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But following them is several guards, dragging one of our own shifts along by the scruff of his t-shirt. He’s bound and gagged, and writhes desperately, trying to get free.
Kellen meets my gaze. “Sir, reports from near the outskirts.”
Three Northern soldiers and border patrol shifters step forward, looking haggard and wary. The one at the front keeps his head slightly bowed as he speaks.
“Your highness,” he says, voice rough. “We have identified some of the dissenters in the pack.”
Chapter 27 - Mylah
Augustus doesn’t come to see me the entire day after my heat.
When I left his quarters, the guards had no issue with me leaving, as long as I was escorted. I wonder if I could go and find Augustus now, demand that he either claim me or let me go.
But my body aches. And I am so, so tired.
Almost as soon as I return to my room, I fall asleep for hours. When I wake near lunch, there’s hot food there for me, soup and bread, along with an entire stack of books. I run my hand over the book at the top, mind racing
The Complete History of Kault: Volume 1.
What does this mean?
Does he want me to learn more about Kault because I’ll become a part of the pack? Or is this simply a response to the questions I’d posed in bed? I sit and eat my soup and eventually fall back to sleep.
When I wake again, there’s more food, tonics, and a written note.
Feel better.
From Augustus? I’m not sure. I realize I’ve never actually seen his handwriting before. Still, I fold it and tuck it into my pocket as I eat, open the first of the history books to read.
Mid-day turns to night, and the uneasy churning in my stomach only gets worse.
The books and food—he must be coming to me, right? My earlier reaction, leaving his room, it was too hasty. A response to the hormones fluctuating inside me. I think about the way he trailed his fingers down my spine and whispered into my hair.
How he’s reached for me, even in sleep.
The way he called me brilliant.
As a larger woman, I’d always assumed the best compliment I could receive would be something about my looks, but it turns out a man calling me brilliant in bed is the hottest thing I can imagine.
Not just a man. Augustus.
Near the time I would normally go to bed, I take to pacing again, thinking. Now that my heat is done, now that I’m alone with my thoughts, I think about what nearly happened to me.
After Augustus agreed to stay with me for my heat, I thought that would be enough to erase the memories of going to that doctor. Augustus assured me that he was never able to touch me, not able to get his tools near me, but that doesn’t stop me from remembering the terror of being strapped to the table.
Legs open, a man between them that I didn’t want there at all.
The thoughts flood in, and that book hidden above my bathtub feels like the tell-tale heart, beating there loudly, taunting me. Daring me to take it down and touch it again. Almost like a cursed object, like the fact that I accepted it, read it cover-to-cover, is the reason why that doctor assaulted me. Why everything went wrong.
Because I read that book. Because I listened to Aurora.
I can hear the voices of the pack in the back of my mind, chastising me for daring to think such outrageous thoughts. For trying to go against my biology. It would be unnatural for an omega not to have a heat, and that’s why Aurora’s regular doctor wasn’t there.
Although maybe Aurora’s normal doctor wasn’t there because someone found out about what she was doing. Maybe if omegas didn’t have to go sneaking around to have something like that done, it wouldn’t be quite so dangerous.
In the quiet here in this room, where I’m alone with nothing but the sound of the fireplace and my own writhing thoughts, I recall being slammed into that cot. Strapped down. It’s possible that I might not have died without Augustus’s rescue, but I’m not sure I ever would have been the same.
But I am not the same now, anyway.
