Page 86 of Evan and the Alpha

26

Sobek

It has been two days since the humans took off in their giant metal bird. My ears are still ringing with the sound of the engines roaring to life, the blast as they lifted off the ground and rose higher and higher into the sky.

I have never felt more wretched in my entire life. When I heard the noise, I’d rushed outside of the meeting tent to see what the matter was,and I’d watched, helplessly, as they flew away, finally disappearing from even the sky.

I knew, in my heart, that they’d taken Evan. I had to wait until I could trudge home to confirm it, however. Evan was nowhere to be found, nor was Ge-Ro.

Only Yafir and Evan’s alpha brother, Vince, were at the table. I wanted to yell at Vince; I had banished him from the house. But in my despair, I could find no anger in my heart.

Yafir and Vince exchanged worried glances but said nothing. Yafir took the hatchling Rex to the nursery, and I sat silently at the table with Vince for what felt like an eternity. I stared at the tabletop without seeing, slowly registering the world around me getting darker and darker.

At last, Vince stood up and lit some of the tapers. He sat down on the pillow beside me. “Would you like something to eat?” he asked, his voice low and almost soothing.

Almost like Evan’s.

I am ashamed to admit I cried then. I was inconsolable—how could I not be? They’d taken Evan, my mate, my omega, away from me. They had condemned us to death.

Vince put his hand on my shoulder, which had made the tears flow faster, for his hand was warm like my Evan’s. Already, I began to understand how alphas who lost their omegas died. A great, gaping hole had opened up where my heart had been, and within the pit, there was only sorrow. Life without my mate was no life at all; joy and light were gone. I had been cast into the underworld, left to rot.

I explained this to Vince with teary words, more melodramatic than a hatchling who’d scraped his knees for the first time and was caught by the surprise of the pain more so than the pain itself.

“Maybe they don’t know,” Vince had said, trying to be comforting. “Maybe Ge-Ro didn’t get a chance to tell them yet. Maybe he’ll tell them, and they’ll realize and bring Evan back.”

Something in my soul said that the humans already knew. Ge-Ro had told them and they simply did not care. When I looked at Vince, when I looked into his eyes, I could see he feared the same.

Worse, he was probably right—who knew the sun spirits better than one of their own? If Vince doubted his own story, what hope was there that they’d come to their senses and return my beloved Evan to me?

I spent yesterday in bed, wallowing in my anguish. Everything in the room smells of Evan still, and I both wanted to wrap myself in his scent and wished to escape the unbearable pain of smelling him but knowing he was gone. I could not fool my mind into believing he might be home any moment, of closing my eyes and dreaming he was already back in my arms.

Today, when I open my eyes, I am on the warpath. I stare at the ceiling with pure, unbridled rage. How dare the humans take my mate from me. How dare they condemn Evan and me to such a painful death. Unwittingly or not, it is unforgivable.

It is perhaps lucky that Yafir is the first being I encounter after I rise. I have daubed myself in paint. I have draped myself in the claw-and-tooth necklaces and bracelets—the ones my phapha had made from the jaws of his enemies, and the ones I myself have had made from Nojak and my phapha’s own maw.

I arm myself with a long, cruel knife and I pick up my spear. I pause for a moment in the kitchen in my war regalia, and that’s when Yafir comes bustling in with Rex.

He starts and nearly drops the hatchling. Rex startles too, his eyes going wide. “What are you doing, Sobek?” Yafir asks, cradling the babe, who begins to cry, belatedly.

“I am going to war,” I snap.

Yafir cowers when I turn on him. Rex cries louder. Yafir gathers himself, then shakes his head and steps forward. “And who are you going to fight?” he asks, setting Rex down on one of the pillows. He folds his arms and glares up at me, taking another step forward.

In the back of my mind, I take note that my brother is transforming into a formidable omega. He is learning all of Evan’s bad habits, I think.

“The humans,” I reply when his glower intensifies; I have taken a moment too long to respond to him.

“And how will you do that?” he asks, pacing around me in a circle like a hunter with his prey. “They have taken off in the metal bird, Sobek. We haven’t seen them for days. How will you fight an enemy who has disappeared?”

My chest heaves with my next breath and I snort. I don’t like that he’s being reasonable. My grief, my anguish is not reasonable.

Yafir waits, ever so patiently. Rex has rolled onto his back and is sucking on his tail. He seems to have forgotten me.

“I …”

“You can’t,” Yafir says softly, laying a hand on my arm. “Sobek, you can’t. They’re gone. I understand how you feel, but—”

I throw him off and he stumbles back. “How could you possibly know how I feel?!” I roar. “You’re not even mated! You’ve never been mated, and you’ve never lost your mate! You could never understand how I feel!”