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Besides the halibut, there was more than one good-sized fish in my cloak, and I handed a few to Godla, along with a long strand of kelp that had drifted ashore. “You can prepare these?” She nodded. “Good. Ask some of the others to dig a pit. Put stones in the fire. We’ll fill the pit with coals, then hot stones, and kelp on the top. We can cook the halibut in that, and the other fish on skewers.”

“We can’t burn the kelp,” Mirrim corrected. “It’s very good for the children, even if they don’t like it.”

She’d finished boiling the yam root, and I tested it. It was strong and bitter, which was perfect. “Mirrim, I’ll get more. More kelp and more fish. Can someone take this inside to Rielle? Then we can cook enough for everyone.”

“They gotta come back in when the women come out,” the young guard named Tally shouted across the space, and everyone got quiet.

“Is he on our side?” I murmured to Mirrim.

“He’s a good one,” Godla answered. “He sings lullabies to the babies, still. He shares his rations with the littles; that’s why they’re not starved.”

“Then he deserves to eat.” I grabbed a clamshell full of soup and carried it to him, my sopping wet cloak over one arm. “You could come over to the fire and join us in the meal?” I suggested.

He stood, but still wasn’t anywhere near as tall as me. That didn’t bode well for him. Not all Alphas were tall at his age, but it was exceedingly rare for a smaller male not to have begun a growth spurt by his age. Something in his nervous demeanor made me wonder if he didn’t know it, too.

“Not allowed. And the babies need the food.” His voice was low and gruff, but his nostrils flared as I approached. “You’re an Omega. Aren’t you scared to be close to me?” He made a low, growling sound, nothing at all like a baby Alpha. Like a Beta pretending to be one, maybe.

My heart broke a little. “Tally, hm? You know how to fish?” He shook his head. “You want to learn?”

“I’m supposed to guard.”

“You could guard me better up close,” I suggested. “There’s no telling what I’ll get up to in the water. Bring your sword.” He almost smiled. “You know how to use it?”

“It’s not hard to use a sword. You just use the sharp parts to hurt people. Any fool can hurt someone.” For a moment, his words reminded me so much of Alexios, I was breathless.

My voice was raspy when I could reply. “I can teach you how to fish with it. How to feed the others, and yourself.” The smile that stretched across his narrow face was almost as satisfying as catching the halibut.

Two hours later, the children had all eaten—including Tally, who’d stabbed a flounder that he roasted himself—and were back inside their longhouse. The women slipped out of their longhouse just as Adiah returned to the beach. She had a small bundle in her hands.

“What is it?” Mirrim whispered.

Adiah seemed as stunned as the rest of us when she held it out. “Serak sent it. It’s dried fruit.”

“Dried fruit?” I took it from her and unwrapped the edge of the cloth. The sugared scent was almost as gorgeous as the fruit itself: dried bits of coconut, pineapple, banana, papaya, and fruits I didn’t recognize.

Adiah’s gaze met mine. “He said it was a gift for you.”

“Did he sneak it to you?”

She shook her head. “Frol saw him hand it to me. But Sandyl was watching, too.”

I hummed, but took a piece and tasted it. I’d know if it was poisoned.

It was fine. Better than fine. I handed the bundle back to her. “Distribute it however you like.” There was enough for everyone to have a bit, but not one of the Omegas accepted it.

“The children,” they all said quietly. Adiah wrapped it back up and handed it to Tally, who carried it inside the children’s longhouse.

Mirrim had sent fish stew into the women’s longhouse earlier, but now we unburied the halibut and some extra kelp and handed around portions on clamshells. Rielle was the only one who didn’t come out, but one of the others whispered that her pre-heat symptoms were already lessening after the yamroot broth.

Some of the Omegas cleaned themselves in the ocean, though we could hear the feral Alphas from earlier calling out obscenities from across the fence and howling like wild dogs as dusk crept over the island.

When everyone had a full belly and the fire was burning down to embers, I asked Mirrim, “You said my father was named Perun. Can you tell me about him? Who was he? How did my mother, Lana, get pregnant here, of all places?”

Her eyes closed in remembrance or pain, I wasn’t sure. “He was her mate. The one she loved above all else, except you.” A tear left a crooked path down her wrinkled cheek. “He died to get you both free.”

Mirrim’s story wasn’t long, but every word struck my heart like a poisoned blade, leaving tendrils of fire. “He wasn’t born on the island, of course. From the stories our mothers passed down, the one who watches”—she opened her eyes and glanced at the flames, so I knew she was not using Edan’s name on purpose—“learned early on that inbreeding was one of the fastest ways to keep us from bearing Omegas and Alphas. So every year or so, some of the masters of the order would go looking for new stock. New Alphas, always. Your father, though, wasn’t one of the sailors they abducted. He washed up on shore after a typhoon just over thirty years back, looking half dead.”

She smiled. “The other half was the sexiest male any of us had seen. He had dark hair like yours, and those eyes. Lana called him her dragon prince, though he wasn’t a dragon. Just a beautiful man, with eyes like yours, maybe a bit darker gray. She was the one who found him, unconscious on the beach just outside the fence, close enough to touch. One touch was all it took, she said. One touch, and she knew.”