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PROLOGUE

"How much farther, Syra?"

I stop crawling and look back in the direction of the voice. Not that looking does me any good; the inside of the air duct is too dark to see anything, even for a Zone-dweller such as myself. Still, I can't help flashing my friend Markus one of those looks I always give him whenever he's being whiny. I know he also can't see my disdainful expression in the dark, so I make sure he can hear it in my voice.

"Quiet," I hiss. "Do you want the alphas to hear us?"

"I'm an alpha too," he says sullenly.

I suppose that's true—Markus is an alpha—but that's not what I meant. I'm worried about the big alphas. The adult alphas. Markus is only a boy of thirteen, and the runt of his litter at that. He's smaller than I am, even though we're the same age, and I'm an omega.

"Just shut up and follow me," I whisper. "And stop breathing all over my feet, it tickles."

"This whole thing is a bad idea," Markus mutters.

I ignore that and continue crawling forward. The duct is narrow, with barely enough room for me to turn around, should I need to. An adult omega would never be able to fit in here, let alone a full grown alpha. But then, the ducts were never intended for crawling. Once upon a time, they used to carry air chilled by machines, or so I've been told.

This building is what the ancestors called a hotel, a place for travelers to sleep. And this particular hotel was a big one, with lots of floors and lots of rooms. But there's one special room that's bigger than the others—a lot bigger—and it lies at the very center of the building. That's where I'm trying to get to.

That's where the ritual is happening.

I'm still too young for the mating ritual—only adults are allowed to attend—but telling me I'm not allowed to do something is pretty much the best way to make me want to do it, so here I am, crawling through an air duct in total darkness.

I stop moving for a moment to get my bearings, and Markus's face slams straight into my bottom. Thankfully, I'm wearing an animal hide loincloth, or else the situation would be even more embarrassing than it already is.

"Sorry," Markus whispers behind me, his breath sweeping over my legs.

"Do you have to follow so close?" I whisper back.

"I don't want to get lost. It's dark in here."

I sigh and roll my eyes. I never should have agreed to let Markus tag along on this adventure, but he can be damned persistent, and he's the only friend I've got. The other young omegas don't want anything to do with me because I'm too much of a tomboy. Markus, being a runt, is in a similar boat. His male peers all pick on him, and the females just ignore him. That means we're stuck being friends with each other. Nobody else will have us.

"Quiet," I tell him again. "Listen…"

The sound is faint, but I can feel it rumbling through the bottom of the duct. When I lower my head and press my ear against the metal, I can hear it even better. The slow, steady throb of many voices chanting in unison. Deep voices. Alphas.

"We're close," I whisper. "Come on."

Markus grabs my ankle before I have a chance to start moving again.

"Wait!" he says. "Maybe we should turn back."

I growl softly in annoyance. Markus can be such a little wimp sometimes. He's supposed to be an alpha. If anything, he should be the one leading this little expedition, not me.

Then again, Markus isn't like other alpha boys.

And I'm not like other omegas.

I guess it has something to do with the way my fathers brought me up. My mother died bringing me into the world, but my fathers never held that against me. They are the most loving and protective fathers a girl could ask for, though I sometimes get the impression they would have liked to have an alpha son instead of an omega daughter. In fact, they've raised me as if I were their son. While other omega girls were home learning how to mend clothing and care for babies, I was out in the woods with my fathers, learning how to gut and skin a rabbit I had killed.

That's fine by me. I have zero interest in doing girly omega stuff. None. And I definitely never want to become the shared mate for a pack of stupid alphas.

Though I am still curious to see what this secretive mating ritual is all about.

"Let me go," I say, jerking my ankle out of Markus's grasp. "You can turn back if you don't have the balls for it. Me, I'm going ahead."

"Then I'm coming too," says Markus.

I knew he would. It wasn't my comment about his balls that convinced him. He's simply too afraid to make his way back through the pitch-black air duct all by himself.

We move farther down the length of the duct, and the chanting grows louder and louder, until it sounds like we must be directly over the big chamber where the ritual is being held.

I can see a light up ahead.

It's faint, but after so much time crawling through absolute darkness, it appears almost blindingly bright. I continue forward until my face is right above the source of this illumination. It's a flimsy metal vent, and when I peer down through the slits, I'm able to see a huge, open room below, with a circle of candles burning in the center of the floor. And inside that circle—

"What is it, Syra?"

I twist around and glare at Markus with a finger over my mouth to signal silence. The chanting from the room below is gradually coming to an end. Soon it will not be enough to mask our own voices.

We can't take any chances now. We have to be absolutely silent.

Moving with infinite caution, I shift my body to the other side of the grate so Markus can have a look.

By the time I manage to get myself turned around again, he is peering down into the chamber with an expression of wide-eyed wonderment. The dim candlelight coming in through the vent is just enough for me to make out his mop of shaggy hair and the shape of his scrawny shoulders. Like me, Markus is dressed in a simple loincloth made from deer hides. The only difference is that I'm also wearing a deer hide top to cover my chest. I hate wearing it, but my fathers made me start last year when my stupid breasts started growing. I wish they wouldn't grow. I don't want to have big breasts. They'll only get in the way when I'm running or hunting, or doing any of the other things I enjoy doing. I haven't started bleeding yet, but I know I'll have to suffer that feminine indignity soon enough too.

At least it will be a while before I have to contend with my first heat. That won't happen for another five years. Longer if I'm lucky.

I lower my face toward the vent and look again.

The room beneath us is a big rectangular space with two floors. A second-floor balcony runs around the entire perimeter of the room. Below that, the ground floor is empty of furniture and covered in a carpet of green moss that has crept in over the years. A raised dais stands in the center of the room, surrounded by a circle of candles. The little yellow flames are the only source of light in the dark space, but they provide just enough illumination to see the adults crowded around the sides of the room, their bodies filling the balcony and the area underneath the balcony. There are both alphas and omegas in that crowd, but the alphas outnumber the omegas by about three to one, and their huge, musclebound bodies take up much more space. Their eyes gleam like wolves' eyes as they watch what is happening in the center of the room.

I turn my own attention to the same place, and my heart climbs into my throat.

There are four figures within the ring of candles, three alphas and one omega, their bodies naked and glistening with sweat. The males are grunting and snarling, and they are doing things to the omega. Things I never even thought possible.

I'm not some stupid little girl who doesn't know where babies come from. I know how mating works. I've seen dogs doing it in the streets of the Central Ruins, and I've watched great, antlered bucks mounting does in the woods of the wildlands. But what's happening right now within the ring of candles is no ordinary mating. All three of the big males are using their omega in unison. They are sharing her. They are entering her body in places and ways I've never even considered before.

The alphas are dominating her.

I cannot tell if the omega is enjoying it or not. The sounds coming from her are like nothing I've ever heard before. Sounds of raw desperation and pure need.

Is this to be my own fate someday? To be shared and mastered by three massive alphas while a crowd watches? I do not want that. I do not want that at all. I'll flee to the Farlands before I allow myself to be dominated by any male. I will climb the Wall and run away to the City Hives. I don't care if I die in the process. Even death is preferable to such shameful domination.

"Syra…?"

I look up to find Markus staring at me, his face inches from my own. His eyes are a deep shade of forest green. Funny, I've looked at his eyes thousands of times, but I've never noticed how beautiful they are until now.

What a silly thing to think.

I start to mouth the word "quiet," but before I have a chance to do so, the alpha boy leans across the vent grate and presses his lips to mine. His lips are soft and warm, and they send a strange tingle racing down the entire length of my body. For a moment, I almost lose myself to that wonderful feeling, but then I come to my senses and I jerk back away from him with a growl.

"What are you doing?" I say much too loudly.

"Syra…"

He starts to move toward me. Maybe he wants to kiss me again, or maybe he wants me to be quiet so the alphas down below won't hear us. I don't know, and I don't care. All I know is that I'm angrier than I've ever been in my life. Angry at my friend for kissing me. Angry at myself for liking it. Angry at the Source for making me an omega.

With a shout, I grab Markus by the hair and slam his head down against the bottom of the duct. The metal is flimsy, so it probably doesn't hurt him very much, but it helps me release some of my own frustration.

It also makes a lot of noise, but I'm too angry to care.

"Ow!" Markus cries. "Syra, be careful!"

He's right, of course. I should be careful. I should be quiet too, but I can't seem to control myself. I lift his head up and bang it against the bottom of the duct again.

And again.

And—

The bottom of the duct gives way beneath us, followed by the sound of breaking plaster, and all of a sudden, we're both spinning through open air. My stomach lurches into my throat. I see Markus land on the second-floor balcony, his fall broken by the bodies of the alphas who are up there.

My own body misses the balcony by a hand's breadth, and I continue tumbling toward the ground floor below.