Page 8 of Hell's Secret Omega

Cyrus yanks his hand away and shakes his head in irritation. He closes his coat. It’s not him that has these thoughts. It’s his vergis.

All the more reason to hide any trace of it before he sees Mezor again.

He squeezes through the massive wooden door and darts down the corridor, hurrying through the sleeping Court to his goal. Down through the lower levels, past the Obsidian Wing, all the way to the forge.

The gate to the forge is locked, but it’s no great feat to pick the lock open. The forge wakes early—he’ll have to get in and out before anyone arrives. But he’s desperate. It’s been so long he swears he can smell his own scent.

The great fires are banked, but they radiate enough heat to stir longing in him as he passes. He doesn’t pause to bask, much as he craves warmth. The Court is always cold. But he has more urgent needs.

Beyond the forge is a dam that holds back the enormous reservoir, fed by an underground spring. When the forge is running, the dam opens to provide water for the steam hammer. Otherwise the reservoir is still. Cyrus follows the open riverbed from the steam chamber to the foot of the dam, where massive walls tower over him. Hand- and footholds are carved all the way to the top of the wall.

Cyrus plants his foot in the stone and heaves himself upward, but his fingers slip. With a curse and a push he grabs the next hold. The notches are made for demons bigger than him, and days of brutal work have his muscles shrieking in protest. Hegrits his teeth as sweat beads on the back of his neck.Don’t look down.

Finally he’s able to heave himself onto the top of the wall. He lies flat and sucks back air as the cold stone digs into his ribs. When he catches his breath, he rolls over.

The reservoir itself takes his breath away every time he lays eyes on it. The immense body of water is caged in by walls that seem too flimsy to contain it. The water is perfectly clear as far down as the weak torchlight penetrates.

He wastes no time shucking his clothes.

The cold is a shock. In his nest he has a meagre flask or two of water and a rag to clean with, so this much water is a luxury, even icy to the bone. He hangs on to the retaining wall and ducks under. The water pulses, caressing him. Breath pushes at his throat. He lets himself sink until instinct kicks in and his legs flutter, propelling him back to the surface. Breaching the water, he gulps air.

Cold as it is, it’s not the Hellspring.

Cyrus scrubs himself quickly with the stone he brought, sloughing away grime and sweat. Every swipe brings relief as he scrapes away at least two weeks’ worth of pheromones built up on his skin. He sets the pumice on the ledge and dives under again, watching his dark hair billow in clouds in front of his eyes. Surfacing, he flips his hair off his face with a burst of exhilaration that makes him laugh. The sound bounces off the walls of the reservoir and echoes back with surprising volume. He winces, wiping stray strands of hair from his forehead. No sounds of joy are permitted in Hell. But no one comes through the gate to threaten him.

He stays in the water far longer than he should, letting it cradle and soothe him. Eventually he shuts his eyes and just floats. His thoughts float with him and he lets them drift, forcing himself not to pluck them down and examine them.

There’ll be time for that later.

The clatter of the gate is startling. It ricochets up the walls, followed by voices. Cyrus flails, splashing too loudly. He grabs the wall and holds still. His heart thunders.

No footsteps come toward the reservoir. He clambers out of the water and crouches low as the voices get louder and the rattle-bang of the bellows opening shatters the quiet. Cyrus quickly grabs his shirt and wicks away the water dripping down his chest as best he can. He could have gone down and dried himself in front of the fire.Foolish.He was greedy for more time.

Next—and most important—is the paste. It’s sticky and stinks like tar—he makes it from a combination of such awful things he doesn’t like to think about it. But it covers his scent completely. He holds his breath and opens the small pot. Even without breathing in, it makes his eyes water. He swipes it quickly all over.

In the Court’s abandoned library, Cyrus once found a book whose contents would become his life-blood. It was hidden away in a dark corner, one of the few books left on the shelves. When he read it, he went cold all over. Then hot. Then he despaired.

The book talked about vergis and primus as special rarities, explaining in lurid detail how pheromones drew them together from far away, how they would meet and the primus’s presence would trigger the vergis’s heat. It went on to vividly describe the exact result of that heat—how the primus’s cock would knot up so he could fill the vergis with his seed and keep him plugged, and the ecstasy that endured through the whole ordeal.

Of course, it failed to address how torturous a heat was to a vergis when he was all alone.

The contents are seared into his mind. Especially the diagram showing all the places that produce the vergis pheromones that could attract a primus.

He rubs sticky gel everywhere that was circled in the book, ignoring thewrongnessthat swells over him as he does. His body always hates this—his vergis hates it. His logical mind knows it’s necessary. Neck, jaw, down his chest, under his arms. Face flaming, he goes further. The crook of his groin. The tender spot behind his balls. No one is sniffing himthere, but the book said his erogenous zones produce the strongest pheromones. Cyrus doesn’t take any chances.

When he’s covered everything, he pulls his clothes back on over damp skin layer by layer. Undershirt, overshirt, uniform shirt, vest, coat, until he’s tightly buttoned against the world. The relief of being clean and safe again outweighs the awful discomfort of the scent blocker.

The voices from below rise, and he remembers he has to sneak out past the forge demons somehow. He crouches. Two of them are making their way back to open the dam. They’d only have to look up to see him silhouetted against the torchlight.

The demons each take one side of the crank. In sync, they turn the crank and the dam gate groans. Water bursts into the alluvial bed with a roar. They lock the crank in place, but they don’t head back to the forge.

Leave, Cyrus urges them.

Instead, they huddle together with a furtiveness that sparks his curiosity. His senses perk up and he shuffles closer. Years of honing his instinct have left him closely attuned to what a conspiracy looks like.

“When’s the mountain patrol coming in, huh?” growls one. “I’m sick of eating gruel. Maybe Leuther should’ve thought about that before he ousted the King. Without the Hunter we’re stuck eating garbage.”

“Gruel is what we got. Whatever the patrol brings down, a third of it goes to the Grey Company until we have enough tomake the march,” the second demon replies evenly. “That’s what we agreed.”

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