It doesn't help.
Nothing helps.
Five weeks after my heat, I find the last fragment.
It's tucked into the back of a hollowed-out book on agricultural law—hidden, not removed. Someone wanted this preserved even as they destroyed everything else.
A single page, edges charred like it was pulled from a fire.
On the matter of contamination, the heading reads.
My heart stops.
When cursed alpha blood enters an omega through wounds rather than being taken willingly, the taint spreads through her like poison through water. In docile bloodlines, such contamination brings swift death.
Warrior bloodlines show resistance. Their blood fights the curse rather than succumbing to it. In rare cases?—
The page is burned from there. Just black char where the rest should be.
Rare cases.
Rare caseswhat?
I read what's there again. And again. Trying to pull meaning from the damaged words.
Contamination. His blood mixing with mine through the wounds on my hips. His curse seeping into me while I bit his throat and swallowed him down.
Docile omegas die from it. Warrior omegas resist.
But what happens after that? What are the rare cases? What am I turning into?
The answers have been removed or burned.
Someone wanted me to survive without understanding why.
Someone wanted me in the dark.
I fold the page carefully and tuck it into my shirt, against my skin where no one will find it.
Then I go find Carter.
If I can't have answers, I'll have violence instead.
"You're fighting angry today."
Carter blocks my strike but barely, stumbling back two steps. We've been at it for an hour already, both of us soaked in sweat despite the cool morning air.
"I'm always angry."
"More than usual." He resets his stance, sword raised. "Want to talk about it?"
"No."
I attack instead of explaining. Drive him back across the training yard with strikes that come faster than they should, faster than I could manage even a week ago. My body knows things my mind hasn't caught up to yet.
Whatever's happening to me, it's happening faster now.
Carter yields when I disarm him for the third time, shaking out his wrist with a rueful grin. "I think you cracked something."
