Butterflies flutter madly in my chest. He leans down and touches his lips to mine.
“Come on, let’s get some sleep, eat, and deal with people tomorrow,” Jarek shouts as he jogs back up to the temple.
We ascend the stairs, leaving the river behind. The mammoth task of sneaking thousands of alphas and omegas out of the city now sits heavily on me.
I stop in the temple of this luna omega and remember what my mum said to me when she gave me the cookie to put on the door.
“We put the cookie up to show the scared, the hurt, the injured, and the weak that this is a place that will help you.”
I scowl at the moon goddess in her flowing white robes. “If you were so damn helpful, where are you now when we need you?”
No answers come, but then…I don’t think she’s even listening.
Chapter 41
Dreams and nightmares
Jarek
In his dreams
Present
The woman standing beside me staring at the tent I grew up in is not someone I know, but I recognise her anyway. Even in my dreams, my loathing is hard to hide.
“It looked much less run down when I lived here,” I say conversationally, watching her like a hawk.
“Did it? Or did you just think that it was home and accept all the broken pieces?”
“Oh, Touché. Perhaps it wasn’t as broken as we thought. Perhaps it was a good home. I had two parents who loved me.”
When she smiles, I can see her dimples. “You are something special, Alpha.”
“Are you here to give me a mission that will hurt my omega? If so, I’m telling you now you are barking up the wrong tree.”
“A fascinating idiom considering dogs have long since vanished in this world.”
I snort out a laugh. She’s old, but she’s still sharp.
“My mother used to say it all the time, apparently staring at my childhood home is bringing back memories.”
She doesn’t look at me, but I take note of the grey dress, simply tied with a brooch of an open eye at her shoulder.
“Your hostility is noted. You feel protective of her; this is good. It will help her in the coming trials.”
That just enrages me. I whirl on her, furious; fire dances out of the corner of my eye.
“What happened to her, what almost happened to her—”
“Is so much less than what would have happened if your alpha had not made the hard choice. She would have died in agony, Jarek. And alone because you three would have been dead or trapped. No one would have been there to witness her screams, and the world would have fallen not long after.”
I grind my teeth, frustrated all over again. “Who are you to even know? What is all this?”
She turns away. “Walk with me.”
“Where are we walking?” I snap back.
She laughs. “You haven’t changed at all, Alpha. It’s uncanny that you are exactly as you were when we first met. You argued with me then, too.”
