Page 9 of Shadowlands Omega

I see Yaron’s cloak swish as he turns towards my mother, chained against the wall. My whole family is in chains, their arms splayed out to the sides. My brother is the only one standing, his chest bare. There are bright red abrasions against his brown skin. My father has blood all over him, whether it’s new or from when he was pierced by an arrow, I’m not sure. My mother’s scarf is untied around her shoulders and the tips of her short curls are badly singed.

“We cannot beg for forgiveness for ourselves, my Lord. But for our eldest, we must beg. She is innocent…”

“And what of your other offspring? You truly seek to claim their innocence when you were moving bodies beneath their feet for weeks? They may be your children, murderess, but they are not children. They are not blind and deaf and I do not assume them to be so stupid that such an aggression would go unnoticed for as long as it did.”

“We were careful,” Owenna says, clearing her throat so that she might speak louder on her second try. “My Lord, my sister Kiandah is a loud supporter of yours. She would not have let us continue had she come across our operation. She would have told someone, tried to stop us. She is too honorable…so, we knew that we needed to be discreet…”

“Where is she?” my mother shrieks. “Where is my baby?” She must not have seen me crawl here.

Lord Yaron advances on her and I freeze, fighting every instinct in my body to go to her, throw my arms over her and beg Lord Yaron for her life.

It’ll do no good. So I’m going to have tobeno good, I realize. Lord Yaron won't be reasoned with. I’m going to have to do something more drastic if I want to save any of their lives.

“Do not make the mistake of thinking that because you are fools, I am equally foolish. The girl had her throat slit, the mother had been gutted and the father had been poisoned. Alphas. In their homes.Neighborsto you, separated by three streets’ distance. They were merchants. You traded with them. You knew them and still, you disgraced and defiled them.”Yaron’s voice rises to a deadly crescendo, made more terrifying by the fact that he doesn’t yell. Hebooms.

“We swear we didn’t know,” my father says, “The bodies were brought to us already dead. We simply were paid to wrap the bodies and prepare them for transport.”

“Prepare how?”

My father speaks after a short silence. “Embalmed. They wanted them preserved so they wouldn’t degrade when they were transported.”

“Transported to where?”

“We don’t know…we weren’t told that much. We were told very little…”

“And you did not think to ask more questions.” Lord Yaron’s voice is filled with disgust. “You simply did what you were told…and for what?”

Another pause, longer this time, until Cyprus interrupts, “Papa, say something!” Cyprus’s voice is hoarse. His neck is chained to the wall as well as his hands. “Tell him the truth — that you didn’t know…that you’re sorry…”

“Go on. Say the words. We both know that they are meaningless.”

“You…” My father sucks in a shaky, broken breath. “You’re right, my Lord. We…I…When the bodies were brought to us, we were told that they died of natural causes, but we…I saw the marks. The girl’s throat had been slashed and I…didn’t ask any questions. What Trash City offered was too good to refuse. I deserve this. I do. But don’t punish my family for my crimes, Lord. I beg of you. I know that the Shadow Lord does not take a mate, does not have offspring…but if you did, if you had…you would know that to have your children take your licks is the ultimate humiliation, the ultimate torture. I beg of you to spare me this, my Lord.”

“Daddy…” Zelie whimpers. I can tell she’s crying even though she’s twisted away from me, facing our parents.

“I really didn’t know about any of this,” Audet sniffles.

“She’s telling the truth. Spare her, my Lord,” my father says. “To spare our children is all that my wife and I can ask of you.”

There’s a hush, disrupted only by my family’s loud breathing. I’ve still got my mouth covered, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Lord Yaron could hear my heart, how loud it pounds. The tension in the quiet hall feels stifling, the air cold as a crypt’s.

Finally his boots scrape over the floor. He takes a step back, away from them and towards me. “I will check on the interrogations of your other co-conspirators and return with my verdict on your family’s guilt in due time. Should days pass and you perish from your injuries in the meantime, so be it. I will hang your bodies from the keep’s gates as a warning to any others who dare align themselves with Trash City. That is how killers are treated in the Shadowlands, regardless of whether you are an Alpha, Beta or an Omega. Your daughter lives for now, but if I find out she had any dealings with Trash City or ever so much as touched the mutilated body of a dead Alpha, she will hang just like the rest of you.”

His heels slam against stone as he comes to the table and sets something roughly upon it. Panic comes on so strong, I sway. And thenwhooshgoes his cloak as he turns into the next corridor.Clashgoes the gate as he closes it behind him andclanggoes the lock in the chamber as he traps us all inside. Then, the lightest flutter as he leaves us behind.

I wait until his footsteps have finally faded away entirely, and then a little longer than that, before I inch forward on bruised knees and push the chair out from under the table. I slide out after it, emerge and stagger upright only to realize that I’m entirely naked when my family’s heads turn my way and their eyes go wide.

“Kiandah!” my brother and Zelie say at the same time while I quickly grab a filthy blanket from atop the guards’ table and wrap it around my body.

“Are you…okay?” I say, my throat so dry as I stagger forward, tripping over the edge of the blanket every third step as I move further into the dungeon and realize that the conditions Lord Yaron has kept them in are worse than they initially appeared. They also haven’t been housed here alone.

My family sits in a small room with stone walls, a stone floor and a stone ceiling. Every surface is covered in what appears to be either shit or dirt or blood. There are several cells branching out of this room. In one sit six or seven rag-covered people. In another, Merlin hangs from the ceiling by her heels. In the shadowy darkness of her private cell, I can’t tell if she’s conscious or not.

“We’re okay, but Kiandah! Ancestors be, you look awful. Are you okay?” Zelie yells.

I swivel my head left and see her seated closest to me, chains shackling her arms over her head. She’s not fully seated, her butt just barely grazing the ground. Her legs are chained to a ring on the floor out in front of her so shecan’tsit and she also can’t crouch. It must be placing incredible strain on her shoulders. That they haven’t dislocated yet is a miracle.

Meanwhile, next to her, Owenna has her arms and legs both shackled behind her back, forcing her into a kneeling position. Audet has her hands chained to her feet. Mama’s got her hands chained to her neck. Cyprus is chained against the wall, standing, but so high that his toes barely touch the ground. He’s choking already and he’s going to suffocate if I don’t do something fast. My father is the only one whose chains are bearable and I assume that’s only because the arrow sticking out of his shoulder hasn’t been removed. He’s going to bleed to death.

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