Page 11 of Desperate Omega

I would never think of taking her back there. Not while she’s in heat.

“I know a place,” I tell her. “It’s not too far from here. We should be able to reach it in an hour or two. It’s a safe place. No one will bother us there.”

Syra’s face goes still, but I can see the thoughts racing behind her eyes. At last, she makes up her mind and gives me a curt nod.

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s go.”

“Follow me,” I tell her.

I’m almost disappointed by her answer. If Syra had refused, I would have thrown her over my shoulder and carried her.

It’s probably for the best I don’t get to do that. I’m going to have a hard enough time keeping my urges in check as it is.

I just hope I can maintain control until we reach our destination.

CHAPTER 5: SYRA

As soon as I see where Markus is taking me, I stop dead in my tracks.

We’ve been running for about an hour, and for half that time we’ve been following one of the old roads built by the ancestors before the Big Change happened. Now that road has led us to our destination. A huge, wrought-iron gate stands before us, and beyond that gate, gentle hills roll away into the distance, their grassy slopes studded with upright slabs of stone arranged in neat rows.

“This is a graveyard!” I whisper.

Markus turns to look at me. In the pale moonlight, with his face and skin covered in that dry, cracked paste, he almost looks like a corpse who has come back to life and crawled up from one of those graves.

“I know,” he whispers back.

“But we can’t go in there, Markus. It’s forbidden.”

“Forbidden?” Markus says, giving me a wry smile. “And when have you ever cared about following the rules, Syra?”

He has a point there. Back when we were young, I was constantly getting into trouble of one kind or another, and usually I ended up dragging Markus into it as well.

But this is different. My people avoid the burial places of the ancestors. We do not hunt there. We do not build our homes there. We do not go there for any reason. It is believed that the spirits of the dead ancestors will curse anyone who trespasses into their resting places.

Markus sees my apprehension and grows serious.

“Think about it, Syra. This place is forbidden, right? That means there won’t be any alphas around to sense your heat.”

None except him.

My lips tingle as I remember the way Markus kissed me back there in that barn, and my nipples harden at the memory of his big, strong body pressing into mine. During the past hour of running, I’ve managed to keep my urges under control, but I know that can’t last forever. I can feel my heat growing stronger with every passing second, and a quick glance at the front of Markus’s loincloth reveals the effect my scent is having on him as well.

What choice do I have, though? If I remain out in the open much longer, my scent will draw other alphas in. Alphas I’ve never met before.

At least I know Markus, even if I haven’t seen him for nine years.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go in.”

But as I move toward the gate, I notice a heavy chain wrapped around the wrought iron bars and held together by a large padlock that is rusted shut. Even if we had the key to that thing, we would never be able to get it open.

“We’ll have to climb,” Markus says. “Follow me.”

As I watch the muscular alpha scale the tall fence, I find it difficult to believe this is the same person as the nervous, whiny boy I used to know. Then again, a lot can change in nine years. My own body is proof of that.

My mind drifts back to that night in the air ducts. It was the first time Markus kissed me, and the last time I saw him until tonight. I didn’t have the slightest inkling Markus was attracted to me back then. It was not something he ever talked about. I had always viewed Markus as a friend, and I just assumed he felt the same way about me. So when he suddenly kissed me in that air duct above the ritual chamber, it definitely took me by surprise.

I probably overreacted a little.