Chapter 9 It’s My Choice
It's my choice
The Winter Alpha
A thousand years before the Night of Falling Stars
“Sit down, Alpha.” The calm command rolls off me with no reaction but a curl of my lips.
I ignore the ancient omega and continue pacing. I’m not sure where she came from, but I don’t want her here. The blizzard is blowing, and my temper is in every blast of its shards of ice. I don’t want to sit down; I want to scream and roar and break things.
“Sit!”
I whirl on her, but she doesn’t react; she just stares at me. A sheet of snow and ice on a vicious wind should make this omega flinch. When everyone else fears the storm, she alone risks it all to sit with me.
Why?
“What’s wrong?” she asks in a softer tone.
What can I tell her? That no matter where I search, I can’t find the omega who was supposed to meet me. It’s like she’s just gone. But gods don’t just disappear.
It’s not possible.
Two thousand years. She’s been gone for so long she’s almost a forgotten memory. My heart won’t forget her.
Our silence weighs heavily. I cannot tell her about the omega because I don’t know anything to tell. We knew each other for a few short weeks, but even a day would have been enough to know she was mine.
“Alpha, I have a story to gift you, but I’m not going to sit here until spring comes. So, sit your ass down and listen so I can get on with my work.”
I reluctantly throw myself down on my ice throne and grip the armrest hard enough to shatter the ice. The bubble we are in pulses out, but the storm pushes it back in. White snow, sleet, and ice batters, but nothing can touch us in here.
“What could be so important that you traveled all the way out here in this?” I throw an arm at the storm raging around us, my sarcasm heavy in my words. I just want to be left alone.
“It’s important for you to know that I don’t make the decisions; I just know when I need to say what needs to be said, and right now, this story must go to you.” Her careful wording pricks at my senses, and I scowl at her, wondering what she’s going to tell me.
She hesitates, touching her index finger to her lips twice.
I growl, but she ignores me, refusing to be rushed, even though the howling wind roars with my impatience.
When she does start talking, she’s so quiet I almost miss her first few words.
“Many years ago, the human world was struggling. They couldn’t find their balance; alphas were getting too strong, omegas too few, and wars waged. The gods assembled with the High Alpha, High Beta, and High Omega. And they put it to a debate.”
“Sounds like them. All they do is talk.” My snide comment comes from years of watching the same pompous gods sit and make the same decisions over and over. All the wrong ones.
“Alpha!” she chides, but I can see a hint of a smile playing on her lips.
I grumble but finally gesture for her to go on.
“All right, I’m listening.”
She smiles gently, and I see something that makes my chest constrict. What bad tidings does this story bring for me? She’s sitting on a throne of ice, too, but she’s not feeling it. The All-Seer is a powerful god, more powerful than I gave her credit for.
“They debated for three hundred days before they decided on a plan.”
“What kind of plan?” I ask, not terribly interested in where this is going.
“A plan that would change their world.”
I frown and watch the old omega. Her hair is silver, her face unlined, but she feels old. She’s still an exquisite omega, even if her eyes are white and her sight is poor. The All-Seer of the Gods, her counterparts are said to be so ancient they have entombed themselves in stone; only she remains.
“Do you enjoy being cryptic?” I ask curiously.
“The anticipation is something delightful. I seldom get to be a pain in the ass without tantrums. You are a good sport, Alpha.”
My frustration fades into amusement, and a smile plays on my lips.
Outside the ball of my magic, the storm rages, bending trees and blowing snow in huge whirls of wind.
“So, they debated for three hundred days and decided?”
“Oh, you aren’t a patient one, are you? They decided to send an omega to Earth to correct all the wrongs. She would be the world's fail safe.”
I sit up straight, my ears buzzing. Shock ripples through me. “What?”
“It was decided that one omega would go. They searched and lined up all the omegas and couldn’t find one.
But I knew there was someone they had missed, the only one who had the strength, the wisdom, and the compassion.
I approached her myself. She hesitated, her eyes filling with pain when I’d finished my explanation. ”
I stare at the old omega, my chest as frozen as the icy throne.
I can see her in my mind’s eye, the twist of her beautiful lips, her pale, slim fingers would twitch and grab at her clothing while she thought.
Her hair would be lifted by a nonexistent breeze.
I can see the ethereal omega in my mind, and I feel like someone has just ripped my heart out and thrown it to the ground.
“She hesitated for so long I thought she would say no, but then she bowed her head and accepted their plan.”
No!
NO!
The storm goes insane around us.
“What plan? What was she supposed to do?” I roar, bursting out of my throne, my white and black robes flowing out behind me.
“She was to live, over and over, and be the warrior, the catalyst, and the end of all the things that go wrong. She would live through those dark days, and she would die to end the cycles of poison that had spilled into their hearts.” The All-Seer is merciless; she throws her words out, unworried about what she’s even saying.
My throne explodes. “WHAT?”
The All-Seer cocks her head to the side and watches me without a trace of fear. I rush out into the swirling storm, passing through it easily. It takes me an hour to get to the World Viewer. I stare down, listening as the prayers come up.
For days, I stand there, my hands gripping the side, staring down, desperate to know.
For days, I send up my own prayers, just to hear her voice, just so I know for certain. They go unanswered.
Is it her? Would she have left me?
My back aches, and my mind is a confusing maelstrom of painful thoughts.
“Please,” I whisper.
“She’s not going to pray to us, Winter.”
I turn my head and meet the eyes of the old omega. “We can help her. I know we can. If I can hear her voice, I can find her and save her. I can bring her back. She should never have been there!” I shout. “Why would you be so cruel?”
“The offer was not my decision. She knew what she was doing!”
I grip my hair, pulling, screaming inside and out. “No! How could you do this to her? Where is she? I’m going to bring her back!”
“She’s not born yet. She lives for a blink of an eye and then disappears again. Only called when the world is on the brink of ruin,” the All-Seer says gently.
“Why would you curse her to live so miserably? Why would you do that to someone?” I snap. “To her!” I turn back to the viewer, searching again, just in case I missed her.
She tilts her head to the side. “What would you have done?”
“I wouldn’t have sent her alone, and why only pain? Why suffering? What’s the point? Why is the world more important than her? Why can’t we just let the humans destroy each other?”
“She protects what we have built, and she protects everyone who lives there because what affects them affects us. We need them, and they need us,” the All-Seer says, but I don’t care.
I growl and turn back to the viewer. Please.
She takes a breath and pauses.
“Spit it out or go away,” I snap.
“They sent her scent matches with her. She wasn’t the only one. Does that make you feel better? Knowing she wasn’t alone?”
The world has tilted upside down, and I am falling, falling. There isn’t a heart in my chest, just a cavity that is pain. I am going to die from it. No one could live through this.
“Her scent matches?” I whisper, trying not to sound too broken.
“Yes, she had two. I called them forth and gave them the option. Both of them took one look at her and signed up at once. She didn’t go alone. She will have love, epic love for the short time she lives.”
“And lose them over and over?” I roar. “What kind of life is that? How could you…why would you…” I stop, leaning over the viewer, finally seeing the empty chamber that used to be gold.
I’ve turned it snow white, frozen icy white.
The gods that were in here have fled, and it’s just me and the All-Seer.
I try to think, but my brain won’t let me think past anything but what horrors that they have inflicted on her.
“How do I bring her back?” I shout.
She shakes her head. “You can’t. It’s done. It was done a long time ago.”
“Time is relative. It means nothing. Bring her back.”
“Winter Alpha, there is no one here who has that power.”
“What happened to the others, then?” I snap, furious all over again.
“The others?” The old omega sits on the side of the brick wall surrounding the world viewer.
“Her counterparts.”
“Ah, well, it just so happens she only has an alpha counterpart.”
I stop, feeling like I’m going to vomit. “Did you…did you morons send the Luna Omega to Earth to suffer for all eternity?” The horror of it. The most graceful and strongest of all omegas. One who is rarely seen out in public. She’s almost a myth. I start to shake. The omega whom I suspect is mine.
The All-Seer sighs. “I was not consulted, but yes, they decided. I just took steps to mitigate their idiocy before it ended all of us.”
“What about her scent matches and their counterparts?” I wheeze and find myself on my knees. The pain is unimaginable. Of all the places I searched, I never thought she would be so far away from me.
“They removed themselves from counsel, and the threads binding them were cut. The counterparts now live alone in their territories, waiting until another counterpart is spawned to balance out the missing.”
“As nothing but figureheads? They could have stopped them!” I spit out and push back to my feet, leaning over the omega. “What were they thinking?” I howl.
“This was the best option.”
“The best option for whom?” I shout. “It hasn’t helped them or their counterparts; all it’s done is made sure the assholes who made the decisions keep their comfortable positions a bit longer.”
She studies me. “They said you were like this.”
“Like this?”
“Passionate. Intense.”
I don’t care about what I’m like or what people think.
“When will she be reborn?”
“She will return when the world needs her.”
I stare at the All-Seer and turn away from her. “You were wrong. You were all wrong to do that.”
“Perhaps, but maybe they just needed someone who could stop them from making decisions like that,” the All-Seer says with an authority that she hasn’t shown to me thus far.
I glance at her sharply. “You want me to try for High Alpha?”
“It would be the only way to make sure things go your way, Alpha. If there was a way to get her back, the High Alpha could make it happen.”
I growl and stalk away from her without a word.
It can’t be the same omega. It can’t be.
I am her soul mate. I am her scent match. Why would they leave me behind? She wouldn’t have left me here, not without saying goodbye. I know it.
I turn my hand over, looking at the white tattoo that she gave me. It’s a mass of swirls and stars. We never exchanged identities. We just met in secret. One winter, just one.
I gave her my heart; I poured my soul into hers.
And when it came time for winter to seize the landscape again…she never returned. I’ve searched for her all this time, never giving up, and now they tell me she’s out of my reach.
“Send me down there,” I say with my last thread of control.
“We can’t. Winter is needed too much. They will not sacrifice you.”
“IT’S MY CHOICE!” I howl.
She clenches her hands in front of her and waits.
It takes me forever to get my breathing back to normal. When I’m somewhat composed, I clench my hands and walk back to my icy home. For a month, I let the storms rage, ignoring the pleas of the other gods. My pain is merciless. I have no mercy for them.
I freeze the worlds, and I sit there, and at the end of thirty days, I am able to accept that she left me.
That I’m not hers.
It takes me another couple of years before I feel okay enough to smile.
But every beat of my heart remembers the All-Seer’s words. They sent her to Earth to live.
And to die.
Over and over.
I have to find a way to get her back because I know that they made a mistake. She is mine. From the moment we met, I knew I would love no other but her.
She is my omega.
It’s time for me to take my responsibility as High Alpha and return my omega to her rightful place beside me.