Page 76 of Desperate Omega

Good idea. I probably should have thought of it sooner, but between the drugs and the panic, my brain is not functioning as swiftly as it should. I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and search my feelings.

“He’s alive,” I whisper. “And he isn’t here. He’s somewhere… far away.”

Thorus is still alive too, but he is closer. Much closer. Before I get a chance to tell that to Brik, however, Delphine interrupts us.

“Are you talking about the other alpha?” she asks. “The one who got away? Don’t worry, he won’t get far. We sent a band of Farlanders after him.”

“They should be back by now,” says the alpha standing next to Delphine. Not Anton, but the other one. The one I stabbed with my spear. “If that alpha reaches the Central Ruins, it could mean trouble for us. He could gather reinforcements and return to save his friends. We should leave this place, mistress. We should retreat to the Farlands.”

Delphine frowns with disappointment. She obviously doesn’t want to retreat. I have a feeling her reluctance has to do with her plans for me and Brik. I still don’t know what those plans entail, but I’m sure they aren’t nice.

Suddenly, Brik growls beside me.

“That coward won’t go back to the Central Ruins,” he says angrily.

Delphine’s interest is piqued.

“No?” she says. “I thought he was your friend.”

“Fuck no!” Brik snarls. “That piece of shit is no friend of mine. Hell, you saw him. No piercings on his face or body. He abandoned his pack. He’s a traitor to his tribe, just like you. He can’t go back to the Ruins. They would execute him.”

Brik’s acting is so good, for a moment I actually believe what he’s saying. Then I realize what he’s really doing.

He’s trying to throw our captors off.

If Delphine and her alphas think Markus is coming back here with reinforcements, they might move us to a different location. Or they might just kill us and be on their way. Brik is trying to make them think Markus won’t go to the Central Ruins. That’s some quick thinking, especially considering he just woke up from a tranquilizer-induced sleep.

But Delphine doesn’t look fully convinced. She wants to believe what Brik is saying, but she has doubts.

“Strange,” she says. “You’re telling me you aren’t friends with that other alpha… yet you and he both marked this omega as your shared mate.”

“Markus didn’t do this to me,” I blurt out in an attempt to help with Brik’s lie. “A different alpha did it.”

“Oh?” Delphine says, smirking. “Was it, by any chance, this one?”

Until now, she and her two big alphas have been blocking my view through the bars of my cell. Now, all three of them step back, allowing me to see more of the abandoned prison facility where I am being held captive. There is a wide corridor out there, and on the other side of the corridor are several levels of walkways leading to even more cells like the one I’m currently sharing with Brik.

And there, directly across from my cell, hanging from the railing of the second-story walkway, is Thorus.

CHAPTER 32: SYRA

Thorus almost looks like he’s dead, but I know he’s not. My mate-sense tells me that he’s still alive.

Alive and in pain.

The second floor walkway is about ten feet above the ground, and Thorus is hanging from the railing of it, his arms outstretched and bound to the metal crossbars with chains, his feet dangling below. The pose reminds me of some statues and images I’ve seen in the old temples of the ancestors.

His body is covered in bruises and dried blood. The sight fills me with pain.

Delphine sees this.

“Yeah,” she says, “That’s what I thought.”

Too late, I realize I should have masked my feelings for Thorus. I should have feigned a lack of empathy or pretended I’ve never seen him before. Now Delphine knows I care about him. She’s probably guessed that he’s my mate, and she’s planning to use that knowledge to toy with me somehow—another part of her sick little game.

She gestures to me from beyond the bars of my cell.

“Come here,” she says.