And they’d remember me for a long while, since all my blades were dipped in at least a hint of poison. Nothing too lethal. Just enough to make them wish they’d died, once it got into their bloodstream.
The hard part was not slicing or stabbing deep enough to kill, and making sure to stay away from the zones that I’d spent years teaching other women to aim for. Kidneys, liver, spleen,gut, throat, lung… I made it a personal challenge not to hit any of these. But that left plenty of acceptable damage sites on guys this size.
I let out a laugh that may have sounded insane. I didn’t care. More men came running.
So I lost my head a bit. A woman had needs, and since I couldn’t get my other pressing need met, I’d fill the one I could.
It had been a long time since I’d let myself go. In less than two minutes, I had a pile of unconscious Alphas forming to one side, while Alexios was doing the same a dozen feet away. Then one came with his sword drawn. He was a giant brute of a warrior, with a nose that had been broken at least three times, leaving it rather flattened like a pig.
“Ah, hells yeah,” I shouted, drawing my own sword. “Let’s go, Pig Nose!”
The guy actually snorted as he lunged forward.
“Mistress,” Alexios shouted over the sound of my blade meeting Pig Nose’s. It was a decent swing, and he was far larger than me, but he wasn’t the best trained Starlakian I’d fought against.
That would be Goran. Goddess, I missed fighting with him. He was so good at fighting, and fucking, and…
“Shit!” I’d been distracted just long enough to let the tip of Pig Nose’s sword past my guard, and blood welled instantly from the thin line he’d left on my bicep.
Just as quickly, the air filled with the scent of honey, mint, and power. There was no fire to disguise the scent now, no time to splash myself with one of the many tonics I carried to conceal my aroma.
“Omega,” Pig Nose snarled, staggering in front of me. His sword slipped from his fingers and fell into the blood-splattered mud at our feet. I thought he was lunging for me again and raised my sword to stop him, but he didn’t attack. Instead, hedropped to his knees, lowering his head to the ground with a plaintive, “You’re an Omega.”
The word was picked up and repeated a dozen times, then a hundred, and before another minute had passed, the entire camp was on its knees, bowing to me.
“What are theydoing?” I whispered, half to myself. Alexios ignored them all, racing to my side with a bandage, a bottle, and a small vial of paste for minor wounds. He knew my blood was more dangerous than any warrior. The splash of alcohol to wipe away the scent had me hissing, but the cut was bandaged and my face and arms sponged down before the first of the bowing Alphas raised their heads.
Snippets of whispered conversations carried on the suddenly frigid wind that numbed my arms until Alexios draped my cloak over me again. “The Warqueen… an Omega… in hiding… returned to us.”
The pimply-face Alpha lifted his face first, and his voice was choked with tears. “Kill me, please, Omega. Deliver me from the shame I have brought upon my village, my family, my people. Drive your sharp dagger into my heart and allow me to die knowing that my error, my unworthy existence, has been stripped away from the land of my forefathers. Let my name be wiped from the rolls of my ancestors, let me be the end of my line…” He kept on and on, getting more and more dramatic, beating his chest with both hands by the end of his speech.
Alexios blinked at me, his unspoken question clear. I shrugged. “Get up.” I raised my voice and lifted my uninjured arm. “Get up, all of you.”
Everyone who could stand obeyed at once, and I had the decidedly peculiar experience of seeing a hundred pairs of eyes filled with an odd kind of reverence and avid curiosity… but nothing else.
No lust, or rage. The camp still stunk in the way of army encampments everywhere, and the icy air held a hint of my own honeyed, fresh blood, but not one speck of the bitter, acrid ferality that usually resulted from my discovery.
I was a little insulted. I lifted my arm a bit higher and sniffed my armpit. I was fairly rank, and no sponge bath would touch the layers of ash, blood, and mud from the dungeon in Mirrenar and the battle here. “Do I stink?” I wondered aloud.
The Alpha cried out, his expression stricken. “My lady, let me soothe your fears. Hark!”
Oh crap.I knew what came next. Starlakian warriors only loved one thing more than cleaving their enemies into bloody pieces.
Poetry. Memorizing it, reciting it, and above all, composing it.
“If the lilies of the field blessed by the morning dew, would boast of their sweet perfume, and then run into you…”
“Lilies can’t run,” Alexios whispered. I kicked him.
The young Alpha didn’t stop. “If roses winding on the cliffs, their petals pink and sweet, had any hope of matching you, or violets, or… or…”
The Alpha blinked a few times, until someone called out, “Or feet?”
“Or things to eat?”
A few of the older warriors closed their eyes, crying with silent laughter as the younger ones fought for their lives to find a suitable rhyme.
Alexios muttered, “Or meat?”
