Chapter Twenty-Two Sinclair

The omega would not eat lunch, no matter how much Davos attempted to coax her. We all sat around the table in our informal, pack-only dining room, just staring at her as the food cooled in front of us. She was being dandled on our packlead's knee, a limp doll with no light in her eyes.

By now our whole pack had been quietly informed of the significance of this girl. Not only was she an omega, she was a scent match to our pack. It would be almost impossible to keep it secret that she was an omega, but keeping the fact that she was a scent match quiet was absolutely vital. Davos intended to bond her that night. I think he would have done it immediately if not for his need to follow old conventions. Traditionally, pack bonds were entered into at dawn or sunset, with sunset being the preference, since the bonding caused exhaustion and often the newly bonded would need to sleep immediately afterwards.

I rarely examined our packbond, having no interest in being assailed by Cantor's unchecked emotions, but even I could tell it was taut with intensity. Each alpha seated around the table was straining with a different flavor of horror. Davos had insisted on Lynter and Bastian bringing our food up from the kitchen themselves and serving each of us, which was hardly the subtle subterfuge he seemed to think it was. It wasn't like the servants would just assume he suddenly wanted family-only time for no reason, and Ivan, the false omega, hadn't been included in our group, which made Rosemary's presence all the more suspicious.

The burning light in Davos' eyes was almost crazed and I recognized what he was feeling, and the logic he was operating under, even as it made my skin prickle with cold sweat. Davos had been searching for this omega for a long time, had based every goal, every hope for the future on finding her, and every instinct inside him was screaming that he should secure her to himself permanently before she was snatched away from him. I doubted he even thought of her as a person right now, or realized what it was doing to Cantor and Bastian to see their beloved beta girl subdued by his incessant purring, flopping around like a puppet with her strings cut.

Davos was a good packlead for the most part. Far more compassionate and in tune with people than I would be, certainly, but when he made a decision he was single-minded about it until it was carried out. That was how he had managed to get us out from under his father's thumb in the first place. It was how we had survived against all odds, as a so-called mongrel pack cut off from palace funding.

It was how he intended to take over the country.

The only thing that had been in his way, as far as he was concerned, was our lack of an omega. I was known as a strong mage, and most of my pack were skilled enough in battle and diplomacy. We had carefully cultivated allies throughout the country, through a combination of influence and threat. We could physically fight and win against almost any pack in the country, even one with an omega, and our ability to call a standing army of betas and lone alphas from our allies was close to equal that of the king. However, in our current state, we could never stand against the Gorgon Pack. They had too many alphas, and an omega that bound them together. Having an omega bonded into a pack heightened every magical ability and sometimes unlocked new ones. Packs were the premiere fighting units of Raksim, and one pack trained to fight together was worth a hundred regular beta soldiers.

Unfortunately, the Gorgon Pack alone was worth twenty average packs.

What Davos failed to realize was that bonding an omega with our bites wouldn't make the difference he hoped for. The only thing that could possibly give us an advantage over our brother pack was a true bond with our omega. That was the whole reason we needed a scent match. A true bond would not form without one. We needed the omega that was always meant for us. The one that made our senses sing.

The one currently being kept insensate while Davos force-fed her in front of the whole pack.

Our mighty packlead ran out of patience halfway through the meal, when Rosemary gagged on a spoonful of mash. He returned to subduing her completely with his purr, letting her body fall limply back onto his in a grotesque parody of affection.

" Maybe we could let her go to her room…" Bastian said, carefully. Even my most charming packmate didn't seem to know how to approach Davos.

" Her room will be my room," Davos said, his voice measured in that way that meant strong emotions were only just contained under a thin veneer of reason. "She can go there after we perform the bond ceremony at sunset."

" Perhaps we should wait to have the ceremony until after the omega has had a chance to recover from the journey," Lynter said. "She looks…"

" No," Davos said.

Everyone waited for him to elaborate, but he said nothing, only hauling the girl higher on his knee and shoving another forkful of greens into his own mouth.

Cantor swallowed and seemed to gather his courage. He hated conflict and was beaded with sweat from the tension in the room.

" I don't think Rosemary wants to…"

" Don't think," Davos snapped. "It's not your strong suit." He ignored Bastian's growl of protest at the insult to his packmate.

" We are bonding our omega at sunset," Davos said, alpha bark lacing his words. "We're surrounded by spies and assassins and if they find out about her before we are bound, they will bond her or take her. After we bite her you can coddle her as much as you like. I will not let this chance slip through our fingers."

He stared around the room, his fingers gripping the girl's arms so tightly I suspected he would bruise her.

Cantor looked on with stark horror in his face, while everyone else managed to hide theirs with only some success.

Davos was going to ruin everything with his impatience. I knew it was born of fear, knew the knife's edge of desperation his father had dug into him, a little deeper every year. I even understood he was acting with noble motives, as little as that meant to me. He truly thought the girl would be happy once she was bonded, and that this would solve all our problems. If she was bonded, we could track her. If she was bonded, we could protect her.

And yet, he would end up squeezing too tightly and true power would slip through our fingers like water.

There was no point to a scent match if it was bonded by force. The only point of it was compatibility, both interpersonal and intermagical, and the ability to make a true bond, which could only form from trust and affection.

It was cutesy and sounded like drivel from a fairy story, but all of the ancient texts I had found confirmed it. The theory was only further confirmed by my little experiment in the forest. The omega had managed to channel Lynter's magic when they were attacked. She had managed it, stained with her brother's magic, even when she was bound by the spellstone. I recreated those conditions as closely as possible in the hope that I might isolate the phenomenon.

I had had Bastian drain her stone to the dregs during her escape attempt to ensure her own magic would be used this time, and set my pieces in motion. Seeing that brilliant, twisted line of violet and orange, so much brighter than either Bastian or Rosemary was capable of alone, had shot triumph through my veins. I had recreated the conditions from her night with Lynter. Fear, exhaustion, and contact with a scent-matched alpha… and it had worked . She had been able to channel their magic together, something no omega had done in living memory. She had enhanced it far more than an ordinary bond would, like a lens through which we might consolidate and magnify our power.

The promise of having the magic of all six of us combined at my fingertips made me salivate.

She was the key to ultimate power.

Only… it didn't work for me. She did not channel my magic, even in nearly identical conditions, right after she had channeled Bastian's magic.

It took me some time to accept the bitter truth. Lynter had fallen defending her, and she had run to his aid. Bastian had been a friend to her and, judging from the scents flooding the forest when I arrived on their little scene, they both wanted him to be more than that.

The difference in conditions was… trust. Perhaps even mutual affection. Those ridiculous, fickle emotions that history insisted made up a true bond.

The emotions that Davos was rapidly ensuring she would never, ever feel for him , our packlead.

If Davos bit her, and forced her into our pack, the way he intended…

I eyed the omega as she seemed to snuggle into his chest. Her eyes were cracked open, but staring into nothing. Davos was holding a cup of water to her lips and I could see the frustration on his face as she refused to drink and water dripped down her face. I could almost hear him telling himself to be patient. Just wait until tonight.

Just as I could see the worry and disgust reflected around the room, and the darkest rot of despair in the eyes of the girl.

***

I anticipated that she would make a foolish move, but in the end it happened so quickly I almost missed it.

Davos, true to his current determination to ruin every scrap of goodwill the girl might have ever possessed for us, had forced both Rosemary and Ivan into separate cells in our cheery basement of a dungeon. At least it was relatively comfortable, with a pallet of hay in each cell, and tiny windows set high in the stone walls, even if they were barred. We weren't exactly the kind of pack to need a deep, dank dungeon. Not because we didn't have enemies, but because when our packlead wasn't being a completely amoral asshole, he didn't believe in torture. He had seen too much of that in his lifetime.

By virtue of his beta blood, Ivan was only locked in and not bound hand and foot, like his sister.

" Please, mage, I'll do anything if you'll only let her go," he pleaded through the bars in his cell door. His begging was beginning to get on my nerves.

" That's not up to me," I told him, although I hoped that wasn't entirely true. Not that I would advocate for the omega's freedom , exactly, but he didn't need to know that. The beta had gone to great lengths to protect his sister and I knew a useful tool when I saw one.

" I will do what I can," I said to him, eventually, just to shut him up, and it seemed to work. At least, he turned his whining towards his sister instead. He couldn't see her, but that didn't stop him.

" Is she even awake?" He asked me at last.

" She… seems to be," I said. In truth the girl was almost catatonic, as if Davos was still purring her into oblivion. She lay without moving on the pallet, staring at the ceiling of her cell, not twitching a muscle in response to her brother. Davos had left her trussed up, wrists and ankles bound, no doubt telling himself that any treatment, any method or decision, was fine as long as it was temporary and a means to his great end.

Davos had ordered me to stay down here and watch her, but I could see by the way the sunlight moved across the stone that we were running out of time. I needed to find a way to convince my stubborn packlead that a bitten bond was a mistake. There were only two methods I could think of, one much more risky than the other, and both required me to leave this room.

Davos could sometimes be convinced by old books stating exactly what I had already told him, and I had one in mind that would explain clearly what needed to happen.

It was a book of children's stories from a hundred years ago, but I had no intention of telling him that. It was in the library, and it would take me several wicks to get there and back. Enough time that the other method I had in mind might come to fruition. All I needed for that was to leave the omega without a guard. It was a terrible thing to do, given what I suspected about her state of mind, but I had done worse.

I keyed a spellstone in my arm to her life signs just in case.

I was barely out of the room, still striding up the stairs from the dungeon, when the spellstone activated, jolting under my skin.

I hadn't needed it anyway, as I could hear Ivan's screams echoing up the staircase. I tore back down, my robes flying behind me.

She had managed to wrap a loop of rope from her bound wrists around her own throat and pushed herself off the pallet in her cell, trapping her arms beneath her body as she lay, face down, tangled in the ruined cloth of her dress, so that there was no release even as she thrashed. The omega's face had flushed dark red by the time I reached the door, and her trapped breath became a frightening, gasping rattle as I sliced through the rope with magic, and flung open her cell door.

The rope had sawed deep, flaying the delicate skin from her neck. Part of me almost admired her for it, even as I worked frantically to save her. I hadn't expected her to be so decisive or quick. She had somehow found a way out, even against impossible odds.

Our omega was wily. She was strong.

She just needed to breathe.

Davos barreled into the room within moments of me, only to pull up at the sight of her, horror written all over his face. Thankfully he was close enough to respond so quickly to my call through the bond.

" What… what happened?"

" What do you think," I snapped as I forced healing magic into the tissues of her throat, trying- and failing- to calm the swelling so that she did not choke on a rope that was no longer there. She was lucky I could heal with magic. It was a very rare ability. "You drove her to this."

" She's… she's just scared," Davos said. "She's being dramat…"

Her brother howled from the next cell. "I'll kill you!" He began to beat his fists bloody on his prison door.

" My sister tried to kill herself to get away from you… and you call her dramatic ? I'll slit all your throats!"

The beta burst into angry sobs, which only intensified as I finally managed to drain some of the fluids threatening his sister's life and she took a noisy, throbbing breath.

" When I bond her…" Davos started.

" You'll hasten her death," I interrupted him, although I kept my eyes on her. On her tear-filled gray eyes that gazed at me with so much betrayal. "The bond isn't perfect, no matter how strong it might be. You know that, Davos. You'd have to command her every action, keep her tied at your side every moment." I finally broke her gaze and lifted my face to glare at my packlead, putting every featherweight of my frustration into my voice. "She'll fight you until she dies or breaks, and if she's broken she's of no use to you."

I stroked her greasy, damp curls back from her pink face, trying to seem affectionate, rather than just uncomfortable. The girl really needed a bath. However, what Davos really needed was to see me being tender with her right now.

If not for the circumstances, I would have laughed. If I was the one modeling tenderness for my pack, we were truly in a strange place.

" The pack will shatter if you put our omega through a forced bonding." I paused and then said pointedly. "It's possible they already will."

Davos grimaced. So he did realize no one was happy with his actions so far. Emotions warred on his face. I knew he trusted me, and usually took my advice without any qualms, but this was so contrary to what he thought he knew, and so counter to his instincts, that he didn't want to take what I said as truth.

I could relate. Relying on something so fanciful as love or trust felt like I was trying to step from dry land straight onto deep water. I knew it was possible for people who lived in wintery climes to walk out onto a lake without a care, but I was staring down into a tropical ocean.

Still, perhaps I could build myself a raft.

" Give her ten days," I said as the girl finally began to breathe more easily, and started to squirm in my arms. "Ten days before you think again about whether to bond her. Give her a chance to choose it… and for me to research how to make a true bond."

I watched my packmate turn it over in his head. While he contemplated, I shifted her body, pressing her head back gently as if I were examining her injured throat. The nasty, red rope burn, weeping fluid, stood out starkly on her pale Lutin skin, right where a traditional bitten bond would go.

I could almost hear my packlead grinding his teeth at the sight of it.

" Fine," Davos gritted out, then his jaw popped open in surprise as I ignored him and turned to the omega. His shock made me want to grimace in turn. He could at least pretend to see her as an autonomous person and not just a means to an end.

I found doing that made people much more inclined to cooperate.

" Rosemary, can you hear me?" I stroked her grimy hair again, trying to make the awkward gesture soothing rather than intimate. "Do you understand what we just decided to do?"

She looked at me with her big, gray-blue eyes, which really were quite beautiful even though the whites had been strained pink, and then her squirming ceased and some of the tension left her body. She nodded.

" That gives you ten days to convince Davos not to bond you."

Davos growled softly behind me and I suddenly had the impulse to pinch him, like I had done when we were boys. Grifting had never been his specialty- I had turned to Bastian when I needed a decent partner in a scam- but as packlead at least he needed to learn when to show his emotions and when to conceal them.

The omega frowned at me and rasped a bit before forcing out, "What… about… king?" I had to think a little bit before I understood what she was asking. Of course, even in Lutin they knew about our king's obsession with omegas. And Lynter had told Davos that she and her brother had been expecting us to travel with them to the capital.

" If we don't bond you, we won't force you to another pack either or take you to the king," I assured her, ignoring Davos who had stiffened with outrage. She narrowed her eyes, disbelief shining in them. "It's either us, or no one."

Of course she didn't believe me. She was a scent match to our pack, which supposedly meant we were compatible. She wasn't stupid.

" I don't want you to die, little Sunberry, even if you can't be mine." For some reason, I was still stroking her hair, and she was letting me do it. "And I don't want to see you with another pack. You can see how… eager we are to have you in our pack." She grunted, although I wasn't sure if it was a sound of skepticism or dismissal. "Davos doesn't want you in another pack either." I shot him a look and he grudgingly nodded, but she still didn't seem convinced. I paused, trying to think how best to get her cooperation. I settled on truth.

" I can't promise we will let you go. I don't believe you would trust me if I did say that." She inclined her head slightly, before… was she nestling her head against my hand? Or was that just wishful thinking?

" However, we do want you to want to bond with us." If Davos had been closer I would have elbowed him in the side. Now would have been a good time for him to chime in, with any kind of gentle, coaxing words (if I could do it, surely he could), but of course he was silent.

" So here is what we can offer you," I continued as soon as I realized Davos wasn't going to give her any reassurance. "Spend ten days without trying to escape or hurt yourself, so we can show you what it would be like to be in our pack… and we will let your brother go."

There was a squawk of protest from the next cell, but my omega's gaze suddenly sharpened as if she'd spotted water in the desert.

I had her.

" Ten days of cooperation from you, and he will go free, with money in his pocket and no crimes to his name. After that we will revisit the bonding… situation." She narrowed her eyes again, so I emphasized the part she seemed to be most hung up on. "No matter what, we will never hand you over to the king, or to another pack. We'll bond you or keep you unbonded, here with us."

Davos rumbled out another growl at that statement, but I shot him the most vicious glare I could manage, and finally he nodded and spoke. Of course, instead of being the reassuring older brother he would be to any other member of our pack, he remained wholly focused on his current obsession with keeping her.

" She needs to have a spellstone in place to track her."

Another outraged protest erupted from the cell next door, but I was pleased. I had been planning to do that anyway, but I might as well heap all the blame on Davos, since he was so eagerly painting himself as the bad guy.

" Not because we expect you to escape, Sunberry," I said smoothly as she frowned. "But because you might be kidnapped, and we would need to be able to find you. An omega is a valuable commodity."

She made another noise I couldn't quite interpret. Something enough like an omega whimper that my alpha instincts rushed to the front of my mind, wanting to comfort her, or destroy her enemies. I shoved them back. Ridiculous. Still, her reaction was curious. Was she actually worried about being kidnapped? It seemed an odd thing to bother her considering she was already being held captive.

" If we place a tracking spellstone and she takes a binding oath, then I will give her ten days," Davos announced, magnanimously.

He really was getting on my last nerve.

The omega switched her gaze to him. "No… purr ," she rasped. I turned my head in time to see something like hurt flash in my packmate's eyes, before he clenched his teeth and nodded.

It served him right. Purring was supposed to be one of the great and beautiful ties between an alpha and his or her omega. It was supposed to soothe and comfort them, and he had used it as a cage on her instead. As a means of wiping away her entire mind.

I wasn't known for my empathy but the idea of someone doing that to me made me want to vomit, and given her behavior around food recently I was pretty sure she felt the same way.

I didn't know if she would ever forgive him for it.

To my surprise, I wasn't sure if I could forgive him either.

I always kept the bond closed, but it was an extra effort right now. Part of me wanted Davos to feel my disgust and terror. We'd almost lost her. We could still lose her. The fear that curdled my blood was so absolute and overwhelming, I felt a sharp, ludicrous temptation to simply use my magic to smother us all right now, together, before anything else could hurt us.

Perhaps my omega and I were even more alike than I suspected.

This was why I never let myself feel emotions. They only led to destruction. Which was why I knew I'd never be able to care for this omega. I wasn't capable of that kind of love. A true bond would be forever out of my reach.

Instead of killing us all, I began running my fingers along her delicate, breakable throat, pressing more soothing blue magic into it. I could at least do this for her, even knowing she would almost certainly never be mine.