I can’t pass that temptation up, especially not tonight.
Three thousand years?
Yes, I want that.
“We shouldn’t,” I say, but I’ve alreadymade my decision.
She steps sideways, her eyes flashing coldly at an omega that bounces past. The Beta Goddess alone is still. She doesn’t sway or dance; her smile is cold and her eyes hard as she surveys our fellow gods.
“I know, but this isn’t what I signed up for. If I’d known that we’d be listening to whining people for fifty years, I wouldn’t have worked so hard.” The High Beta grabs two goblets and drinks from one without taking her eyes off me.
What is her affinity again? Why can’t I remember?
Her words echo my earlier thoughts, and, for the first time, I don’t feel so alone in hating this place.
“I didn’t know you felt that way, too,” I say and press a hand to my suddenly light head.
She smiles again. “How can I not? We are gods doing paperwork. It’s infuriating. All our studying, all the pain to get here, and for what? To listen to the whining of humans who get to enjoy their lives so deeply?”
She hands me the other cup. I stare into the burgundy liquid and consider my life. It’s bleak.
She lied to me. She told me I could save her.
I drink again, deeper this time, and hand the empty goblet off to another server. They appear and disappear, giving us our every desire. I want to be without, I want to suffer, to hurt. I’m sick of being handed everything except what I want.
The rules and regulations that have dictated my life for the last thirty-eight years are suddenly a weight too heavy to bear.
“What do you suggest?” I ask, and though I notice my words slur, it doesn’t cause any alarm.
I feel lighter and almost happy.
“Let’s test the humans. Let’s see if they have grown to have compassion and love,” the beta says with a shiny gleam and a smile I have never seen her wear. She looks triumphant.
I laugh because it sounds so funny, and there are twinkling lights in the air around us. She has no eyes. So weird. Why are her fingers melting?
“Let’s do it.”
She takes my hand and tugs me out of the chamber, and I go, watching the world swirl with colours. The day has turned to night, but I don’t know when that happened. I’m lost in the colours, the movements, the music, and the pull of a dream of an omega I once had.
Everything is spinning, and I’m falling, so far. I land hard, my knees buckling on the cold rock. I blink in shock.
Am I…bleeding?
I stare at the red pooling around my knees. I’m suddenly sober, cold, and in pain. So much pain. I reach down and touch the red. Blood. What’s happening? Where am I?
“Catch!” The word is snarled in my direction from a voice I don’t recognise.
I throw up my arms, catching the heavy, cold metal by reflex. The chains glow with black light pulsing, and they are so impossibly heavy that I almost can’t hold them.
I try to drop them, throw them off, but I can’t. They slither around me, dragging me lower to the stone I’m kneeling on.
“What are you doing?” I ask, twisting my head so I can see her. “Beta, what are you doing?”
She pulls out a sword. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Is she real? She swings the sword, but before she can strike me, I shift into the huge wolfform that is my birthright and snap at her, forming a ring of protection before the chains completely incapacitate me.
“What are you doing?”I say straight into her mind.
“Me? I’m fixing it.” She throws her head back and laughs. “I’m going to fix all of it.”
