Page 69 of Shadowlands Omega

She gives me a funny look and then she drops her voice even more. “I have. Three times. Once near Shadow Ridge — my husband and I were on our way to Heatherlen to deliver a special order when our cart broke down. We saw shapes in the woods and hid in a ditch, fearing thieves and robbers. What stalked by us, mere feet away, was so much worse. At least a dozen undead.” She cringes. “It was awful.”

“The ancestors must have been with you that night, for your cart to break down before they caught up to you,” I whisper to her as she stands, undressing me once more and setting the patterns aside to work on later. She pulls a simple, floor-length black dress from a chest on the floor and drapes it over my head. From there, she returns to the ground to work on the hem.

“And twice more, I saw creatures that I believe were undead, near the ports when I was packing up my stall late. They were far away though, near the water, so I can’t be one hundred percent sure. It could have simply been brazen creatures of Zaoul.”

“Almost as terrifying.”

She snorts. “Almost.”

“Was anyone with them when you saw them near Shadow Ridge? They couldn’t have been traveling alone. When I saw them in the woods of Paradise Hole, they didn’t seem capable of making decisions themselves. They had to have been led.”

“Oh, they were.”

“By who?” I scoff, outraged and flabbergasted. “Who would willingly do such a thing?”

But, her confident hands still on the fabric, she gives me a curious look. “Sha-lee, you don’t think yours is theonlyfamily working with Trash City, do you?”

I quiet and feel suddenly very small. Like an ant. I just…what she’s suggesting…I can’t fathom it. “But…but who would want to work with Trash City to make monsters?”

She shakes her head and I know I’m wrong for even having asked. My sister did. My parents did. “The desperate or the greedy, I suppose, but mostly the former, I should think. Trash City has preyed on families of women, single women, single mothers. We may be free as Betas — hell, I’m even married to an Alpha — but you know, you must know as well as anyone, how hard it is in the realm of shadows for women. We don’t get the same opportunities, the same chances. You got lucky, miss, ascending as an Omega. You’ll live in the lap of luxury and never have to work again. But for those whose husbands have died or who never had one to begin with, it’s hard. Do you know that it’sstilla law that in order to set up and take down a stall in the Night Market, women need a chaperone?” She makes a disgusted sound in the back of her throat.

I am still stunned, reeling. Even as she fits me into a corset and cinches the waist. She’s got me outfitted in a black shift, a black outer dress, black underpants, and a corset that’s one of the loveliest patterns I’ve ever seen. A traditional fabric, it’s been starched and dyed maroon against a darker maroon. The darker maroon shimmers.

“I never considered why my brother and father had to do some things, collect certain shipments and the like. It makes sense why women would want to work with Trash City for coin, especially if the Fates are behind them.”

“Is that true?”

“I’m not sure,” I reply honestly. “Yaron hasn’t talked to me about them. He doesn’t talk to me much about anything. I think…” I shake my head. “Never mind.”

“What?”

I smile at her, but it feels sad and small and self-pitying. “Maybe, it’s like you said. Maybe, he likes me even though I’m not an Alpha, but as a woman he doesn’t trust me enough to talk to me, you know, as an equal.”

She doesn’t say anything to that.

I shake my head. “Sorry. I don’t mean to burden you. I just…was curious what you’d heard, and if you knew where I could find Trash City. I’d like to give that wench that leads them a piece of my mind and atone for my family’s crimes. It’s one thing to want to support the women of the Shadowlands. It’s another to tempt them with gold to turn on their own people and abet murder. And I don’t care who they’re working for — raising an army like they have is wrong, no matter the motivation.”

She nods. “I couldn’t agree with you more, sha-lee. They couldn’t tempt me with all the gold in Glass Flats,” she says, referring to the richest of the cities.

“Me either.” I frown. “But I also like my job. I’m a good cook and I like working. Even if I’m just a poor woman, and a Beta…well, before.”

She smiles at me and the levity returns between us. “I do, too. It’s incredible seeing the way my designs transform people. Are you ready to see yourself?”

I nod. “Yes. This fabric is stunning.”

“Youare stunning. Come, sha-lee. Look.” She spins me around and for a split second I wonder who that pretty woman is in the doorway before I realize that’s a mirror and the woman is me. “You like?”

My jaw drops. “Zanele, I…” I can’t speak.

She laughs. “You look gorgeous. Here, let me just apply a little makeup to accentuate the eyes. I like your hair, by the way.”

I look down at my booted feet, nervous and shocked. “Thank you, sha. My hair used to look like yours until I burned it all off. It’s begun to regrow, you can see here,” I say, gesturing to the fuzzies that have taken up on the top of my head and the sides that I shaved into a fade. “I miss my long curls, though.”

“You burned it all off?” She balks, then seems to consider. “Ohhh…oh ancestors be, you really are a Fire Omega?”

I nod.

“I guess I didn’t realize your hair would also…” She starts to laugh.

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