Page 57 of The Omega Slave

“She found you just as you reached the creek. We heard her screams but couldn’t get there fast enough. She couldn’t swim, but she still threw herself in after you. Father got to you just as you both reached the big bend. He reached out and managed to grab you but couldn’t get to her. She slipped away because of the fast current. He found her dead two miles away, and even though it wasn’t your fault—”

“He blamed me,” Tsaria finished. It explained so much.

“Father changed again, and…I’m sorry, but I blamed you as well. We were always poor, but when we lost your ma, it was like we lost Father all over again. I tried for so long to make him listen to my ideas for the farm, but then one day he came back from the market and said he’d found a way of getting us through the bad harvest.”

“The day he took me to Ishmael,” Tsaria said quietly.

“I’m just as much to blame. I was a horrible brother.”

Tsaria took a deep breath and let his resentment go. “No, you were a child as well. Obviously, Father influenced you. You were just trying to do what you thought was best.”

“I hated myself for it. Hated the rich. Hated those that would buy children, but hated those that would sell them even more. I had a massive fight with Father and told Alain I was going to visit Ishmael and see what I could do to get you back. I had a little money from extra work saved that Father didn’t know about and told Alain. I was always good with horses and could train them to the plow for others. We agreed to go the next day, but when I got home Alain had told Father and he had found the coins, and what I was going to use it for. He beat me so I could barely stand and took all the money. I left and joined the army three days later.” He was silent for a long moment. “I was always going to come for you, and I’ll never forgive myself for not doing so.”

But Tsaria had. He’d forgiven him, and haltingly, he told him about Alain.

“I wish I was surprised,” Tomas said. “I went back three summers ago. The land had been sold. Father and Alain were living in the house. Alain was bitter. Blamed me for not sticking around, but he was always lazy. I let it go because he was my younger brother, but at his age I was working twice as hard for Father and training the plow horses. Alain said he found enough seasonal work to keep them both, but from what I could see that was in ale, not food. I offered to find him non-military work with the regiment, but he sneered at me and told me I wasn’t wanted. I left them some money and never went back.”

Tsaria breathed out. It had all been a lie. He doubted if there had even been a wife.

They travelled in silence for another bell, and at another rocky part, Tomas jumped down and led the horse because it was dark, before he mounted again. “So, you’re bonded then?”

Tsaria paused. “Bonded?” He hadn’t heard the term.

“A shifter bonding,” Tomas clarified.

“I don’t know what that is,” Tsaria admitted, feeling foolish.

“I don’t know much, but my sergeant had a wolf and would tell shifter lore to those that were interested. But I suppose you aren’t bonded, as you’re not sick.”

Now Tsaria was really confused. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“The omega gets sick if his alpha is apart from him for too long in the first few days after they are first bonded.”

Tsaria swallowed heavily. “Doesn’t that apply to just shifters, though? I don’t have a wolf.”Or a dragon.

Tomas seemed to consider that. “Maybe, but then we never knew who your father was.”

“She never said?”

“Not as far as I know, but she’d hardly tell me if she did,” Tomas pointed out. “I do know from my sergeant that if shifter blood is diluted enough, they may carry the gene to pass onto children but are not able to shift themselves.”

“I can’t shift.”

“No, but many omegas can’t.”

Tsaria smiled a little to himself. Not in humor but remembering the conversation with everyone that meant Kamir was the omega, not him, because Kamir could only shift with him. Not that he blamed his brother for the assumption, but he definitely wasn’t about to share. That was private, or as private as it could remain.

“We need to talk about what I can do to get you inside,” Tomas said. Tsaria agreed. They were passing through the outskirts of Rajpur now and would be at the palace in less than a bell.

“I’m worried I’ll still fail,” he blurted out, knowing it wasn’t getting inside that worried him, but not being able to change Kamir into his dragon.

Tomas was silent for a while, but then he asked, “Tell me how you met.” So Tsaria did.

“And you went with Alain because you didn’t trust Kamir? Because Alain played you?” Shame burned through Tsaria.

“He doesn’t know how I feel,” he whispered, feeling his cheeks heat.

“Well, I don’t know about dragons, but I’ve spent the last seven-plus summers with horses and the one thing I know about them is that a horse has to trust you to be able to train them to do anything. And some of them can be buggers until they do. They act all lordly and in charge but really, it’s because they don’t have any confidence in you. They’re skittish until you prove yourself. All them times you touched Kamir, did he trust you?”

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