Page 74 of Desperate Omega

A splash of cold water wakes me.

I sputter and roll onto my side. It feels as if no time has passed since the Farlanders attacked us, but I know that’s not the case. When I passed out, I had relatively soft grass and dirt beneath me. Now I’m sprawled on a surface as hard and unyielding as stone.

For a wishful moment, I think I’m back in the cave. The events of the past several hours have been nothing more than a bad dream. Maybe Thorus never even got into trouble at all. Maybe he’s already returned from his scouting session, waiting for me to wake up so he and the other alphas can mate with me again.

I open my eyes to look, and another cold splash hits me right in the face.

I’m temporarily blinded, but I was able to get a glimpse of my surroundings before the water forced me to shut my eyes again.

Flat floor. Flat walls. Bars.

Not a cave.

Dripping wet and groaning, I roll onto my stomach and shove myself up onto my hands and knees. My arms and legs feel incredibly weak and heavy at the same time. I guess that’s normal for waking up, but this feels excessive. I barely have enough strength to support my own weight.

Then I remember the darts.

I’d assumed they were poisoned, but I guess not—not a lethal dose, anyway. It must have been some kind of sleeping potion, kind of like the stuff Markus drank in the mausoleum, only more powerful.

I almost want to lie down again and drift back to sleep…

Then more water splashes across my back.

I growl and try to stand, but I slip on the wet floor and fall onto my back. Almost immediately, another splash of water hits my breasts and stomach. That’s when I realize I’m naked.

“Enough,” says a woman’s voice.

A familiar woman’s voice.

I open my eyes again. I’m lying on my back on the floor of a small cell, looking up at a ceiling covered in old paint that’s peeling away like dead skin. Next to my head is a wall of metal bars. There are three figures standing on the other side.

One of them is Delphine.

Anton is beside her, a metal pail in his hands. He is grinning darkly.

Another alpha is standing on the other side of Delphine, and he’s also holding a pail. He has a fresh-looking scar on his upper chest. He’s the one I stabbed with my spear back in that barn.

He is not grinning.

Delphine isn’t grinning either, but her lips are curved into a slight smirk, and her eyes are glimmering with that same sadistic look I noticed during our first encounter.

“Well, well,” she says cheerfully. “Look who’s finally awake! You had me worried there for a bit. I thought my friends might have hit you with too much tranquilizer.”

She curls her fingers around two of the bars and presses her face between them so she’s looking right down at me.

“Tranquilizer,” she says. “That’s what the stuff in the darts is called. Pretty neat, huh?”

I want to tell her to go fuck herself, but I don’t want to get another faceful of cold water, so I keep my mouth shut, for now.

How long have I been unconscious, I wonder.

As if reading my mind, Delphine says, “You’ve been asleep for most of the day, honey. It was around noon when our friends caught you. Now it’s almost evening.”

Our friends.

I remember Delphine used that phrase at the barn too. At the time, I didn’t know what she meant, but now I do. Delphine and her alphas are conspiring with the Farlanders. Were they also in cahoots with the Farlanders who attacked me and Markus in the cemetery? Bet so.

Anton leers at me through the bars. He grips the bulge at the front of his loincloth.