I didn’t ask for any of this. Not the bond, not the war, not the rut-damned gland that lights up at the scent of paperwork.
I clench my hands, stopping them from trembling.
“I’m sending you to a Beta town about to be decimated by the enemy forces.”
He’s deploying me? To the front lines?Of war?
Fear wraps a skeletal hand around my throat and squeezes.
“You…You don’t need me for that. I never completed training, I’m not a soldier and I’ll just get in the way.” I protest, shaking my head and fighting back tears of panic.
“I need you to evacuate the more reluctant civilians. They’re under the false pretense the enemy is on their side.”
"And how am I supposed to do that?" I ask softly, my voice quivering.
He pins me with a withering look.
"Use your Omega Command."
I grit my teeth. Did he not hear me?
“I.can’t. It won’t work.”
His gaze hardens. He picks up a file. The light blue folder is familiar. It’s the same one Everlyn uses to record my daily medical examination results.
“I’ve read your medical reports and monitored your blood work daily. Your pheromones are lowering, but there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re destabilized. The brain adjusts to Pack bonding like it does to narcotics: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, all optimized. Then you ripped the source away, stupid girl. The withdrawal mimics chronic illness, but the power’s still in there.”
How does he know this?
Horror fills me.
How many other Omegas has he tested his theories on?
The tremble in my arms grows into a full-body shake, and I grip the armrests of the chair, my nails digging into the chipped varnish.
“It’s not going to work.”
My O-space hasn’t made an appearance during my time at Blackgate Fortress. It sits in the back of my mind like a coiled snake, asleep and rotting. The one time I tried to summon it, curious if it was still a part of me, I was struck by unimaginable pain. I collapsed from the strain, my nose bleeding, pulse racing, and my body temperature spiked like I was going into heat.
My O-space isn’t just asleep — it’s broken and angry.
“I’m betting it’ll wake up when you’re underrealpressure.”
Real pressure?
I grit my teeth. He’s sending me to the front lines as some twisted experiment.
“I won’t go.”
He steeples his hands, looking like the villain he is, and his mustache twitches. Is he amused by my protests? Does it give him some twisted kind of pleasure?
“I’m giving you a chance to matter,” he replies. “You do this and succeed? You’ll be the hero our people desperately deserve.”
“You’re sending me to die,” I whisper.
He hums to himself and then sighs. “Fine. Let’s give you an incentive not to get yourself killed. If you make it back to Blackgate, I’ll personally arrange for you to have contact with them.”
My heart rate kicks up. He’s dangling my hopes like meat over a pit.
