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“Why? You and I…we are Omegas of Mother Earth. In Paradise Hole…we are her favored children. We are home.”
She starts to pull away, but I lift a hand, the one covered in scars. She sees them and looks at them as if she’s never known injury before. Glancing over her quickly, I spy dirt dotting her lanky limbs, but no cuts or bruises.
“I can’t protect myself.”
“Then what are these gifts?”
“You’ve seen me. I can’t control my gifts. I need a Berserker — or you — to summon them.”
Freya’s glare is hard, her expression is hard. Fear and Pain take one shared look at her and step back. They are useless in her presence. She will not befriend them with the ease I have. She sweeps her long, elegant fingers around the curve of my face without touching my skin, though I canfeela wonderful energy, soothing and warm, caress me like the aftershocks of an earthquake a second after her hand passes over the affected areas.
Then she grips my chin between her thumb and pointer finger, pressing it firmly. “You say you cannot control your gifts…but have you tried? Or do you give your power away to the breeder who cages you because it is easy?”
My mouth hangs open. Drool might be dripping out of the corner of my mouth for all I know, but I can’t seem to care as this Omega takes an ice pick to my skull and pries it open. Thoughts escape like loose butterflies. I struggle to catch them. “But…but Omegas submit, Betas serve, Alphas rule and Berserkers own…that’s the way…”
“That istheirway. It is not mine. It does not have to be yours. The Omegas of this world do not have the power of the Fates…or their doppelgängers. That you…give yours away to a breeder is a waste,” she sneers. “The man in the cave says you are one of us. I do not believe him, but if he believes you are Fallen…you might be. Your gifts are strong, in any case.” She gestures absently to the window with her free hand, and I still see the image of her fingers painted across the air long after they fall.
She tapes my skull back together after shoving new information inside of it. It’s bursting. My world unravels, but I manage to hang on to one word, only one, that feels the most important. “What isFallen?”
“Not what, who.”
“Who then are the Fallen?”
She drops her fist from my chin and extends it down, fingers slightly parted. It takes me a moment to realize she’s offering me her hand. “Come. I will show you.”
I stare at her palm and not a second goes by before I take it and stand. She grabs the front of the collar on my neck and pulls, and the brittle metal breaks, little pieces sprinkling my toes like glitter. I step over them, leaving them behind, along with the one little broken shard that I would have called a heart if I had one. But I don’t. Adam made sure of it.
27 | Adam
High Plains
“Seem more at home in Paradise Hole than I thought you would,” I tell Yaron.He isn’t much for conversation, but the thought’s been eatin’ at me the better part of the past three days. Three miserable fuckin’ days.
Three days without…No. Got nothin’ to do with it.
Bastard refused to ride anything but his damn horse — a decision I came to understand after the first day when my bike crossed the first trap. It survived — all my bikes are built rugged — but four a’ my Alphas’ didn’t. Slowed us down, huntin’ the scavengers who set the trap and cuttin’ their tongues out as punishment — a punishment Yaron approved of — but on day two we got stopped completely. The rain did us in.
Felt less like a dick, seein’ as Yaron’s horses couldn’t make it through, either. Now we sit under a tent that he helped me and my Alphas build. Surprised me, too, seein’ him do hard labor. Wonderin’ if the idea I’ve got a’ the bastard isn’t entirely fabricated.
He continues cutting the apple in his hand apart with his black dagger. I watch him work, my left heel tapping out a beat on the tarp below. The stool under my ass feels wobbly and uncertain. Maybe it’s just the air. Too thick. Maybe it’s just my skin. Too thin. Everything fuckin’ hurts.
I wonder what she’s… No. No.
“I don’t know why that would surprise you. I maintain the old traditions. My city has no walls. That is why it is not called Shadow City, but Shadowlands. Lands where Beta and Alpha villages remain intact and where, upon occasion, the problems of the north island and Paradise Hole bleed, crossing the sea to do so.”
He takes another bite of his apple, chews, swallows. He glances down at my leg and I force myself to stop fuckin’ tappin’ it like a little boy tryna hold in a piss. He glances up into my gaze, his slate eyes a rich combination of evil and apathy.
“You, on the other hand, who was once a Beta boy living in the slums of Bog City, seem less at home in Paradise Hole than I would have expected.” His gaze drops again to my leg. “Or perhaps there is another reason for your…hmm…” He pauses, his voice already movin’ too slow…like this whole damn operation’s movin’ too goddamn slow.
I jerk up outta my seat.If Echo tries to jerk up outta her seat, the collar could cut into her flesh.The thought hits and scrambles the words I’d been poised to say next. I pull my satellite phone outta the inner pocket of my waterproof bomber jacket. Lined in fleece, it’s warm.Is Echo warm? All she’s got to wear is that dress.
I punch the call button and it goes straight through to my estate. “Berserker Dragnovic,” Ward says. Strange, hearin’ her voice on the line. Right now she’s the highest rankin’ person still in the City. And she’s a Beta.
“Ward, how’s she doin’?”
“Katrina just checked in on her. She’s fine. I checked her vitals yesterday. All are within the normal range.”
I scratch my jaw. Growin’ out my beard ‘cause that’s how she likes it.But will she still?She’s gonna have to. I’ll make her. After we track Berserker Maengor to the Town of Teeth. He vanished after the Omega Ball. Up ’n vanished. Like he’d been a mirage. And though I’d been plannin’ on huntin’ him down to Mirage City, reports said he was headed East. What business he’s got in the Town of Teeth is anybody’s guess but I don’t care. I’m gonna tear him to pieces. Then I’ll make it all right with Echo. Gonna take her back to that car where she said she was fallin’. Gonna make her fall. Crash. Burn. Just like I have.Gonna make her forgive me. Gonna…
