Chapter Twenty-Three Rosemary

Ten days. In the haze that permeated my mind immediately after my suicide attempt, it had seemed imminently reasonable to agree with Sinclair's proposal. Not because I believed there was any real hope that they would leave me unbonded. I could see straight through his little half promises of freedom. He was a liar. Perhaps it was foolish to even hope that they would let my brother go.

No it wasn't hope for freedom that made me agree. I agreed only because it would give me ten more days outside of hell. A reprieve before I was enslaved and forced to be a pack omega, as Davos so clearly ached for me to become.

I had expected them to leave me in the cell for the whole ten days to brood about how much happier I'd be with bitten shackles instead of real ones.

However, as soon as Davos grunted something that sounded like agreement to my demand that he not use his purr on me, Sinclair picked me up and walked me out of my cell and up the stairs, his arms banding my back and under my knees as if I weighed nothing.

Davos hovered behind us like an anxious mother hen, a thought that might have made me giggle hysterically, but my throat was still too sore to do something so strenuous.

Sinclair strode for a while through stone corridors, which all seemed identical in my semi-cognizant state, until he reached a door that looked to me like a dozen other doors we'd already passed. He opened it to reveal a small bedroom, much cozier than the one in the inn, with simple, bright tapestries on the walls and a glass window letting in the dim evening light. The whole room smelled sweetly of flowers and herbs, and I realized there was a fresh bundle of them lying on a bedside table.

As the mage placed me gently on the bed and cut off the rest of my ropes with his magic, it occurred to me that I should probably leap to my feet and fight, or run. Perhaps I should throw myself from the window. After all, I could never trust these alphas to give me more than a brief reprieve no matter what they said.

But I was tired. I'd tried so hard to fight this fate. It felt like I had been fighting every day since I'd revealed as an omega. Picking locks, struggling against bindings, chewing on my own liver as I waited for a worse punishment to fall on my neck.

I was suddenly so exhausted, I couldn't bring myself to move from the bed.

Sinclair walked straight back out the door, and Davos crouched next to me, his dark brown eyes level with mine. Something in their depths almost seemed like a glimmer of kindness. The big man carded his fingers through my hair, pulling it gently from where it was trapped under my body as I lay there, and for the first time I wondered if I should just give in. His scent was painfully sharp now, but it did call to me like no other alpha's scent ever had. Some of his packmates seemed like truly kind men, even if they were cowards, or simply didn't feel enough towards me to stop him.

Maybe I could be commanded to love and it would feel just like the real thing.

"I… I didn't mean to scare you, omega," Davos said, his voice soft. "You are just… just meant to be our omega and… I don't want you to be captured or killed, or bonded to another. If we bonded I would always know where you are. I could protect you."

I stared at him, every bit of me convinced this was it. There was no one to stop him. I wouldn't even try to fight it this time. All it would take was for him to lean down and sink his teeth into me. He wasn't asking for permission. He had waited until Sinclair left and now…

A few rough, stuttering pops came from Davos' chest. I flinched, expecting the rumble of noise that would obliterate my sense of self, but it never arrived. Davos observed my flinch and sighed heavily, then fell silent.

I was disgusted to find I was mildly disappointed.

I'd told him no purr, hadn't I? Why would I want that wretched noise?

The shock at my disappointment cleansed me of my ridiculous, fatalistic attitude. Maybe I was too tired to fight, but I wasn't going to just offer up my neck to him.

I closed my eyes and turned on my side, pulling away from Davos and giving him my back. After a while, I heard him stand up and shuffle to another part of the room.

I drifted, not quite sleeping, until I heard Sinclair reenter and close the door.

"I've put your brother in a more comfortable room."

I snorted, not bothering to turn. "Any room that isn't a cell in the dungeon you mean," I rasped out.

"Yes," he agreed readily. "I'll just heal your neck a bit more, and then we'll make a binding oath and, if you wish, you can go visit with him before dinner."

A binding oath? Unable to help myself I twisted around to find the mage hovering, his hands out, ready to pump more blue magic into my aching throat.

"What oath?"

He began his work, the magic sluicing from his hands onto my skin like warm rain. It was many shades of blue, almost indigo at the edges and a fine aqua in the middle. The shading was a sign of someone with strong magic, most unlike my own steady, monotonous violet.

"The oath we'll take for your ten days," he said, his voice calm as if discussing the weather. "Ten days where you won't try to escape and you will consider making a consensual bond with us. In return for the ten days, we will provide a free life for your brother. No purring. No handing you over to anyone."

He leaned in to examine my throat, his face so close I could feel the puff of his breath against my skin. Satisfied, his magic stopped and he drew back and looked me in the eye. "We will seal these promises with a binding oath. I'm sorry, omega, but I cannot just trust your word."

I almost choked on the bitter laugh that tried to burst forth from me. He couldn't trust my word.

And yet, something in his eye told me he had said that on purpose, to make me laugh. He knew this oath was for me. A binding oath was unbreakable. They would have to let Ivan go.

I choked again, this time on tears. Ivan would be truly free. I hadn't destroyed his future. This was more than I had ever dared hope for since we were caught. I would have a genuine reprieve of more than just a few candles, and Ivan would be safe.

"What do you know about bonds, omega?" Sinclair cocked his head, his eyes intent on mine.

I frowned, not sure how to answer. "Not… not very much. I know it's a bite from an alpha and that it… it enslaves the bitten."

Davos perked up and opened his mouth, but Sinclair got there first. "We will discuss that later then. It cannot be a consensual bond if you don't understand the process." He paused and then bent his neck and indicated a spot near his shoulder.

"As you can see, I have a bond myself. From Davos. And I am not a slave."

I blinked at the silvery half-moon scar in shock. He had said that before, but I thought maybe I had misunderstood.

Lutin didn't have many alphas or omegas revealed these days, and all those that did were either killed immediately or forced to the edges of society. All information about them was restricted. We weren't even supposed to talk about them, but few followed that law. Nightmarish rumors were plentiful about the treatment of omegas in Raksim, but they were subjected to as bad or worse in Lutin. Most omegas that weren't immediately killed were sold or locked in a brothel the moment they revealed their nature.

Alphas were often killed too, although they had more of a fighting chance to survive. Alphas were strong, smart and charismatic even as children. They were vilified as beasts, barely in control of their violent actions, but that only made them seem more dangerous and villagers weren't known for self sacrifice. It was easier to let their alpha children escape into the forest and never mention them again.

Omegas, on the other hand, were known to be soft, delicate, and insidious, like a poisonous plant. Better to cut that poison out at the root, or put it in a pot where it couldn't affect those around it.

Like begets like and the alphas and omegas of Lutin never made it to the point where they were having their own babies, so I was a freak occurrence. My father was convinced that my mother had had an affair with a passing alpha, and for all I knew he might have been right. I had never met another omega in my entire life, and neither had my brother, or anyone we knew. My reveal had rocked our entire world to its foundation. It had ruined Ivan's chance of a normal life.

Somehow, my whole village overlooked me, locked in my father's cottage, and I could never decide if that was from mercy, greed or some terrible combination of the two.

At any rate, what little I knew about bonds, that mystical tether that could be created between alphas and everyone else, was filtered through a large amount of bullshit, and yet still managed to be terrifying.

A bond was sealed with a bite that broke the skin, and whoever did the biting was in charge of the bond. If Davos got his teeth in me he could order me around and I would have to obey, even without the temporary compulsion of a bark. He would also feel what I felt, a fact that one of the alphas that visited me used to love describing. He told me how alpha pimps in Raksim would bite their whores and then get to experience every moment of their coupling, regardless of whether they were in the room or not.

My biter would always be able to find me too, the bond tugging him like a leash that could be lengthened, but not severed.

The alphas my father allowed to visit me were all kept from laying their teeth in me, via oath and via the old magic shotgun my father kept trained on them during their visits.

So when Sir Midwinter said he could make me love him, I knew it was probably true. If he laid his teeth in me I would be lost.

So I'd cling to each second of autonomy like air.

And I currently knew all about the necessity of air.

"Why would you let someone do that to you?" I rasped out, unable to stop myself.

Sinclair tightened his lips, and actually seemed to think about my question.

"Several reasons, I suppose. It increased my magic. All bonding does that. It also gives me a way to protect and strengthen my pack." He hesitated then shrugged. "And… well, I had no reason not to do it. I trust Davos."

I made a small noise of disbelief that had the bigger alpha in the room stiffening as if offended. Well, good. I'm sorry if I'm skeptical about trusting a slaver.

"I think it's time to make that oath, Rosemary," Sinclair said, ignoring his packlead. "Do you know what to do?"

I nodded and put out my hand. I didn't know much magic compared with these men, but I did know how to make a binding oath. It was the kind of basic magic that everyone knew and hardly anyone used.

Solemnly, Sinclair took a small, sharp dagger from inside his tunic and sliced the pad of my palm, just under my pointer finger. He then went to do the same to his own palm, but I frowned and shook my head.

"No," I said, even as the blood was welling up and dripping down my wrist. Both alphas seemed fixated on the wound.

"It must be Davos," I insisted in my rough voice. "Making an oath with his… his minion would count for nothing."

Sinclair barked a sharp laugh at the insult, but almost looked… pleased? A very, very small part of me wanted to preen at that, but I pushed it down. This wasn't me being clever . It was my godsdamned life . Making an oath with Sinclair would count for rot if Davos decided to bond me on his own.

I expected him to object, but the big, pine-scented alpha only nodded and offered his own hand. Sinclair cut him in the same place as he had me, deep but short and precise. He then pressed our hands together. The contact made my skin crawl and suddenly I felt like I was brushing through young pine forest, the needles pricking me all over in a very unpleasant way.

I took a deep breath and then let my magic flow through my hand. As always, it felt like I was easing something that was already there, held back like a muscle that was rarely loosened. I let it pour from my center through the channel of my arm and out of my hand. Our magic spilled from each cut. His was a deep, ruby red that made it seem like he had enchanted and animated his own blood. I carefully directed my own violet glow to wrap around his lambent crimson.

The resulting knot of magic was strangely similar to the weird, multicolored magic that had been happening around me lately, except that these colored streaks of light were kept entirely separate, winding around each other but not touching, as if they were repelled by some force. Not like the chaotic, intertwined barbs and vines of the magic I'd used recently.

Sinclair stared at our oath-knot blankly for a moment and I started to wonder if he was expecting me to state the terms of the oath… but then he seemed to shake himself and started to speak.

"By this oath we swear that this omega, known as Rosemary, shall remain with the Phoenix Pack for ten days, a term which will begin from midnight tonight…"

I listened very carefully, forcing my brain to focus on his words, on his intentions, on any loophole he might have concealed like a pit trap on the path. Try as I might, I couldn't find any. He kept it bland and simple, and even added my rule about purring, although he only specified Davos, which concerned me a little. I didn't want any of them to purr at me.

Not even a little bit.

When he was finished, each of us healed the other's cut, sealing a bit of our magic under the skin. Mine looked like a normal, healing scar, maybe a little bit too red, but I could see that Davos now had a purple streak under his finger. He rubbed at it with a strange expression on his face.

Ivan had told me the binding oath was an ancient form of spellstone, one that bound the flesh itself to the terms. If either of us broke our promise, we would suffer. The pain was said to be excruciating.

"Done," Sinclair sat back and glanced Davos. The packlead exchanged a look with his mage, and then turned around and left the room without a word. I blinked after him, but in his absence a weight seemed to come off my shoulders.

"Now little Sunberry," Sinclair said. "Let's get you to your brother."

***

Something I hadn't realized when I was still concealing my scent was how much I perfumed at night now. I don't remember ever doing it at home, thank the gods, but the first morning after making the oath, I woke up drowning in it. Usually I hated my own scent, but this time I sucked in a few deep, appreciative sniffs before I even remembered I didn't like it.

More importantly, I shouldn't like the dreams that were fading away with the dawn. Yet I found myself struggling to recall them with more clarity, even as dim light began to crest and build in the small, stone room. My scent mingled with the smell of the sweet, yellow flowers and herbs that were wilting on my bedside table.

What was that dream? Bastian's head had been between my legs and someone else had been holding me down and whispering filthy things in my ear.

I shuddered and thrust the images away, as I snuggled deeper under the covers. I might be bound by oath to give them a chance now, but that didn't mean entertaining them in bed… Or did it?

For the first time I considered that prospect seriously. I had never been prudish about sex, even before I revealed as an omega. It was just a fact of life in Lutin. While sex was not discussed openly, it wasn't really discouraged either. I'd had several lovers among my peers, ranging from a few fumbles in a dark corner, to the man I'd thought I'd marry who'd taken me every which way out in the woods, and in his bedroom after his parents were asleep. Our village had easy access to the shillic plant which provided near fool-proof contraception. In fact we'd infamously had to start deliberately sowing seeds of the damn thing when it became scarce in the woods nearby, and the elders worried we'd drive it extinct.

After I revealed by perfuming all over my would-be fiance one night, my father had introduced me to how transactional sex could be, so there was that as well. Not a skill-set I'd ever particularly wanted to lean on, but then, what good were omegas, if not for sex? Perhaps it was the only real asset I had to trade.

I suspected Sinclair wouldn't care about sex, or have his head turned by seduction, and Davos would probably just be even more driven to keep me if I tried anything with him- not to mention the idea of flirting with him made me feel ill- but the others in the pack might be interested. Maybe I could gain an ally. Carlile, in particular, seemed promising as a mark. He gave off that bully-posturing vibe that I recognized from the boys in my village that desperately wanted to prove their manhood and could be led around by the testicles if a girl was canny enough.

Ivan and I had spent the evening plotting to escape (after he had scolded me thoroughly for my actions in the dungeon), but this wasn't an idea I wanted to share with him. My brother didn't want to hear about my feminine wiles. Besides, it would be a fall-back, if nothing else worked. Seducing an alpha to make them easier to manipulate was not the kind of thing Ivan would condone.

I was wondering how I would get away from my brother for the day, if I were to go through with this plan, when someone rapped on my door.

"It's just me, Rosemary," Ivan called, as if my thoughts had conjured him. I drew a dressing gown around my cotton shift and pulled open the heavy oak door.

Ivan was standing there, looking sheepish, but already fully dressed in a brown tunic over red hose. A blonde woman in a plain, but well-made red dress stood behind him. Her scent hit me as air shifted in the corridor and I stiffened. She was an alpha . A female alpha. The first I'd ever encountered.

"This is Sophie. She's going to, um…" He trailed off as I smiled tightly at the woman and backed up from the door by several paces. The alpha was slightly taller than Ivan, her blonde hair straight and clipped at her shoulders. She was lovely, but seemed stern and cold. Her nostrils flared as she breathed me in, but she only inclined her head at me and stayed well back, leaning against the wall opposite my door. Ivan glanced between us, taken aback by our reactions.

"So… uh, I know we were going to spend the day together," Ivan began again, his voice hesitant, "but Sinclair arranged for me to have some advanced magic lessons. He told me last night, after you left my room." My brother looked like he was worried I would bite him. "It's an opportunity I couldn't ever…"

"It's fine," I said, abruptly. Of course Sinclair had done this. He didn't want me to spend the whole ten days with Ivan. He knew exactly what to offer my brother to peel him away from me.

Besides, I should be happy, right? I knew how desperately Ivan wanted to learn more about magic. My brother deserved all the chances he'd never had because he had to stay close to our shitty little village to watch out for me. And I'd just decided I needed to distract him from my own plans anyway.

So why did I feel so miserable?

He was leaving me alone. Again .

I cleared my throat and averted my eyes so I didn't have to see the injured look on his face at my sharp tone.

"It's great, Ivan," I said, forcing cheer into my voice. "I'll see you at lunch and you can show me what you learned."

He perked up, and stepped into my room so he could grab my hand. "I will! Rosemary, I'll make you so proud. I'm going to get breakfast in the mages' tower so I probably won't see you until lunch… or maybe dinner. But you'll be fine, the oath will protect you."

He kissed me on the cheek and then pranced off, following the blonde alpha like a puppy. She hadn't said a single word.

Well. I suppose I was only an omega. Why would she talk to me?

I scowled after him. Anger flared in me for a brief moment and then collapsed under the weight of my guilt. My brother had given up everything for me and I begrudged him a few lessons?

What was wrong with me?

I thought about returning to my bed but I was wide awake now. Sometimes despair drove me to crawl under the blankets and hide from the day, and sometimes it gave me itchy feet. Today it seemed I would be cursed to wander and scratch at my emotional wounds.

I found myself wondering if they served coffee in this castle. There was only one way to know.

I used the small shower area in the corner of the room, admiring how the water sparkled with my magic when I powered the spellstone in the wall to draw it through the sprinkler head. That was a nice touch. The soap was creamy and smelled of… well, violets. Not candied violets like my own scent, but violets and lavender.

I did like the scent of violets. I used to love the tiny hints of purple that speckled the short, shaded grasses around our home. However, once my scent emerged and trapped me in this life the smell had become less enticing.

I dried myself on a ridiculously fluffy towel, wondering to myself if they needed magic to weave such plush cloth, then pulled on one of the dresses that had been in the big wardrobe. It fit me well, because of course it did. I wondered who had furnished this room so quickly.

It was probably Bastian, who wore finer clothes than any of the others in his pack. I suspected he would be more than proficient at gifting clothes to ladies.

The thought made my gut burn with what felt like jealousy- but obviously wasn't because I would never be jealous over an alpha.

All my dresses were now in shades of purple, as was traditional both here and in Lutin. It was considered normal for people to display the color of their magic this way. I had sometimes wondered if my scent had anything to do with my magic color, but then, Bastian's scent was borage and cucumber and his magic was orange, not blue or green. So maybe it was just a coincidence.

Or maybe Bastian actually smelled of something completely different and fancy, like some kind of orange spice or fruit I'd never heard of that wealthy people ate.

Just like Cantor seemed to exude the scent of the bundle of herbs on my bedside table, which I had now placed in a vase filled with water from my shower. I hadn't been able to place the floral note in his hayfield scent exactly before, but it was a match to the yellow flowers in that bouquet. I wondered what they were called.

I'd been stalling long enough. I marched myself out of my room and down the hall, only to realize that of course I had no idea where I was going. It was a big castle and everything looked the same to me.

So, in the end, I followed my nose.