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In my mind’s eye, I could still see the witch who had given me that warning—Barbarosa Lagoon, the one who had given me a potion to take away my omega characteristics and turn me into a beta.
She’d been the oldest woman I’d ever seen, and supposedly the strongest dark witch in the whole kingdom of Sudfarma—or maybe even in the world. She was rumored to be incredibly ancient—no one even knew how old she was, but her hair was patchy, showing large swaths of pink scalp, and what was left of her hair was white as leprosy, sticking up wildly around her head in a wicked halo. Her skin was like a roadmap of wrinkles heading off in all directions, and none of them good.
She had levelled her long, crooked finger at me, and her voice crackled over me like little static shocks across my skin. “You must be vigilant! Bathe yourself every morning and every night to take away any traces of your omega slick. The potion is strong, but it can only do so much. You’ll stay safe only as long as you keep your wits about you and do as I’ve told you to do. Take the potion every day, and never, ever forget. Only a few drops, mind you! Any more might kill you outright…or it could change the course of your entire life forever. Beware!” She turned to leave, but suddenly, she turned back to look at me, her filmy eyes disappearing back in her head and an eerie whiteness showing underneath both eyeballs.
Once when I was a boy, my aunt and I had been caught outside in a terrible thunderstorm. We had taken refuge under a tree, which I later learned was a terrible place to be in a storm. But we didn’t know that then and lightning struck a tree right next to the one we were standing under. Immediately, the air was filled with a sweet, clover-like smell, and my aunt cried out in a terrified voice, “It’s ozone.” Later she explained that you could sometimes smell the gas in the air after a lightning strike, and that the lightning “carried it along from the atmosphere as it shot down and struck the earth.”
It was whispered that powerful, dark witches carried that same, strange smell on their breath.
Of course, that was only my aunt’s explanation, and as I’ve said, she didn’t always get the details right. But whatever it was or wherever it came from, it had a distinctive and to me, unpleasant smell. Just now, I could smell that same odor heavy on Barbarosa’s breath as she leaned closer to me. I had no idea why or what it meant, but it was a smell I associated closely with dark magic.
“Look out for the one they call the beast. Stay far away from him, for he will kill you if he can. Only the noble warrior has the power to save you, but he will also bring about your fate. And he alone has the power to break my spell.”
I had stumbled away from her then, and left in fear, her words still ringing in my ears.
Shaking off the memory, I took a quick step back and dared a glance up at Alpha Wyatt. He was looming over me, wrinkling his nose in distaste, but he didn’t seem to suspect the truth. I thought I still could salvage this if I were really lucky. But I needed to distract him. I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind.
“I-I challenge you to a match, sir.”
He blinked a few times and raised his eyebrows. “You do what?”
“I-I challenge you. So I can show you how much my skills have improved. I’ve been practicing.”
He narrowed his eyes as he slanted a look down at me.
“I really have—I’m trying so hard. Please let me show you, Sir.”
He made a little “humph” sound. “It would serve you right, if I did.”
Behind him, Alpha Brandon laid a warning hand on his shoulder. “No, Wyatt. Our mission is to train these soldiers, not injure them.”
“Please, Sir, don’t listen to him,” I interrupted, beseeching him with my best doe-eyed look, and earning myself a quelling glance from Alpha Brandon. “Please give me a chance. I think you’ll see I’ve improved. I’ve been working so hard.”
“All right. I’ll do a training session with you. Not an actual match, because murder is still against the law in this kingdom. But this doesn’t mean you’re forgiven for being so late. I’m giving you extra duty for the next three days, is that understood?”
“Yes, Alpha.” I gulped, because it seemed like I spent most of my time already doing duty in the kitchen, peeling mountains of potatoes and washing towering stacks of dishes. But at least that meant he wasn’t going to wash me out of training. Not right away, at least.
He turned away, taking off his shirt and calling back over his shoulder. “Get ready, then. What are you waiting for?”
I tried to hurry by taking my trousers off over my boots which backfired badly, when my boot got caught, and I bounced around for far too long on one leg trying to extricate my foot. I looked up to see Alpha Wyatt, with his eyes turned up to heaven, no doubt seeking patience or maybe asking for divine guidance. I finally managed to kick the trouser leg off, and I quickly stripped down to just the strap that we trainees wore for protection of our private parts. Vowing solemnly to myself not to let my gaze stray to my Alpha’s “parts,” no matter how tempting it was to look at the large bulge behind that strained and overtaxed piece of cloth he wore over his groin, I turned to face him, burning with embarrassment and breathing hard.
He rolled his eyes at Alpha Brandon and sighed. “Betas.”
He was speaking softly to his cousin, but I was so attuned to every word he said, I could read his lips by now, even from the side. “They have no business being here, as most of them will wind up as cannon fodder. I told Harrison, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“It’s still our job to train them the best we can, Wyatt,” Alpha Brandon replied. “There simply aren’t enough Alphas to go around, and war with the Crillians is probably coming soon. They have betas in their ranks as well. Harrison asked Lex if he could borrow us to help train his betas, and it’s not ideal, but we may need them to act as more than just clerks and cooks. I read the dispatches from the border this morning. There was another raid on a homestead in the east. Three people are dead—a man and his two sons. You know what Harrison is going to do when he hears that news.”
I’d been shamelessly eavesdropping, but I knew they were talking about King Harrison of Morovia, their home country, who was married to Queen Rozamond, from our kingdom of Sudfarma. He had been named as head of our army, as our own Sudfarman king was too elderly. It was odd to hear the king called by his first name or spoken of in such a casual way. The Sudfarman king would have had a subject’s head for much less. Our king was old and ill, though, and he hadn’t been seen in public in weeks. His daughter’s husband, King Harrison, had taken over most of the effort of ridding our country of the Crillians.
“I know what my job is,” Alpha Wyatt was saying. “All right, let me deal with Vandercliff here, and I’ll join you afterward for lunch. This shouldn’t take too long. By the way, you might need to check on your own man over there. I think he’s going to need a little attention.”
Alpha Brandon glanced over his shoulder at one of his beta trainees who was limping and being helped off the field by his friends. He blew out a heavy sigh. “Damn it. Now I’ll probably have to fill out paperwork.” He threw his gloves down on the grass and strode aggressively over to his trainee, shouting as he went.
“Anders, I swear to god, if you’ve pulled your fucking hamstring, I’m going to pull off your head and shove it up your ass.”
My sphincter clenched in sympathy. And Alpha Brandon was the “nice” one.
Alpha Wyatt turned back to me then and looked me up and down. “Well? Make your move, Vandercliff, or go home.”
