The Omega Bond (Book Five in the Omega Game series)

Chapter 8

Fair

City of Leukos, The Dark Desert

Present day…

“This place reeks of a sneaky, young Alpha that I know too well,” said Nira first thing in the morning, opening the curtains of the windows and letting fresh air inside the room. She clicked her tongue and shook a finger admonishingly at me, “If Aros finds out that Ang was visiting you at night, he is going to burn that boy’s ass.”

“Funny how the burning of Ang’s ass is a well known threat among this family,” I said and Nira raised her eyebrows at me.

“You don't even deny he came for you last night,” said Nira and I rolled my eyes at her.

“As if I didn’t know better than lying to you,” she shrugged in a conceding gesture and then turned around with a dramatic flair.

“Well, well, well, there seems to be a special place reserved for girls like you and me who like to play with fire. I only hope the throne in Hell is a lot more comfortable than the one waiting for me in Naccanash,” said Nira while opening the doors of my closet and extracting a stola with a plain neckline that covered my neck and shoulders. She extracted a pair of riding boots and left everything over the bed, “Dress fast and meet me at the stables.”

She left me alone without another word. One didn’t question Nira’s commands. She was crazy and volatile in her good days. Completely lunatic whenever the madness struck. I knew better than to taunt the she-dragon with questions. I dressed fast, braided my hair and rushed out of my room. It was the first time in weeks that I left my chambers. Nothing had changed and people waved their hands at me as if I was the same girl from before. To me everything was different. I felt like an impostor, living a life that didn’t belong to me anymore. Up to that moment I hadn’t thought much about leaving to the Yellow Islands but maybe a change of scenery was exactly what I needed.

As every single time I thought about the Yellow Islands I remembered King Alkotanila’s golden eyes. His eyes were slanted like every single native from the Yellow Island. Golden and curious, ancient and wise. His skin was unblemished and tanned, olive, like that of brown sugar. I’d always found it strange that as a king he never wore any jewelry, not rich clothes. Last time I’d seen him he had been covered in blood from head to toes, dressed in common soldier’s clothes. His hair had been braided to the back in cornrows and he sported a scar on his left eyebrow. King Alkotanila looked more like a criminal than a king, and still, even dressed in rags his strength had shone through. I wondered if he was a good king. I wondered if he would protect me from other Alphas if I ended up going to his country.

I stopped walking, frowning at the memory of something that Nira had said. Don’t turn yourself into a victim. Be your own defender. Be your own hero. Those words were like fire, burning me with a hope to be stronger than what I was. I didn’t want to depend on others my entire life. I didn’t want to need Alphas to protect me from other Alphas. If I became a weapon I could protect myself. And if I could protect myself then I could protect Nira and the others. I could protect Ang instead of hurting him.

Feeling encouraged by that thought I made my way to the stables and found Nira right away, waiting for me by the side of two horses that had been saddled up. Nira of course looked ready to march into a battlefield with the elegance of a queen. She was dressed in black pants and a wide shirt that seemed too big to be her own. Aros’s probably. She had tucked the shirt in and tightened the pants with a belt covered in precious gems. Her fingers were adorned by golden rings and her wrist had golden armbands that made her look exotic. I paused when she handed me a horse’s reins and pointed at me.

“We need to be back before Aros and Noctis notice our absence,” she explained, pushing her small body up and straddling her horse. I followed her, calming my horse with soft words while Nira inspected around to check if somebody was coming. When it was clear that only Betas were around she motioned with her head at me and silently we started guiding our horses to the southeast wall. Nobody dared to stop us. Everyone knew Nira was Aros’s mate and that I was her adoptive daughter. People adored the Wolfsons at the Dark Desert to the point of fanaticism. I’d always joked about the idolatry that people showed to Ang whenever he passed by but I was seriously starting to think I would miss being accepted like this if I moved away. Something told me I wouldn’t be treated the same way I was treated at the Dark Desert.

It became clear after a while that we were headed to the Gilmesh Forest. I’d been inside the forest a handful of times and I still found the place to be scary. The dark sand from the desert gave way to a rocky surface that seemed to have been cut from Hell itself. The rocks were dark and porous, making it hard to walk through them and even harder to ride our horses fast. Once inside the dark forest the air turned humid and heavy, perfumed by the strong scent of pine trees and dense canopies. The trunks were dark, like nights without stars and the green of the leaves seemed to be alive, moving without wind and always falling over my head whenever I passed by. Nira groaned when another tree seemed to shake its foliage all over me.

“The spirits really seemed to like you,” she said in a cryptic tone that had me looking everywhere with hope. I knew Katala’s forest was full of spirits but apart from Teran I’d never seen one with my own eyes. Nira had mentioned once that it was for the best if I didn’t see spirits like Katala did, but I thought it was really incredible to be able to talk and see spirits everywhere I went.

We moved in silence after that, riding our horses away from the main path and taking a steep turn to a hill at the right. All the way up was Katala’s and Noctis’s castle. It was made of dark stones that shone like stars under the daylight. Needle-like towers had been created to make the entire structure look even higher and more imposing than the forest surrounding it. Around the castle was a large black wall and a silver gate which opened by itself when we passed through. After leaving our horses to graze at the front of the manicured gardens we stepped inside the castle. It smelled like flowers and rice cakes by the main hall. The entire space was cryptically adorned with battle axes and gigantic swords that gave me a bad case of goosebumps. Noctis wasn’t only scary, he made spaces scary. As in a dream, Katala appeared by the end of the main stairs.

She was, without a question, one of the most beautiful Omegas in the world. That morning she had braided her silver hair up and was wearing...what was she wearing? My surprise made her laugh softly when she reached us, stopping to kiss and hug Nira like they always did whenever they saw each other. Those two could spend an entire lifetime together and act like they had been separated for ages after a couple of hours away from each other. Katala turned to me, pointing at the gigantic shirt she had put on top of her blue stola.

“My new style has a reason to be, I promise,” said Katala, giving me a quick kiss on my forehead and then passing over another gigantic black shirt. I accepted the shirt with raised eyebrows, looking a little bit perplexed between Nira and Katala. Nira shrugged, checking her nails while Katala laughed a bit, “We use their shirts to conceal our scents. It confuses our Alphas’s senses since those brothers are always together and have grown used to their own scents. Quickly, put Noctis’s shirt on top of your dress.”

I did as I was told and Katala fixed the buttons for me. Then she rubbed the neck of the shirt against my nape and used the fabric to also rub my wrists. She winked at me while she worked, “If you need to hide your scent, always use an Alpha’s scent. They are the most powerful dynamic and their scent easily overpowers our own. Rub their clothes around your neck and wrist and you will be fine.”

“And why exactly are we hiding our scents?” I asked a little bit scared and Nira smirked.

“Because we are up to no good, like always,” she gave me one of her crazy smiles and then turned to Katala, “Didoka said we have an hour before Kun is back, right?”

“That should be enough time to go and return,” nodded Katala and started walking to the kitchen, followed close by Nira and renuently by me. These two would be the death of me. Exactly what they were thinking about doing? And why did we need to hide our scents? We all stopped near the table, where the scent of recently baked cakes was so strong that I couldn’t even scent the other smells around us. Katala turned to us and grabbed our hands with a big smile in her face. This wasn’t good. They were about to do something very dangerous, I could tell.

Nira smiled at me too, “Relax, wildling, we are just taking you on a trip.”

“A trip where?” I asked, feeling my knees go a little weak.

“To the North Islands,” answered Katala, making me gulp nervously. I didn’t even have time to process the news. Right in front of my eyes she transformed into the Queen of Spirits. Her skin turned silver and iridescent, like that of a million stars. Her silver hair floated up and eyes like that of the moon looked at me with power reflected in those limitless irises. I felt her hand pull me to the front and then everything around us disappeared.

I think I screamed but I didn’t hear the sound over the silence that followed. Nira and Katala were nowhere to be seen. I was falling in a dark lake. The water was pushing me slowly down, like the rock I thought I was not that long ago. The surface was right there. I knew I needed to swim to the surface but the water felt heavy all around me. I finally made up my mind to swim up, but not because I needed air. Down there I didn’t need anything. Only the fear of Nira’s rage if I didn’t dare to swim made me move up. I swam for what it felt like centuries and when my hand finally reached the cool air of the surface I felt a hand that pulled me back to the water.

The water seemed to flip, up became down and down became up. The hand pulled me through air and water until I started falling, or going back up. It was impossible to direct myself in this place! I finally fell, only to land on my ass in the middle of a room filled with books. All around me I could see tall shelves stacking books over books. The walls of the place were blue, like the thickest ice I’d ever seen. When I looked to the front I found three pairs of eyes staring at me worriedly. I was panting as if I ran miles in the space of a second.

“Are you going to be sick?” asked me Katala softly, patting my head and giving me a gentle smile, “It’s fine if you do. Nira also got sick during her first trip through the portals.”

“I beg your pardon! I didn’t!” hissed Nira, turning a little bit red in her cheeks.

“Yes, you did,” nodded Didoka, who appeared behind Nira, giving her a reproachful look, “You got sick and ruined that book about ancient medicine, remember?”

“Well, I did you a favor,” fought back Nira, crossing her arms, “Who needs to study ancient medicine? It is ancient for a reason, Didoka.”

“You ruined a book!”

“One book! You have like a million of those all around you!” rebuked Nira, pointing with her hands to the library where we were having this discussion. Didoka rolled her eyes at Nira and then shook her head at her.

“One million and one book it’s always better than a million of books to read. With books, the more, the better,” I nodded at that logic because, let’s face it, Didoka was right. Even if I didn’t know where the hell Didoka had come from, or how we had ended up in her library. Katala intervened then, helping to get me up and turning around to the other two Omegas.

“We don’t have enough time to fight over this. Kun will be back in an hour and Noctis will go out of his mind if he returns and doesn’t find me at our home. Not to mention Aros was patrolling the borders with Kun and if he returns faster to check on Nira we will all be in deep trouble. Let’s do this,” the other Omegas nodded, guiding me to a resting area covered in comfortable furs and lavish pillows. Didoka helped me to an armchair and without preambles passed me a cup with a steaming black tea that looked as appetizing as Nira’s failed attempts of cooking.

“What is this?” I asked, sniffing the tea and making a face of disgust. It smelled as if staggered water and dirty clothes had all merged together to create a poisonous beverage that promised to be hard as nails to swallow.

“That, little Omega, it’s your freedom,” said Didoka, wiggling her eyebrows in her most mischievous face yet, “This tea will clog your pores and hide your Omega scent completely. I perfected the potion and you will be able to pass by like a simple human. There will be no indications that you belong to any dynamic.”

“How is that possible?” wondered Nira, “You also drank this tea before and your scent was weird, confusing. Not entirely Beta, neither Omega, something in between.”

“That’s because I also used herbs to autorregulate my Heats. This time around I only used herbs to conceal Fair’s Omega scent. Believe me, it will work like a charm,” Didoka looked back at me and smiled, “Go on, the moment you drink this you will stop being an Omega for others. It should work for three months after ingesting it the first time and then you will need to drink it right away to maintain the effects. If you don’t drink another dosage right away we would have to increase the amount of herbs I used and we don’t want that. You will drink this tea every three months, at the exact time of the day you drank it the first time, remember that.”

“Alright, alright, I will remember,” I nodded, frowning and looking down, at the black, steaming tea I would be dependent on. I sighed and covering my nose I swallowed the entire thing down without pausing. If I did pause, I would get sick for sure.

Once I was done with the tea I looked at the others and slowly we all smiled.

“The first part of the plan is over,” said Nira, “Now we scheme.”