Chapter 43
The heat
The four days since we saw most of the omegas and alphas escape the city have not been fun. We’re tired and exhausted; the Path are dogging our steps, finding us by their sheer numbers. We’ve travelled around the city in a huge circle, being driven from one hiding spot to another.
They’ve figured it out, though, because today it’s been strangely silent. I look down at the city from the massive high-rise we’re hiding in.
“They are all retreating.”
“Thank the gods for that,” Jarek whines. He sits down heavily, leaning against the wall.
Mordecai and Cadel are both as tired; they have lines around their mouths and eyes and are pale. I look up at the night sky, seeing just the thick, black clouds. It feels like rain is coming, and a lot of it.
I have not been able to turn into a wolf again, though I have tried over and over, but whatever trick caused the transformation is not repeatable, or I just haven’t found it yet. Even when we were nearly caught and had to fight our way out. The wolf has not come. I have not felt it at all.
It’s almost as if I dreamed it happening, but I asked the others, and Cadel had merely shrugged and said the change happens when it happens.
“Do you know what I miss?” Mordecai says into the silence. “I miss the forests of my home. They were these massive giants that stretched straight up into the air. You could look up and up and not fathom how tall they were. I liked walking in them.”
Jarek stares at him. “That is so random.”
Mordecai punches his thigh, but it’s playful. “It’s just not the same here. I haven’t seen them since the night we left, when my parents died.”
“Oh,” Jarek whispers, and I see him reach out and take Mordecai’s hand.
Since the day Jarek woke up weird and ran away from us, he’s been different.
Softer, sadder. He’s also embarked on a physical relationship with the other alphas, not holding back his affections.
I think they were both surprised, but neither has rebuffed him, and I certainly am not going to be the one to say that loving people is wrong.
They banned us from associating, banned us from living. Alphas can’t be with omegas, near omegas, mate with omegas. Alphas can’t love alphas. Omegas can’t love anyone.
We’re breaking all the rules anyway, so what’s a few more?
“I miss hearing them worry about ordinary things. People would walk past where I was chained up and whisper prayers for money, for love, for food, for mercy. I used to think them so tedious, so trivial, but we’re all just one bad fortune away from drowning down here,” Cadel murmurs.
“Do you remember your time as a god yet?” Jarek asks cautiously. His eyes snap to me and slide away.
“Not all of it. Some, though. I remember massive forests, a frozen world. Everything is white, and the trees tinkle delicately when the wind brushes against them. The snow is blinding and so crisp, but snowflakes float down in swirls that look like dancing horses.”
I bite my tongue, wanting to ask, to know more but scared to stop their conversation.
“I miss the thrill of stealing.”
I choke on a mouthful of water I’m drinking.
“What?” I splutter, looking at Jarek.
“I miss stealing. Pick pocketing, breaking and entering, the thrill of outsmarting someone who thought they deserved better. I like to punish them. It felt like I was doing something, and it felt good.”
He leans back and sighs with a wistful little smile.
Cadel and Mordecai are still staring at him. I’m not sure they know what to even say about that.
“Are you serious?” Cadel asks at last.
“Yes, I was so damn good,” Jarek sighs. “All these dramatic, hard-earned skills, and it hasn’t helped me at all here.”
I wipe my hand over my lips to hide my smile.
“I miss,” I pause when they all look at me and flush when I remember I wasn’t going to join this conversation.
“What do you miss?” Jarek asks with a smile that gives me hope.
“I miss the smell of baking cookies and bread. The meals you can only make when you have a home and you aren’t living on the run. I miss hearing laughter and the cries of babies.”
“Kaida, you will hear those things again,” Mordecai says with absolute conviction.
“Maybe, maybe not. Even if I did, I wonder how I would go on living in this world anymore. At what point do you see too much? How scarred do you have to be before you can’t appreciate the things you loved so much about the world?”
They are staring at me, but I can’t look at them.
“Ignore me,” I whisper. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. Everything just seems impossible.”
Jarek stands up, but I wave him back.
“I’ll take first watch. I want to be alone, anyway. No one needs to put up with this foul mood of mine.”
Jarek growls and springs towards me, grabbing my hips and pulling me back into his arms for a fierce hug.
“It’s okay. We all have days and nights like this. It’s what makes us human. I’m not going to let you forget the good moments, though. Like Cadel walking into that hole today on the sidewalk.”
I smile like he planned, and he grins back, dropping a kiss on my forehead.
“Finding that river and seeing all those people get out of here,” I say.
“Meeting you,” Mordecai says.
“Finding you,” Cadel says at almost the same time.
“Everything about you, Omega Kaida Keres. Everything about you has been a miracle that I know I don’t deserve.”
He leans down and touches his lips to mine, and instead of a bolt of heat, there’s a pain in my chest and a flutter. A flash of colour, and Jarek is lying naked on a bed, smiling at me. He winks, and the vision fades.
I look away, unwilling to unpack what these visions are or if they are even real because it doesn’t matter if they are, we’re here in the Culling Grounds.
“Thank you,” I say to him, curling my fingers around his shoulders. “I’m still taking the first watch. You alphas have had hardly any sleep. Let me do this.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course, I’m sure. I’m perfectly capable of watching for danger.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Jarek whines as I turn him by the shoulders and push him away.
“I know that you didn’t. Just get some sleep. Tomorrow, we need to find a way out of here or try to get back to the river.”
“Yes, Omega,” Jarek says with adorable insincerity.
I mock growl at them but move to the window, finding a spot to perch where I can watch for anyone who might be trying to come up into the building.
I keep glancing at them, even as they pass into sleep.
They are beautiful and damaged but the most honourable alphas I’ve met.
Even in this howling ruin, with dust and darkness and the feel of death in the air, they are still amazing.
There is something about them that draws me in; it’s their scent, their aura, something about the way they look and speak.
It’s like I know them, and I love them already, but how can that be?
I’ve given up trying to be suspicious of it.
I want to protect them because I want that future that they are painting. I’m scared to want it, but I hunger for it like I’m starving.
Time passes slowly, and the night gets quieter and colder.
I don’t know what alerts me first, but the rolling mist that is slowly filling the streets has obviously been there for a while.
My heart pounds.
I’ve seen it before.
I move to another window and find it already spreading in that street.
The smoke mist is heavy; it doesn’t rise far at first, but you only need a little bit.
The Beta’s Path will be walking around with torches that they continuously dip into a noxious compound that triggers an unnatural heat in omegas and rut in alphas.
I race to the other side of the building and look down.
Whorls of it spin in the air, spreading out and into every crack and crevice. It’s everywhere. We’re surrounded.
I don’t have to worry about the Beta’s Path killing me.
These alphas will do it and then rip each other apart.
I walk back to where they are sleeping and taste the drugs on my tongue. It’s a burning heat, similar to pepper.
If I can hide, maybe I can keep all of us safe. They will be all right together unless they come across an omega.
I rub my temple because my head is getting foggy, and I’m starting to sweat. My arms prickle and itch, and I distantly wonder where my cape and hood went. I’m sure I was wearing it.
The wind howls, and I catch the scent of something thick in the air. Something male and musky.
Run.
I react before I can think properly, darting down the stairs. It takes me forever, but when I reach the foggy world below, I see more shapes and shadows rearing up. The fear of something right behind me has me plunging blindly into the mist.
My heart beats too fast as the shapes lift up, appearing and vanishing before my eyes. The world is a nightmare of blurs and scents and this burning inside me. My mouth is dry and full of pepper. My eyes water, but I can’t think clearly. All I can do is dart into the dark, desperate to hide.
I feel my body clench and let out a half-sob as slick soaks through my pants.
It hurts. So bad.
I dive into the darkness, pushing through increasingly smaller gaps. Trying to find a space to hide where I will be able to evade the alphas that I can feel all around me.
I abandon the building I’m hiding in and go outside carefully, waiting, head cocked to the side, listening intently to the sounds of the night.
A growl makes the fog vibrate.
I startle and take a step back.
“Omega,” the voice calls.
I don’t know that voice.
The alphas appear like a pack of dogs, slinking into the space around me. My wild scent has summoned them, and they are now mindless beasts.
I step backwards until my back is pressed up against a concrete wall, with vines woven in the cracks. I dig my fingers in, trying to use the pain to focus.
Slick runs between my thighs, and I have to bite my cheek to stop a needy groan slipping from between my lips. My knees tremble. There are too many.
I wait, poised to take whatever advantage I can. A shape flies out of the dark, grabs my arm, whirls and pushes me through a glass door. I’m in a box of some kind, and I can see them all through a thick pane of glass.
Mordecai stares at me, but I almost don’t recognise him. His ice-blue eyes are almost white, his hair blows out around him, his muscles look massive. I step forward, lifting my hand to the glass.
His eyes never leave my face.
A shape moves, and I recoil back into the room, wrapping my arms around myself and crouching down on the ground to make myself smaller.
I pant through the waves of heat, but the drugs are impossible to deny. I want to crawl to the door and open it, but when I get there, it’s been wedged shut with a pole that’s bent in the shape of a U.
Blood sprays across the glass. I stare at it, shivering, before my gaze focuses on the movement beyond it. Mordecai slams into three alphas, lifting them off their feet and throwing them across the road. They slam into the bricks and collapse, dead.
He whirls, his teeth bared, and punches another alpha so hard the side of his head collapses.
There are so many of them, and they come at him, over and over. Stronger and more rested. Desperate to get to me, but I watch only him.
Ten of them rush him at once. He stands and, with a roar, disappears under them.
“ALPHA!” I scream.
Five alphas that are standing around panting turn their heads, their savage and rut-fueled eyes fixed on me.
I back away from the glass.