Page 13 of Dark Company

My love, my love don’t cry.

But I’m not. There are no tears in my eyes. Only relief. I can now leave this place and join the voices that want me. The Clan Mother speaks to me, but I cannot hear her voice over the refrain in my head.

Shelter is found in the morning.

In the burning suns that warm your skin,

In the haunting moon as it guides your path,

All along the dusty road.

My love, my love, don’t cry.

Jakrob’s hands jostle me as he lays me down on a makeshift pallet. The pain is agonizing, and yet, I still bask in the song of my family. Cold water spills over my lips, but it tastes like ash on my tongue. Groaning, I bring my hands up and over my stomach.

Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

Salvation comes on the wing of the yungrins,

On the horns and hooves of the springbok

On the scales of the crounterads.

My love, my love, don’t cry.

The words are frantic now. Both Jakrob and Bedrel are at my side, shaking me, forcing me away from the soothing sounds and into the present. I don’t want to go. I want to stay where my mother’s smile lights up the corners of my mind, where my father’s laugh ripples along my senses.

My face will see you in the dawn,

In the rising of the suns,

In the shifting of the moons.

My love, my love, don’t cry.

“I will forever be with you. By your side. For all eternity. Until Ilaria guides you home.” The words hover on my lips, spoken out loud, breaking the tenable silence.

Pain washes over me, and I’m no longer able to ignore it. Crying out, I jerk my arms forward, needing to protect myself against the onslaught, but they don’t move. I am chained down, pinned to this bed that no longer feels like a cloud beneath me. Reality is far more uncomfortable than the pleasant dream that still teases the edges of my consciousness.

“Her fever is spiking. We have to bring it down. Jakrob, do something. We are going to lose her.” The Clan Mother’s words reach my ears, but they’re still muffled, as if she’s speaking through water, and I’m trapped underneath the swells.

“I have to give her more of those pills. She’s starting to detox, but not in a controlled manner. If I had known, she would have been under my care since the moment you brought her to us.”

Feverish hands fumble inside my shirt, brushing against the swell of my breast as Jakrob searches for the remaining stash. Five pills. Just five left. After those are gone, all ties to Annora and Stanlion are gone. I’ll be nothing better than the betas and omegas that toil in the scorching sun. I’ll be forced to live with a man that’s so far beneath what I deserve.

“Please. Please don’t take them,” I croak out.

My hands flop by my side in a pathetic attempt to pull them up so I can fend him off, but they lie there, impotent. Tears leak from my eyes and roll down the side of my face. I don’t want Brennen. I don’t want any of this. I long for the voice of my mother soothing me to sleep. I long for my father’s powerful arms as they shield me from this horrid world.

They’re all I have left. Annora lied to me. It’s clear now. What little I can make out of their conversation reveals the horrors of what she’s done. That my body is reacting this violently to coming off the pills only means one thing—I’ve been subjected to them since I was a child.

It’s the only thing that makes sense. My first memories of us as a unit involved those damn pills and contacts. As if I’m now looking down upon the memories, flitting through them with my fingers, I see everything with a clear eye. The way she hid me when I was young, the way she never allowed anyone over until I was indoctrinated enough to not reveal myself.

She has the same eyes as I do. She must be an omega herself. But why hide us? Is being an omega so reprehensible? Just because she doesn’t want an Alpha to own her gave her no right to force me into the same lifestyle she was in. I was never made to work, to labor around a house as a beta. I was made to be pampered, to have lots of babies.

Now that I’m forced to face my new reality, I also have to face the consequences. Any Alpha born to me will be ripped from my side. This never would have happened as an omega living in the High Sanctum. Future Alpha children would have been celebrated, rewarded. That’s how it’s supposed to be. This commune has everything backwards and I’m forced to live in this world, separated from all foreseeable comforts.

“Spread her open. We must make sure the suppressants haven’t affected her sexual organs. If they have, she cannot offer herself to Xiarius.”