Page 165 of Dark Haven Omegaverse

The more it hit me, the more I was alright with it. Hiro and Roman, sometimes even Drake, gave me the softness an omega craved. The care. Monty and Kol gave me the safety. It worked… it would have to.

It was now way past time to confront Hel, and I somehow snuck off the third floor alone for the first time in who knows how long.

In fact, I made it all the way to the courtyard without a single person stopping me. I hadn’t realized how much I needed alone time until then, except I didn’t intend to be alone for long.

As I moved through the courtyard toward the portal, I yelled, “Hel, it’s time for you and me to fucking talk! I think I’ve been patient enough!”

She didn’t respond as I paced back and forth, waiting for her to show up. I knew she could hear me, and I would stand out here like a psychopath, screaming into the void for as long as it took for her to come.

“I’ll keep calling you out until you answer!” I screeched. I bordered on hysterical and didn’t give a single fuck anymore.

“You’re bold.” Hel’s voice echoed out into the night. I was suddenly in her throne room, though I could feel the night air still blowing on me.

“I’m only bold because I’m done doing this little fucking dance with you. I’m done with having no answers and your adviser and warden can fuck right off, they’ve been useless.”

She regarded me with a smirk on her face. “I was wondering when we’d see your fire,” she teased.

The human side of her mouth tilted up while the skeletal side remained as stoic as ever. Though it now held new fractures, as if the fires of Helheim were growing stronger.

Interesting.

“Someone is sacrificing humans and making them look like me and my men. You can’t tell me that we’re important and then allow this to go on. The demons are escaping into the human world even thoughyourpeople are fighting their asses off whileyouare doing nothing.”

Anger flared in her eyes and her hair billowed angrily around her, but she didn’t attack me.

Maybe I really was important to her.

I certainly was pushing her buttons and had no intentions of stopping.

“The sacrifices were necessary,” she said. Disgust and anger had me biting my tongue before I said something stupid.

My voice came out in a choked whisper. “What do you mean they were necessary?”

Hel looked as amused as ever, reaching down to pet something I couldn’t see, as if to show how unbothered she was.

“Think about it, Harlow,” she told me. Again she was being evasive, not outright telling me anything, and I suspected Kol was right and she couldn’t.

“I’m not here to play riddles with you,” I hissed as I paced. I could feel the stones moving under my feet and knew I was in the courtyard still, another confirmation I wasn’t losing my mind, this was happening.

Thoughts swirled in my head so quickly I could barely make sense of it. Until a realization dawned on me, a cold feeling slithering down my spine until I shivered against it.

“Wait... was that your way of telling me the answer?” I asked carefully. Her face beamed with pride, and I wanted to vomit on the spot. “You’re going to sacrifice me?”

Even as I said the words, I protested them, shaking my head and backing away like it could save me from the fucking leader of Helheim.

“Well, you got most of it right,” she said with a laugh. “I can’t tell you the details, Harlow. But you are on the right track.”

My mouth was so dry it was hard to speak. “I’m going to have to die for you, aren’t I?”

My world shattered around me and I had to fight off the tears and grief already threatening to consume me.

Everything I’d fought for, everything I’d built, that I’d worked hard to keep close, would slip through my fingers and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

A seer and Hel chose me and now my fate was sealed.

I would never get to experience normal pack life. I’d never get to have date nights in the town, nesting and heats, none of it.

Would my mates survive this?