Page 30 of Unlikely Omega

“I didn’t betray you, acolyte. Why should I? I want to protect you, not harm you.”

“And you still haven’t explained that part. Why protect me? Why me?”

“Because I can’t fucking help myself!” Anger bleeds into his deep voice. “Because I need to know you’re okay. Because… because I can’t stand myself when you’re not around.”

“Even though I’m annoying the hell out of you?”

“Yeah,” he breathes, “even then.”

Now I want to laugh. This is it, I’ve gone mad.

“Do you believe me?” he asks. Something in his voice tells me the question is important to him. That my opinion of him is important.

“I believe you,” I say slowly, cringing at myself because why should I believe him at all? “It’s just that if it wasn’t you…”

If he didn’t betray me… that leaves only one other person who knew about the bleeding. One person I never thought would betray me like that.

Ismere.

“Priest Finnen.” The guards come in, holding up a lantern. In its yellow light, their faces look stern and cracked like old mud. “It’s time to go.”

Finnen’s face is beautiful and I can’t look away as he squeezes my hands again on the bars. “I’ll speak on your behalf. Don’t give up hope.”

“Don’t,” I start, meaning to say, don’t get yourself into trouble because of me, and why am I concerned about his wellbeing when I don’t even know my fate yet?

But he steps away and follows the guards out into the light.

Leaving me to wonder how messed up my mind is that I keep falling for his ruses so easily, when he probably won’t ever come back.

And he doesn’t.

I curl up in the dark, trying not to scream every time a rat runs over my legs or hands, over my back. Every time some big insect—spiders?—crawls all over my face.

Even wiping it off my face makes me shudder.

But I won’t give the guards outside the dungeon door the satisfaction of hearing me lose my shit.

I won’t.

This situation sucks and I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve whatever fate the Synod dishes out for me, but I won’t lose hope.

“Don’t give up hope.”

His words echo inside my head. I feel sick. Whatever the Synod decides, it won’t be good news for me. And maybe I deserve it for not appreciating what I had here, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.

Why, Ismere? How can you turn on your friends like that?

Why can’t I have one single person on my side?

Still unsure what caused me to perfume. Such a strange coincidence it happened when I thought I heard the unnamed god’s voice. Then again, maybe it’s part of the awakening of an omega. Hearing voices. How could I know? Nobody talks about omegas. Nobody wants them.

I never thought I might be one.

Am I an omega?

Noise wakes me up from an uneasy doze and the guards holding up the lantern come to unlock my cell. I’m so cramped and sick with worry that I don’t fight them as they lift me to my feet. A rope is tied around my wrists and I’m dragged out of the cell, out of the dungeons and into the Temple, blinded by the gray light of dawn. My bare feet ache from the cold—and they shouldn’t. I’m used to walking barefoot all year round. Maybe the rats bit me as I dozed. Maybe I’m sick.

Maybe fear is attacking my body, worse than any sharp tooth or claw, sending shooting pains through my limbs, through my skull, a hammer trying to shatter me.

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