Despite everything, I can’t help but be surprised.
Chapter 5
The Beta's Path
I balk as I’m dragged up to the massive black gates of the Beta’s Path Citadel. I struggle, fighting and pulling against the iron cuff and rope that is dragging us through the streets. The huge gold Beta symbol is a noose waiting to drop around my neck. Worse is the terror I can’t hide leaching out of my skin through my scent, affecting the alpha who growls and snarls beside me. My skin burns, and I have to fight the urge to vomit.
I don’t want to be back here.
People go into the citadel, and they never come out. I don’t want to go in there more than anything.
I’ve seen the crippled, broken-spirited people who live in their depths. Not so long ago, I was one of them.
The people who admired and stared at me with fear from earlier are gone, transformed into hate-filled faces and voices that scream the most filthy insults, making my cheeks burn. Facing the hostile crowds on our doomed parade is one thing. It’s another thing entirely to face the bitter heart of the Beta stronghold.
The gates peel open, and I see the tediously carved and paved black stones of the inner sanctum. They say it took a thousand omegas and alphas fifty years to build it, and the blood of so many was spilled that you can never get the smell of their fear out.
“No!” I shout, yanking back, straining with everything I have. My wrist aches and bruises under the heavy iron.
“You can beg and plead all you want, omega whore, but nothing but the Beta’s grace will set you free.” The guard who spoke sneers with brown, broken teeth and an unshaven jaw. I shudder and look back just as we pass through the gates. Freedom has slipped away, and I’m entering my own personal nightmare.
Fires burn in tall candelabras, and the stench of that tart incense they burn is thick, indicating another omega soul released back to the void. But the sour fear is so cloying you can smell it under the incense.
I hate this place. I grit my teeth and stop fighting them, instead walking forward to meet the waiting Betas.
Their black and gold flags whip in the wind, cracking in time with the sickly chanting that is coming out of the drains and vents in the ground. It won’t be the prisoners singing; it will be the vile, hand-picked followers of the Path praising their leaders while omegas and alphas languish in the cells below.
As the gates slam shut, the single building opens its steel doors, and out walk five people. I recognise two of them.
However, it’s a sudden flash of colour out of the corner of my eye, movements that draws my startled attention, and before I can register what I’m looking at, I’ve turned and thrown up the meager contents of my stomach.
No! My mind repeats the word over and over. Denial, rage, fear, hate, horror.
The alpha looms up, his body pressed against mine, and I steady, finding a modicum of peace while I shake uncontrollably. They won’t let us stay together, how long until they peel us apart?
There are a handful of Betas observing two swinging omegas. The bodies are hanging by chains from a massive gold frame. Limbs have fallen, but otherwise, they are blackened and contorted in their last moments,which look like they were horrendously painful. The smell of cooked meat hits me, and I gag again, shaking my head, trying to dispel the scent from my body.
I stand up, barely able to on weak, trembling legs, forcing myself, panting hard. The black-haired alpha is staring at the body closest to us. I can see his left eye twitching, but Bear looks like he might weep.
“What is that?” I ask hoarsely. “What did you do?” I scream.
“The forest of omegas,” a voice answers with amusement. “We saved the world. Behold the Beta’s work.”
I look at the man with his gold mask and feel a chill go through me. He’s the High King. A title that is passed down from those who do the worst atrocities. Like some mantle of greatness. Right now, he’s smiling serenely, like his burnt fucking field of omegas is something wonderful.
He’s sick. They all are.
“They never hurt anyone; they just wanted to live!” I spit out and palm the moisture out of my eyes.
He’s got no sympathy; if anything, he’s curious about my reactions.
The High King can always be trusted to be standing preaching to the masses how wonderful our world is without the omega and alpha taint spreading. The crowds love him, but all my life I’ve been scared of him. My mother hated him with a passion. I don’t know why I’m talking to them; there is no point.
I press my lips together and look away from him.
Beside him are two of his council leaders. Two dukes judging by the stripes on their black masks. And the third male I don’t recognise is a marquess. They are the people we should worry about as the marquess are the people who do the torturing and killing. Dukes no longer takepart in the hunt, though they will all assemble in Foreen for the annual culling.
The woman, though, is the most dangerous, the most feared. She is the human body of the goddess herself, and her word is law. The Beta’s Voice extends her arms towards us and makes a sound like she’s just orgasmed. I glare at her. She’s a perversion of everything I’ve ever learned, giving her body up to possession. She advances forward in fits and starts. A black and gold dress, made out of material that flows like water over her hips, drags out behind her. A massive headpiece fans out behind her like a halo of fear, with rusted spikes sticking out in all directions and a gold sun painted in the middle. Her face is painted with black paint over her eyes, but her lips are blood red.
