Page 6 of Shadowlands Omega

“Kiandah,” my brother whispers. I jerk and the blue fire recedes from my vision. It sits in my core, in my stomach, which is still pressed to the hard floor beneath me — a floor that didn’t disintegrate despite my entire body being engulfed in flame. I don’t unders… “You did it,” Cyprus says, his torso collapsed on the remaining floor. He meets my gaze with a smile that’s entirely inappropriate for the situation we’re in. “You ascended, Kia…you’re an Omega…”

I open my mouth to reply, but his smile falls abruptly. “Kia!” he roars, fingers scrabbling over floorboards to try to pull himself up and out and to me. He can’t. He’s pinned. I am, too. “Get away from my sister!” he shouts at something past me —someonepast me.

The sound of wood planks snapping grips my vision as a sudden wonderful relief grips my chest. The beam at my back releases and I can suddenly take in full breaths. I gulp in air deeply, but most of what I get is smoke. It carries pain, but I’m not scared of pain. No, I’m scared of the fingers on my arm turning me over. They’re heavy and thick, even meatier than my newly ascended brother’s are. They’re also tipped in jagged shards, like claws.Because they are claws.

They roll me onto my back where I land heavily. I feel a cough rise up in my lungs that I suppress. It would be rude, after all, to cough in the face of the Shadow Lord, wouldn’t it?

“Omega,” he sneers and despite his disdain at the sight of me, I don’t feel an ounce of equal disdain to see him. Oh no. What I feel instead is far, far worse and hits me in the gut like a fist —lust.

“Yaron,” I say and abruptly stop.What have I done? Speaking to our Lord in such a way? With such familiarity?

His obvious displeasure has no effect on me. My lust only swells like a wave at the sight of his broad shoulders, body heavy with muscle that I should find threatening. His thick, black eyebrows draw down over his sharp nose as he watches my gaze peruse him, like I’m eyeing various spices at the Orias town market — spices imported from far away, that I know I could never afford.

His full, red lips twist bitterly at the corners. His white cheeks, dusted with a faint tan and stubble, hold color. Not like he’s embarrassed — though I’d pay good money to see him shy or embarrassed or coy, just once — but like I’ve done something to royally piss him off. His black hair hangs down towards me, streaked with grey at the temples.

“That ismy Lordto you, murderer.” And then he crouches down on his haunches at my side and leans in very close, so close I can smell his haunting pheromones, so much sharper than that of an Alpha’s, than my brother’s new scent. It slaps me like I would slap him, if he’d let me. If we were lovers. But that’s a thought for the afterlife. He may be older than me by nearly a decade, but if I am a good girl in this lifetime, then when I join my ancestors on the Shallow Plains, I’ll spend the rest of eternity holding his chain in between my fingertips and training him to be my very good boy. The very best boy.

He wraps a massive, furry and clawed hand around my neck. “I should leave you here, Omega,” he sneers.

I nod. “Cyprus,” I mouth, more than speak. There’s something in my mouth that makes talking an impossible feat, but I still try. “Save him… Innocent…” My eyes flick to where he lies pinned but I don’t know if Lord Yaron sees it.

His meaty, furry fingers squeeze, crushing my windpipe. I lose the ability to breathe. “You may be an Omega, but that will not spare you or your family’s punishment. For your crimes, you are sentenced to life imprisonment and I will take great pleasure in inflicting every torture onto you and your kin that you inflicted onto those Alpha families.” His fingers hold me tighter. “You will suffer.” My core contracts. My lower lips feel swollen and pulse with maddening pressure like he’s spouting beautiful soliloquies, not threats of death. “You will rot.”

Pleasure slices through me like itty bitty shards of glass, but when he slides his hand from the front of my neck to my nape and lifts me off of the ground, pain finally manages to club its way through. A terrible pressure claws across my spine, likely from where the beam collapsed on me, but I don’t cry out.

Lord Yaron’s just confessed his plans to torture me, so I don't suppose my screams will sway him now, and if he gets off on them, I don’t want to give him that satisfaction. I stiffen my legs as I try to make sense of the upending and unending sensations of pleasure clashing with the cutting pain in my back, in my arms, in the back of my head, in my left ankle and in my lungs, which still feel charred, like there’s a heavy weight sitting on them. I focus on the brutal way his dark grey eyes slice into mine and his expression narrows, becoming increasingly severe.

He hates me. I just met Lord Yaron for the first time, and this is the impression I’ve given him. Hatred. Disgust. I cough blood all over his chest and clothing as he carries me out of the church and tosses me into a wagon where, despite his words, a Beta male with skin the same dark brown color as mine starts to administer to me with a care that borders on tenderness.

I don’t manage to pass out until the concerned doctor shows me a needle and inserts it into my throat. And I know that after the horrors and humiliation of today, the bliss of unconsciousness is likely the last mercy I’ll ever receive from the Shadow Lord.

2 | Yaron

Orias Village

Mara gives me one last questioning look.“There are no children inside, my Lord?”

“None.” If there were, my beast would scent them. Inside are thirty-three Betas. Twenty-two female, eleven male. All mature enough to scent strongly. All destined for a death I am eager to administer for crimes as heinous as these were. “Burn it down.”

Mara does not question me again. She tosses the torch and the rest of my Crimson Riders immediately get to work setting the church ablaze. I watch for the minutes it takes for the age-battered wooden structure to disintegrate. It feels therapeutic. It feels like justice. Justice for the fallen family. Justice for all of the Alphas whose lives have been taken by Trash City scum and the Mirage City Fates who employ them and deploy them for nefarious purpose and malignant gain.

The Fates intend to swallow Gatamora whole by ridding it of one Alpha at a time, killing them only to bring them back as mindless venom-soaked pawns in their growing army. I didn’t believe it, at first, did not believe the stories of my villagers of strange attacks by even stranger aggressors. But now, after venturing to the darkest corners of the North Island, where once lush and green forests have entirely been overrun by the rot now known as Paradise Hole…I believe.

I have seen thezombiearmy. A perversion of Omega magic. My predecessors should have challenged Mirage City centuries ago — the moment Paradise Hole began to spread up the river. The moment it was carried south by Mirage City ships onto our shores. We cannot prove it was thus that Paradise Hole crept across the South Island. No one can prove definitively the provenance of the infection that has killed so much life across all of Gatamora…but we couldfeelit.

When I met Berserker Maengor — the male Ithoughthe was — as a child at my very first Red Moon Festival, Ifeltthe disease of his presence. It was also borne by the Fated Omegas who never left his side. I’d felt it then just as loudly as I’d felt it at the Dark City Omega’s Ball that took place so recently — the last time I’d met Lord Maengor before I knew who he really was. Shortly thereafter, I allied myself with Dark City to share in the common goal of rooting out the rot borne by Mirage City, its Fates and its imposter Berserker. I intend to raze them all from the shores of Gatamora and inflict brutal punishment on any who ally themselves with the city and its spreading sickness.

Starting with these Betas here. My very own people.

Cooks, they call themselves. Chefs. Their food might please me, but right now, their howling cries please me more. Were they pleased at the cries of the children they murdered? Young Gwyneth? She was only sixteen when they broke into her home, slit her neck and stole her corpse.

I know Trash City is behind the attacks on my villages. I know it’s Merlin who leads them, as well. She was clever coming here, to the home of the one who burned her garbage world to ruin. Too clever. I have never known a Beta to be so clever. Few Alphas and Omegas have been so clever, either. Too few. That she was able to convince these spawn to hunt for her, hurt for her, kill and enslave for her is equally mesmerizing. What promises did she make them? What luxuries did their greedy hearts burn with? What kindling did she set fire to and with what spark?

In what way did I fail them? Have I not given them my life? My vows of protection? I am their servant. Have I not given enough —

The door flies open as two men attempt an escape. My bow hangs off of my saddle. I swing it up, notch an arrow and fire before any of my Alphas can claim the kill for their own. One Beta man sails backwards through the air amidst a chorus of shrieks and screams.

Mara looks to me and I nod once. She issues the order and my Crimson Riders circle the church, notching and loosing arrows, ensuring that no Beta escapes alive. It takes some time for the church to burn, for their screams to tarnish the wind, for the blaze to scar the sky. I wonder if the contingent of Crimson Riders who I sent into Paradise Hole have found any who might have escaped. My hunters deduced that some ran. I do not doubt Merlin would have. She is not one to cower and hide. She was not in Trash City when I burned that to the ground, either.

---