Page 8 of Shadowlands Omega

Before I return to Shadow Keep, I trudge back into the church and retrieve the brother myself. I carry his inert body out to the medical cart to lay him down beside the sister who fought for him with her fading breaths. Why, here and now and in the face of my wrath, should an Omega appear to torment me like this? I cast my beast’s most primal desires aside, return to Brega, and do not look at her again.

3 | Kiandah

Shadow Keep

This is not my mattress.Mine may be lumpy and shared with Zelie, but it’s mine and it smells like lavender shea butter and old, old cotton and family. My family.

I feel a tugging in my chest, right over my sternum, like a needle pushed through a stiff piece of leather. Every direction I move, it tugs and pulls. “Cy…Cyprus?” I fight against lethargy, against whatever invisible bonds hold me back. I fight into the world of wakefulness and sit up straight.

My head spins. “Mom?” I wince as a dull, throbbing ache picks up in my back. I’m in a fog. My mouth feels like cotton and so does my throat. My head feels like it’s been stuffed full of cotton, too. I can’t see quite straight, but I still manage to find the edge of the bed and pull myself off of it and onto the floor. By some miracle, my legs hold.

I make it to the door and from the door, out into a hallway where I choose the breezy left corridor on instinct. I’m out of breath. I stumble and crash into stone. It’s a wall and cool to the touch. Beneath my feet that same stone feels icy. The world around me swirls in dark greys. There are no carpets here, no hallway runners, no torchlight. Only windows barely bigger than archers’ slits high in the walls. It must be night, though, because there is only the palest grey light shimmering through them. Only enough for me to see my hand in front of me. I keep it outstretched as I stumble along, the tugging in my chest becoming stronger and more insistent.

I feel like I’ve walked for hours, taking turn after turn, wandering mindlessly. Maybe I’m already dead. Maybe I’m lost in the Shallow Plains, the nowhere land that exists between the mortal plane and those where our ancestors walk for eternity. I should be with them, or I should be with my family. But I shouldn’t be alone. I’m never alone and I’m frightened.

I open my mouth to speak my sisters’ names, but nothing comes out. My throat feels raw and I’m too scared to talk even if I could’ve. Because there are sounds coming from up ahead…sounds of pain and terror. I round the next corner and see orange light emanating from an opening in the wall. In front of it, an iron gate hangs open.

Someone screams and I start to shake. I don’t like this. The tugging in my chest is telling me to go forward to the one place I never imagined because I refused to imagine it. Because this place…I’ve heard the stories…and it’s not for me.

Yaron may be a good boy, but I’m also a good girl. I’ve always been a good girl. I cook, I don’t take more than my fair share of the meal like Papa does, I don’t sneak sweets like Mama and I certainly don’t sneak around with boys like Zelie. I don’t spend hours in front of the mirror like Audet and I don’t ever ask for the expensive fabrics for my dresses or shoes like she does, either. I don’t lie…like Owenna sometimes does. I don’t cheat like Cyprus does at cards…or like he did on his ex-girlfriend once. I don’t want for more than I get.I shouldn’t be here.

But even as the thoughts come over me in waves, they don’t alter my reality. I am here, standing just a few feet from the dungeons, whose wide-open iron doors seem to be beckoning to me, calling me to them. They don’t know that I’m a good girl, or that I don’t belong here. Or maybe they don’t care because they know as well as I do, it doesn’t make any difference. I have to go forward.

Cold cuts through the soles of my feet and wraps its hands around my calves, tugging me back, the force strong but not strong enough to stop me from crouching down and moving to the very edge of the opening. I peek around the stone quickly, but the wide stone hallway ends in an opening that leads off to the left. I can’t see around it and the short hallway itself is empty except for a small table covered in blankets, two chairs shoved beneath it. A jug and two cups sit atop it — it must be a guards’ station. I wonder…if the guards are gone…maybe I can just sneak in…

I start to crawl down the hall when a sharp scream arrests me instantly. The scream is one I recognize.Audet. And then my father’s voice, “Hush now, Audie. Stay strong. It’s going to be alright.”

“It isn’t.” Yaron. His voice is unmistakable and my brain scatters at the sound, the deep tenor striking at me in ways that are devastating, because he isn’t speaking to me at all, but in threatening tones to the people I love most. I cower against the stone ground, but at the sound of my father’s voice, I crawl forward towards it.

“They’re just girls,” my father croaks, sounding like he’s in so much pain. My eyes water. “They’re innocent, my Lord. Believe me…”

The rattle of chains, the whack of something hard against something softer. A grunt of pain… “Just like the sixteen-year-old Alpha girl you murdered.”

Murdered? No. Yaron’s wrong. He must be…

But my father says nothing. I can’t…understand. Can’t…believe…

I keep crawling further down the hallway until I can’t go any farther without being seen. I hover at the opening, wondering if I should risk trying to reach the guards’ table, then realizing I’ll have to. There are footsteps coming from the corridor behind me. I have to move.

I glance around the corner once so rapidly all I see is the black smear of Yaron’s cloak and my family gathered around his feet.He’s alone. There aren’t any other Crimson Riders present.Facing away from me as he is, he can’t see me.I can make it.I see the guards’ table and hone every ounce of my adrenaline to keep my shaking limbs moving soundlessly over the floor as I crawl for it.

“My girls had no part in it,” Papa says abruptly, loudly. “I swear!” I glance up and though he isn’t looking towards me, I see several of my other family members are. He must know I’m here.

“You lie.”

My left calf is shaking, the muscle inside jerking with tiny tremors that I don’t seem to be able to do anything about. Just as little as I can control the ragged breath tearing in and out of my lungs. It tastes of smoke.It tastes of shame. Yaron is known to be a good lord. He wouldn’t make this up. He must be mistaken. Why doesn’t my father say anything?

“My Lord, you know I do not. I admitted freely to being the sole one responsible…”

“We are still interrogating the other Betas in your community…”

“It was us, no one else.”

“And now you say us. A moment ago, you said it wasn’t your children…”

My mother, frazzled in ways she never is, screams, “It was me, Reginald and Owenna, but Owenna was acting under our orders, doing what we asked because we asked out of love and she loves us. Don’t use our love against us, my Lord, I beg of you!” She sobs and her sobs shake me, but I hold firm as I lift a corner of blanket and slide beneath it under the table.

The darkness surrounds me, stinky but welcoming. I feel the breath shake in and out of my chest. I’m sure I’m making noise and quickly cover my mouth. I press my palm against my lips so tightly I’m going to bruise them, but I don’t relent. Instead, I duck my head, crouched on my knees in a ball so small, I hope it makes me invisible, and I peek between the legs of the chair in front of me.

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