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“Don’t box me out,” she says. “You said we’d do stuff together.”
I grimace and nod at her once.I’m not. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her as much, but I don’t want to lie to her. I promised myself I wouldn’t. So I don’t say anything at all. I cock my head towards the manor and give her my back. I stalk off, refusing to acknowledge the look a’ hurt on her face. Hurt and disgust.
I rub my fingers over my scalp roughly, undoing all the good work the Beta female Meredith put into taming the mane of my hair. A Beta server walks by and I swivel, swiping a highball glass from the tray and draining it. Bitter and brutal, the alcohol carves a path down my throat that makes it easier for me to breathe.Don’t storm after her.I can’t storm after her. I don’t have Maengor’s head on a platter yet. All I’ve got are half-truths and empty promises.Unworthy.
“Berserker Dragnovic.”
The glass in my hand cracks. I drop it and turn towards the dark, chilling voice calling out to me. But it’s not the monster, I’m searching for. Instead, I see a face that’s equally surprising. “Berserker Yaron.”
His eyes, the color and intensity of a storm cloud, bore into me. I fight not to narrow my own gaze against the invasion, but he is a male who wears power like a cloak and, after the Mirage City Berserker, is the most powerful Berserker among us.
And he keeps no Omega.
He better not be sniffin’ after mine. “You flatter me. It’s a far journey from the south island to Dark City.” My hackles rise, the urge to challenge strong. I settle, though, when his gaze remains firmly tacked to me.
“I need to speak with you.” With no further prelude, he stalks past me to the edge of the garden, disappearing beneath the hanging branches that mark its circumference.
I take one last glance over my shoulder, searchin’ for Echo in the crowd, but I don’t find her. Frustrated and disappointedin myself, I turn and follow Berserker Yaron into the dark, his black cape rustlin’ in a slight wind. The sound a’ his cape slashes like a whip and is louder than his footsteps even though he’s in boots — heavy shitkickers that clash violently with the fact that the rest of his attire is shot straight from the Dark Ages. He’s in black riding pants and a black tunic that’s unbuttoned to his pecs. He turns to face me when we’re almost a quarter mile out onto my property, out from underneath my Omega’s flower dome.
He walks until we’re halfway across a bridge that overlooks the now black waters of a still creek. There is no moon overhead. I see him best through the eyes of my Berserker. I don’t like how he watches me from beneath his prominent brow, the wells of his eyes deep. His hair is dark, streaked with grey at the temples, his clothes are dark, his beard is a shadow on the bottom half of his face and he’s just taller than I am, leaner though. Wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if it came to it, but somehow, standin’ with him here on this small wooden bridge in a place I’d bring Echo and find it romantic, I don’t think it’ll come to that.
And then he says the last words I’d have thought to hear from him. Words that floor me. “What do you know of the dead Alpha army?”
23 | Echo
Omega Ball
The grotesquery that these Alphaholes call a Ball is made more abhorrent by the fact that I. staged. the. venue.I’m so mad at Adam I could gouge his eyes out and I plan to try as soon as I get him alone tonight, away from all these people. Their eyes on me make me itch and I stay in the bathroom for as long as I can. Balcazar waits outside. And she keeps waiting.
She knocked once a few minutes ago, or maybe it was longer than that… How long was it?
I frown at the door in front of me and stand up from where I’m seated on the lid of the toilet. I go to the door and even thoughI’mthe one in the bathroom pissed off andshe’sthe one outside supposedly watching me, I’m still the one to knock on the back of the door and shout, “Balcazar, are you still there?”
No response. Not even a whisper.
“Balcazar?” What the fuck? “Are you alive?” I realize I need an audience for my tantrum, which isn’t so much a tantrum really as it is a call for justice and humanity.
Though what is humanity in a world of Alphas? She’d probably punish me worse than Adam for the thought that Omegas and Betas should somehow enjoy equal rights. At least more rights than caged animals.
I’m not a fuckin’ chump, despite how complacent these last weeks have made me outside of Paradise Hole. I know better than to believe Adam can change things for Betas and Omegas in Dark City, if he even plans to try…if he even wants to. It’s still hard to reconcile this…disappointment with how I feel about him. I…like him. I like him more than I should. Even when he’s a dick to me. Maybe, even more then. Because it’s the same defense mechanism I have. I understand it and even find comfort in it.
But I don’t like when he lies to me. There was some reason he sent me away with Balcazar. I want to know what it is. I should probably follow and confront him, instead of wallowing in here. But…
“Balcazar?”
When I still get no response, I turn away from the sleek modern bathroom that’s all marble countertops and bronze fixtures and pop my head outside into the hallway. In this part of the castle, the hallways are all dark wallpaper embossed with designs I can’t make out and black and white swirly marble flooring. It’s fine, but what gets to me are the paintings. Some of them are landscapes — most are landscapes — but they’re quite abstract, a little sad, and mostly filled with longing. Or maybe, that’s just what I see when I stare at them for too long. Whatever the case, they all make me think of Adam.
I can hear the party still in full swing through the glass double doors hanging open to my left. The crazy garden that Adam insists I conjured up while fucking him stretches from the winter balcony out all the way to the garden house. The green dome glows, illuminated by the lights strung up beneath the canopy. The Beta orchestra is playing on the far side of the space while waiters weave in and out of the crowd carrying trays covered in opulence. There are hundreds of Alphas here, but I’ve only seen a few Omegas, identifiable by their collars, and so far all of them have been female except for the man in the dog costume, and not one of them has met my gaze.
“Balcazar?” Across this open space is another bathroom, but the door remains shut even as I will it open with my mind. Too bad my gifts don’t extend to manifesting people in front of me because that would come in handy right about now.
I glance right, down the hall. It’s dark because — of course — it has to be dark. Then I look left, towards the winter balcony and the brightly lit festivities beyond it. I chew on my bottom lip, weighing my options, knowing I’m going to need to make a calculated decision or hang out in the bathroom for the rest of the night.
Voices come from the dark end of the hall. I crane my neck towards them, hoping to hear familiar tones, but I can’t make them out clearly. Spying the lightswitch hanging between two paintings on the shadowy edge of darkness, I make my choice, take a calculated risk, grab the end of my goddamn chain, ball it in my fist and scamper over to the switch.
I flip the switch up and down and nothing happens. Cursing to myself, I repeat the process a dozen times.“Balcazar?” No answer. The voices at the end of the hall have gone silent. “Fuck me.”
I turn, prepared to run back into the bathroom and wait out the party there for all the craps I give, but I slam nose-first into a chest. A male chest. ABerserker’schest. And I know instinctively who it is.
