remember leather restraints holding me down to a cold metal table, my father’s scribe poised above me.
Someone in the crowd clears their throat, and I jolt back to the present, taking a deep breath before I continue.
“If not for Ian, my magic would still be locked, and I wouldn’t be standing before you today with dire news and an even more dire warning: an omega body has washed up on a New Jersey beach with her maginalus removed.
I have every reason to believe my father is sending me a message; he’s experimenting again. He must be stopped.”
A gasp goes up through the crowd, followed by a sea of murmurs.
Alena, a beta with a proclivity for explosives, cuts in. “Junie, you know I'm all for making trouble, but what do we have to go on? Do you have a location? Some evidence? We wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“We’re still trying to find out specifics. His movements suggest he may be working out of a facility in New Jersey.” I look to Simon, who’s been doing his best to track my father, and he nods.
Jack sighs. “Find the information we need, Juniper, and we’ll do what we can. But I agree with Alena. We don’t have enough to go on yet, and we’re spread so thin.”
I know I’m asking the resistance to do the impossible, but I can’t help the frustration that bubbles up inside me, burning like bile in the back of my throat.
“The omegas in the safe house that was attacked were meant to be taken alive. Affinitied omegas who have already served as test subjects. If they fall into my father’s hands, who’s to say what would happen? ”
“Find us a plan, Junie, and we’ll act on it,” Graeme says quietly from his seat in the front row.
I grit my teeth, but nod. I may not be able to help the omegas I’m sure my father is experimenting on yet, but I can help the omegas we’ve already freed. I have to. And I have to get stronger myself. When I’m not in class or with the omegas, I need to train.
Forty omegas have opted to train in their affinities, and Marmora Castle’s great hall is more than large enough to fit them all, plus space for Ian to ward four safety chambers not unlike the practice rooms in Aldric’s Hall—safe places for the omegas to practice their affinities without risking their fellows.
I stand in front of them, just as I stood in front of the resistance, about to bare my soul again.
These omegas need to know what I’m capable of if they’re to trust me.
I pace, gathering my thoughts, before finally turning to face them.
“I think you all know me by now, but I’m Juniper, and I have an affinity just like all of you.
I can read minds and have visions of the future.
But don’t worry, I’m not here to read your minds.
I’m also able to sense the near future and react quickly.
It saved me and my mates when we infiltrated the facility.
I’d like to give you a demonstration with my mates, Ian, who you should all know by now, and Cassian, an advanced combat mage. ”
A few omegas murmur in the audience as Ian steps forward from the side of the room, joining me before them.
“What we’re going to show you is a form of combat magic.”
“But combat magic is banned for omegas,” a small voice says from in the crowd.
I grimace. “We no longer have the luxury of following the rules. We need to be armed with every tool we can that’ll keep us safe and let us fight back.
The Soldiers of Saint Aldous aren’t playing by the rules.
The hex for the omega trap has been banned for hundreds of years, yet many of us have been trapped in them.
If they’re not going to play by the rules, we can’t afford to either.
Now, my two mates are going to fire sparks at me, not hexes.
I’m going to show you how my affinity lets me shield myself from multiple attacks by allowing me to predict them before they strike. Ian, Cass, shall we?”
They both grumble, but they know the omegas need to see another affinity.
I take my space between them at the front of the room, bending my knees slightly so I can react quickly.
They give me a moment to get my bearings, to activate my affinity until it flows through me, and then they strike, fast and relentless.
I throw up a shield before I can be hit, whirling to block a barrage of attacks from Cassian, angling to block a shower of sparks from Ian.
And when I feel confident, my affinity at the forefront of my mind, I fire back.
Cassian blocks my attacks easily, his long, hard hours of training showing as he gracefully deflects my sparks.
We continue like this until I’m breathless—until I strike Ian with a spark, and he hisses in pain.
The gathered omegas are dead silent, waiting for him to strike back, for him to admonish and punish me for striking him.
They expect his fury; what they don’t expect is his pride and the broad smile he gives me.
“Well done, my darling. Your combat training is truly paying off.” He captures me in a hug that lifts my feet from the stone floor and whirls me around once before setting me down and pressing a light kiss to my lips.
Cassian angles past him to kiss me, too, and a few of the omegas gasp.
Saints, I hadn’t realized. Many of the omegas here haven’t seen a loving relationship between an omega and her alphas.
They’ve only seen and endured punishments, not pride, castigation not kisses.
The world has been far crueler to them than it’s been to me, but maybe we all heal, just a little, when my mates take me into their arms, their compliments quick to come and genuine.
My work with the omegas goes slower than Ian’s does since I can only spend the weekends and a few evenings a week with them.
All the English-speaking omegas gather in the castle’s great room whenever I’m there to teach them, though one in particular lingers at the back of the room: Cora.
Cora, with her erratic magic, magic so strong it sent my alpha to his knees when we rescued her from the collar facility.
Cora with magic so strong she doesn’t dare get close to any of the other omegas, let alone the alphas guarding the castle.
Cora, with a history so bleak and magic that has only ever hurt people.
While she skulks at the back of the room, I have plenty of volunteers to test and hone their affinities.
Aimee steps into one of the safety chambers Ian spun and shakes out her dirty- blond curls, squaring her shoulders.
“Start by taking a deep breath and centering yourself, just like you would when calling your magic.”
I watch as she breathes deeply, her eyes fluttering shut.
“Feel for your affinity. It’ll feel more instinctual than your magic.
At least, mine does. Once you can feel it, release it slowly, guiding it like you’d guide any spell.
” It’s only my best guess as to how other affinities work.
I only know how my own truly operates, and even then, mine often surprises me.
It starts with a subtle crackle of magic, and then, suddenly, Aimee’s curls fly around her head as a breeze kicks up in the safety chamber.
She opens her eyes and stares in awe at her crackling palms, then releases a little more magic.
The crackle turns to lightning, and it strikes Ian’s protective warding with a shower of sparks.
Dark clouds churn over her head and unleash a torrent of rain down on her.
She slips on the wet stone and wheels her arms to catch her balance, stepping over the line of wards and out of the safety chamber.
She hits me with a gust of wind so powerful it knocks me off my feet. I fall hard on the stone floor, letting out an “oof!” of surprise. Aimee drops her hands immediately, her affinity fizzling out, and runs to me, half sliding in her wet shoes.
“Oh, saints! Juniper, I’m so sorry!”
I can’t help but let out a joyous laugh. Seeing her storm magic so proudly displayed, so strong already, was a triumph. If it took being knocked on my ass to see it, well then so be it.
It takes a moment, but soon Aimee laughs with me. Another moment passes and the shy omegas watching us begin to titter as well. They’re still so meek. So wounded. I wonder if there’s time enough in the world for them to heal.
The affinities shown are as diverse as the omegas we rescued, and I walk around the four safety chambers watching one omega float and turn somersaults in the air, pause at the edge of the wards as another’s skin turns to stone.
While others wait to test their affinities inside Ian’s wards, they practice the sigils he’s taught them.
I walk amongst them, correcting a few as they learn the new magic, but more than that, I marvel.
They’ve learned so much in such a short time—far more than we learned in our first few weeks of casting classes as freshmen.
It shows on their faces. Those that haven’t smiled in months, even years, break out into small, hesitant smiles, pride shining in their eyes.
I look up as Ian walks into the great hall and catch his easy grin, returning it with one of my own. My mate is one of the best things that could have ever happened to these freed omegas. He’s giving them something I hope I can give them too.
Hope.