Page 92 of Desperate Omega

As she opens the double doors, I am greeted with a sight I have not seen in nine years. The room is immense and rectangular, with an upper level balcony running around the entire perimeter of the room. The only light comes from the candles encircling the low dais in the center. They cast a flickering orange glow.

Hines moves away from me and melts into the crowd.

I am alone.

But not for long. My three mates are somewhere in that crowd. I search for them as I advance toward the dais, but I cannot find them amid the hundreds of shadowy figures clustered around the sides of the room and up on the balcony above. Still, I can sense them nearby, watching me, waiting.

I keep walking toward the dais, trying not to tremble, trying not to look too nervous.

I glance up at the ceiling. There it is. The place where Markus and I fell through. It’s been patched with boards, but it still brings back a rush of memories from that night nine years ago.

The night Markus kissed me.

The night Thorus caught me.

Now fate has brought me back to this place once again.

I reach the dais and step inside the ring of candles. When I’m in the very center of the ring, I stop, and await my mates.

While I’m standing there, my eyes instinctively scan the crowd around the edges of the room. I can barely make them out among the shadows. They are just a mass of indistinct forms. I can see their eyes though—thousands of eyes shining like the eyes of animals as they stare me down. It’s a big crowd, I think. Bigger than the one that was gathered here the last time I was in this room.

I guess the news of what happened at the prison has gotten around. They want to see the unruly omega huntress who has caused such a stir.

I decide to give them what they want.

Standing up straight, my shoulders back, I return their stares with a defiant stare of my own. My heart is hammering inside me, and my guts are churning with fear, but I try not to let it show.

Then the chanting starts. At first, it is just a couple of voices, but then others join in, more and more alphas and omegas lending their voices, until the entire room is throbbing with that strange, wordless rhythm.

The mating rhythm.

Goosebumps wash across my skin. My erect nipples press against the fabric of my gown. Warm slick seeps out of me, staining my inner thighs.

Oh, Source.

There is movement at the edge of my vision. A pair of eyes separates from the crowd. An alpha stalks forward, his piercings glinting in the candlelight. Even before I can see him clearly, I know who it is.

Thorus.

The pack leader. The oldest and strongest of my three mates.

As he moves closer, I can see the bulge of his enormous arousal straining against the front of his loincloth.

My pulse races. My sex flutters with desire.

Another alpha steps forward. This one is Brik. I can tell just by the cocky way he saunters out of the crowd. His hungry eyes rake my body like claws. I shiver with a mix of fear and lust.

As he comes closer, I see the scars lining his left arm. After the prison, he told me what those were all about. Each one represented a Farlander he has killed as revenge for his fallen pack brother. He told me he had made a promise not to stop killing until he had filled his left arm with scars and put a scar on his right arm too.

Now he has one, up by his right shoulder. That one’s for Anton. I gave it to Brik as a gift. He accepted it, on one condition.

I had to be the one to cut the notch on his shoulder.

Finally, a third male joins them from the shadows. This one has no piercings, but he walks with the confident stride of an alpha of the Central Tribe. He is Markus. My friend and my lover. My first mate. I remember that morning in the mausoleum when I gave him my virginity while he was sleeping.

A trickle runs down my leg.

The three alphas spread out until they are evenly spaced around the dais where I’m standing, and they start to circle like wolves, moving a little closer with each turn. Their sharp eyes seem to strip me bare.