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I couldn’t help him, though, because I had troubles of my own. My Alpha now had my elbow in a bruising grip and was dragging me from the bar and out onto the sidewalk. We made it as far as the alley when I found myself shoved up against the wall.
“What do you think you’re doing, Vandercliff? Do you want to get washed out? Is that what this is about?”
“Huh? What do you mean? We were just having a little fun…”
Wyatt’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Having a little fun? You two broke about ten rules apiece tonight, do you realize that?”
“What? No, we didn’t mean to do that. What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you even read your handbook? Until training is over, there’s a strict curfew, which you’re violating. Not to mention the fact that you can’t leave the facility after dark. Not for anything. It also says absolutely no drinking, in case you missed that one too. Oh yes, and then there’s shirking your duty—are those enough for you? Don’t even get me started on the state of your locker, by the way.”
“But I didn’t know! You have to believe me, sir. And I didn’t sneak out. There wasn’t anyone at the gates when I left, and I just walked out. I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”
“Ignorance of the rules is no excuse. I’ve put too much work into you to let you wash out now.”
I felt the blood drain from my face, and I shook my head frantically. “Oh no. No, please sir. It won’t happen again. I promise, sir. I need another chance.”
Even though I’d secretly been having second and even third thoughts about making it in the army, the idea of being washed out like an abject failure was frightening. What would I do if I didn’t have the army? I couldn’t go on being a burden to my relatives, and I didn’t have the training for any other employment.
Alpha Wyatt narrowed his eyes and gazed at me, like he was trying to make up his mind about something. Finally, he nodded. “All right. One more chance, and this is the last one. And you need to forget about those damn prostitutes before they give you something you can’t give back.”
My eyebrows rose almost to his hairline. “What? What do you mean?”
“I mean you and your friend Anders were letting those prostitutes rub themselves all over you. Who knows what kind of diseases they might have?”
“P-prostitutes, sir?”
“Don’t tell me you thought they just liked your pretty faces?” He snorted with laughter. “From now until graduation, you’re confined to the barracks. You can go to your training sessions and to the mess hall. That’s it.” He pointed a finger in my face. “And be in bed by nine o’clock.”
My mouth dropped open in horror. “What? No, you can’t do that.”
“I just did. And I’ll be checking to make sure you do as you’re told. Now get your ass back to the fort. Like I said, it’s way past curfew.”
I stumbled out of the alley, feeling dazed. There was no sign of Anders, and I wondered if Alpha Brandon had finally killed him like he always threatened to. I took off toward the gates and was happy to see that there still weren’t any guards, so no one would challenge me. Stumbling to the barracks and my room, I closed the door behind me in relief, only to see the entire contents of my locker thrown out onto the floor. In a panic, I searched frantically for the potion bottle I’d been given by the witch. Without it, I was done for! I found it, where it had rolled under the bed and clutched it to my heart. Thank the gods—I only hoped my Alpha hadn’t seen it.
I’d have to put everything back neatly before morning and that was only a few hours away. I sank down on the narrow bed and put my head in my hands. Confined to barracks. I’d really thought this day couldn’t get any worse. I’d been so wrong.
****
That night I dreamed of Barbarosa Lagoon.
In my dream, I thought I heard a scratching at my window, and when I went to look out, I saw the thin branch of a tall pine tree scraping at the glass. I opened the latch to push it away, and a claw-like hand seized my wrist. I screamed and jerked back my arm, dragging in a thin, fragile figure, with wild white hair. Barbarosa fell on the floor by the window, and I feared she might be dead, so I bent over her to check her breathing. When I did, she opened her eyes, showing only the whites. “Look out for the ones I warned you about,” she said in her thin, croaking voice. “They’re coming for you soon. Beware.”
She pointed that long, bony finger at me again, and I woke up shouting. I told myself it was only a nightmare—but there was a faint smell of mildew and clover in the air, and my window was standing wide open, with the wind whipping the cold rain against the windowsill. I got up on shaky legs to close it, but I didn’t sleep again for a long time.
The next days passed quickly, and I had to grudgingly admit that Alpha Wyatt had been right. Forced to stay inside the barracks, I had more time to study and to do my laundry and keep my locker neat. Training was even harder, though, because now we had to go out “in the field,” as they called it. We marched out every morning, walking aimlessly, or so it seemed to me, in long columns and carrying our bedrolls and our rifles on our shoulders and backs. At the end of the day, we’d make camp and erect tents that four of us would sleep in if there was time. If not, we’d erect smaller, two-men tents, made out of our own blankets. The larger tents were carried by one of the wagons that followed the regiment, and these wagons also held our food and ammunition. It was cold outside now, and the ground was hard. We all suspected they were trying to toughen us up and make soldiers of us. Then we got our orders to go on an even longer training exercise that would take us all the way to the Crillian border.
I wondered how I’d ever allowed my uncle to convince me the army was my glorious purpose in life. Though I had once been so sure of it.
I remember coming back home from the Black Peat Swamp, and afterward, my uncle taking me aside, asking me if I’d thought about what I might want to do with my life, now that I was no longer under the shadow of living as an omega. Sir Roscoe, though only a beta, was an old army man himself. As the younger son of his noble father, he had never expected to inherit, until a sudden illness carried away both his father and his elder brother in the span of a week. Up until then, he had served in the army and enjoyed his time. He retained fond memories of days spent with good comrades around a blazing campfire during his time in what he called “the corps.”
Considering the fact that he’d been a supply clerk, I had to question just how many blazing campfires he’d actually sat around, but I suppose in his memories, it had seemed like more.
He read to me from the Roman poet, Horace, whose poem, entitled “Odes,” was particularly stirring as the speaker exhorts the Roman citizensto develop war-like prowess to such a degree that the enemies of Rome will be too terrified to attack them. He tells them never to be afraid, because, as the speaker says, “Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori,” or roughly translated, “it is sweet and fitting to die for your country.”
As officers and betas, who had worked only in the supply tents with other betas, neither my uncle nor his friends had ever been called on to make that ultimate sacrifice, but they all thought it sounded quite grand and glorious, and they had vowed to be ready should they ever receive the call.
When King Harrison put out a request for betas to join his special army and be trained to fight against the Crillian raiders, Sir Roscoe and his friends commiserated with each other at their weekly game of whist for being too old to once again answer the king’s request. And then they began to quietly convince their younger beta relatives to join up.
