Page 51 of Unlikely Omega

And the General is the top wolf. He’s a god in the regiment. He can do as he damn well pleases and I shouldn’t have an opinion about it.

This acolyte and the priest traveling with her are none of my damn business.

They’re off my hands now. The General will give the orders and I will obey. Bow my head and serve my purpose. After all, nobody else took me in when I was cast out to fend for myself in the world.

Nobody but the army.

Nobody but the Empire.

I owe a debt that I can never fully repay.

So keep your tail between your legs, I tell myself, your dick in your pants and your opinions to yourself. You don’t want to see the General with her? It pisses you the fuck off to think of him slobbering all over her?

Too fucking bad. Suck it up and shut your mouth. Not your place to pass judgment.

Only it’s not really judgment, it’s anger that’s crushing my lungs and heating my neck. Anger and some other, weird feeling that twists the insides of my chest.

Grimly, I march up to my tent and untie the flap, lift it. I can’t afford feelings of any kind. I’ve schooled my mind to see the bright side of things, to accept what I can’t change and be damn grateful for what I have.

That doesn’t mean I expect much from life outside of a position in the army and the respect of my men when…

I stop. Let the flap fall shut behind me. What the fuck?

Where is everyone? Did the guards already take the girl away? But what about the priest who—

Oof.

A white hurricane crashes into me, shoving me backward, and I barely catch myself before I fall on my ass, coming up against the tent wall and grabbing a fistful of heavy fabric to steady myself.

Instinct and training click into place and I’m already pushing against the wall to propel myself forward. I twist my body as I move, swing my open palm toward my assailant and—

—find only thin air where he’d been. He’s damn fast. I swing around and barely catch him on the arm as he stalks around me, barely manage a jump back when he kicks at me—then I grab a stool from the table where I study maps and documents and throw it at him.

He ducks, grunts when the stool catches him on the shoulder, and then he’s down.

I’m on top of him before he can get back up, straddling him, pinning his hands down with mine.

“You…” I let out a breath. “Priest. Damn.”

He struggles underneath me, his eyes fixed at a point past my head.

His white, blind eyes.

Gods dammit, I was almost brought down by a blind priest.

For shame.

“Where have you taken her?” he snarls, twisting like an eel on the floor. “Where’s Ariadne?”

“Relax,” I mutter, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that he can fight so damn fine when he can’t see. I remember him on the horse, fighting all my men at once. I hadn’t even realized then that he was blind as a bat. He was that good.

“Fuck you. Where is she?”

“The General wanted to meet her.”

“No,” he says, “it was a priest. The guards talked about a priest.”

“You’re making no fucking sense. I’m telling you, the General asked for her.”

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