AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You wanna hold my hand while you’re at it?” I grunt at him.
He quickly lets me go. “Remember,” he says, “you’re an omega. And in case you still don’t fully comprehend how things work, there are alphas in this town who won’t think twice about trying to take you. And for some, even an oldcloak and mud to mask your scent won’t keep your allure concealed.”
“Allure?” I say with a scoff. It’s not a word I’ve ever heard used to describe me. “You make it sound like I’m a piece of ass that everyone wants a bite out of.”
But then one of the wolves snorts at the air, and he suddenly turns his head and looks right at me with piercing eyes. That long tongue swings across his fangs, and I find myself grabbing onto Kalistratos’s arm.
I’m not a small guy. I’ve always felt pretty confident about handling myself. But here, I can feel with certainty that I am out of my depth.
We walk faster ahead of the wolf pack and pass by a whole zoo of other creatures. There are plenty of humans, or at least people who look like humans. Selling trinkets on the side of the road are giant ox-looking people with huge horns, silver nose rings and long fur falling across their eyes like highland cattle. A group of tiger people in flowy togas bicker as they pass us in the opposite direction. They seem to be arguing over something written on a long scroll. Then a baby’s cry cuts the air. A family is organizing their baggage, and a pregnant mother is trying to soothe her baby. But wait, no. That’s not a woman at all. It’s a man. A pregnant omega.
I can’t help but stare. He makes eye contact with me for a brief second before turning back to bouncing the baby.
“What, you thought I was lying?” Kalistratos says.
I don’t even have an answer. I’m just too shocked. Another alpha and omega couple passes us, and now I’m noticing all the families around us.
I’m suddenly emotional, and for the dumbest reasons. I’m thinking about Jeff again and the life I’d dreamed up for us. A wedding, a house, a family, a future together. I could always picture him as being a great dad. But the hardest lesson I’d ever had to learn was the realization that just because somethingfeltperfect didn’t mean it was perfect. My dream isn’t Jeff’s dream, and it never was. He says he loves me, but he can’t commit. He just needs to work his shit out. That’s what I want to believe. It feels too comfortable to give it up, and if there’s a chance I can get that future I’ve imagined, then I want to hold on to that. And the sex… Phew. How could I possibly find someone better than Jeff?
I watch as an alpha picks up his giggling daughter and puts her on his shoulders, then leans over and gives his partner a smiling kiss. The omega has a baby swaddled onto his back, and his belly is swollen with a child to come. The scene makes my heart ache. How am I going to get back home?
Hooves pound the ground, and people make way as two gigantic horses stamp past us in the center of the road pulling a wagon. The drivers are more of those Erpetosi frogs, and there are two rows of passengers seated in the back facing each other, all with their hands clasped in front of them like they’re praying. Then I notice the chains.
“An Erpetosi slave wagon,” Kalistratos mutters from beneath his hood. “You might’ve ended up on one like it.”
As the wagon clatters away to the town’s entrance, I catch one last glimpse of the people imprisoned in the back. A few of them are omegas, and one of them is pregnant.
“We’ve gotta do something,” I say angrily.
“What are we going to do, exactly?” Kalistratos says.
What can I do? It’s not like I can call 911. A cart full of slaves is normal here, and I have nothing—no weapons, no powers. I’m just a guy.
A guy who knows a guy.
“You can do something,” I say “Stop time, throw your knives. You fucked them up back there in the swamp.”
“And this isn’t the swamp.” Kalistratos points ahead where there are two stone platforms on either side of the road, and I can see there are armed guards standing watch.
I stew in my frustration. “This is just terrible. What kind of place is this that lets this sort of thing happen? Your world sucks.”
Kalistratos’s bronze eyes gleam as he looks at me. “I admire your heart.”
We approach the town’s entrance and pass the guard platforms and two tall stone statues facing each other oneither side of the road, one of a human man holding a tray and the other a tiger man gripping balanced scales. Both are colorfully painted and draped with blue and red fabric that ripples in the breeze. I stare up at the tiger statue as we pass, and a bird lands on top of his head and drops a shit on it.
Aelonos is an overwhelming amount of stimulation. It’s not even that crowded of a place—I’ve worked security at county fairs with more people walking about—but everything here is new. It’s like I’m being hit with a shotgun blast of different smells every five seconds. There are spices and aromatics, incense, animal dung, grilling meats, and sewage. From somewhere I hear a woman singing and playing a stringed instrument. Up ahead is a raised platform adorned with two columns and a green banner strung between them, and up on top of it, a tiger man is in the middle of giving a passionate speech to a small crowd below. What surprises me most, though, is the wolfman guiding a metal platform that looks like a small rowboat down the street. It’s piled up with vegetables and is magically hovering three feet above the ground. I stop and stare.
How the hell?
I bend down and look beneath it. Yeah, it’s definitely floating. As it passes, I can hear a low repetitive popping sound coming from inside of it, kind of like an engine.
“What is that thing?” I ask, glancing back.
“What? The flyer? Do you not have those where you come from either?”
“I’ve been waiting for flying cars since I was a kid and we still don’t have them yet.”
The smell of the most delicious barbeque in the world drifts over us, and my stomach rumbles so loud that I wouldn’t be surprised if Kalistratos could hear it. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I have no idea how long ago that was. It’s late afternoon here, judging by the sun. I’ve been running on straight adrenaline since the moment I found myself in that forest, and it’s all catching up now. I can see the vendors cooking a huge, glistening slab of meat on a rotating spit. Next to it is a charcoal grill lined with vegetable skewers, and loaves of freshly baked bread are being pulled from a stone oven.
