Chapter 63
No one escapes their fate
Running through the rain is difficult enough, but the city is full of these black-robed assholes, and it’s become lethal.
Every corner we turn, they are there waiting.
I swipe my wet hair off my face and look back the way we came from.
They’re only minutes behind us. We haven’t been able shake them, but my lungs are burning, my legs ache, and I have nothing left.
“We’re being driven,” Jarek mutters angrily.
I grit my teeth and let out a grunt of acknowledgement.
I slink around the corner and duck into a building, cutting through to a little hidden garden at the back of it. To my surprise, it’s still alive and hasn’t been eaten by the fire.
I crouch down in the green and hiss in annoyance.
“They are coming this way,” Jarek says, but I can see he’s tired, too. It’s been hours, days. They are relentless.
I stand up, hating that my legs are cramping and protesting. I just want to sit down for a while.
“Come on, this way,” Cadel says and leads us through a door I’d missed on my first sweep. I’m getting tired, and tired people get people killed.
We come out in an alley and wait while another patrol of Betas rushes past. I swipe the water from my face. Feeling the cold down to my bones.
The rain stops and leaves the world shining and feeling like it’s got a thin layer of oil over it.
“There they are!”
Cadel grabs my hand and runs, bursting out onto the street. We cut across, but a group of black robes pours out of the building opposite, rushing to cut us off.
Mordecai turns and runs the other way, and we follow, close on his heels. The streets echo with the calls of our discovery.
Drums start booming. Horns blow.
“In here!” Mordecai shouts and dives in first, grabbing the door that he slams and bars behind us.
Jarek runs at a wall and jumps up, reaching the floor above and managing to maneuver up there. He turns and holds out his arms. I run and grab onto him, and he pulls me up, his grip slipping just a bit before he grabs tighter.
I slide up beside him, checking for danger, searching around us. When I see nothing, I shift out of the way, giving them room. Wood boards creak under my weight and bow slightly, but it holds.
“Hurry, Jarek.”
He braces and holds out a hand to Mordecai, who barely needs to touch him before he’s up, then to Cadel.
It’s getting harder and harder to move through this shattered landscape. Everything that was helping us has turned into a hindrance.
“Where is she?” the Beta’s Voice rings out. Not close, but not far away either.
I curl my fingers into fists and glare at the wall, listening intently. It doesn’t matter what body she’s possessing; she always sounds the same.
“We’ll find her!”
“Do that, and do it soon or heads are going to roll!”
“I don’t understand why you need them all dead.”
I recognise the newly appointed Beta’s Fang.
“Because if alphas and omegas are dead, then there is no one to empower the alpha and omega gods. They can’t return; they can’t come back.
They are dead and gone. Dust, forgotten.
The universe needs balance. Where the world supports alphas and omegas, then it keeps alive the hope of the gods, but without them, their power shrivels up and withers away.
Only then can we have true freedom and peace. ”
“I see.”
“You don’t, but I don’t expect a stupid human like you to understand.”
The conversation is an eerie perversion of the truth. A twisting of enough facts to make her sound credible. She’s twisted everything up and poisoned it, convincing these humans that she’s all-powerful with promises and threats. A bribe in one hand and a punishment in the other.
Jarek leans towards me. “Can we kill her now?”
I shift my weight, but then shake my head. “Too many,” I mouth.
But I’m caught by her words.
What if there’s something to that? That would mean that we wouldn’t be reborn again.
No alpha or omega souls could come back.
We’d all just disappear. I look at Jarek, staring at his face.
We’d really die? Never be together again?
What if there aren’t enough souls or bodies to bring everyone back; do they all die?
And what about the dead gods? How does that work?
All the strings are there, but nothing is making sense.
Cadel gets us up, and we slip into an adjacent building through a window and a rusty ladder. The room is dark and smells of mold.
Legion explodes out of nowhere and grabs Cadel, yanking him in. He points at the ceiling and puts his finger to his lips. I look around and spot Mia sitting in the corner looking pale with her arms wrapped around her knees.
There is something so frail and human about this omega. I just want to protect her. The sour fear scent gets stronger the closer I get to her.
I reach out, taking one of her hands. She looks at me and tries to smile, but I can see she’s terrified. I hold her hand while the Beta’s Path run around above our heads. They don’t come down to this room, and after they go, Cadel turns to Legion, puts his lips to his ear, and whispers.
They talk back and forth for a while and then motion to us. I grab Mia and help her up, but she moves away from me, sticking close to Legion. I can’t be offended that she finds him safe.
For hours, we move through the buildings like rats, but our scents get stronger with stress.
And when they bring the sniffers, I know we’re screwed. It’s just a matter of time.
Cadel is almost frantic. He looks at me and just stares like he’s taking me all in. Like he’s trying to memorize every last part of me.
“It’s okay,” I say and shrug. “We tried.”
“Legion, if we kill her spare bodies and then kill her in the body that she’s in, we might be able to get rid of her forever,” Jarek announces.
Legion turns his head so he’s staring at me. His mouth opens and closes. “That will be hard. She’s always got so many people close to her.”
“I know, but it’s the only chance we’ve got. I want to try. We have to try,” I murmur.
Mordecai takes my hand, holding on tight. I stare at his profile, wishing things were different.
“Are you suggesting you voluntarily give yourselves up?” Mia hisses. “No! Just no!”
“It’s the best way,” Mordecai says with a helpless shrug.
Dust falls from the ceiling, spinning around in the wind that whips through the building.
“It would get us close to her,” Jarek agrees. “It would be a chance.”
The three of them look at me. We can’t keep running. We just can’t. I dip my head in agreement. We have to try.
I move towards them, and we collide together in a hug that has my eyes burning.
“No! We can’t do this,” Mia protests. “No, we need to live.”
“We have to save them, Mia. It’s not about us; it’s about the world, about our friends,” Legion says quietly.
She stares at him. “I love you.”
He doesn’t say anything. I pull back from my alphas to watch them.
“Yeah, I thought you might feel like that. I heard at the fire, you met your alpha, and you can’t stop loving him. It’s okay, I get it; I just want to say it once. I love you, Lucian. I think you are perfect.”
“I love you, Mia, but as a friend,” he says gently, like it hurts him.
“I know. Of course, I know.” She looks at us, but she’s defeated. I can see it. “You really want to try this?”
“We have to.”
Mia looks at the ground, her expression resigned. “No one escapes their fate.”
I don’t know what it means, but it gives me chills.
Jarek cups my face. “No matter what happens, we’ll end up together. I know this; I believe it.”
I close my eyes, not pointing out that we might never come back again. I want to believe we’ll be together. So I’m going to.
“We’re going to make it,” I say. “Nothing is going to happen.”
I believe that. I am, after all, the Omega Goddess. We’re going to be fine.
Mordecai strokes his hand down the back of my head. “Stay safe, be smart. Do not give them an opportunity to hurt you. Keep your head down and wait for the right moment. Promise me.”
A ball of pure emotion works its way up into my throat.
“Promise me, Kaida!” Mordecai growls, “or we’re not going.”
“I promise!”
He kisses me. It’s the kind of kiss you dream of when you’ve never been in love, but it’s the kind of kiss you fear the most when you are in love.
He’s kissing me goodbye.
I cling to him, and as soon as he steps back, Jarek is back, stealing another soft, lingering kiss that makes me think of those lazy afternoons we had together, legs tangled, lying in sweaty sheets, drawing circles on each other with nothing else to do but be in love. But that was in another lifetime.
At least I remember them.
He pulls away slowly, curses, and spins away, putting a few feet of distance between us.
I turn to Cadel.
It’s different with him. We all know where he’s going if he dies, and it’s not with us.
The panic I feel when I think of him disappearing has me choking on all the words I want to say.
He must see the panic on my face because he crosses the space between us and pulls me into his arms. I cling to him.
“I found you once. I’ll do it again,” he whispers. “Kaida Keres, there is nowhere that you can go that I won’t find you. So, don’t be afraid. Don’t you worry about us. There will always be an us.”
I kiss him.
I put in every ounce of everything I’ve felt from the first minute I laid eyes on him in the snow.
Every second since then, together, apart, missing him and never understanding why, the strange times I would stand in the snow and cry, never knowing what was lost. Even though I’ve met him in the darkest of days, in my darkest hour, I am so grateful for every second he’s been with me.
When we part, I stare at him, memorizing his face. Making sure I will remember him.
Then, I shove all that emotion into a box and turn away.
“Okay, shall we go and hand ourselves in?”
Legion shakes his head, amused. “Why not? Better to get it over and done with, right?”
He looks at us and kicks open the door. His dramatic effect is ruined because there is no one on the other side. We walk out onto the street, but the Beta’s Path pledges who had swarmed the street are suddenly gone. Vanished.
“I don’t like this at all,” Legion says uneasily.
The wind howls above us, and the world is cold and scarily empty. I take a step back, looking up at the carrion crows sitting on the side of the buildings watching us.
A growl grows in volume, harsh, wild, and savage.
My stomach flips. I turn around, and the Ravage Wolf is right there on the street, bigger than life, his eyes fixed on me.
“Oh, damn.”
Mordecai steps in front of me, glaring at the enormous monster. He looks worse now, with huge, bony protrusions poking through his forehead. They are weeping blood.
He snarls, showing all those huge teeth, his eyes glowing crimson. He looks completely insane.
“We should go!” Legion says and takes off.
We run, racing through the streets, but he’s too big and too fast, and when I go to jump inside a building, I find something terrifying.
The Beta’s Path pledges are inside, standing with swords pointed towards us.
The answer is clear; we need to run from the monster. There is nowhere else to go, nowhere to hide. Just a single street, us, and the wolf.
I turn around, hearing a scream.
The Ravage Wolf has Legion up against a wall, cutting off his escape. Mia screams at it and waves her arms, trying to distract it. It turns on her, but Legion jumps in front, and the blow the Ravage Wolf had aimed at her misses both of them.
It lets out an enraged roar, but I pick up a rock and throw it, hitting it in its forehead. It turns on me, abandoning its prey, darting towards me, snapping those wildly terrifying teeth. I dodge and sprint up the street, but it cuts me off.
Mordecai slams into its side, viciously shoving it into a brick wall, but it recovers quickly, too quickly.
I watch it with a feeling of intense unhappiness. This unstoppable wolf creature has been set loose on us, and I do not know how to make it stop. Can anything kill it?
“Cadel?”
“I can’t!” he shouts.
It ignores my alphas, coming for me again and again.
I stumble back and turn to run, but it gets in front and rakes its claws through the air, just missing me.
Jarek hits it hard enough to make it falter, but it ignores him. Cadel slams into it, and it stumbles, but it won’t stop.
Over and over, we spin and fight our way up the street, but it won’t give up on trying to kill me. I’m winded and just backing away now, stumbling back.
It throws off Mordecai, shakes off Jarek, and kicks Cadel, then it rears up, one huge paw with razor-sharp claws glinting in the air.
I stare up at my death.
He swings down. I forget to breathe, but nothing happens. I hear a grunt and find Mia standing there, her eyes wide open, mouth stretched in a pained circle.
“Mia!” I shriek and grab her, holding her as she collapses.
My alphas attack the wolf, driving it away, while Legion just stands there staring at her, looking lost.
I sit in a thump, unable to support her anymore, her blood spills over me and onto the wet, cracked concrete, but she stares at me, only at me.
“I tried to run for so long. I didn’t want to die,” she whispers. “She said it was my job, my destiny. To save you. I wanted to know why you were so important. She said I would understand when I came home.”
She cries, huge tears filling her eyes.
“I have never had a home before, Kaida. What’s it like?”
Her question hits me hard.
It takes enormous effort to speak without my voice wavering.
“It’s warm,” I say gently, “and the people you love are there, and they are happy to see you. It’s safe; no one can touch you. It smells good, and there’s a place to nest, and you don’t need to hide your scent.”
She sighs. “That sounds…perfect.” Her eyes are duller but shiny with tears; her face is as pale as the bones we see littered everywhere. “Kaida?”
“Yes?”
“Whoever you are, you must be something special, but I’m just glad we are friends. We are…friends…right?”
She inhales sharply, then exhales in a sigh, and her body goes limp.
No, no, Mia!
“Yes!” I say urgently. “Yes, we’re friends. We’ll always be friends!”
Her eyes stare up at the grey sky without seeing it, and my words are unheard; her pain is gone now. Wherever she is, she’s on her way home.
I lean over her and cry bitterly.
A black-robed Beta appears in the corner of my vision.
“Go away!” I scream at him.
He hesitates but then lunges forward like he’s scared I will attack him and grabs my hair. I let out a muffled shriek as he yanks hard, pulling me onto my back. He drags me away from her body and shouts at me to get to my feet.
When I look up, Legion, Mordecai, Jarek, and Cadel are in a line surrounded by betas.
We’re captured.
But the cost…the cost was too high.