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I almost wondered if I was in one of them. If I’d died, and this was my punishment. Killing and killing in the darkness.

At least I was protecting the children. The Omegas. Perhaps the Goddess would forgive me someday.

Her voice wrapped around me like razors made of moonlight. Painful, powerful, and absolutely terrifying. Priest. You disappoint me.

Of course, when She spoke to me, She would say this first.

I knew better than to argue. Still, I tried. “I promised her that I would protect them.”

Your promises are easily broken, are they not?

Shame washed through me. “I will not break this one.”

You love her. You love her more than your own soul? Each word was a whip, biting into my spirit. I couldn’t lie to Her. I had tried not to, but I’d ended up breaking every vow I’d made. I’d come to love Rada more than my own Goddess.

Perhaps I had from the start.

I didn’t regret the love like I did the killing. I would burn for eternity with my love for Rada burning hotter than the deepest hells. I could not abjure her now, any more than I could resist her. “I do. Though it may damn me to the fires of your hells, I do.”

Her voice was a breath. My hells have no fires. Somehow, the pain lessened, though my brain still felt as if it were being pressed with each word She spoke. My daughter is a sharp-edged dagger. My most valuable tool. I need her, priest. I need her to finish remaking my lines.

I held very still, knowing She saw my thoughts. She had always known Mina’s deepest fear. That she would be changed in ways that lessened her, when the Goddess’s bargain ended.

The world shimmered, like the light itself was moving involuntarily. Was She laughing? Or shaking with anger? I did not dare to ask.

The voice was a whisper when it came again. She is mine; she will always be mine. But in his loneliness, his madness, Edan will kill her. Unless…

I didn’t need to breathe in whatever timeless space She’d taken me to, and it was a good thing. “Please, my Goddess. Tell me how to save her. I will give anything.”

Will you give everything? Will you follow my command without question? Her words hung in the air like a spinning blade. When I didn’t reply, I felt that shimmering again. If I assure you that none of these children will perish tonight, will you once again be my obedient priest?

“Of course, if it will save her.” If I could’ve moved, I would have smiled. Or kneeled. “Of course.”

Suddenly, I could see, as if She had loaned me Her eyes.

The sea was red with blood, but none of it was the children’s. They were safe on the raft. The Omega Rielle was being carried by Lachlan to the raft as well. The other Omegas were doing their best to paddle to the fence, helping each other, except for the few who had turned to face the Alphas, gripping gleaming shards of stone and brandishing long sticks.

Out at sea, a giant swell of water altered the horizon and sparkled with what might be ice. The sky above stretched like a band ready to snap, red in the west and the dark velvet of the cool night in the east.

Not a grain of sand on the battlefield twitched, except for a belch of fire over the western sky, as She sighed. Do not disappoint me again, priest.

The world sparkled with gold and snapped into motion as she gave the order that broke me.

But I obeyed. I ran away.

GORAN

From the moment I’d heard Alexios’s call outside the longhouses and broken through the jungle to see dozens of noseless Alphas advancing on him and the handful of Omegas, I’d had the unshakeable feeling that my whole life had been pointing to this battle. This day. The echoes of the vows I’d made my warriors take after I’d lost Rada the first time—promises to protect Omegas, at whatever cost—drowned out the screams and clangs of metal.

Alexios was the only true warrior on the beach when I threw myself up and over the fence and began to fight, though a few of the Omegas and one or two of the older children were trying to mount a defense with sticks and rocks.

The Alphas I fought were well trained, though not as well as my own men. They had numbers on their side, though. Edan must have emptied out that entire side of the island to mount this attack.

An attack I did not understand. Why would he send this many men to round up a handful of imprisoned women and children? Even if he knew I was here, even if he knew Kellin and Lachlan…

The answer was obvious when I thought for a moment, between beheading one noseless male and disemboweling the next. He’d felt what we all had: the bond forming with Lusca. He may have also sensed when she’d claimed Kellin. It would have taken time for him to send this army.

I hated the thought that the mark on her neck was truly a mating claim.