The General’s Captive (An Omega in the Oaklands #1)

Ninety nights after meeting the General

When I met him, I was a prisoner. I came to believe that fate would have never allowed me to live a simple life. There were always two choices, and a crossroads that would present itself in any timeline.

The General was always one of two possibilities, and in all possible happy endings, he was the choice I had to make. He was my chance at survival. At a life well lived.

That was, however, not what I expected when our eyes first met.

Neither was it what I anticipated when I was first captured by his men.

Who could have known that a chance could masquerade as something as shady as an abduction?

That our story could start with him instructing my captors?

Could it have been that the gods decided that the chain of events that started in the empire would lead me to him?

Sleeping in our shared chambers, with his hand around my waist, we welcomed a future that neither of us had foreseen. The first time I was in these chambers, I could have strangled him for keeping me there.

I couldn’t cool down. The castle was too hot in the summer. His bed was too soft. Despite the cold climate, I was burning up. I turned to my left. It gave me no relief. I turned towards him.

“Gabriel?” A low and gravelly voice. A call to go back to sleep.

The domesticity was comfortable. Only ninety days ago, this situation would have been laughable. I would have thought myself to be enchanted. And I was, in some ways. Just not by his magic. He grew on me too fast. Perhaps it was a result of our shared magic. Whatever the cause, the result was ours.

This was, however, not how our story started.