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I turned away from the window and tried to give my aunt a smile. I knew I wasn’t the best company for her. I’d been seriously out of sorts since the first day Wyatt had dumped me here at Rudmilla’s home in Sudfarma and went on his way to Crillia without me. Yet I couldn’t seem to shake it. It had been over two weeks now and there had been no word from Wyatt, even though he’d faithfully promised me he would send a message as soon as he arrived with his men in Lameda, the town high in the mountains where the baron’s castle was located.
To date I’d heard nothing from him. Not in the fourteen days, six hours and twenty-three minutes since he’d left.
I knew that part of my feelings of uneasiness and unrest came not only from worrying about him—and I had a constant feeling of dread that seemed to be lodged firmly and achingly in my chest—but also because of the remaining stubborn feelings of anger I had toward him. It had been Wyatt who had decided to interfere in my life and try to force me back in the omega mold I’d managed to escape in the first place, after all. I had made a decision to leave all that behind me, and though I loved Wyatt and wanted to be with him, I wasn’t a brainless child. I hated being treated like I was. For example, I had begged him to make a real plan and not just run after this baron half-cocked and wind up as a victim himself, but he’d refused to listen to me. Alphas like Wyatt always thought they knew best. I was afraid that would never change, and I wasn’t sure I could always live with that.
My aunt came up behind me and touched my shoulder. “Darcy, darling? Would you like to go for that walk with me? It’s a lovely day outside.”
“Sure. I’ll go get some walking shoes on.”
She smiled up at me and I left to go back to my own room and change my slippers for my boots. My aunt had seemed to really like Wyatt when they’d met. He had brought me home as he’d threatened to do and was very sweet and polite to my aunt and uncle, who were surprised to see me back home, to say the least.
Wyatt had smoothed everything over and brushed over the details about my abrupt departure from the army. Once my uncle found out that Wyatt had been my trainer, and more importantly, that he was nobility and a cousin to King Harrison, he had quickly been all smiles and welcome. Even more so once Wyatt explained I was in no trouble for leaving the army. My aunt had been a bit more reserved, but she had gradually succumbed to his charm and warmed to his good manners, too, though she still watched me and my reactions carefully.
She knew I was angry at him, and she’d been concerned, but she had also witnessed my farewell to him and saw how desperately I’d clung to him before he left. I hadn’t been able to help it, because I had a really bad feeling about this whole thing.
To make matters even worse, I discovered over the next few days that my potion had stopped working altogether, and I could no longer pass as beta to anybody. My guess was that Barbarosa hadn’t been kidding around when she’d said, “Only a few drops… Any more might kill you outright…or it could change the course of your entire life forever. Beware!”
Beware, indeed. Not taking the potion the way she’d told me to hadn’t killed me, outright or otherwise—and for that I suppose I should have been grateful. And I was. But there was no denying that the potion had definitely changed the course of my life. I couldn’t be entirely unhappy about that, because it had brought me Wyatt. But it had also brought back the inconvenience and frustrations of being an omega.
There was no way to disguise who I was anymore. Rudmilla called in a physician who gave me omega pills, but the daily tablets he prescribed me didn’t conceal what I was, like my potion had. It only suppressed my full heat cycle temporarily. In about two more weeks’ time, I’d be going into heat again, and I dreaded it with every fiber of my being. Without Wyatt to soothe my heat lust, I’d be in a miserable state for at least a week or so. I’d have to stay inside and hide in my old closet nest, suffering the almost constant cramps and pain and hoping for my Alpha’s arrival every day.
Or I could go visit Barbarosa Lagoon again and see if she could do something to help.
As I pulled on my boots and went to rejoin my aunt for our walk through the forest, my mind kept returning to the idea again and again. Not only might the witch be willing to give me another potion—one that would work despite Wyatt’s influence on me—but she might be able to give me news of my Alpha, along with Asher and Brandon and the missing viscountess. I was getting more and more desperate to get some word on what had happened to Wyatt. He had promised me faithfully that he would write and let me know, but I hadn’t heard a word since he left, and I was growing more and more frantic every day.
I told Rudmilla what I was thinking as we took our stroll through the woods, stopping occasionally to pick the colorful wildflowers and fill the big basket on her arm. She looked quite pretty that afternoon with her big, floppy-brimmed hat tied in a bow under her chin as she walked along the trails by my side. Her dark eyes became huge when I told her I was thinking of seeking out Barbarosa Lagoon again. Wyatt had left me a small bag of gold coins for my “expenses,” and I had nothing else I needed the money for. He had left another, larger bag for my uncle to pay for my upkeep.
“Oh Darcy, do you think that’s wise? She might not like it that you didn’t follow her instructions.”
“I did follow them, until I met Wyatt, and then the potion stopped working the way it was supposed to. Barbarosa knew it might happen though, and she even warned me about it.”
Her eyes got huge again. “She did?”
“In a roundabout way. She told me to ‘beware of the noble warrior, for he would bring on my fate.’” I intoned, mimicking Barbarosa’s raspy tone.
“Your fate? What did she mean by that?”
“Who knows? I assumed it meant that he was my intended Alpha. The one man in the world that I was supposed to be with.”
“You sound as if you’re in love with him.”
I sighed heavily and made a little face. “Because I am, though an Alpha wasn’t what I ever wanted. I hadn’t planned on feeling that way about him at all, even though from the first time I saw him, I was really attracted to him.”
I bent to pick a few flowers I saw growing by the base of a big oak. “He’s been gone too long. I want to ask Barbarosa if she can tell me whether or not he’s all right. And his cousins too. I’m worried about all of them.”
“Well, dear, as you know, it’s a two-day carriage ride from here to the Black Peat Swamp. Your Alpha might be back here by then.”
I shook my head. “No. I think something has happened to him or he would have sent me word by now. If I can borrow the carriage, I’ll go try to talk to her.”
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll talk to your uncle this evening and you can leave first thing in the morning.”
Chapter Nine
Darcy
Like the last time I’d entered the Black Peat Swamp, I was struck immediately by the tall, dark trees that seemed to lean across the narrow road that ran along the edge of the swamp so they could peek inside the carriage and see who was coming to visit. I told the driver to pull over when we reached the sign that warned everyone to keep out, and then I took a deep breath and began walking down the narrow, weedy path.
The swamp was still one of the scariest places I’d ever been, and I was trembling a little as the dusk began to fall around me and the mists rose up out of the ground like insubstantial ghosts swirling through the murky air. I walked along the path for maybe thirty minutes before I sat down on a stump to wait and see if Barbarosa knew I’d arrived in her swamp and would come to see me, like she had the last time I was here.
