“Until we meet again, Brother. I hope in your next life you find each other again and live happily.”
I stand up, but I can’t move away from him, not yet, not until, with a guilty jolt, I remember my mates. My alpha, who is sick and unconscious, and my omega, who is lying in bed, curled up in agony, who needs me.
I turn away, leaving him there, hating myself.
I’m a few blocks away, but my eyes keep blurring, and I can’t see the road. I can’t stop the sobs. What is this world?
What has happened?
Maybe the omega was right; maybe the gods have forsaken us.
I hear a scream and see a child running away from a group of those creatures. Those things that used to be human.
Ahead of me is home.
I turn and shout, and the creatures turn on me.
I run; they are uncoordinated but persistent. I race ahead, struggling to breathe. My lungs are tight, and my head feels heavy.
The sickness.
I have it. How did I miss that?
It strikes hard and fast; my energy drains quicker than ever. I stumble and crash to my knees. Everything aches. I force myself up, but someone slams into my back. I shove them off, but another person crashes into me, keeping me on my knees.
Teeth sink into my shoulder, and I scream.
I struggle up, trying to throw them off, but another one grabs my legs and sinks its teeth into the tendon behind my knee. I scream and collapse sideways, slamming my elbow into the ground.
They are dislodged for a second, but it’s not long enough for me to recover from the shock and struggle free.
I’m pulled under, dizzy and in agony.
At some point, I stop fighting because I can’t feel my arms or legs anymore. I can’t feel any pain. I’m staring up at the cloudy sky and wondering where did the blue go. What happened to the stars?
“I’m sorry,” the words whisper out of my mouth.
All I can see is them, alone in our house, waiting for help. I cough, gurgling blood. Help isn’t coming. Not for me, and not for them.
Chapter 12
The most hunted omega
I wake with a clear head and this feeling that everything that happened yesterday was a dream. One look at the filthy and rotting walls of the building we are hiding in, and it blows that thought out of the water. I’m deep in Foreen, and we’re being hunted.
How joyful.
I uncurl my body and get to my feet, wincing at the stiffness in my limbs. I slide along the wall and peer out at the city. It looks deceptively peaceful, but there’s a foul stench on the air, something that reminds me of days that have long since passed.
I remember my mother telling me about Foreen when I was about fourteen, when I’d started romanticising the world and dreaming of a place where I could belong.
She said that one of the things Foreen is known for is that it always smells like death, but when the culling starts, it smells like blood. From the first day until the last, all you can smell is blood. You never get used to it.
I can smell it. She was right.
It never occurred to me to ask her how she knew that it smelled of blood if she’d never been here. I wish I could ask her now. I have so many questions for her.
Nothing moves in the view that I have, just the leaves dancing in the foul-scented wind. I can’t see anything dangerous, no matter how long Istare, but I don’t like it. I turn away from the window, only to jump back so quickly I almost fall through it.
