Page 59 of Titus

“I was raised by my aunt. I never knew my parents.”

How sad, I thought.

“We lived in many places,” he went on, “not staying for longer than a few months, sometimes only traveling through a place for a day or two.”

“And your aunt, is she still alive?”

He looked up at the sky and shook his head. “No. She passed from this world when I was twelve or so.”

Demos was never one to reveal much emotion, always stoic and calm. As usual, I couldn’t read anything from him, whether he cared for his aunt, nor whether her passing had affected him. The only time I’d seen him disassemble, to unwind that tightly-held composure, was in those days and nights in our nest. There, he had shown passion and had come alive.

I closed my eyes as those images flashed through my mind like pages in a storybook, the wounds still too tender. That time with him was gone forever, and no matter how much I craved him, we would never be that to each other again.

My body felt restless, so I stood and walked a few paces, eying a shiny pebble on the ground. I picked it up. It was smooth in my hand, and I rubbed it until it was warm. “Is that when you thought of joining the Owl? Or was it something you had always wanted to do?”

“Neither, actually.” A hint of a smile touched his mouth. “A year after my aunt passed, I found an abandoned shop in Andronja, near the North Sea. It was a small fishing port, not very populated. I sheltered there for a while, stole as many fish and shrimp as I could, and studied the fishermen, thinking maybe I could do what they did for work. Then one morning, before dawn, a Servant came into the shop, the owner. He found me sleeping there. He wasn’t angry, though, only concerned. It was he who was the catalyst, the one who changed my life. He taught me about the Owl, and from there, the desire to join them grew.”

It was the longest string of words I’d ever heard Demos speak.

“And is he still alive?” I asked, wanting him to tell me more about himself.

“He is. I became his apprentice.”

“Oh, that’s right. I remember you telling me you apprenticed in the healing arts.” That was a sore subject, reminding me of his role in this Omega transformation. I tried to think of something else to ask. “What about those tattoos on your body?” That also wasn’t a good thing to bring up, but it was too late now.

I spotted another rock, this one shiny like a gem. I squatted down and dug around it to release it from the other rocks and dirt surrounding it. In the process, something sharp sliced my finger, from the meaty tip to around the soft skin of my knuckle. Blood flowed, thick and fast, puddling to the ground.

The cut was deep. Very deep. I would need stitches. The pain was sharp now that the air was touching the wound. “Gods, that hurt!”

Demos was at my side in seconds, taking my hand and examining the cut. He quickly wrapped my finger in a handkerchief he magically procured from his robes, and applied pressure. It stung like a thousand thorns.

“I think it will need stitching,” I said, frowning at it.

He was still holding my wounded hand, and his closeness was starting to undo all the hard work I’d done over the past few days to severe myself from him. His scent surrounded me, taunting me. It was the same—pine and cool streams—but it wasn’t as overwhelming as it had been the last time he’d touched me.

I pulled away but he wouldn’t release my hand.

“Watch,” he whispered. He undid the bloody binding, then gently walked me over to the pond, where he had me wash my hand in the cool water. When I looked at it again, the nasty slice of skin had closed, leaving only a line of burgundy, clean and straight around my finger.

I gasped. “I swear it was worse than this.”

“It was. This is part of your Omega qualities,” he explained.

“What, speed healing?” I laughed, examining my finger. I turned it this way and that, then flexed it and curled it into my palm, then straightened it out again. Before my eyes, the wound’s color lightened into a soft pink, as if weeks had gone by instead of minutes. “Impossible,” I whispered.

“Not impossible,” Demos whispered back.

I looked up at him, and his startlingly blue eyes held mine. I wondered again at how he had so easily snapped back into place after our time together. To me, we had merged, becoming one flesh. Our bodies had breathed the same breath. We had blended like two pots of ink poured simultaneously into a vessel, becoming something else entirely once together.

Auria had been right: sex was a powerful force, and I’d have to learn how to separate myself from the act, as Demos obviously had learned. That begged the question, how did one do that? And who would teach me?

I broke eye contact and instead examined my finger again. The healing wasn’t total—the wound still was there—but was definitely substantial enough to prove I was no longer anything but the Omega they said I was.

A thought occurred to me. “If I can heal this fast, does that mean, like the Ongahri, I will age slowly?” I couldn’t imagine that, nor did I know whether that concept scared me or pleased me. I wasn’t one to think about existential things like death.

“Yes, that’s correct. You will live for a long time, a little longer, in fact, than an alpha, who live on average two hundred fifty years and more.”

Several lifetimes. Hundreds of years. My parents growing older while I changed very little.

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