“You were already Warqueen, though.”
“True.” The title had been my payment from the previous Warlord Wulfram, Wren’s mate, for saving her life. I would havedone it for free, of course. But a smart girl never turned down a handout; I’d learned that when I was starving on the streets of Rimholt as a toddler. “Wulfram’s life debt gave me the title, and the key to the treasury with it.”
“Liefhalds,” Alexios murmured. “Vows can be costly.”
“And dangerous,” I agreed, rubbing my stomach and trying not to think of my own recent stupidity. When Alexios caught me doing it, he handed me a bit of jerky. I ate it, even though I wasn’t at all hungry. “I was so in love with that silly male. His poetry was… He made me feel like…” It was hard to find words for the way I’d felt back then. Like it might be possible for me to have a normal life, with a man who loved me.
But Omegas like me, as rare as we were, had different needs. Our bodies demanded more than one mate. The Goddess had plans, and what I wanted wouldn’t matter in the end. But I’d let myself dream of a life with Goran, just the two of us, for a while.
“He begged me to marry him. He had to earn it, though.”
“Ah, yes. The ladder.” Alexios shuddered.
I grinned, remembering how he’d lost his usual calm when I told him what Goran had done to prove himself to me. I’d ended up needing to draw a picture of the nine bars to illustrate how the piercings were clustered in such a sensitive area. “He did it, and I married him, and that’s when what should have been the beginning for us turned into the end.” We rode on a bit longer. “I’ve told you how often the Goddess has used me.”
“You’re Her avatar. You’ve spoken for Her, and been Her hands in the world since you were a child. You’re a miracle.”
“A bloody one maybe. I’ve come to more than once with dead people all around me, and no memories of how I’ve done it.” I couldn’t hold back a bitter laugh. “All right, the killing I didn’t mind so much. It was the other things.” He waited patiently for me to go on. “I didn’t tell you everything about that year withGoran. She drove me more than halfway into heat too many times.”
“How many?”
“Twelve. Every damned month. Even when Goran was away once, exploring a dragon’s cave.”
“Which dragon?” He knew I’d met more than my fair share, though all of them were mated and living on another continent now.
“One who wanted some of his gems back.” We both laughed. I wasn’t the kind of thief who gave things back. I was the kind who redistributed them, so the wealth could do the most good. “Anyway, I didn’t want to go into heat. She didn’t want to take no for an answer, until I made Her. When Goran was gone, I ended up taking so much of the fertility suppressant, my hair began to fall out. Even after he returned, I couldn’t trust that She wouldn’t take over and force the mating claim. Force me to mark him and draw all the other mates.”
“It was always your destiny,” Alexios said quietly.
“Fuck destiny,” I muttered. “I bargained for ten years on my own to get my work done, and my apothecaries set up.” I remembered that night, my hair falling out into my hands as I stared into a piece of broken mirror and saw Her looking back at me. There had been so much love in those moon-bright eyes, but expectation, too. I blinked away the memory now. “She gave it to me, but at a cost.”
“Your husband.”
“Yeah.” I’d vowed that same night not to lie with any Alphas. That promise was made out of self-preservation; I’d known I’d need to stay far away from Alphas to keep my nature hidden. With the herbs and tinctures I took, as well as distance from any Alphas who might exacerbate my nature, I’d been able to avoid going into heat and getting stuck with a mate. It hadn’t been as easy to avoid dreaming of the other mates I knew were out there,but none of them had found me. I hadn’t wanted anyone else since Goran, anyway.
Well, not any other Alphas. Alexios was the only male I’d looked at in that way, and he was a Beta, so if I’d broken my fast, it would have been with him. But he had a vow of celibacy that he still kept with no exceptions, even though he’d left the temple.
I’d used him like a priest, though, confessing everything over the years. He knew where I came from, where I was going, and all about my deal with the Goddess—that She wouldn’t bother me until I’d had time to finish my most important task.
Alexios knew it all, except… I pressed a hand to my gut. Everything but my most recent stupidity. I tried not to feel too ashamed of myself for promises made to evil fire gods while being burned alive, though. I’d just have to avoid making that mistake again.
“Have you made other vows since?” Alexios asked, as if he could read my mind. Maybe he could; he had all sorts of skills from his training as a priest. He’d lived in the temple almost from birth, abandoned on the steps at a few days old.
I hummed noncommittally, knowing better than to lie.
Plenty of people knew about my assignment from my boss, Vilkurn, to travel the world as an apprentice “diplomat” for Rimholt. Only a few like Alexios knew of my personal mission: to set up apothecaries and safe houses for any Omegas I discovered on my travels, and to free the enslaved, Omegas or otherwise. I shared the knowledge of herbs, poisons, and even spycraft that I’d gained with them, so they would someday have enough knowledge, power, and resources to come out of hiding. Hopefully then they could begin to heal the feral Alphas in their lands as well.
Alexios made a disapproving sound, but didn’t press me for more. When our horse shied at something and sidestepped, I rubbed the imaginary hooks in my stomach again where hecouldn’t see, and thought about the voice in the fire. Was this some scrap of fucked-up destiny? The place I had to go now, like it or not, was the place I’d been born.
Pict. The last country in the world that had imprisoned Omegas. Ones who could use a woman with extensive knowledge of poisons and all the ways men could be killed with them.
I found myself relaxing as we rode. The fire god had actually solved a lot of problems. He’d invited me to Pict, which I thought was pretty dumb for a deity. I’d wondered how I’d get a boat ashore on that volcanic island, since they supposedly had some kind of magic that kept everyone away. No one traveled to or brought stories out of Pict, except for one person I’d met when I wasn’t old enough to know what to do with him.
Serak.I rubbed the handle of my obsidian-bladed knife, the same one I’d stolen back from him the last day I saw him. My lips tingled, as if they remembered that day as well.
“What are you thinking about, mistress?” Alexios murmured.
“Someone I used to know,” I admitted, but when I heard Dustin groan on his horse behind us, just downwind, I realized what I’d done. I needed to apply more of the scent-suppressing tincture when we dismounted. “Sorry. Just remembering my first kiss.”
