Page 22 of The Omega Thief

Thakeray met his gaze.

“Look, I don’t have time for this,” Raz said. “I’m not ignorant to the obvious problems in our bond, and I know where Attiker came from. If he’s involved with the anti-shifters, then I’ll deal with that when I get him back.” Raz paused. He trusted Thakeray, and if he was wrong, then he had no business being king anyway. “I can only stress it would be catastrophic for Cadmeera if I don’t.”

Thakeray nodded. “Sire, I don’t think Attiker is involved. If he had a reason to meet with the anti-shifters, it had to be something else. Attiker makes his living…” Thakeray sighed. “Bluntly, sire, from rich people. The vizir would have paid a pretty penny for the Lapiz. And more so, Abergenny is a complete mess. Most folk there don’t have two bits to rub together, and what’s left of the ruling family fled across the Endless Desert to Marston Keys. The nobles that could, obviously followed, and took all their money with them. Abergenny is in the middle of a country-wide famine.”

Raz frowned. He hadn’t known that. All four remaining kingdoms had kept their distance, knowing they risked the wrath of the alliance. But he imagined that also caused problems. Abergenny was once a large trading town. Stop visitors, and a lot of people would be out of work.

“So why would he go to the Bluebell then?” Raz asked. “He must have known with his new status he would be at risk.” Raz paled. He literally felt his blood drain, and his wolf snarled. “How good a search was there?” Raz pushed the vision of Attiker lying dead in an alley after being robbed firmly from his mind, then he stilled. His wolf was furious, but Attiker must be alive. His wolf would know instantly if that wasn’t the case.

Then, another thought entered Raz’s head. His mother said she always knew where his father was. That their wolves found each other instinctively. “We start at the Bluebell and fan out.”

“Sire?” Thakeray paled. “Even with guards, that area—”

“No, we can’t take guards.” He needed scent and silence.

Thakeray’s eyes widened. “S-Sire?”

Raz looked to where the guards were and lowered his voice. “Get me a disguise. You can accompany me but no one else. Think of an excuse, whatever, but we must go alone, and we must go now.”

Thakeray opened his mouth to protest again, but Raz interrupted. “My wolf can find his wolf.”

He watched the astonishment on his captain’s face, but that soon changed to resignation. He nodded. “We must be accompanied back to the palace, then go…” Thakeray looked as though he was frantically trying to work out a way to smuggle Raz out.

But Raz knew a way. “We can leave through the passages.”

That shut him up. Raz sighed. He was telling Thakeray all his secrets. His father would be rolling in his grave. “I have to trust you,” Raz muttered.

Thakeray brought his fist up and across his chest. “With my life, sire.”

He nodded, fervently hoping it wouldn’t come to that. Attiker might be alive now, but the separation of a bonded omega from his alpha would make him very sick and very quickly. They needed to find him before it was too late.

Before it was too late for either of them. Because if he lost Attiker, Raz didn’t know what he’d do, and he didn’t think Cadmeera would want to find out.

Chapter ten

Attikerheardthemtalkinga split second before he made any noise. He didn’t count how loud his heart was pounding because even though it seemed to beat louder than the noise the cavalry made when they took new sign-ups and marched them away to training with all the fanfare the court could muster, he was pretty sure the two idiots gabbing like fishwives down by the docks, didn’t have super hearing.

He was used to sleeping light. One didn’t spend half their life sleeping in alley corners or stables, if they were lucky, without keeping one ear open. He wasn’t in a stable, though. The place stunk worse than the monks when they were doing the rose penance festival.

Attiker had never understood that. They weren’t allowed to wash or change for two full moons because suffering was supposed to make them more holy. The trouble was, after a week, they couldn’t smell their own stink, so it was the rest of the folk that had cause to visit the monastery that suffered.

Although Father Ibbott never smelled too clever the rest of the year either.

“He’s late.” One of the two people he could hear suddenly muttered. Attiker stilled. He’d been quietly trying to work out why he couldn’t move. He thought his wrists were tied, but he didn’t dare move anything else to find out. Besides, his belly was doing enough roiling without him moving.

They’d given him something. In the tavern? He remembered the Bluebell, and then he thought Eryken had left, but had he been fooled?

“He’s not gonna wake up for ages. Not after two doses.”

There was a silence. “There’s extra he don’t need. Maybe we could—” The first voice began slowly, but the second cut him off.

“Do you have a death wish?” The other guy interrupted. “If Grape finds out we took his stash, we’ll be fish bait.”

Grape. Attiker fumed silently. He should have known. Why had he taken him? Payback? And two doses of what…and a chill settled over Attiker. He knew. Two? Was that enough to get him hooked? People were all different. Some seemed to be there with only one, but he’d had two. He quickly did an inventory of his body, trying desperately to keep the memory of his ma out of his mind.

“He’s back,” one of them hissed just as he heard a door scrape open from somewhere above his head and footsteps coming nearer. Was he in a cellar? He took a slow inhale and immediately noticed the lingering smell of wheat. A little gruit mixed in. He could almost taste the sourness on his tongue. Maybe he was in a tavern. A cellar he would guess. He was so busy trying to work out where he was when a sharp kick to his side made him oof in pain.

“He’s awake,” Grape crowed. The slimy satisfaction fairly oozed out of his mouth.

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