Chapter Three Rosemary

I woke slowly. The room around me smelled unfamiliar and my instincts wanted to work out the reason before I faced it.

Was my father already awake? Had he changed something?

If I'd slept in, if I hadn't prepared breakfast for him, he would hold a grudge for days. In that case it was best to feign sleep as long as possible, since I was going to suffer either way.

Of course, if he had woken up before me he would already be shaking me, gripping me with bruising fingers, hauling me out of my dirty little nest on the ground. So it couldn't be that.

In fact, I couldn't smell his fermented fruit scent at all. I drew in several deep breaths. No scent of old hay or oily rags from my nest. No woodsmoke in the air. Had the stove gone out? My father couldn't make me haul firewood, since that would entail leaving our tiny hovel, and so the fire often went out with no fuel to feed it.

Maybe Ivan was visiting? I couldn't scent him either.

Why did it all smell so different? I could scent herbs and clean wool, stone and feathers and several faint scents of people I didn't know.

Alphas. Why could I scent alphas?

Finally, unable to withstand my curiosity any longer, I first cracked a lid, then opened my eyes wide with shock.

I was in an unfamiliar room. The first unfamiliar room I'd been in for five years.

The space was simple, to the point of being cell-like, and yet still larger than the entire home I grew up in. The only reason I assumed at first glance that it was a room, rather than a whole house, was that there were no windows in the stone walls.

I was in a real bed, just like my father's, but the blankets covering it- covering me- were thick and soft. I wanted to bury my face in them, but I was almost afraid to touch them. They were far too expensive. What if I dirtied them up?

The room had an unlit fireplace and a table with a water jug and various other items on it, but there was no cauldron, and nowhere to cook. Nowhere to store dishes or clothes, except a single trunk at the end of the bed. The bed was so large I could lie in the middle and stretch out my arms, and my fingers wouldn't touch the edges of the mattress. No one in our village had a bed this big, not even the blacksmith.

Thankfully, I seemed to be the only one in the room. Except that also meant I had no idea where Ivan was being kept.

The night rushed back to me. We were definitely being kept somewhere. However, I had no idea who our captors might be. And where was my brother?

My gods, had the magic worked? I sniffed at my wrists, then under the blanket. I couldn't smell anything. Not a single whiff of omega. He must have been able to replenish the spell blocking my scent before we were taken.

Ivan was my luck.

My eyes darted around, gathering information. If it was a prison cell, why was it so large? The bounty hunters almost certainly wanted to take me to the king, and even I knew that the capital of Raksim was weeks away. Almost at the entire opposite side of the country from where Maire, my little village, nudged up against the border of Lutin. And there was no way those scruffy men could afford a room like this. They'd had to steal from farmers just to get enough food to ride out the storm.

So someone else must have got us. My mind scoured my memories and suddenly I recalled the sound of hooves in the rain. The hunters had been chasing us through dense forest at first, and had left their horses back at their campsite. The whole night they'd been chasing us on foot, which was fortunate for us, because otherwise we'd have been caught immediately.

So someone else had us. But, why? Did they figure out my designation somehow? Was this room where I would be… kept?

I had no illusions about why someone would keep an omega in a cell with such a nice, big bed. It wasn't for my comfort.

A low whine escaped me. I fought to contain it. Only omegas make that sound and I desperately needed to keep my omega instincts in check. Ivan could hide my scent, and prevent certain other omega characteristics with the spellstone, but he couldn't change my brain. He couldn't stop my instincts. My brother had warned me that I had to act like a beta.

Maybe whoever it was that had us didn't know I was an omega. Ivan seemed sure that his magic would last, just as long as I kept the gem with me and he could replenish the magic regularly. I scrabbled at my forearm and found the hard nub near my elbow where he'd inserted the tiny gem, inscribed with his spell, under my skin. It was still there. It was still warm with his comforting, brown magic. He'd told me it would grow cold when it was about to run out.

I breathed a bit more deeply. My scent was still locked away and I was safe. Somewhat safe. Unfortunately that also meant my magic was locked away with it, but a beta without much magic was common enough. It's not like my magic ever did me any favors, anyway. It was ridiculously weak compared with my brother's power.

Probably yet another delightful part of being an omega.

Still better than the whole slavery thing.

I reluctantly threw off the wool blankets and realized my clothes had been removed at some point. I was clean, or at least I was no longer streaked with mud, and was wearing a fine linen shift that would have cost my father two months wages, back when he bothered to hold a job.

I felt the blood drain from my face as I contemplated how I got this way. Ivan had been near-unconscious the last time I saw him, so there was no way he'd stripped my clothes and washed me. I checked my body, as my heartbeat thundered in my ears. My injured feet, torn up from running barefoot half the night, had been thickly bandaged and someone had slathered my ankle with a herbal cream, for all the good that would do. The deep bruising and graze on my hip where a rock had caught me from the mudslide had had the same treatment. I stuck a finger in the cream and sniffed it. The stench of comfrey was the main scent, but I could smell a golden whiff of something very pleasant as well. Calendula, maybe and something else. Something beautiful. It was like a freshly-scythed hayfield, cutting through the unpleasant scent of comfrey, which I'd always hated so much. However, I had to admit it was an effective healing herb. Someone knew their stuff.

At least they weren't going to kill me immediately, if they were bothering to treat me this well. On the other hand, if they thought I was a common beta, no one had any reason to be treating me with expensive creams.

Shuddering, I did a quick inspection of my sex, checking for pain or any other sign that it had been recently touched. To my relief there was nothing. If I had been discovered as an omega in my own country, I'd be whored out, or slaughtered before they'd even gotten the mud off. So this was a good sign.

We were in Raksim now, though, so there was no telling what the locals might want to do to me, even if they did think I was a beta. It was well known that they were barbarians who didn't give a shit about betas. They only cared about alphas. If you were an omega you belonged to their king and he'd give you to some pack to be kept like a slave, and used like one too. If you were a beta you might not even have that privilege. You were just a serf, one step up from a slave to the ruling alphas. Tyrannical alphas were one of the favorite topics of conversation in my village. How cruel they were. How they liked nothing better than to whip poor betas bloody, then disappear into their castles to play with their harems of omegas. My village was poor, but we were free.

Well, some of us were.

Although the farming folk the bounty hunters had robbed just seemed like ordinary betas to me. Maybe being close to the border had influenced their ruling lord.

I shuddered again, and tugged off the softest of the blankets to wrap around myself as I sat on the edge of the bed. I had to find Ivan and we had to get out of this place. We'd been working towards true freedom for five years, working to ensure neither of us would ever end up in this gods-forsaken country. Our plan had been to wait until Ivan knew enough magic to hide me properly and then to travel to the capital of Lutin and live there, as ordinary betas. I'd be a spinster aunt, and sell herbal tinctures, and pour all my love into my brother's eventual family.

I would walk outside whenever I wished. I'd get to pick who I spent my time with. I'd maybe even have friends or lovers.

I'd be free.

So how did we end up here? I cursed my father under my breath. The greedy bastard just couldn't wait a few more months. He'd been trying to sell me since I first presented and he had finally offered me to the wrong group of bounty hunters. They didn't give a shit about his old shotgun. The second I was in their hands, they had simply taken off with me and the money and my father was left with nothing but a lump on his head and an empty manacle.

If only they'd stabbed him a few times as well.

I swept the room with my gaze again, trying to find my clothes, but I couldn't see them. The linen shift was too thin for comfort, even though the room was pleasantly warm. I wrapped the blanket around myself instead, draping it over my shoulders like a toga. After a few tries I manged to tuck it so that it held itself together over the important bits. I looked ridiculous, but not scandalous.

That done, I downed a few cups of water from the jug, and hobbled across the cool, stone floor to attempt the door. Locked, but I had expected that. Luckily, whoever had bathed me hadn't bothered much with my hair.

When I'd first revealed at 18 years old my father, who never paid me much attention when I was a child, suddenly decided I was precious to him. He wasn't the smartest of men, but even he realized I wasn't going to just let him sell me off to the highest bidder, and so I woke up one morning to the snick of a lock as he fastened a manacle over my ankle.

Ivan wasn't living at home at that point. As soon as he turned 16 he had moved to the capital to study magic. Like everyone else, he had thought I was a beta. I was already courting with a man in the village when he left, and he had no reason to think my life would follow anything but a normal trajectory. We all assumed I would marry, and have children, and live out my days within the confines of a very safe, very boring life. And so, my brother hadn't been home to witness my second puberty, or how our father and neighbors reacted to it.

The manacle took me several candles to pick. Maire was a tiny village, and I'd only ever seen half-a-dozen locks in my life. However, luckily for me, Ivan used to love adventure stories of noble bandits and thieves. I had read them to him when he was a child and missing his mother, and picking locks was a rogue's bread and butter. So, whenever there was a lock in my vicinity, and no one to judge me, I had given it a go using hair pins and wire, hoping to thrill my little brother with an utterly useless skill.

It was more difficult than the books made it sound, but I gradually figured it out. The trick was using more than one implement, which I picked up from the Zael Rogue books. They seemed somehow more accurate than other classics of the genre. Zael always needed at least one prong to tumble the mechanism and one to turn the lock.

Once I overcame the shock of being imprisoned by my own vile father, I had nothing else to do but sit and fiddle with that lock.

Unfortunately, once I got it off, there was nowhere to run. I had no idea how to get to where Ivan lived. I'd only left our village a few times before, and that was to go to the local market town. The capital was many jaunts further than that.

My father didn't even need to hire bounty hunters to catch me. He carried me home himself after less than half a day, screaming and kicking. Later that night I sobbed until my eyes hurt because, not only did he lock me up again, I now realized that not a single one of my neighbors was going to stop him. I had screamed loudly enough that all of them knew what he was doing. They just didn't care.

It didn't matter that they had helped raise me and Ivan after our mother died, that I had kissed their sons, or played jump rope and knucklebones with their daughters. I was an omega. No doubt many of them thought my father was being lenient by keeping me alive.

My father used the same manacle after that, but bound me with rope as well, in the corner of the room where, in theory, I couldn't reach anything to pick the lock.

Within two days I'd managed it again, squirming out of his atrocious knots, and manipulating the lock mechanism with a pair of twigs I'd found in my straw bedding.

The blacksmith's son, Adam, caught me later that night after I begged him for help, and wasted no time in hauling me home.

After that escape attempt my father had Adam weld the manacle shut. My former lover refused to look me in the eye as he did it, wielding a spell gem to melt the metal ends together, but he was happy enough to squeeze my breast in his big, dirty hand when my father wasn't watching.

After that, there was no more lock picking, but I still remembered the feel of it.

Picking the lock on this fancy door with a hair pin I found under the bed was far easier than picking a manacle with a tiny stick of wood. I managed it in only a few wicks.

Easing the door open, I was grateful for its well-oiled hinges. I opened it only the barest crack, expecting another room on the other side, perhaps one that was filled with people. To my shock, instead I peered out into a long, stone corridor.

Was this an inn? I couldn't imagine such a large building being used for anything else. There was a window way down at the end of the corridor, maybe 10 paces away from me, and several other doors in the walls. Not wanting to get that far away from the relative safety of my room, I decided not to approach the window yet, but even from where I was standing I could tell it was night time. Good. Maybe everyone was asleep.

Making a quick note of the wood grain pattern on my own door, and unable to see anyone else around, I decided it was time to find my brother and get the heck out of here.

I crept to the next door down, away from the window, and tried the handle. It was unlocked, making me think Ivan probably wasn't in there. I took a deep breath, but couldn't catch a whiff of anyone inside. I debated opening the door to check anyway but decided it wasn't worth the risk or the time.

I hoisted my blanket covering, which was starting to loosen, and padded on aching feet to the next door.

This one was locked.

Gently, trying to make the least possible noise, I began to work the hairpin in the new lock. It was almost identical to the lock on my own door, so picking it was a matter of flicks. It clicked open and I was about to turn the handle when every hair on my body tried to stand on end at once. Someone was behind me.

A breath caressed my ear as a low voice murmured directly into it. "What are you doing out of your room, little mudpuppy?"

I almost shrieked in my shock but swallowed the noise at the last moment. My body coursed with adrenaline, shaking as I turned and was hit full in the face by the musky scent of an adult, male alpha.

Shit. My own scent and my magic might have been hidden from him, but it didn't seem to matter. His scent hit my senses like a flood.

He smelled like a forest steaming in the first rain after the dry season. Like the best kinds of mushrooms, fresh from a field and all chopped up and ready to be fried with butter. He smelled earthy and refined and sexy all at once. This man was the best smelling alpha- no, the best smelling person - I'd ever scented.

I couldn't stop my body's instinctive reaction. Blood rushed to my face, as well as to more private areas, and my nipples hardened under the linen. I desperately hoped they were hidden by the thick blanket. I felt myself trembling in a way that shamed me, felt my body try to sway towards him as if I was sixteen years old and hoping that a boy would kiss me. If not for the concealing magic, I knew my thighs would be covered in slick.

Nausea filled my gut. Unfortunately, it was all from disgust over myself, and not due to the delicious-smelling alpha.

No ! I was not going to do this. I was not going to prove my father right!

I clamped down on my reaction as best I could. It wasn't like I enjoyed being close to alphas. Every single one of them I'd ever met had been cruel and disgusting, proving right every story I'd ever heard about their designation. Their scents usually did nothing for me, except make me ill.

I'd scented one or two in the distance at markets before I revealed. And, of course, when my father brought them to the house they would often scentmark the heck out of me, leaving me reeking for days afterwards.

None of those scents had ever affected me like this.

The alpha was looking at me, his dark-blue eyes curious, with a hint of cold amusement at my reaction that might have bordered on sadism. He was at least half a foot taller than me and lean, with dark brown curls, bronze skin and sharp features. He was wearing mage robes, which draped his form in rich blue that matched his eyes, but even the loose clothing couldn't hide his muscular form.

Once, I could have held my own in a fight against a woman my own size, or even a bit bigger, but those days were gone. My father had taught me well enough that there was no point in trying to fight off an adult male in close quarters, let alone an alpha.

Omegas were the weakest of the designations. I was too weak. I'd always lose.

My brain raced as I tried to find a way to get myself out of this, and away from this alpha. Maybe he thought the door was unlocked already when I got here. Maybe he didn't see me picking it. If I let him ‘capture' me, maybe I'd have another chance to get out.

"Are you lonely, little pup? Were you looking for your mate?"

Unable to help myself, I winced at the idea that Ivan and I were mated, and croaked out "my brother. "

As soon as the words left me I kicked myself. The alpha smirked at me, just a slight twitch of his thin lips, as he watched the dismay slide over my face. It would have been a hundred times better if I'd claimed Ivan was my mate. That would bind us together legally, and maybe that would be enough if no one could scent me, to get us out of whatever was happening here.

Unfortunately, since someone had undressed me, they'd probably seen I had no bitten bond marks, and I knew that was a big deal in this country. They were barbarians, biting people, savaging them in some kind of mystical claiming.

I hesitated again, then decided my best option was to play up my ignorance and vulnerability. If my stupid omega hormones were going to play hell with my body then I might as well use it to my advantage. And this man looked haughty. Sophisticated. He wasn't going to want to deal with a whiny village girl.

I scrunched up my face, willing tears to fill my eyes, and peered up at him through my lashes. I made myself as small as possible without going onto my knees.

"Wuh… what are you going to do with us?"

He cocked his head, his eyes narrowing, clearly taken aback by my feminine wiles.

Unfortunately, his cold face didn't warm at all and he only kept gazing at me as if he knew all my secrets. As if he could see how his scent was affecting me.

I tried to take shallow breaths.

"No need to fear, mudpuppy," he said and I let myself visibly cringe at the name. "We probably aren't going to hurt you. I'll just need to ask you a few questions."

I kept my eyes open as long as I could bear it, letting them burn, until they finally became suitably wet.

"Can I see my brother? Please, please don't hurt us, we didn't do anything wrong."

I sobbed, letting the fake noise muffle against my sleeve, then having to ruck up my blanket again as it tried to slip off. I glanced at him surreptitiously, displeased at how little my dramatics were affecting him.

Alphas were the worst .

"You can't see him yet," he said. "Once he wakes up and you both answer those questions, I'm sure we'll let you go."

He grabbed my elbow and I fought my instinct to jerk it away from him.

What was with that emphasis? Why wouldn't they let Ivan go?

"He hasn't woken up yet?" I squawked, deciding that was the more important point. "What's wrong with him?"

The alpha's fingers seemed to burn through the thin fabric of my shift as he steered me back to my room, completely ignoring my questions.

"Now that you're awake, I'll get someone to bring you some clothes." He paused and to my horror I heard him taking deep breaths, as if he were trying to scent me. It was the one weakness of Ivan's spell. It took away my own scent but didn't replace it. Ivan had brought a container of perfume for me but only the gods knew where it was now.

A beta couldn't scentmark as strongly as an alpha or omega could, but they still had a scent. And alphas were notoriously good at sniffing people out. It was the main reason we'd had to wait so long for Ivan to rescue me from our father. If he couldn't put an infallible spell in place to hide my scent, I would have drawn in any alpha within jaunts of my location.

It was how my father found his customers.

"You smell like…" He trailed off and I tensed and waited for the axe to fall.

"You smell like your brother." He frowned at me. His lips didn't really move, but his forehead creased and I knew he was puzzled. I instinctively knew I did not want to be a puzzle for this alpha. He had all the hallmarks of a person who would not give up until he knew everything there was to know about something. Mages were notoriously curious, and notoriously driven. I should know, my brother was one of them.

"I didn't realize an omega scentmark would last that long."

What?

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, my voice so strained I wondered if my vocal cords would snap like frayed string. I suddenly didn't need to fake my sniffling.

Surely Ivan hadn't done that . He would have told me, if he'd activated that spell. He'd promised me that he'd only do it as a last resort.

He couldn't have done it.

"There's no need to pretend, little beta," the alpha said, still peering at me with that hint of cold intrigue in his eyes. "His scent is unmistakable. We know all about him being an omega." He cocked a dark, manicured brow at me. "So there's no need to put on this little act. We won't harm him, but we can't let him go either."

Without another word, the alpha pushed me into my room and firmly closed the door.