I frowned. “We shouldn’t bond a gold pack?”
“That’s dangerous, unless you’re chosen.” She seemed anxious, as if this was basic stuff we should know.
Where the hell had she come from?
“Chosen?” Phantom asked as he sat back down on the bed. “What does that mean?”
“The…” She swallowed. “The Chosen are alpha packs approved by the church—the High Priests decide. Sometimes they claim gold packs. They know scent matches can lead to idolatry, but they still need… you know… balancing. But if they’re devout enough to purify a gold pack, they agree to claim one from the Convent.”
“Purify a gold pack?” I asked, eyebrows rising.
“Withstand our corruption.”
“You think corruption is a real concern down here?” I asked.
She chewed on her lip, regarding me. “It should be even more of a concern down here, it’s dangerous, and…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Corrupted alphas always go to hell.”
Ah.
“Are you an Ascendant?” Phantom asked.
She glanced at him, then nodded.
“What?” I poked. Phantom, unlike me, had memories of what society was like outside of all of this.
“Don’t know much about them, they keep to themselves. Christian denomination with some added ideas about alphas and omegas and shit.”
“It’s not added,” Crescent put in. “The Ascendant Doctrine is completion. It affirms that society is divinely structured around the natural roles of alphas, betas, and… omegas.” She trailed off a little at the end, clearly feeling the weight of our stares.
“Those ‘Chosen’ packs you mentioned,” Phantom asked. “What kind of bonds do they give gold packs?”
“A dark bond,” she said.
“Of course.” Phantom gave me a look as if that explained the whole situation.
Which… Well, it kind of did. It was always about control.
“Don’t you know how destructive gold packs are?” Crescent asked, folding her arms and glaring between us.
I couldn’t help but snort.
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
Not that there was a way to explain it to her—not really.
I’d been given a number instead of a name—a living experiment.
What happened in that place was a blur.
A year passed in silence after I perfumed, and I’d known they were waiting for the moment my eyes turned gold. There were tests, here and there, but nothing to what I knew was coming. But they never did turn that distinctive colour, even though they should have.
I didn’t remember much—just standing before a mirror, sickness churning my stomach as I saw my own blood-red eyes, so striking compared to the plain brown they’d been before.
An anomaly like me wasn’t good for a branch of the Institute that needed to remain hidden, so I’d been tossed down here like garbage to be discarded.
The omegas down here, they weren’t supposed to escape. It’s why we were handed down when a dweller pack hit status. We’d end up dead, or bound to a pack with no prospect of getting out.
If she thought a gold pack would corrupt us, it was nothing to what an omega like me would do.
