CHAPTER THREE
1296 Words
The selection announcement is on the board outside the main kitchen by the time I arrive.
I read it twice. Head Kitchen Steward. Oversees daily meal planning, coordinates the kitchen staff, liaises directly with the Alpha's household on all domestic matters.
Liaises directly with Dorian.
My heart does something embarrassing.
I look around the empty corridor. Then I take the pen from my apron pocket and add my name to the list.
I am almost back to the kitchen when Mira steps out of a doorway I did not see her in.
"I was wondering when you'd do that," she says.
The pen is still in my hand. I close my fingers around it.
"The list is open to all omegas," I say. My voice comes out steadier than I feel. That is the one thing years of being afraid has taught me. How to sound like I am not.
"All omegas." She tastes the words like they are funny. "Maya. Do you understand what that position involves? You would be responsible for managing people. Coordinating. Making decisions that affect this entire household." Her eyes move down and back up in that way she has, the assessment that ends before it begins. "What makes you think you could do any of that?"
"I've been running this kitchen unofficially for two years," I say. "I know every schedule, every allergy, every preference. I've been doing the job. I just haven't had the title."
She stares at me. Something moves across her face that is not anger exactly. It is closer to recognition, and she does not like it.
"Go clean the back courtyard," she says finally. "You've been assigned to outdoor tasks today."
I go.
The back courtyard is empty and cold and the work is mindless, sweeping stone and pulling winter weeds. I let my thoughts drift to Kael. To the way he watched me last night while I changed his dressings. Not grateful, exactly. More like he was solving something.
I wonder what his life is like outside of this pack. I wonder what he ran from, or toward, when he came through that border. I wonder if he will actually leave once he is healed, the way he said he would, and I wonder why the thought of that makes the morning feel less warm than it already is.
I hear footsteps behind me and I turn too late.
The blow to my shoulder sends me into the courtyard wall and I come off it in time to see Mira's friend Ola pulling her arm back for another shot. There are three of them, which is more than last time and tells me Mira is more afraid than she looked.
I put my arms up.
The next few minutes are not good.
I stay on my feet through the first round of it, which is more than I managed last month. I catch a knee to my ribs that steals my breath completely and I go down on one knee, and that is when it gets worse. A boot catches my temple and the courtyard tilts. I put my hands on the ground to stop the spinning and someone steps on my hand, deliberate and grinding.
I hear myself make a sound. Not words. Just the air leaving me.
They leave when they are finished. That is the pattern. Quick, anonymous, efficient. Mira never touches me herself anymore. She has not needed to since she discovered other people would do it for free.
I stay on the ground for a while. The stone is cold against my cheek and that is actually useful because my face is very hot.
When the vertigo passes I push up to sitting. My ribs are speaking to me loudly and specifically. The hand they stepped on is swelling. My temple is pounding.
I get up. I pick up the broom. I finish the courtyard.
By the time I reach the packhouse main hall, I am moving carefully, holding the left side of my body a little stiffly, and I am twenty minutes late for the selection.
Dorian sees me the moment I walk in.
He crosses the room and I watch the expression on his face move through something I cannot follow, his eyes going over the damage quickly, his jaw shifting.
"Maya. What happened?"
"I had an accident." I look past him at the other women in the room. Some of them are watching. Most are not. "I'm sorry I'm late."
"You can't participate in the selection looking like this. It wouldn't be appropriate." He says it gently, and that makes it worse. He is gentle about everything, which I have always loved about him, but right now the gentleness lands somewhere tender.
"I know the role better than anyone in this room," I say quietly. Not accusing. Just true.
He looks at me. Something in his expression shifts, and for a moment he looks almost uncomfortable.
"I know," he says. Then he glances at the group behind him and something shutters. "But there are rules to the process. I can't make exceptions, even for—" He stops.
Even for me. He did not say it but the gap where it would have been sits between us.
"What I can do," he says, and his voice warms again, "is offer you the sous-kitchen coordinator role. It's new. I created it last week. It reports directly to the Head Steward."
It is not the same. He knows it is not the same.
"That's very generous," I say. My voice is flat and I cannot help it.
He tilts my chin up with two fingers and gives me the smile that has been making my heart do foolish things for three years. "You'll be brilliant at it, little sparrow."
I should feel better. I usually feel better when he does that.
I walk home feeling exactly as small as I did when I left.
When I push open the door, Kael is sitting up straighter than yesterday. He looks at me with those stone-colored eyes and I watch them move across my face, my hand, my side.
"Who?" he says.
"Mira's people." I drop into the chair and press my good hand against my ribs. "There's three of them now."
He says nothing. The silence from him is different from the silence other people give me. Other people's silence is dismissal. His is something else. Like he is turning it over carefully.
"You should leave," he says.
I look up.
"This pack." He says it like it is simple. "You should leave it."
"And go where?" I ask. "I'm a wolfless omega with no name and no money and no status anywhere. At least here I know the rules."
"You know the rules of how to be hurt," he says. "That's not the same thing."
I open my mouth and close it again.
He is not wrong. That is the most frustrating part. He has been here three days and he can see it more clearly than I can after a lifetime inside it.
"Sleep," he says, which is what I told him last night. He says it the same way. Not soft. Just final.
"Your fever," I start.
"Is lower than yesterday." He meets my eyes. "Sleep, Maya."
I pull my knees up on the chair and lean my head against the wall and I am asleep before I can decide whether or not to argue.
In the morning, I wake to find the thin blanket from the foot of my pallet draped over me.
He is asleep on the cot. He did not have to do that. There was no one to see it.
I sit with that for a long time before I get up.
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