"Okay," I say instead. "I'll try."
It's a lie and we both know it. But she accepts it anyway, because that's what best friends do.
I have until dawn to prepare to die.
And to make sure I take him with me when I go.
2
Kess
The village doesn't throwme a going-away party.
Can't blame them. What would they say?Congratulations on volunteering to be torn apart by a dragon shifter?Best of luck with the ritual sacrifice?Thanks for not being Phern?
That last one, at least, would be honest.
Yaern and I spent the morning preparing for my "honor" to come. Neither one of us wants to admit that there is no real preparation for something like this, so after a few hours I pretended I had things to prepare before I leave, then headed to my grandmother's old cottage at the edge of the village—the one that became mine when she died six years ago. It's small and dark, and smells like the herbs I dry from the rafters and the leather I oil for my hunting gear. Not much, but it's mine.
Was mine.
By tomorrow it'll belong to someone else, and it'll be like I never existed at all. If they wait that long, that is. For all I know it'll be taken by noon.
I should feel something about that. Loss, maybe. Grief.
Instead I just feel restless.
I clean my weapons because it's something to do with my hands. My bow first—running the oiled cloth along the wooden curve, checking the string for frays, making sure the tension is perfect even though I won't be taking it with me. They'll dress me in white and chain me to an altar. No weapons allowed for the sacrificial omega.
But Yaern said she'd help me prepare. Which means she's thinking the same thing I am.
There are ways to hide a blade. Ways to keep your hands free even when chained. Ways to turn a tribute into an assassin.
He'll be in rut when he comes to the altar, and that means coming close enough that I'll be able to stab him. But there's no telling how long it'll be before his rage takes over and he tries to kill me. Yaern and I have gone over what we each know, stories passed through generations, records from times when the elders watched the tribute or went through the pieces of the survivor's remains.
The omegas who survived longest were the ones who submitted right away, hoped their soft omega biology would anchor his feral nature.
I've never been the submissive type.
I plan to die with his blood on my hands.
I practice the motion—reaching up fast, hand to hair, pulling something free, slashing out. My hands need to know it by instinct, need to move without thinking when the moment comes. When my heat has me half-feral and my wrists are chained and I have one chance at his throat.
A knock interrupts my shadow-fighting.
I open the door to find Phern standing there, hands twisted in her skirt, eyes red from crying. The gaslight draws long shadows on her face.
"I wanted to thank you," she starts, voice small and trembling.
"Don't." I school my face to neutral, hating how this moment feels. "Don't make this into something it's not."
"But you saved me?—"
"I didn't save you. I just couldn't watch them send a child." The words come out harsher than I intend. "Go home, Phern. Live a long life. Don't waste it thinking about me."
"You're going to try to kill him." Not a question.
I don't deny it.
