Page 88 of Shadowlands Omega

“Do not speak of the incident and do not speak his name,” I shout, wishing I hadn’t broken the chair because my fists long for something else to break.

Okayo simply scratches away in his book. I’m going to tear his arms off. “They said that while his behavior wasn’tentirelyout of character for him, it was still bolder a move than any suspected he’d make. He is a Crimson Rider, after all, and even before you were aware of your reactions towards the Omega, many could see where you were headed and no one with an ounce of intelligence would have dared stand in your way…my Lord,” he tacks on absently. “However, given Kiandah’s state, it could trip even the marginally clueless into attempting an assault…”

“Her state. What state?”

“I have come to term it a heat stroke.” He looks triumphant. I’ve never hated him more.

“Kiandah is sick? She has heat stroke?”

“Well, more accurately, my Lord,youdo. I found it rather suspicious that her heat only lasted two days. Two days is very short for an Omega, my Lord. The shortest known Omega heat previously recorded in the Shadowlands was four decades ago and that lasted three days. Two days is the shortest recorded heat in history. I recorded it myself and submitted such findings to the Medical Guild of Gatamora. My counterparts in the other cities were very surprised and searched their own records. None were able to find a heat shorter.

“I suspect that, given the circumstances surrounding her heat and the brutality her body endured…” I flinch as if struck, not by a hand, but by an anvil. “In order to protect herself and stay alive, her survival instinct repressed her heat. Repressed, my Lord, not killed. It is a very important distinction.” He waggles his pointer finger at me like a schoolteacher correcting a child. “It is my present theory that she has been in a constant, but very mild state of heat ever since you took her in Paradise Hole. Unsated, that energy has had nowhere to go. It seems that it is mild enough that she has been able to overlook it — or perhaps, the events of the days between have been high-stress enough for her self-preservation instincts to repress it entirely — but the Alphas in her vicinity do not seem to be able to.”

I growl. Okayo continues glibly, unconcerned for Horace’s life, apparently, or his own. “I theorize that her heat, subdued as it is, will need release. Perhaps, the draw it presents to other Alphas is an attempt to provoke a rut so as to draw a full heat from her in response.” He shrugs, slams his book shut and tucks it under his arm. “In either case, it would seem that your rut is imminent. I’d suggest being very careful around her, in the case that I’m wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“If you fall into rut and it doesn’t trigger her heat and she is unwilling, then you could kill her.”

“Unwilling,” I snarl, hating that I’m repeating his words like an imbecile. “She wouldn’t be unwilling.”

Okayo blinks at me like I’m every bit the imbecile I just supposed I was.How could I have so badly failed her in her first heat?Shame cuts through me.

“I didn’t mean sex, my Lord. I meant the bond. She didn’t complete her heat the first time because you didn’t bond her — she couldn’t. Her body couldn’t heal itself and was too weak to survive without a bond, should you have continued. Given your state and the behavior I’ve seen you exhibit towards her — not to mention the fact that you’vesaidplainly that you plan to bond her — the resistance isn’t on your part. If she won’t accept your bond, then that’s another story. I don’t know of any unbonded Omega who’s ever survived a Berserker’s full rut. Will she?”

“Will she what?”

“Accept your bond, of course.”

“I…” I don’t answer. I don’t like the answers I come up with. Because there were rules for this. Rules like, Shadow Lords don’t take Omegas. Rules like, Omegas submit. But the rules of these Fallen Omegas are different. Kiandah. Echo, the Fallen Earth Omega… They aren’t saying yes like the other Omegas I’ve been introduced to. They’re sayingno, writing conditions, drawing lines in the sand that we sad and sorry Berserkers cannot cross and do not want to. Not without permission.

I wish for the first time in my entire life that I’d been born the Berserker of a North Island city for no other reason than then, I could pick up a disgusting piece of technology —aphone— and call the Berserker of Dark City. We cannot place calls across Zaoul, even on the contraband satellite phones I’m certain I could source on the black markets. And there is no precedent for this situation with my Omega, except in the case of young Lord Dragnovic and his. The youngest Berserker among us, the little whelp, successfully bonded a Fallen Omega. He almost lost her, but he managed to gain her trust, her heart, her bond. I wish desperately that I could ask him what to do.

“I…” I falter. I feel a sudden surge of heat overwhelm my face. I start to sweat and rapidly rub at my hairline, fighting back feelings of longing and regret — along with the desire to rip off Horace’s face. “Yes. She will.” But only because I will explain to her the risks and she will feel sorry for me. That’s not what I wanted. I wanted to honor her. I think of the item I procured for her at the Night Market. I envision what it would be like to use it…

“Then your first problem is solved. Run to her now, beg for her bond, fall into rut and hope that she falls into heat.”

“If she doesn’t?”

“Pray that your bond is strong enough.”

“You are courting death.”

I notice Horace edge backwards into the closet, trying to push himself behind the parted curtain. Okayo meanwhile shrugs. “Then you won’t want to hear my greater concern.”

“Say it anyway. Gamble with your life.”

“My larger concern is that none of this matters. That you’ll fall into rut and regardless of whether she accepts your bond and whether it is enough, the Fates will take advantage of your distraction and while you’re in the middle of your rut, the city will fall to a zombie invasion.”

I turn my back on him and slam the door shut as I depart. He’s right, of course, but I don’t know what I can do about it except for vanquish the Fates, vanquish the undead, vanquish Trash City and do all of this quickly so that I can have Kiandah all to myself.

Until then, I have to stay away from her.

I think back to the dungeons I once placed Kiandah’s family in and laugh miserably, because my plans to stay away from her are not so dissimilar to spending my days in those dungeons. Either way, I die a slow, torturous death.

24 | Kiandah

Shadow Keep

---