Chapter 64
Kneel
They separate us. It’s probably the smartest thing they could have done, but still, I stare at Mordecai’s back, wishing I could just touch his hand, just feel him. Hear their voices. Something to make this world make sense again.
My hand is still covered in Mia’s blood, and I keep flexing my fingers, trying to stop those last moments replaying through my mind.
The Ravage Wolf disappeared after it killed Mia. I remember seeing it turn and run and thinking that in itself was strange behaviour. Everyone else is okay. I saw a scratch on Mordecai’s arm, but it was small enough that I wasn’t worried about it.
“Hurry up!” The kid guarding me snarls.
He’s barely an adult.
“Is this what you thought you’d be when you grew up? Are your parents proud of their little murderer?”
He sneers. “My parents served the goddess.”
“Ah, a whole genetic line of ignorance. You truly are blessed. All hail the Beta Goddess and the brainless idiots she has conscripted to do her dirty work.”
He snarls, but I have no fear left. Not of him.
The further we walk, the more of these black-robed men join us. Where are the women? Do they sit at home waiting to serve them dinner when they come back from killing? How do they justify having them in their beds? Their blood-stained hands on their bodies?
My bitter thoughts continue as I really look at them. Young. Old. Thin, fat, of all colours and races, united in their hatred for alphas and omegas. I wonder if anyone else knew how easy it would be to bring the world together.
“You’re going to die today, Omega,” a black-robed guy says. His mask doesn’t fit him properly and keeps slipping.
I almost ignore him, but there’s something about him that makes me do a double take. His robes are too short, not enough that you’d notice, but the robes are specifically tailored to fit perfectly. The Beta Goddess is a stickler for details.
His hands are dirty, too, and tanned.
I look into the mask and into eyes that seem too familiar, but I can’t place them. His smile quirks at the corner. Am I imagining it? No, I can’t be.
“They have said that a lot, but I’m still here.”
He flashes a smile, but do I see frustration in his eyes? He moves closer to me, sneering and looking me up and done.
“You look like shit, Keres.”
My head jerks up. I lick my lips and stare at him as he moves off, whistling. Is that…Kendric?
Mordecai’s head lifts, and he turns slightly, scanning the robed figures, but my heart’s pounding.
The Resistance is here.
The whistling fades away as more and more betas join us. A few more prisoners are pushed into the middle, and I find myself staring at a man who has a broken arm. He was there at the camp. He looks like he hasn’t eaten in days.
He looks like he’s given up.
We march through the city, and I expect us to go to the fallen wall, but no, we’re taken to the massive gate we raced through on our first day, where they’ve set up a stage.
Upon it stand two figures. The High King wearing his golden mask and a crown and the Beta’s voice, in a new body, this time a blond with hair that falls to her ass.
There are no splits in her skin yet.
I look at Jarek, and he looks at me. This is where we met. I can see him thinking it, too. A shiver races up my spine, and a beta walks between us, and I can’t see him anymore.
Why do I want to cry?
The entire area is in shadow from the deep dark clouds, leaving it feeling almost like night. Ominous and threatening.
As we approach, the betas spread out, leaving the path in front of us clear. I stare up at her; she makes an amazing and powerful picture. She’s beautiful and clean, otherworldly and immortal.
We are dirty, bruised, and scarred inside and out.
I catch sight of Cadel, but then he disappears as people push between us.
A hand lands on my shoulder; the grip is painful.
“Don’t move,” he hisses.
I freeze, my mind ticking over.
“Do you know who I am?” he growls.
Did I? Yes, of course. “Bear.”
His grip loosens.
I want to tell him something, anything, but there are too many people, too close.
Instead, I say nothing, but the Resistance leader stays with me, shuffling forward, hidden from all those who would want him dead.
The press of bodies and the stench of their mixed scents and sweat has me wanting to retch, but the calm, soothing notes of Bear’s earthy smell ground me enough to keep my composure.
“Welcome!” the High King calls.
I wonder if he knows he’s simply a jester playing a part. He has no authority, no power, and nothing that would save him if she decided she hated him.
“The final gathering is here!” he crows.
I find this strange because they know how many alphas escaped; maybe it’s just staging, smoke and mirrors.
He holds his hand out to the Beta Goddess, who does a jittering convulsion on the stage before she raises her hands.
Thunder and lightning fill the sky at once.
“Unbelievable. What a waste of power,” I mutter scornfully.
I think I hear Bear snort, but when I look, his lips are pressed in a tight line.
“We have today our most elusive guest. She has escaped more times than we can count. She’s killed betas, committed countless atrocities, including the corruption of young minds, but!
” He pauses, looking out over the sea of black.
“Kaida Keres is caught. We have her here. And today, we witness the death of a great evil.”
I’m a great evil?
A hand shoves me in the back, and I stumble forward. The betas clear a space around me, and I fall to the ground as even more space opens up.
The High King steps down the stairs and waves his arm dramatically.
She hired an actor, how innovative.
“We have brought her down, ruined her. See how she flails.”
I stand up, glaring at him. “I’m not scared of you, not any of you. If I die, I die with my conscience intact, and I go to my gods, the omega gods.”
The Beta Goddess arches her back, her arms windmilling wildly, hissing in rage. “You dare?”
“Look at you!” I say scornfully. “Chewing up these young betas like they are nothing. Corrupting these people using fear and violence to get your way. What kind of goddess are you?” I scream.
Her head jerks to the side, so far that I wonder why her neck hasn’t broken. Does the body fight to spill her out? Is that what the jerks are for?
“Silence!”
I lift my chin. “You’re going to kill me anyway, so why can’t I say what I want to say?”
I’m grabbed by the shoulder and spun around. A hand collides with my face and, once again, I find myself on the ground. This time, my face tingles and bursts into blistering pain. I stare up at a furious crowd who are thirsty for my blood.
“Bring her.”
I’m dragged up and towards the stage. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jarek, Mordecai, and Cadel. None of them look happy, and I can imagine the lecture I’m going to get when this is over.
Legion is pushed into my path, and I stop, almost falling over him when the beta behind me pushes me forward.
“What is it?” the High King asks.
“Another omega. A male.”
“Interesting. Bring him, too.”
The beta who pushed Legion looks at me with eyes of cornflower blue. The same colour eyes as Theo. He lifts a fist to his heart and bows slightly, disappearing into the crowd before I can even grasp what is going on here.
A brother?
I help lift Legion up, and we’re dragged to the stage and then up the steps. The High King stays away from us but leers at us as he continues to work the crowd.
I heave a sigh and look out on it all in sheer boredom.
“Are we not entertaining you?” the goddess asks.
“Not at all. I find this quite tedious.”
The crowd boos, but she holds up one jerking arm and grins.
“Do not be so hard on her; she is filled with false confidence. No one is going to save her this time, though.”
I roll my eyes. “Do you think I fear death?”
She simply smiles.
“Bring me my Dog.”
Okay, when I hear those words, I get a little bit of a flutter of fear, but the worst part is she sees it. She feels it in the air.
A horn calls, long and low, and then three deep beats of a drum.
We stand there waiting. Minutes pass, and I start to wonder if maybe he won’t come.
But he does, growling and snapping his teeth at the betas who won’t get out of his way. They spring apart, revealing him in all his fierce perversion.
“My wolf. Come and say hello.”
She talks about him like he’s a dog. Maybe he is. The wolf walks, and then the fur and scales fall off, and in their place is a beta I recognise.
“Walker?” I whisper. “No! What did you do to him?”
Legion inhales sharply, his hand finding mine and holding tight.
He walks through the crowd. They draw back in fear, but when he gets to the bottom of the stage, he looks up, but not at me. He looks at Legion.
After almost a full minute, he looks at me, and his face changes to something that almost looks like guilt.
“Come up here, Warden, you’re going to help us decide how to kill these vermin omegas.”
He hesitates, still staring at me.
He killed Mia.
His face shuts down almost like he can hear what I thought. He steps onto the first step and pauses, looking back over his shoulder as if someone has said something to him.
“I haven’t got all day!” the goddess snaps.
Walker trudges up the steps, and somewhere between there and here, he transforms back into the hard-ass Warden we all fear so much.
I can’t take my eyes off him.
“How is that possible?” I ask with lips that feel numb.
“You turn into a wolf, too, you tell me first,” the Beta Goddess sneers.
“But he’s not a wolf; he’s a monster.”
Walker flinches as if I’ve struck him.
“How dare you talk about my creation like that! It took a very long time and a lot of work to get him so perfect. We could never have done it without the both of you.”
Walker closes his eyes. His facade is crumbling. The pain in his expression grows until I catch a scent I’ve never smelled before. He smells of flowers, delicate blooms. It’s not a sweet smell, but something calming and powerful.
I open my mouth to speak several times, but I can’t.
Legion drags air into his lungs and heaves it out, over and over. His fingernails bite into my hand, but I don’t even pay attention; all I can do is stare at him.
The Warden is an alpha? My Walker was an alpha? Oh, gods.
My eyes drop to his neck, where a thin silver necklace sits close to his skin.
He’s not there willingly; there’s no way he does these things willingly. He’s a prisoner.
“What do you mean, the both of us?” I ask her and finally manage to look away from him.
The goddess walks down and touches Legion’s face. Walker takes a half a step before he stops himself.
“This boy followed his alpha, leading a trail of happy pheromones to a place we didn’t even know about.
We found a nest of omegas and alphas. He came to save you first, begged for us to leave you all alone; he’d do anything.
And then you came and did the exact same thing.
It was the most incredible situation. Of course, we couldn’t keep the deal, but it wasn’t until we almost caught this one that things got interesting. ”
I feel sick.
I had a feeling Legion was talking about my family.
I’ve been refusing to think about it too hard, but now I can see, he was just a kid, just infatuated with the scent of his alpha.
It wasn’t his fault. But the collusion of events resulting in my torture, Walker’s five-year agony, and Legion’s guilt and shame is just bad luck, bad timing, or a manipulation of the gods.
This isn’t our fault.
It’s hers.
She looks from Legion to Walker.
“The way to the Warden’s heart is through his omega. If you control one, you control the other,” the Beta Goddess singsongs. “Just like every pathetic alpha on the planet.”
I stare at Walker, seeing the emotion he’s masking clear as day. He’s afraid.
She sneers.
“Now kneel!” she commands.
It bounces off of us with no power in it, but the knife at Legion’s neck has the Warden dropping to his knees on the stage.
I can’t see anything else, anything except his dark grey eyes staring at me, begging me for help.
I don’t know if I can.