Page 76 of The Omega Thief

“Someone has to get out.” Attiker glanced back and met Grandmother’s gaze, offering a silent apology for abandoning her. Her lips twitched.

“Does that mean I have to turn my back?” A few of the Cadmeera guards chuckled, then coughed to cover it. But he had to be quick. Attiker doubted he could get in, but this wasn’t the first time he’d been in a tight spot, physically or metaphorically, and he couldn’t do shite down here for Raz. Or anyone else.

Attiker stripped, thanking his new royal habits for putting on underclothes. He never used to wear anything under his breeches, and crawling in a tight space could be very painful. He slapped on the duck fat everywhere to make his skin as slippery as possible, then wiped his hands dry as somehow he had to work out how to get up to the grate, then bundled his clothes and pushed them through the bars to Thakeray.

“No.” Thakeray didn’t take them. “I know you want to hide how you escaped, but they’ll know it’s the only way.” He nodded to the single horizontal bar at the top of the cell. Tie your shirt and breeches together, and use them like a rope.”

It took a couple of goes, but eventually, Attiker had a line of clothes. Thakeray took his own shirt and tunic off, and a couple of guards passed theirs to make it stronger. He would have to tie it around himself, and they were going to have to hoist him up the bars.

There wasn’t any other way for Attiker to climb because there was nothing for him to hold on to. It worked, painfully, but he barely cared. Fetch had loosened the grate cover, and Attiker could reach the opening by swinging. No one else could help him get up and in there, though.

“Gi’me your hand,” Fetch whispered, and Attiker shook his head.

“You can’t take my weight. Stay back.” He stretched out as far as he could and grasped the edge of the hole. If he missed and fell, they’d just have to start again. Then he heard it. The sound of the iron slat sliding from its mate. They were coming in. Desperate, Attiker lunged and swung. He heard the creak of the oak door as he frantically tried to hoist himself up. “Seven bleeding hells, wolf,” Attiker gritted out, praying for strength he knew was impossible. A small hand covered his just as he slipped, but then Attiker heard the door swing open and boots clattering into the cells. He had seconds. Somehow, Attiker found some strength he didn’t know was possible and heaved himself through the opening as cries and yells ran out when the guards saw him.

He untied the clothes rope quickly, knowing the guards would send a warning to wherever the vent led to. He tried not to hear the shouts from below. Heard the sounds of Grandmother and the others being bundled out and hoped they weren’t about to be punished for him.

The passage was tiny. He barely dared inflate his lungs. He couldn’t even lift his knees to help crawl. All he could do was push with his bare feet and scrabble with his hands.

Until he couldn’t. His shoulders were the widest part of him, and he was stuck. They wouldn’t fit, no matter how he tried to push with his feet. Fetch had disappeared, and he just wanted to cry.

He’d failed.

But then a bigger hand wrapped around his wrist, and he opened his eyes and stared into Ash’s. “Yer silly sod. Now’s not the time to go to sleep. You only need to crawl another foot until it’s wide enough at this side, even I can get in.”

And Ash pulled. At one point, Attiker had to clamp his lips closed on a scream as he felt Ash was going to rip his arm from its socket, but then the passage gave way, and they both fell in a gangly heap of arms and legs on top of a huge pile of wood.

When he could breathe, Attiker looked around him. He knew they were behind the kitchens. Ash looked like his namesake, his newly blackened face covered in soot. Then he saw the kids. The soot not as obvious on their dark skin until they smiled and flashed white teeth. Ash yanked him to his feet and threw him a huge cloak that Attiker wrapped around himself. “Come on. They know where the vents are.”

He nodded and ran after them all. They took the servants’ stairs, and Attiker didn’t get a chance to wonder why they were so deserted until he realized where they were going.

The palace courtyard. It was the only way out of the back of the kitchens. They all heard the noise of a crowd before they slipped from the door. He saw the main door open, and Grandmother, Thakeray, and all the others from the cells were dragged into the open. But then his eyes fell on the cage suspended from the gates, and the breath stuck in his lungs.

All the noise, all the orders, all the pushing and shoving, fell away as he looked up and saw Raz.

He stared in horror as Raz dragged himself to his feet. The cage swayed from the chains, and Raz clung to the bars with one hand. His right lay limp at his side. One eye was swollen shut, and he was covered in blood.

Attiker glanced at Ash in shock. This made no sense. Raz’s wolf should have healed him. Why hadn’t he shifted?

“People of Cadmeera!” Attiker glanced at Johannas and Markell as they appeared on the balcony. “It brings me no joy to present your failed prince in this manner, but by the rules of the challenge laid down by your late King, His Highness Uriel Kinsharae, the alleged omega Attiker Lynch was found to have cheated, and your prince has confessed to supporting that decision.”

What?But that was impossible. Raz wasn’t even there. Attiker’s heart thumped so loudly he was convinced everyone could hear it.

“It is clear to everyone that the people of Cadmeera deserve a fair ruler, not one who cheats. Not one who tries to fool all of Cadmeera into believing Attiker Lynch, who the prince met while Lynch was under arrest for thieving, can shift into a wolf.”

Attiker heard the mutters surrounding the courtyard, took a breath, and prayed to the goddess if he could only ever do one thing, now was the time. But he knew it was no use. He might have left-over characteristics from his wolf. His taste, his sense of smell, his rapid healing, but he couldn’t produce a physical animal.

He opened his mouth to shout, to yell, to confess. Anything to get Raz out of there, but Ash’s hand clamped across his mouth and dragged him back. “You can’t rescue him if you’re locked up,” Ash whispered. “Show sense. You really think they’ll let him go if they have you?”

No. They wouldn’t. Attiker knew that. But how could he just stand here and watch? Or, even worse, leave him behind?

Chapter thirty-two

Razhadmadeabargain with the devil. He’d not even struggled as he’d been led from the throne room. He’d been dragged down three flights of stairs until they’d arrived at the barracks. There was a training ground, an armory, a huge stable, a forge, and the servant’s kitchen. He knew where he was going because he’d spent years down here training his men, eating with them, learning how to get his horse to trust his wolf, and fighting.

This was where he’d learned to fight. He’d had a sword master teach him the moves from the time he was barely big enough to hold a weapon, but this had been where his real lessons had taken place. This was where he’d met Benta for the first time. Raz had been six, the crown prince, and thought he was a god. He had a Fenrir. Benta was a third-generation soldier, and despite him only being seventeen himself, and Raz having a wolf, Benta had knocked Raz on his ass so many times that day, the training sergeants thought they would be executed by dawn the following morning.

But by the tenth time Raz had been sent sprawling and immediately got to his feet for an eleventh when he could barely stand, Benta had decided he would follow his little princeling anywhere.

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