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"Some of them suck," Vayne said. "Others…suck." He glanced back at me with the slightest lift of a brow.
"If the ability to suck is your requirement for someone to be worth your time, then you should know most humans can do it," I said. Some of us better than others.
"There's a difference between knowing how and having a mouth I want to put my cock into," he said. "Like I said, standards."
I didn't think Ryze was listening to our banter until he spoke. "He has a good point there. I'm also careful where I put my cock."
"Me too. Khala is special." Tavian grinned at me.
All I could give him back was a faint smile and a glance down at hands that still didn't look like mine. Part of me wondered if they were mistaken about me being part Fae. Maybe I was taken out of my body and put into a new one. One that belonged to someone else.
If I hadn't felt my whole body rearrange, I might have wondered where my original body was. But I did feel it. Every agonising minute of it. There was no doubt it was all me.
"I hate to say they’re right, but they are," Zared said. "You are special."
"We're always right," Ryze said. "Well, I am. Vayne and Tavian have their moments."
"I've seen you be wrong," Vayne told him. "Recently too."
"My first mistake was leaving any witnesses," Ryze shot back immediately.
Vayne snorted. "I doubt that was your first mistake. Just the most recent."
"One I can happily rectify once we're back in Lysarial," Ryze said lightly.
"You're outnumbered," Tavian pointed out. "You'd have to work fast to take us all out." His hand hovered near one of his knives. For a moment I thought he was actually serious.
"You said omegas who go through heat alone end up crazy," Zared said slowly. "Are you sure it isn't you three who are the crazy ones?"
"Oh, without a doubt we are," Ryze agreed. "But nothing like those poor omegas. They wouldn't be able to tell you their own names or what colour the sky should be. It's as though their minds are like a young child's. More often than not, they can't even feed themselves." He sighed heavily.
"Is there no way to find them before that happens?" I asked. "Or some way to, I don't know, make sure there are alphas around?"
"Fae are educated to the presence of omegas," Ryze said. "Even then, things don't always work out the way we expect. Clearly, we have no say how humans are educated. Although Zared knew of their existence." He stepped over a fallen tree and glanced back at Zared.
"Only through reading about them," Zared said. His expression was suddenly cagey.
It should have occurred to me before to ask how and what he knew. Now I couldn't help the spike of suspicion that slivered through me. If he'd known and didn't tell me…
When he spoke again, his voice was tight.
"The Temple had books and records only available to priests and priestesses. Not to the Silent Maidens and not to people outside the temple. Things we're not supposed to talk about, under threat of severe punishment." His eyes flicked to me, full of guarded apology.
I understood. He couldn't tell me, wouldn't have even known any of it related to me. It was a secret that went above his head. It was Geralda and priestesses like her who were to blame.
"Why does that not surprise me?" Ryze asked. "Fae and humans have both been keeping important secrets from their people since the dawn of time."
"What are you keeping from us?" Vayne asked him pointedly.
"If I told you, they wouldn't be secrets," he said.
While Vayne muttered something, I said, "So, the temple deliberately didn't tell us."
"Most likely," Ryze agreed. "Especially if they have some arrangement with the Summer Court." He looked over to Zared. "What you read, was it in a place accessible to everyone easily and readily?"
Zared seemed hesitant to respond at first. "Not really," he admitted finally. "I was hunting through older ledgers that are usually kept locked away. They're only accessible to the high priest and priestess. I found a couple of other books hidden away underneath. Tucked away, like they’d been forgotten. I got curious and started reading them. They read like children's stories. I assumed they were locked away because the temple didn't think they were appropriate reading, but didn't want to burn them. I had no idea they were factual or important." He looked at me apologetically.
"There's no way you could have known," I assured him. "How could you? I never told anyone I could smell things differently. I always thought everyone could do that. I'm not the only maiden—former maiden—who enjoyed sex. Tyla was at least as…" I trailed off when I realised what I was saying.
