Page 15 of Hell's Secret Omega

The voice penetrates his dream. He struggles to surface from the haze. He’s so warm, he doesn’t want to leave.

“Get up!”

Someone shakes him roughly. Cyrus jolts awake with a gasp. The heavy apron of a forge worker swings in front of his eyes. Its wearer is a massive demon with a dark scowl on his face.

He scrambles to his feet. He must have practically sleepwalked to the forge. The warmth leaves him weak, but he straightens and pulls up his coldest glare. At this point it’s probably pathetic.

“I was resting. You’ve disturbed me.”

“Hah! Useless layabout.” The forge demon snorts. “Bad enough the Quartermaster invents new quotas every day, I don’t need his lackey sneaking around. Get, before I teach you a lesson!”

The demon reaches for the knife at his belt. Cyrus abandons the pretense of control and let his feet take him back up the corridor before he’s even fully awake.

He spends the night in the barracks, too drained to sneak out. His head is heavy and his eyes feel puffy, as if he’s sick.He curls into his corner on the floor and falls asleep to strange thoughts of red eyes and gleaming silvery marks.

He wakes to slick trickling down his thighs and goes cold all over.

My heat.

His heart pounds. His heat is infrequent—once every few years. It hasn’t been long since his last one. It should be impossible. But bleak truth trickles through the haze of his exhaustion. The book he read and shamefully re-read is emblazoned on his memory: a vergis’s heat can be hastened along once they’re in proximity to a primus.

How could he have missed the signs?

It can’t be because of Mezor, he thinks helplessly. But it can’t be anyone else, either. In the early days he’d been terrified the King’s presence would trigger that kind of reaction, yet the King’s scent was repellant to him, and still is. On the other hand, traces of the Hunter’s tantalizing essence linger in Cyrus’s senses even now. He can’t deny Mezor’s presence induces temporary madness—why not his heat, too?

He shuts his eyes, a slow, steady drip of desire feeding the quivering heat in his belly. He’s close. It will build and spill over before the day’s end, turning him into a quivering, needy mess. And there will be pain. Unimaginable pain—the physical needs of his body, but also the anguish of being alone. His vergis hates it, hateshimduring heat. Terrible thoughts fly through his head—why doesn’t he have a mate? Is he not good enough? Is he not a real vergis? What does he have to do?

He doesn’twanta mate, but his vergis doesn’t care.

He squeezes his shins and tries to breathe. He’s suffered countless heats now. It’s always awful—he can never be satisfied, but need drives him to the edge again and again, leaving him exhausted. Yet he survived every single one. He only needs to get to his nest safely and stay secluded until it’s over.

It means days hiding away from the Court, though, and Quartermaster Magnus will be angry when he resurfaces—angry enough to lash him, maybe, or even lock him in the cages. Sometimes Cyrus is lucky and the Quartermaster is too occupied to notice, but lately Magnus has been watching him.

Before, Magnus wouldn’t have dared mete out certain punishments. Cyrus had the dubious privilege of being hand-appointed by the King, leaving the Quartermaster unsure of how much, exactly, the King favored him.

Now the King is gone, and he has no choice but to risk it.

Swift on the heels of that revelation is the realization that today is the waxing gibbous moon. The third meeting. His heart sinks. After the ravages of his heat he’ll be in no shape to traipse around the lower levels or fulfil his function as a spy. His failure is practically guaranteed.

Cyrus gets off the floor quietly, dismayed to find his legs already wobbling. Only sheer willpower keeps him upright. The door opens with a crash and demons jolt awake around him as Magnus strides in cracking his whip. The window of opportunity to escape to his nest slams shut.

Chapter 11

CYRUS

The day spinsquickly from discomfort to misery. Deep inside he knows his heat is coming on faster than he expected. He’s weak, exhausted, and it’s all he can do to stay on his feet. By the time the moon peeks around the rim of the Pit, the drive to hide becomes urgent. He’s hot and aching all over, longing to disappear so he can ride out the coming wave of agony in privacy. But he has to meet Mezor as agreed.

His logical brain screams at him not to get into an enclosed room with such a powerful primus when he’s mere hours from his heat. But the other part of him, the part that longs to breathe Mezor’s sizzling essence one more time before he retreats to suffer alone, is elated at the idea.

He’ll take care of us, it whispers. He tries his best to ignore the voice.

More importantly, his pride refuses to let him forfeit by not showing up.

By the time he makes it to the room, his legs are weak with early cramps. His nest is only one level above them, and the proximity is making his head spin with confusion.

The nest is his secret haven, a place he can be safe. Whereas Mezor is dangerous, an uncaring brute and the King’s lackey.

For some reason, the two thoughts are becoming tangled up in his head.

---