Wild Little Omega

Chapter 1

Kess

I wake up covered in blood that isn't mine, my mouth tasting of copper and flesh.

Ferns and moss press to my cheek, damp with early morning dew. The forest is quiet all around me, the soft sigh of the wind the only sound. It's just before dawn, when nocturnal hunters rest and the creatures of the day have barely begun to stir.

I'm naked, of course, save for the shredded remains of what used to be a shirt. The fabric hangs in tatters around my waist like I tried to claw my way out of my own skin, which for all I know I did.

There are leaves stuck to my shoulders. Twigs tangled in my hair. And my hands—

My hands are sticky with blood both dried and drying, turning tacky and dark in the creases of my palms. It flakes off as I stretch my fingertips, checking my nails to find that they've turned back to the round, blunted version they are when I'm not... whatever it is I become when I'm in heat.

As I push myself upright, the world tilts for a moment. I gag on the rush of saliva that pools in the back of my mouth. Something is caught between my teeth—fur, I realize with distant horror as I work it loose with my tongue and spit it into my palm.

Wolf fur. Gray-brown, coarse.

I look for its source. Three feet to my left, there's what's left of the wolf.

I don't remember killing it. Don't remember the hunt, catching it, bringing it down, tearing into it with my bare hands and teeth. The last thing I remember is running into the forest as the sun set yesterday, rage building like a wildfire in my chest, vision going red at the edges.

Then nothing.

Then this.

I never remember. That's the worst part—the complete blank space where my memory should be during the heat.

Like someone else takes over my body and I'm just..

. gone. And when I come back, there's always blood.

Sometimes mine, always something else's, as my nails grow sharp during heat and my canines turn to animal fangs, making it easier for my otherwise human body to tear through even an apex predator's body.

The wolf's throat has been torn open, viscera and sinew hanging, flaps of flesh exposing pink and red meat.

Like someone or something—and the thing is me—grabbed the flesh and just ripped.

Its ribcage is cracked and spread, bones splintered outward, and there's blood everywhere, soaking into the ground and the moss, splattered against nearby tree trunks and pooling in piles of dried leaves.

And, of course, on me.

I've seen plenty of death, becoming intimately familiar with it. I've gutted deer, skinned rabbits, carved up boar. I know what violence looks like when humans do it with purpose and tools.

This is different. It's feral and unhinged, the kind of violence that isn't appeased by death—plenty of those wounds happened post-mortem—and serves no purpose save violence itself.

This is what I become when the heat takes over and the human parts of me go somewhere else.

My grandmother used to tell me stories about omegas like me. Wild ones, she called them. Fierce. But she died when I was young, before she could explain what that meant, or why our family hid in the wilderness for generations before settling here.

The first time I went into heat, I began to understand why. So did Old Gertrude a few houses down—it was her chicken coop I got into and her hens I ate.

I stand on sore, aching legs and take inventory.

Scratches on my arms and shoulders, no doubt from running through thistle and brush.

Bruises blooming on my knees and shins. A bite mark on my shoulder that can only be from the wolf—an attempt at self-defense that it failed at, because from what little I can remember of my blackout heats, being in pain only makes me stronger.

Nothing serious. Nothing that won't heal.

The wolf got the worst of it.

"I'm sorry," I tell its corpse, because apparently I've reached the point in my life where I apologize to things I've killed. "You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Like me, I suppose.

The sun is starting to rise now, pale light filtering through the forest canopy. I need to get back to the village before anyone sees me like this. Before they remember what I am, what I do when the heat comes.

I find my pants twenty yards away, hanging from a low branch like I threw them there in my frenzy to get free, covered in blood splatter.

My boots are nowhere in sight—new leather boots I can't afford to replace.

Fantastic. I pull on the pants and start picking my way through the forest barefoot, heading for the stream where I can wash the evidence off my skin.

The Black Forest doesn't scare me the way it scares most people. Whenever I've woken up here after one of my heats, the creatures of the forest give me a wide berth. It's as if they spread the message that I'm back, on the hunt again, and decide I'm not the kind of prey they're looking for.

The wolf must've been sick, old or injured. Otherwise it never would've let me near it. Perhaps in the end its death was a kind of mercy killing.

I find the stream and step into the cold water with a gasp.

It takes several minutes and a few shuddering breaths before I manage to submerge myself up to my chest. The current runs red around me as I scrub dried blood from my skin and hair.

It takes a while—the blood is everywhere.

In the shells of my ears, the creases of my belly button, beneath my nails and flaking from my skin.

I scrub harder, trying to wash away the scent that clings to me even without the blood—smoke and cedar and something wild that makes other omegas nervous when they get too close. Not the soft, calming scent they're supposed to have. The kind that soothes alphas, makes them gentle.

Mine does the opposite.

Another way I'm different, wrong, not meant for this world.

While all the other, soft omegas get sent off to powerful alphas for arranged marriages, I stay here in the village, feared and loathed.

If it weren't for the fact that my feral heats scare off bandits and mercenaries alike, I'd probably be exiled to the dragon lands by now.

This is my life. Wake up in blood. Clean it off. Pretend to be normal until the next heat comes.

I'm wringing water from my hair when I hear footsteps approaching: twigs bending and breaking, leaves crunching beneath heavy footfalls, and the sound of a person's huffing breaths of exertion. They're not trying to be quiet—whoever it is wants me to know they're coming.

Yaern.

She picks her way through the ferns carrying a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. When she sees me sitting in the stream, naked and shivering and obviously fine, her shoulders drop with visible relief.

"Found you," she says, like this isn't the fourth time this year she's had to track me down after a heat.

"How'd you know where to look?"

"Followed the trail of blood. It was very dramatic." She settles onto a flat rock near the bank and starts unwrapping her bundle. Clean clothes. Bread. A waterskin. "You made it farther than last time before you blacked out."

"There's a wolf back there," I say, jerking my head in the direction I came from. "Or what's left of one."

"I saw." Her voice is carefully neutral. "Pretty thoroughly dead, I'd say."

"Yeah."

I climb out of the stream and accept the clothes she's holding out—a simple brown dress, the kind village omegas are supposed to wear. I hate it on sight, but it's better than my tattered shirt and the bloodstained pants I peel off and set aside to dry.

"Did I—" I stop. Start again, forcing the words past the tightness in my throat. "Was there anyone else nearby? Did anyone see me?"

"No." Yaern breaks a chunk off the loaf of bread and offers it to me. "You made it deep enough into the forest before you lost it. This time."

This time.

The unspoken worry hangs between us: what about next time?

"Four heats in less than a year," she says quietly. "That's not normal, Kess."

"Nothing about me is normal." I take the bread and eat it in three savage bites. I'm always starving after a heat—my body burns through everything trying to fuel whatever the fuck I turn into.

"You okay?" she asks.

"Define okay."

"Not dead. Not dying. Not actively bleeding."

"Then yes. I'm okay." I pull on the dress and it immediately feels wrong—too soft, too constricting. "Same as always."

"Same as always is still pretty fucked up, Kess."

"Yeah, well." I yank on the boots she brought me. "It's the life we've got."

She's quiet for a moment, watching me with those too-knowing eyes. When she speaks again, her voice is careful in a way that makes my stomach drop.

"The elders are gathering everyone in the square this morning."

Fuck.

I know that tone. I know what that gathering means.

"They got a summons," I say. Not a question.

Yaern nods. "Came yesterday while you were in the forest. Dragon messenger delivered it just before sunset. Flew over the village low enough to block out the moonlight, then shifted and bellowed it out in the town square for the whole world to hear."

Every ten years like clockwork. Every ten years, the Beast King demands his price for protecting our village, and we pay it in the only currency he accepts.

Omegas.

My aunt was sent ten years ago when I was twelve. I remember watching her walk toward the Black Forest with the priests. She looked back once, right before the trees swallowed her, and I saw the terror on her face.

Six weeks later, a dragon rider brought back her belongings. Her mother's ring. A lock of hair. A scrap of white fabric stained with blood.

"They're choosing today?" My voice sounds distant.

"Drawing lots among the omega families at noon." Yaern stands and starts gathering her things. "They wanted to wait until you got back. In case—"