Page 39 of The Blind Hordesman

I open my mouth to lie, but Kiki is faster.

“Me,” she says.

His pacing halts again. I imagine my brother’s face, eyes like Dreikx’s black pod, wide and not blinking.

“You?”

Kiki barks. Once, twice, three times.

I laugh, then cough, nearly choking. Turning to my side, I hack until my lungs burn, and I can barely draw in breaths. The downside of having an overdeveloped sense of smell is having an overdeveloped sense of smell. The imposter wants to suffocate me in smoke.

Kiki pats my shoulder.

I catch her hand and calm my lungs, then lean against the wall again. I keep her hand and kiss her palm, telling my brother in not so many words that I’m fond of this Omega, and I want him to leave.

“Let her go, Seer, and I swear to you, I will put her with Tabby. Nobody will court her. Nobody even knows where my Omega is.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You can. You can do anything.”

I smile. He’s always told me that. Ever since we were little. I was bigger and stronger than he was, yet he never resented me for it. But I would disappoint him now. “Forget it, Arkin. She stays.” I want to laugh again, because I imagine Arkin’s face. Sure enough, he moves, and the chair scrapes as I presume he takes to sitting lest he faint from all the news he got when he came here. “Exciting, isn’t it?” I ask.

“Why are you so difficult?”

“I was born that way.”

“You swore to Raven you’d destroy all the imposter’s assets. You said, and I quote, ‘I will destroy him and all his assets.’ I would say his Omega child is one of his biggest assets.”

“I’m not,” Kiki says. “Clearly.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“He targeted the house. I was supposed to be there. Sleeping. If I hadn’t been baking and the hound let me back into my bedroom, I’d have died alongside my sisters.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Arkin says.

“Thank you. And I’m not really his in the way Domitay was.”

Raven killed Domitay in Mexico. “Okay, this is interesting. Go on, girl.” I move up a little, trying to adjust the furs Kiki stacked behind my back. The cloth on my chest vanishes, and I hear a squeeze, then feel Kiki rubbing salve over my stab wound. “I should get injured more often,” I add.

“Don’t start, Seer,” Arkin says. “I’m in a really bad fucking mood.”

“Eat me. It was a joke.”

“Omega, you were saying?” Arkin prompts. I hear his teeth gritting as he reins in his temper. I don’t have the leashing-temper problem. I just let that shit right out.

“I was made, not born,” Kiki says. “At least this is what I’ve been told. Of course, I will never know.”

“Like the Swarm, you mean?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says.

“How many Omegas are there who are made?” Arkin asks.

“Just me. He used to tell me a made Omega is like a pearl of Regha. Her shape and size are one of a kind, his little miracle. This is why he selected the pack from his strongest males.”

“You are his bloodline’s breeder, then.” Arkin resumes pacing.

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