Page 83 of Shadowlands Omega

Zenobia smirks, either at my words or the sound I’ve made. “That what your precious Lord told you, because I distinctly remember telling you otherwise, little lady?” She speaks the moniker with a lowercase L, I can feel it.

“It is.” My voice lifts, like my eyebrows, questioningly.

She chuckles and runs an already filthy rag over the wooden bar, patchy with gloss. “Almost the entire third floor where you and your Lord are staying is empty. Those are the pricey suites. Patrons come here for the booze and the whoring. They don’t want to waste precious coin on starched sheets.”

“That fucking…” Cyprus starts, then grumbles something about Yaron not trusting him enough to let him sleep in his own room, but I’m too distracted by the expression on Zenobia’s face. It appears menacing, somehow.

“Why do you keep calling himmyLord?” I ask, probably only because I have a little bit of wine and food in me now. “Isn’t he our Lord?”

Zenobia’s look deadens. The edges of my vision go dark and she somehow sucks not just the light, but the sound out of the room with it. “No man is Lord over me, witch.”

“Hey.” Cyprus bangs his fist on the counter. Zenobia looks unimpressed. “Watch your…”

“What makes you think he lords over me?” I shoot Cyprus a look to shut the fuck up.

“You think we couldn’t hear the sounds you two made? Ha. I had several patrons concerned you’d bring the entire inn down.” She laughs and I don’t tell her that Lord Yaron was prepared to do just that. I also don’t ask why she doesn’t tend to her other patrons and stays here with us.

I feel a tingling in my palms. My sore bones are renewed by that energy. I lean forward and meet her gaze steadily. I am sure when I tell her, “If you think it ismewho bows tohimwhen we are behind closed doors, you are mistaken.”

Her eyes round slightly, and her lips slacken. She looks older for a moment, a little kinder. More like an ember and less like a flame. And then she snaps back with a frown. “You are his whore and you are his whipping boy. There are none in the Shadowlands who defy him.”

“We did,” Cyprus says.

Zenobia hisses, “A few bodies here and there? I doubt Trash City paid well for that.”

“And that’s all that matters, isn’t it, the coin?” I answer back.

She gives me a scathing, assessing look. “You should know better than anyone. A womanandan Omega? You were born to be owned.”

“I am my own.”

Zenobia glares. Our faces press closer and closer together. “The Omegas that rule the North Island would do well to teach you their ways.”

“They bring only destruction. Is that what you want?”

“I want off of this cold rock ruled by men and horses.”

“You think another master would be better because she’s a woman?”

She scoffs, “You think payment is the only thing I’m taking from them in exchange for what I provide? If that was all you received, then you truly are a useless family. They will cast you aside like all the rest after you have served their purpose. You had your chance to be at their right hand and denied it.” She makes a disgusted sound, reaches beneath the bar and pulls out a bottle of amber liquid and three murky glasses. She fills them to the brim. “You two should treasure this, because you’ll be dust like all the rest of them under the light of the red moon. Your fire will not save you when war comes to your little Lord’s doorstep.”

I’m surprised to hear her speak so openly of war. Like she knows what’s coming — like she knows so much more than Lord Yaron or any of his allies. “War may come, but what makes you think that the Fates are destined to win?” I rise up in my seat, feeling an irrational rage that she would dare threaten me and Lord Yaron and turn her back on the Shadowlands so easily. “They struck at Dark City and were defeated in Paradise Hole by two Omegas and two Berserkers and their warriors. Lord Yaron was among them, or have you forgotten that? They didn’t even manage to take that city and it’s the youngest of them.”

Zenobia blinks at me once, twice, and on the third time she grins. Her pink tongue peeks out to wet her lips. She laughs and it’s a hollow, hateful-sounding thing. “My girl, has your Lord truly so little faith in you that he’s not sharing what he knows? Or…by the Fates…”

She hacks out a laugh, then reaches back beneath the bar and pours us each another amber glass. She slings hers back. Her eyes sparkle with glee when she rights herself, her black and silver locs glittering like onyx under the orange torchlight.

“Were the ports and traders truly so easily corrupted? Lord Yaron’s allegiances were thin, that I knew, butthisthin, I did not. If he does not know, then the South Island has lost already. You’d do well to take your little traitorous family and head to Hjiel. Maybe, if the Fates have forgotten your treachery, by the time they make it down there, they’ll have forgotten you and you’ll be spared — your family, anyway. I don’t doubt they’ll be able to make great use of your gifts…”

I refuse to be riled by her threats. She has information and I need it. “Know what?”

But Zenobia shakes her head and starts to turn. Cyprus stands, his seat falling back and crashing into a patron who tries to confront him, but I won’t stand for that. I lift a hand and sparks flare between my fingertips. The man hastens away from me, his Alpha essence cowering, rather than compelled.

“Know what, you old crone?” Cyprus shouts after her.

Zenobia rises to the bait, her hatred of us, of everything, of the world, causing her to give in. Or perhaps, simply her interest in my gifts. She’s still watching my fingers even though the light has flared and gone, and almost absently says, “The Fates and their undead army are positioned to take the ports. Should be any day now. Then they’ll have successfully separated the North and South Islands.”

I shake my head but it’s Cyprus who snarls, “Mirage City may control the closest ports, but Ruby City controls the other. Everyone knows Ruby City is an ally to our Lord.”

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