Page 82 of Unlikely Omega

“Oh, fuck this shit.” This time he pushes me back and staggers to his feet, looming over me. It’s still raining, something between a drizzle and a patter, and he looks every bit the feral man as the Drakoryas from earlier. “What the fuck am I doing with you? Is it some sort of dark magic that you weave over me?”

“Me? I don’t know what you mean.”

“Your scent. Your voice. Your body. Your mouth, dammit…”

“What about my mouth?”

“It’s just…” He shakes his head, wet, long hair flying, droplets hitting my face, and turns around. “Can’t fucking do this.”

“Finn…”

“I can’t be with you the way you need me to, Ari. Don’t you get it?”

“Why not?” I knew it but hearing it from his lips is a rusty knife twisting in my gut. “Why can’t you stop fighting yourself?”

“I’m a priest. That won’t change. I’m not the alpha you’re searching for.”

“I’m not searching for anyone! I can’t help the way my body reacts to yours, and I… I feel…”

I feel emotions that I never encountered before I met Finnen, emotions I’m not even sure how to describe. Is it love? Is it affection? Is it gratefulness? Is it all of that?

“I can’t do this,” Finnen mutters and he sounds like he’s in pain but my worry fades in the wave of pain washing through me.

I gasp.

Rejection.

My first mate doesn’t want me, a voice whispers in my mind. My first mate isn’t interested in me. My body and mind are committed to the bond but he can’t go through with it, he won’t touch me, hold me.

My second mate almost took me to be executed and he’s not with me.

My third mate hasn’t even touched me and now he’s gone, too.

I’m dying. I must be. The pain tears through me, and dimly I’m aware of falling into the mud, curling into myself. Nothing matters anymore. My body is trying to consume itself, the need for my mates like blades cutting me up from the inside, waves of cold and heat racking me. I shake like a leaf in a storm, blown this way and that by my fate.

A Fae-blooded omega, the first in so long, without a mate.

A voice filters through at some point. The touch of hands, pulling on me. “Ari. Ari, are you all right?”

No, I’m not. The more I fight it, the worse it gets, so I let myself go. Roll in the waves of sorrow and pain.

“Ari!” The world tilts and I realize he’s dragging me up. He hauls me up in his arms, gathering me to his chest. “Gods, Ari, what’s the matter? Where does it hurt?”

Everywhere. In my body. In my soul. It’s an old pain, I slowly realize, this rejection, a pain I’ve carried in me since my mother abandoned me at the Temple and left without a backward glance. A wound waiting for another hit to reopen.

Though it doesn’t explain this physical pain, the hot knives digging into my middle, the dizziness.

“Gods above, girl, tell me what to do.” Finnen sounds frantic, which is almost funny. He always sounds either calm and collected or furious at the world. “Tell me where it hurts, how to help you.”

“Put me down,” I manage.

He does, kneeling to the ground, but still holding me against his chest.

“You should go,” I say, a lump in my throat. “Get away from me. I’m causing you trouble. Alone you will find your path once more.”

His head bows. “I don’t want to get away from you.”

“Finn…”

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