Page 84 of Unlikely Omega

“Fuck.” He shakes his head. “I can’t, Ari.”

“Then you can’t help me,” I whisper, curling into myself as the pain returns and with it the bleak despair. “Leave me at the village, Finn, and go on your way. I need a mate who wants my body, too, whose body demands to be joined to mine like mine demands to be joined to yours. Otherwise, this bond with you can only hurt me.”

25

ARIADNE

I’m awoken from uneasy dreams to teeth-gritting pain when Finnen picks me back up.

“Finn…” I try to gather my thoughts. “About what I said before… Did I say anything before?”

“Don’t talk,” he says, starting out toward the plain. It’s early morning and the sky is slipping from gray to blue. “Conserve your strength. The village shouldn’t be far.”

“But the army…” I rest my heavy head on his shoulder. “They’ll be looking for us.”

“I don’t fucking care. There must be something a healer can do for you. I’m taking you there.”

Stop fighting, I tell myself. Stop fighting the flow of fate, Finnen, your body, your mind. It’s not helping.

Truth is, I’m too tired and in too much pain, and at least being in Finnen’s arms gives me some comfort, some reprieve. I’ll take what I can.

What you don’t know, unless you find yourself in constant pain, is that you’d give anything to make it stop.

Even your soul.

Your hope.

What comes next doesn’t matter as long as you get a break.

Giving up feels strangely freeing, a burden lifting off my shoulders. I feel vaguely guilty for Finnen who is still walking blindly through the landscape, trying to get me to the village, but it’s all just too much.

He keeps going, stumbling so often I think he’ll fall and kill us both, but he doesn’t, always managing to keep his feet. Superhuman, I think, is what he is. Fae-blood. Trained since childhood against the odds. Driven by a purpose so strong he won’t let himself fail any mission he believes is just.

Through the haze gripping my mind, it takes me a long moment to process that we have stopped.

Or that the ground reverberates with the echo of horse hooves.

“Dammit,” he breathes, turning in a circle, clutching me close. “Can you see anything? Ari, please, be my eyes. Where is the rider?”

With one arm slung around his neck, I turn to look. It’s after midday and the clouds have gathered again, darkening the day. “He’s coming from the direction of the mountains.”

“Fuck.”

Nothing to do. Even if I could run, even if Finnen could see, there’s nowhere to hide around us. It’s a flat expanse of grass and puddles from the storm, no trees or hills or rocks to use as shelter.

And the rider is galloping toward us, straight like an arrow, gaining on us with every blink of my eyes.

His head is bare, hair dark, and he’s not wearing a breastplate. “Finn…”

“What? What is it?”

“I think it’s Taj.”

“No fucking way,” Finnen breathes. “What does he want now?”

But my heart is pounding at the sight of him and I struggle in Finnen’s arms. “Put me down.”

“What? Are you out of your mind? You can barely stand.”

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