Page 60 of Of Daggers and Deceit

“Raya, please,” the voice said again. Female and panicked. Familiar.

“Riley?” I croaked as my eyes crept open to take in the fearful expression of my sister, who was inspecting my body with a gentle but frenzied energy. I knew she wouldn’t find what she was looking for.

It wasn’t my blood.

“Raya, where are you hurt? Oh Goddess, there is so much blood.”

I inhaled, the memory of his filthy breath against my skin gripping the edges of my mind. It was somehow faint, seemingly overwhelmed by the feeling of urgency that settled low in my gut, to act and grab my family and run. Because we were no longer safe here.

This was no longer our Haven.

“Raya?” she asked again, her fingers moving swiftly across my body, trying to find where the blood was coming from.

“Not mine. His.” I attempted to push myself up onto my elbows.

She breathed out, more relieved, though her expression remained pinched. “Okay.”

“Okay?” I retorted, my voice cracking. “There is nothing okay about this, Riley. If Zander finds out, I’m going to die. He tried to… He told me…” I couldn’t seem to get the words out, that same urgency spreading inside me. Her face softened before hardening again, understanding and resolve pushing her shoulders back and her chin up.

She grabbed my wrist and squeezed it in reassurance. “He will not know, Raya. Everything will be okay, alright?”

But it wasn’t. Nothing was alright anymore. Not after tonight.

My vision blurred with tears as I choked on my next words. “We cannot stay here. He was giving her to him.”

She frowned at me, moving to sit back on the heels of her feet. “Who?”

“Zander promised our mother to the Benefactor. To serve him.”

Riley looked at me in disbelief. “He has a Bonded.”

“Not as a Bonded, Riley. To serve him.”

Something flashed across her eyes, almost like she couldn’t or didn’t want to believe me.

I persisted. I needed her to see the truth of her partner, her chosen.

I mustered up the scraps of energy I had to spare and forced it forward. “He tracks us, Riley. Injected us with them and used that same tracker to…” I trailed off. I didn’t exactly know what he had done. “Electrocute us tonight. It was how...” I swallowed that same lump in my throat again. “It was how he so easily subdued me. Why the others are knocked out. If there was no one defending the Haven, that means they took another Omega. That means that Benefactor at least allowed it.”

The truth of my words shocked even me as my thoughts came out frantic and rushed, my own realisation following them. Because that was the truth of it. What I hadn’t yet processed. They had allowed Omegas to be taken. The Benefactor had been so unbothered by it.

Her face changed then. It contorted with the intensity of her rage, something I hadn’t seen since I was a child. Even the hairs on my arms lifted in awareness, alert and almost fearful.

But then, just like that, it was gone just as quickly as she got up and began to kick sand over the blood staining the ground beneath us.

“Does anyone come up here?” she asked as I stood on shaky legs, somewhat concerned about her almost dismissive attitude.

“He was the first.”

She continued to swipe her foot across the floor, shifting the sand around until all the blood blended in seamlessly with the floor beneath us. My eyes trailed over to sight the body of the Benefactor laying on the ground a few feet away from where I stood, my body tensing in response.

“I will deal with him.” Her voice sounded so detached, at odds with the surge of emotion I was experiencing inside me.

I shook my head. “You can’t.”

“It is better you know as little as possible, Raya. It will be the Outer Ring that is questioned once they become aware of his absence, not mine.”

I fiddled with my fingers, my head lowering in agreement. She was right. It was always someone from the Outer Ring.

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