The Omega Eclipse (Book Two of the Omega Game Series)

Chapter 1

Katala 

(Katala thirteen years old, Noctis fourteen)

    “You are going to love it! I can’t believe Uncle Talon has finally agreed to let you stay a season with us at Naccara,” Valnira squeaked in excitement and hugged me to her side, her golden bracelets jingling while we both rolled over my bed and laughed happily. It was finally, finally happening. My dad was letting me return with my cousin Valnira to Naccanash for the summer. I was also going alone. No Alpha cousins, no royal brothers hindering my every move. No overbearing parents. Just me and Valnira against the world.

    I hugged myself to Nira and rested my head against hers. She pushed her long, red hair back and studied me with those strange blue eyes of hers. People said I was the strange one with my purple eyes and silver hair, but I genuinely thought Nira was quite exotic. Her hair was always a mess of red curls that seemed to have a life of its own, and her eyes were so light they appeared like arctic ice. She smiled at me and her cheeks showed the dimples she had inherited from Uncle Mako.

    “Just wait until you see all those Naccanash boys,” she whispered with a wiggle of her eyebrows, “they don’t tend to use as little clothes as the boys from the Dark Desert but they make it up with their pretty faces.”

    “Boys here have pretty faces too,” I said and against any logic I thought about Noctis’s face. Sure, he usually looked as if all the other beings from this world were weak ants in comparison to him, but that didn’t make him any less handsome. All the girls in Maccana were obsessed with the crow prince. They screamed his name throughout the streets when he visited the City of Leukos between missions of his military training. They threw flowers at him. They made songs with his name on them. Just thinking about all the attention he received when he visited had me frowning and looking back at my cousin, “but I’m sure boys in Naccanash are a lot prettier.”

    “At least a lot prettier than prince Aros,” she puckered her lips and made a funny face that had me laughing. It was a well known fact to everyone that Aros and Nira hated each other since the first moment they were introduced when we were toddlers. Usually Aros tried not to be in the same room with Nira if she had already been inside and if Nira saw Aros coming her way she would find a good excuse to change course in the opposite direction.

    “Why do you two hate each other?” I asked her, nudging her shoulder with my own. Nira’s lips flattened as if it was already taxing for her to talk about Aros. We interlaced our hands and pushed them up, playing with our jewelry. Nira preferred gold while I favored silver. Since I could remember we had always given each other bracelets every time we got together for the summer. This year I’d given her a golden bracelet that had a dragon carved on it. She had gifted me with a thin silver cuff that had the different cycles of the moon engraved on it. I simply love my new bracelet. 

    “I don’t know,” she confessed with a shrug, “I guess I don’t like how pretentious he is all the time. At least Noctis doesn’t seem to care about all those girls that want him, but Aros likes the attention. I think he has already...bedded them.”

    “All of them?” I squeaked, my eyebrows arching up. Nira laughed and shook her head at me.

    “No, silly goose, I don’t think that’s even possible,” her face darkened and she seemed to rethink her statement, “on second thought I don’t know. Noctis, Aros and Kun are always away for their military training, they probably have bedded millions of girls by now.”

    “Millions?” I blushed and embarrassedly looked away from her. I couldn’t even imagine what it would feel to kiss a boy but...mating? Gods, that sounded so disgusting. It was already awkward to see my parents kissing all the time. How could Noctis be interested in doing those kinds of things? He always looked so detached and unimpressed by everything and everyone that I had a hard time imagining him finding a girl he deemed worthy of breathing his same air. 

    The only times I’d seen him appear alive were in those rare instances when he was back in the city and he would  look at me from a distance. He wouldn’t move closer, nor even speak to me, but I would feel his black eyes following me everywhere. I wondered why it was that? He usually referred to me as his little sister, especially when there were other boys around me. Maybe it was his strange way to keep an eye on me? To protect me and guard me as a brother was supposed to care for a sister? I frowned and forced myself to get back to the present dilemma my cousin and I were facing.

    “Forget about the royal princes,” I said, feeling my mouth curve in a smile, “ what are you going to do about Darion?”

    “Darion who?” joked Nira, blushing and laughing when affronted, I threw a pillow at her. She ducked and hit me back with a cushion and then we were jumping and hitting each other with pillows. At the end we both fell back over my bed, panting and heaving while we laughed under our breath. Nira sighed after a while and shrugged, “I don’t know Tally. I like Darion but deep down I don’t  know if I want to kiss him. It seems a little bit rushed. And you know how Alphas are,” she said, rolling her eyes, “if I kiss him he might grow territorial and my father is going to kill me once he finds out.”

    “If he finds out,” I said with a wink and Nira shook her head at me.

    “You clearly don’t know how meticulous my father is about me. He pays my mother’s spies to tell him my every move before they tell her. Just so he knows the truth before my mother and I can work it out in our favor. He is thorough...and merciless,” she added with a shiver. 

    “My father has servants sleep out of my door so nobody can move in or out at night,” I said with hopes to make her feel better and Nira scoffed, shaking her head at the ceiling in irritation.

    “It feel as if our fathers were never young and stupid. Why are they so damn protective and territorial all the time? It’s not as if we are out every night, visiting taverns,” she scowled and crossed her arms over her chest, “maybe I should kiss Darion. And maybe you should kiss Kamir.”

    “No, no, and no,” I said shaking my head and pushing my hands up in a conciliatory gesture. I really didn’t want us talking about Kamir. Nira was delusional if she thought that Kamir liked me. I’ve only caught him looking at me once and I was sure it was just because my stola had gotten stuck with a door and he was sweet enough to help me out of the predicament. He was also the son of General Amos, who was a good friend of my dad and by no means I wanted to ruin a great friendship for a stupid, first kiss. 

    “Yes! Yes and yes,” pushed back Nira, giving me a lopsided grin, “did you see Kamir this morning at their military practice? By the Gods, I could have breakfast over his washboard stomach. And that back…”she dreamily sighed, “I really like wide backs.”

    “Nira, you can have him and Darion for all I care,” I finished the topic with an obstinate clap of my hands, “now let’s get ready for our bath. It’s late and I want to be on time for dinner.”

    “Why?” she whined, kicking her legs over the bed in stubbornness.

    “Because I heard Baltus it’s going to visit us tonight and you know he has a soft spot in his heart for me. I’m going to ask him to teach me how to fight, like he taught auntie Leukos,” I said in excitement and Nira’s face beamed in enthusiasm. Technically speaking, Baltus hadn’t taught Auntie Leukos how to fight, but he had taught her how to defend herself and she had grown to be good at handling knives. Auntie Leukos had promised to teach me and Nira but she had gotten pregnant again and Uncle Wolf refused to let her be around knives. Eyes roll. 

    “Do you think he will accept teaching me as well?” she asked me while she rushed out of the bed and picked up a fresh dress and new sandals for both of us.

    “We don’t lose anything by trying,” I told her with a smile and then we both made our way through the halls. The palace was like a labyrinth. Even I, who have lived my entire life in the City of Leukos, still found it hard to find my way around the numerous halls, long corridors and numerous gardens that surrounded the palace and connected it to the citadel. 

    Usually I preferred to bath by a small pool close to the main garden, where the breeze brought in the smell of the desert roses and the sand verbena buckets that grew around the main path. That afternoon I guided my cousin to a bigger pool where other girls our age preferred to bath, since it was closer to the city than the palace and made it easier for them to have a quick bath on their way back home after working. 

    Normally I would try my best to avoid other girls our age. They weren’t exactly kind to me. They had never been. My mother liked to say their attitude was a consequence of their upbringing. In their eyes I was weird because I was one of the few Omegas that lived in the Dark Desert. My mom also had said that some people found it harder to understand the beauty in the strangeness of others.

    Nira preferred to say they were just jealous of us. Either way I found it easier to face the other girls when I was with Nira. She faced anyone and everyone as if she was a queen. She wasn’t exactly rude in her ways, she just acted as if she didn’t care what others thought about her. But I knew differently. Nira was the gentlest person I’ve ever met, if you of course had the patience to deal with layers and layers of arrogance that led to her heart. The truth was I loved my cousin with a fierceness of heart that put her on a pedestal. She was my hero, the bravest girl I’ve ever met and also the craziest.

    “What are you looking at?” asked Nira to the group of Betas that were silently scowling at us while we stripped from our clothes. The girls looked away fast, minding their own business while we folded our clothes over the rock bench that overlooked the pool. The pool was circular and deep, large walls had been built around it to procure a sense of privacy around it and there were statues of beautiful women scattered around the space. Some girls found it funny to dress the statues with their own stolas and laugh at them, but I always found the entire joke a little bit ridiculous. Nira turned to me and offered me a clean cloth lathered in soap, “You do my back and I do yours?”

    I nodded and we were just entering the pool when I heard the voices again. I stopped and looked around slowly, trying to move and act normal so nobody could notice something amiss with me. Over the years I’ve grown very good at acting as if I couldn't hear the voice anymore. My mom was the only one who knew I could still hear them. But there was no way I could tell my dad about the voices. I’ve done something stupid when I was a little kid and maybe mentioned that the voices have told me to do so. After that my dad had a personal vendetta against the voices. He simply didn’t like them. 

    Gently I started washing my cousin’s back while I tilted my head to the side, trying to listen over the sound of people talking and the constant murmur of water running. I heard one of the voices rise over the others, claiming my attention.

    “Katala...Beautiful Katala,” said a voice in a singsong tone, speaking on my ear and making me look to my right. I frowned when I only saw a statue that looked silly dressed on a girl’s undergarments. 

    “Would you come out to play with us tonight?” asked another voice.

    “You must come. It has to be tonight. Walk to your balcony at the darkest hour of the night and the stars will lead you to us. Follow the stars tonight. Tonight. At the darkest hour. Promise Katala…” 

    I shook my head softly. I couldn’t go! If I did my father would kill me. Not to mention there were guards posted underneath my balcony, a very tall balcony that was several floors up in the air. There was no way I could trick my guards into letting me pass them. Nor survive that fall. And even if I did my father would use the opportunity of my survival to kill me in other ways. I shook my head more passionately and Nira looked back over her shoulder and frowned at me.

    “Are you feeling alright Tally?” she asked me worriedly and I smiled at her concern.

    “It’s nothing, probably the heat of the afternoon making me feel a little lightheaded,” I waved a hand at her and she turned around with a scowl. It was one of those silly excuses grown women liked to use from time to time. I really hoped it had worked and Nira believed me because the least I needed was Niras wanting to participate in the crazy adventure the voices were guiding me to. The voices resumed their talk at once.

    “It needs to be done tonight. Tomorrow it will be already too late. Noctis’s life depends on this. Open your balcony and step outside at the darkest hour of the night and we will take care of the rest…” I felt myself pale at the warning of the voice. Noctis’s life? What would happen to him if I didn’t do what the voices asked? I couldn’t let anything happen to him! No matter how pretentious and arrogant he was. He had always been there for me. He had always defended me. He helped me to get up when I fell, trying to run faster than I could. Could I really live with the knowledge that I hadn’t tried my best to protect him from any wrongdoing?

    My mother and Auntie Valnis had come all the way from Naccanash to the Dark Desert to save Auntie Leukos when she needed them the most. They hadn’t even known her and still my mother followed the voices and helped a stranger out of the goodness of her heart. Auntie Leukos had been a stranger back then. I owed even more to Noctis. I’d known him all my life. I couldn’t ignore the voices, not if there was a small possibility that if I did ignore them something terrible could happen to him.

    Arming myself with all the courage I could muster I slowly nodded once and the voices dispersed inside of my head. Tonight I was following the voices and saving Noctis. I just hoped I'd done the right thing.