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Little Zorah isn't ready for that quite yet.
She couldn't blame Riddick. He had no way of knowing the mountain of condescending lectures and admonishments piled on "Little Zorah" over the course of her life. Sometimes she imagined Little Zorah as her evil twin arch nemesis: the sweet, naïve, compliant Omega everyone expected her to be. Up until the moment she rode away from home, her parents and her Pack controlled every aspect of her existence: her dress, her education, her activities, and her interests. It felt like being forced to wear too-small shoes and then being blamed when you couldn't walk.
But Zorah didn't want to hobble through life in too-small shoes. She wanted to throw them off andrun. The question was: where was she running, and to whom?
Oblivious to her soured mood, Riddick snuck his arm around her waist and threw her a saucy grin. "Let's take a walk and discuss what I might have to offer. What do you say? Care to join me for a moonlit stroll?"
Before she could answer, another unmistakable touch tingled against her nape. More forceful, like a taunt or a warning, it reverberated through her body like the rumble of an earthquake that only she could feel. Zorah took an involuntary step backward and scanned the darkness beyond the fire, seeking the source of the elusive, invisible prickle. Another brush came, this one lighter and more cajoling, a puff of humid breath behind her ear.
It was nothing new. In the weeks since the sensation first wove its way into her awareness, she'd never once laid eyes on her watcher. But she knew him all the same. She knew the way his attention warmed when she laughed. She knew the way it sharpened when she flirted. And most perplexing of all, she knew the way he recoiled when she sought him out.
Shards of orange firelight slashed against the rough-hewn village structures and flickered against the trees in the surrounding forest as Zorah glared into the black night. Some presence hovered in the gathering darkness, teasing her with these fleeting touches that seemed to communicate so much and yet nothing at all. Sudden frustration surged. Her watcher did not want her to go for an evening stroll with Riddick yet refused to come out into the light and even talk to her. It was beyond maddening.
Zorah drained her cup, letting the strong liquor swirl around her taste buds and fortify her nerves. Enough was enough.
"Not right now, sorry," she said, handing Riddick her empty cup and inventing a plausible excuse. "I need to ask Grace about Ginny's rash before she goes to bed. I'll find you later."
Riddick opened his mouth to protest, but Zorah didn't wait to hear it. Feet crunching in the dry August grass, she waved off calls from others as she skirted past Packmates enjoying the party. Their laughs and raised voices chafed her frazzled nerves as she narrowed her eyes and peered into the endless blank spaces between the trees. The touch lingered, a barely-there weight on the curve of her shoulder. Lessened in intensity, but present andreal.
At the edge of the clearing, she charged into the tree cover, the depth of night folding around her like a blanket. Head swiveling this way and that, she sought to locate the source of the touch but came up empty. He must be hiding here somewhere. Butwhere? Whowasit? Why did she feel him — and she was rather certain it was a him — in a way she felt no one else? Was he special to her in some way, or she to him? Her illusory fated mate?
Her fated mate. As if the phrase was an antidote to the sensation, the touch faded away. No lingering tingle. No alluring caress. Nothing. Gone as if it never existed. A desolate emptiness yawned open behind Zorah's ribs. An acute aloneness that left her feeling abandoned, neglected, and, strangely, let down.
It couldn't be her fated mate. At any rate, her mother Ida argued fated mates were a fairy tale. Many Omegas, she alleged, never found a fated mate and were happy enough to make do with another. But, in Zorah's (perhaps childish) estimation, a non-fated-mating was fine for other Omegas, but surely, she would findhers.
Problem was, Prince Charming Alpha was overdue for his long-awaited appearance. All she had to show after two months here was a cast of suitors, a weird sensation on the back of her neck, and a stomach near constantly knotted with worry.
With one last fruitless inspection of her surroundings, she pivoted back toward the party. She'd find Riddick and take the stupid walk. Even if she didn't have a fated mate and never made that special Alpha-Omega bond, she'd gladly accept him, Matteo, or any number of Morris Hill Alphas before she'd mate with Nelson. Stomping out of the trees, Zorah gritted her teeth. She'd welcome a lifetime of emptiness in place of a lifetime of oppression. No matter what, she had to choose one of these Alphas. And soon.
CHAPTER 2
Zorah
Juggling a fussy baby, Zorah closed the door quietly behind her. Struck by the change of scenery or the slightly cooler air, the baby paused her crying for the first time in hours.
"Oh, is that all it took?" Zorah muttered to her cranky little charge. In answer, six-month-old Ginny resumed her wiggling and whining.
Adjusting her grip on the squirmy handful, Zorah patted the child's sweaty back as she adopted a brisk pace away from the cabins where lucky members of the settlement slept. "Yeah, I didn't think so. We're going for a walk anyway, but let's try not to wake everyone up, okay?"
She didn't know the hour, but it was definitely late. The bonfire had gone out, and now only the cold ash peppering the firepit bore witness to the party. After a short walk with Riddick (truncated by some feigned fatigue), Zorah'd returned to the cabin where she boarded with Lars, Grace, and their four children, only to find Grace at her wit's end with her unhappy youngest child. Since their mother was occupied and their father asleep in his bed (how Alphas could have such keen senses yet be so oblivious to domestic matters never failed to perplex her), Zorah took charge of two-year-old Jace and four-year-old Pixie. Faces washed, teeth brushed, potty visited, she then hustled them off to bed before relieving Grace from her pacing duties with Ginny.
After some time, the baby had drifted off long enough for Zorah to crash, exhausted and fully clothed, onto her own bed before being woken up by yet another ear-splitting howl. In reality, she'd probably slept an hour or two, but in the middle of the night, it felt like none at all.
Yawning, she beat a quick path to the western side of the settlement where a collection of rocks and boulders formed a small, lumpy mountain. The young pups liked to climb and play on it during the long summer days. But in the quiet hours of the night, the rocks sucked up the scant moonlight into an intimidating black mass. They bulged from the ground like a giant, misshapen figure — a sleeping giant or dinosaur, or a dragon lying in wait for a brave prince to fight. Inspiration for stories she could tell her charges the next time they inevitably demanded entertainment.
The rocks also provided a good spot to hang out until the baby settled. If she didn't, at least it offered a cool seat in the muggy air. Zorah's lips stretched around another yawn as she scanned for a place to sit, shushing and soothing Ginny all the while.
"You shouldn't be out here." The gruff voice sliced through the darkness, and Zorah practically jumped out of her skin, which sent Ginny into a fresh round of angry protest.
Pulse galloping, Zorah swung her glare to the shadowy outline slinking around the edge of the rocks.
"You scared me," she hissed, too tired to be polite or even truly afraid.
She probably ought to be afraid, but even after the attack earlier in the summer, Morris Hill remained a peaceful and safe place. Dangers existed in the larger world of the AfterEnd, but in her small, limited existence, none of that danger came close to interfering in her own life.
A tall, lean figure stepped forward, and instant awareness dumped more adrenaline into Zorah's bloodstream. The faint wash of starlight revealed a pile of loose, messy curls and a slice of stubbled jawline. A strong brow shaded deep-set eyes that blazed a path down her body, and despite the dark, Zorah swore her skin detected every inch of deliberate perusal. If she needed further proof, a familiar tingle erupted on her skin, just as it had every other time she'd felt his mysteriously affecting regard.
Undeniable confirmation coalesced in her gut. In the flesh, and finally in front of her, this was her watcher.
