Page 101 of Shadowlands Omega

Her eyes roll back into her skull and my beast claws its way to the fore as I attack, panic fraying my conscious and unconscious thoughts. I surge forward, claws extended, intending to what — save her? I can’t. I know she’s already gone, lost to me, to the ashes…

And then comes the fire. Bright reds and oranges. They engulf me, but I don’t feel the pain on my skin as I fall, defeated. I feel only the horror of having lost what no other Shadow Lord ever has.

His heart.

His Lady.

Did you just call your Shadow Lord a liar?

You’d have been correct.

But you believed your Shadow Lord there for a moment, didn’t you?

I am not an accomplished liar, but there are someextenuatingcircumstances I have discovered in my forty-two years in which I deem lying not only permissible, but necessary. Actually, I have found only one excuse for these…untruths.

Embarrassment. Mine, no one else’s.

And to divulge the truth about what happened on the cliffs would be an affront to my own dignity, so it shall not go down in the record.

Fine. If you insist. The truth is that I never made it to the cliffs.Inever made it to the cliffs. The thing that made it there in my stead was a wild animal, devoid of rational thought.

My beast.

27 | The Beast

Too far from Kiandah

“My Lord, what would you have us do?”one of the Betas shouts.

I don’t care about him. Or Yaron’s response.

I roar at the encroaching threat to Kiandah as the things that reek of tainted Berserker venom rise up from the salty sea. I am not in my true shape. I’m still riding a fucking horse. Yaron is still fucking talking.

“Once the port city is cleared of civilians, fall back to the keep. On our way out, we will barricade the highway line leading to Orias with whatever we can to slow them down. We will need to use the extra time to clear Orias. At this point, call all forces back to the keep. Mirage City has come for us and we will need to make our stand at the castlewhere Kiandah is.”

I force his lips to form the words that matter. I can tell he is angry with me but I don’t give a fuck about him or anything besides returning to Kiandah. I don’t care what would happen if we left these Crimson Riders here. I don’t care about the Omega who smells like blood and dirt. I don’t care about the presence of another Omega somewhere in the clouds above us, waiting to strike. Kill them all so we don’t have to worry about them anymore. That sounds just fine.

“She is not at the castle.” I hear the words through Yaron’s ears, but cannot make sense of them. Is she saying…

“What?”

“They took her.”

“Freya, speak plainly, girl!”

“There!” She isn’t listening to us. She is pointing up at the Omega in the air. “The Beast Fate has unleashed their army. Your army will fall. They will kill your Omega at the cliffs…” She speaks more, but I am not listening. Because she has told me what I need to know, where they have taken my mate, and I am not willing to let Yaron wait any longer to do what we should have done days ago. Years.

Follow her scent.

Fall into rut.

Kill everyone.

I feel the threat of rut come over me…

…and I feel Yaron try to batter it back.

But I do not let him this time. I cut through his chest with both of my arms, force them free, and listen to the sounds of pain he makes as we jump from his horse and take control of him limb by limb.

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