“Is everything okay? I know I’ve been distracted lately, but you’re my best friend. You can always talk to me if something is bothering you.”
She sighed, shifting her dark braid over her shoulder so she could fiddle with the ends. Which meant something was very, very wrong.
“Spill it, or I’m going to make the whole pack late,” I demanded, parking my ass on the edge of her bed, between her and the door.
She could kick said ass with one hand tied behind her back if she wanted to, I had no doubt. But she wouldn’t.
“The head priestess shared some troubling information with me before we left to hunt for the stone shards with the pack.”
I took a moment to process that she’d kept that from me all this time. We’d been hunting for the pieces formonths. Which meant whatever information it was, it was considered dangerous and kept only to the very top levels of the enclave. As the lead partner in our pair, she would be the one responsible for it.
“Okay.”
“But I need to share it with you now, and I wish I didn’t.”
I blinked a few times. “Why not?”
“Because you absolutely cannot tell another soul unless you think the pack’s lives depend on it. And it’s not a fun secret to keep.”
“You’re worrying me, Lyna.”
She clenched the end of her braid in her fist. “We should all be worried.”
Oh shit. She looks like somebody just murdered her cat.
“Okay, just spit it out, because seriously, whatever it is can’t be worse than where my imagination is going right now. And in all seriousness, if I’m not there in the next five minutes, the high alpha is going to be beating our door down, and he’s hella dominant.”
She rolled her eyes at my rambling but acquiesced. “The omega stone can’t truly be destroyed if it’s bonded to an omega.Which is why when Brielle and her pack came back together, they were able to repair it.”
“O-kay.”Not seeing the bad news here, girl.
“The stone was shattered when it was already bonded to an omega.”
There had been no adult omegas to bond with the stone since… I sucked in a breath on a hiss, realizing she meant Narcissa. The bitch who started the omega wars all those years ago. “And what? Her magic is still infecting it somehow? That’s what you think the red is?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know for sure, because the head priestesses don’t know either. It was an unprecedented situation. But the second the stone was shattered, she and her mate, Bran, fell without a mark on them. The dwarven defenders took their bodies and hid them away somewhere. Nobody except the original leaders knows who did it.”
“Hold on, back up. You said hid them away, not buried them. Why wouldn’t they have been buried like the rest of the dead?”
“Because they weren’t dead. They were incapacitated when the stone broke.”
“Holy shit on a stick. So… what? They’ve been rotting awaysomewhereall this time, and no one knew?”
Galyna shrugged. “No one lives forever. The enclave believes that they died eventually, from lack of sustenance if nothing else. They were very certain that when the stone was restored, it would be ready to bond a new omega.”
“Why do I feel a ‘but’ coming on?”
“But, from what little they felt free to share about an omega stone with me since it was repaired… the color of the stone indicates what pack controls the stone. It’s been that pretty bluish color this whole time because Kane’s family lineage is Caelestis. The red? That’s Narcissa’s color. Pack Mordan flew aflaming red standard with a black slash through it during the omega wars.”
“So we don’t know what it means, but we’re ninety-nine percent sure it’s related to the evilest wolf who ever lived. Excellent.” I couldn’t hold back my sarcasm because, seriously, how was I supposed to keep this to myself? Wouldn’t this knowledgehelpthe pack fight back the evil?
A question hit me as she rummaged through her bag next to the bed, pulling out a simple blue leather-bound book. “Wait, wasn’t her omega gift war?”
Galyna nodded solemnly, pressing the book into my hands. “This is all the collected knowledge the enclave had about Narcissa herself. It’s pretty detailed, going back even to her childhood. Based on what I read… it’s not hard to see how she ended up with a gift for war.”
“Great.” The book was heavy in my hands, as heavy as the secret I had to keep from my friends and charges. “But if she’s still influencing the stone after death somehow, is that going to push the war with the ODL ahead even faster?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Stay safe, and if you feel there is no other choice but to tell them, do it. Otherwise, this is considered confidential to the enclave.”
