Chapter Twenty-Six Lynter

The omega didn't appear at breakfast or lunch and I was starting to worry. She hadn't come to dinner the night before either, but the night chef assured me the girl had had a plate delivered and had cleared it. Maybe her brother had covered for her though. He seemed to do that a lot.

She hadn't eaten very much, if at all, while Davos was toting her around like his personal rag doll, so she needed to get decent nutrition into her. And something in me needed to witness it happening, if not feed her the meat and vegetables myself.

Davos had given us all very little information about what had happened, only telling us that the omega was to be courted to our utmost ability and that she had made an oath not to leave us for ten days so we could convince her to bond with us. In fact, Sinclair had said most of that, and Davos had just nodded in that official manner he took on whenever his pet mage made declarations.

They both expected us to somehow convince the poor girl to willingly take a bite, but the whole idea seemed suspect to me. Sinclair was always working five layers deep in bullshit and Davos rarely kept him in check the way I would if I was the packlead. Not that I wanted that kind of responsibility. It was difficult enough wrangling this lazy pack into fighting shape and being a good second, without having to deal with everything else. However, being a good second meant I needed to at least try to keep on top of Sinclair and his plotting.

I didn't know who was being plotted against this time. All I knew was that the omega had probably not eaten for most of the day and that was unacceptable.

Ordering her to eat wouldn't go well, I suspected. I hadn't interacted with her much, but she obviously had the spirit of a warrior. Everyone had witnessed her meltdown about her brother being left in the carriage to overheat. It had been impressive enough at face value, before I realized she had been doing it as a ploy for escape. Underhanded, sure, but still a good move against a superior adversary. I respected her for it. That wasn't even getting into how she had somehow saved me that night in the corridor of the inn.

Such a spirit could reside in the smallest and meekest of countenances, as I well knew, and I was not at all surprised to find it in my scent match.

Not that I had actually had a chance to scent her yet. She and her brother had already been magicked to the eyeballs when I saw her after her escape attempt had been foiled. Davos had made Sinclair whisk away all traces of it, in order to keep the secret as long as possible. He'd told me that afternoon, while she rode in the carriage, but he hadn't let her out of his sight after that.

Sinclair had let us know that their scents would be normalized while they were in the fort. It would be too difficult to hide the fact that we were courting her, and trying to pretend she wasn't an omega would make it even more suspicious. I suspected he also wanted her scent to work its magic on us. And maybe it would, if she would come sit with us and eat her damn meals.

I needed to approach this like I would any other soldier. Coaxing, imploring, demanding… none of that would work in the long term.

No, the best way to make a warrior eat was to make them hungry. And the best way to do that was also the most prosaic.

I had to knock for a while before the girl answered, slamming her door open with so much force it bounced against the stone wall.

"What?" She snapped, then softened with surprise at the sight of me. I wondered who she had been expecting.

I had told myself that a scent match wouldn't mean much. Her brother's fake omega scent was based on hers, after all, and I had found it overly sweet, to the point that it made my teeth hurt.

When her scent flooded from her room and slapped into me in a wave, however, it almost sent me reeling. It was still a bit too sweet, a bit too cloying, but it sank into my nerves like electricity, slipping into my body as if it had always been there. The dark softness of violets floated over the sugar like velvet over crystal. I had always thought a scent match would smell perfect to me, would be something I would recognize by how good it was, how well it compared against other scents. This was nothing like that. I wasn't even sure I liked it, exactly.

I only knew that it was mine .

She was still staring at me, waiting for me to say something. Almost wincing, as if she expected to be scolded for snapping at me. Gods, I was daydreaming like Cantor. I mentally shook myself.

"Good afternoon, omega," I said, ignoring her expression and pasting on a stern face, shielding my inner turmoil. "I want to train you."

"My name is Rosemary , not omega," she insisted. She hesitated, and then asked, "Train me in what? Magic?"

I noted the spark in her eyes at the thought. Something to tell Sinclair perhaps, if I actually felt like helping out my sneaky packmate.

Unfortunately, not an interest I could take advantage of myself.

"No," I said, succinctly. "Weapons. Self defense. Perhaps even strategy."

Her mouth popped open slightly in surprise and my gaze flicked to it. Her lips were beautiful, the color of a rosy, ripe apple, the texture so soft I wanted to run my finger along them, to press down and squish them for the sake of it.

Of course lascivious thoughts about her lips wouldn't exactly help my cause, so I lifted my eyes quickly back to hers.

She was shocked. Not, however, by my inability to control my thoughts.

"You want to teach me how to use weapons ?"

I lifted an eyebrow. "Yes…?" I drew out the word, then frowned as she became even more hesitant. "Have I insulted you somehow?"

"No," she breathed. "But… I'm an omega. A woman." She scrunched up her freckled nose and it was alarmingly adorable. Since when did I find people adorable? There was only one person who even came close, and I was not about to think about him right now, while faced with my scent match.

Except I suddenly was thinking about it. Her pale gold skin pressed up against his deep brown? Shit, if I kept thinking about that she really was going to think I was a pervert.

"I'm your enemy," she said, apparently oblivious to my internal struggle. "Why would you teach me how to use a weapon?"

I scoffed. "If giving you a few classes on swordplay and hand-to-hand fighting puts me in danger, then I deserve to be sliced open."

She narrowed her eyes at the mild insult, then shrugged.

"I know Lutin doesn't encourage women to fight, but we do here in Madder territory." Davos and I had been in complete agreement about that. It seemed unjust and wasteful to turn away anyone willing to learn. "All the women… all the people in this castle know at least basic self defense, and as much else as they wish to. I would say all the omegas do also, but you're the only one staying here right now."

She raised her own eyebrow at that and I waited for her to take the bait and ask about other omegas, but she said nothing.

"So, what do you think, Rosemary?"

Her eyes flicked to mine and then away. There was something so heated in them at the use of her given name, I was almost startled. For fucks sake, did the world give her so little courtesy that she expected none at all from me?

Her next question answered that for me.

"What if I refuse?"

I shrugged, careful to act nonchalant. It was surprisingly difficult, even though it shouldn't be. It wasn't like I hounded every guest we brought into Fort Madder to train with me. I saved that energy for my pack and our soldiers.

But I wanted her to train. And then I wanted her to put food in her belly.

And I really wanted her to do both of those things in my presence.

"Then, nothing," I said. "I might ask one or two more times, in case you change your mind, but it's your choice."

Again that startled flick of her gray eyes, except this time they caught mine and stuck there. Shock filled them, but there was also excitement in their depths.

Suddenly the omega smiled at me and it was like the sun rising after a miserable winter's night.

"OK then," she said. "Lead the way, Lynter."