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She sighed and went on. “She tried to tell him to swim back where he came from, that the males on the island were cruel, and the one who watches was evil. But of course, he didn’t leave. He said he couldn’t. The order caught up with him, and caged him that morning. They took him to the maw. When he came back, they put him in the mating house with Lana.”

“The mating house?” The words came out too loud.

She lifted her chin toward the fence line, where the forest was a bit less wild. “Before your mother took you away, we lived in relative luxury. There were two more longhouses with nests full of silks and velvets, and the Alphas had their own as well. There were acres of gardens, and oyster beds—so much food. The priests of the order stayed on the other side of the island, only coming to check every so often, and… harvest.” I knew what she meant.

“Afterward, everything changed. The priests had the nesting houses burned. They fenced us more closely and harvested far more often.” She stayed quiet for a moment, until she regained her composure. “Now the shack is where any Omegas in heat go.” She pointed at a small shack at the end of the yard that I’d thought was an outhouse. “There’s a connecting door on the other wall that leads outside. The Omega lets an Alpha in.”

“Tell me not one of those feral ones,” I begged.

She rubbed the stump of her arm absently. “Before he went wild, Vallen was chosen. But now, it’s Frol. He brings blankets and good food, and helps ease the Omega through the week.”

“It’s hard to understand how the Goddess could allow…”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “Hope is hard to kill, even with fire. Still, most don’t make it through their first heat. Some choose to accept an Alpha rather than die.”

I’d been taught that Omegas always choose. That choice had been twisted into something horrific on Pict, though.

“Frol is a gentle Alpha, like your father.”

“Tell me,” I asked quietly.

She nodded. “When Perun arrived, it was clear that your mother was his mate, and he was the only one she would accept. She claimed him, bit him on the neck that first night. They kept us all awake for a week.” She gave an amused sigh. “He had fair skin and blushed as red as a crab when they came out of the shack.”

“Blushed?”

“Yes. Your mother was, well… enough said.” Her grin faded. “The masters of the Alldyns Vug tried to get him to mate with others, but he wouldn’t, no matter what they did to him. When you were born, your father practically glowed. There has never been a man prouder of his daughter. Or more terrified at what was planned for you.”

Mirrim stared out at the sea. “You were born right here on this beach, under a full moon like no other. Larger than I’d ever seen before, with odd shadows that moved across the surface. I thought they looked like a face. Your mother cried out to the moon as she labored, and something fell from the sky.” She looked down at her hand and took a shuddering breath. “It was cool, like rain, but golden. And when it fell to the earth, night-blooming flowers sprang up all over. Most of it fell on you and your mother. When I held you up for her to see, her eyes had gone bright gold.

“When Lana spoke again, she told me the Goddess had given her a task. To get you free. She’d promised your mother that if she freed you from the one who watches, you would have more children than any Omega could imagine. That they would live in freedom, and remake⁠—”

I stood abruptly, suddenly feeling sick. I’d known since I was a child that the Goddess had one purpose for me and the others like me. She called it “remaking Her lines.” What that meant was bringing Omegas back into existence, then giving each one a nest full of Alphas and a belly full of children.

Once I’d realized I was an Omega, I’d known that would be my future, breeding for Her again and again until I died.

Which would be… never, or close enough, if I escaped Pict. I was mated to a kraken, and that meant an eternity of being Her tool.

“It’s been a long day for you, hasn’t it?” she said, accepting the arm I offered to help her up.

“Mirrim, it’s been a long life.”

LUSCA

I’d had a very long life, and made many mistakes. I’d raged at my brothers and flooded island chains recklessly. I’d lured arrogant captains to drive their ships onto submerged rocks, just to enjoy the crunching sounds. Once, in my earliest days, I’d burrowed into a trench so deeply while chasing a giant squid, I’d become wedged and lost most of the jewels on my carapace getting free.

But the mistake I’d made today might have been the worst.

“I shouldn’t have done this.” I addressed the ice god who lay gasping on the frozen ground. He opened one ice-blue eye to regard me. We wore our human forms now, as those bled less than our true shapes and took less energy to sustain.

We’d both been lying here for the better part of a day and through the night, dying. I was perishing for lack of the sea, as Skadi had forced our fight to the center of the northern ice fields. The sun drifted across the sky, and I could tell the warmth of it hurt the beast I’d poisoned with Rada’s cursed obsidian blade.

“Should not… have stabbed… your superior?” he wheezed at last.

I pressed a hand to my chest—where most of the ribs were still broken from Skadi’s punishing blows—to keep from chuckling. My superior. He was as arrogant as I had been as a young kraken, though I supposed he had good reason. He was immensely powerful, and if I hadn’t had my mate’s dagger, he might have killed me.

“No. I should have stabbed you sooner, and gone to save my beloved. Should not have stolen her knife to do it, though. She’ll be incensed.” She would almost definitely stab me again.

But that pain would be nothing to the agony that tore at me now, feeling her moving away from me. Another mistake, but not one I could ever regret. Our mating bond had been put in place without the normal physical connection one of her kind required: a mark or claiming bite. Instead, my song had entered her and wrapped our souls together too quickly and thoroughly to resist.