Page 14

Miranda

“ We need to do something fun before we’re separated for a week.”

Arlowe swoops between me and Nyx, then loops her arms through ours, her short mahogany bob blowing in the cold breeze. Her head turns from me to Nyx before she scowls. “No ideas?”

Nyx lets out a laugh. “What fun can we have?”

Our shadowy friend lets out a pffft and rolls her eyes. “You two are so dull. Let’s get away from these dorks and find some privacy.”

I open my mouth to agree to this plan, but my voice is stolen as the world tilts on its axis and goes dark and hot, stifling, but only for a moment. Then, the darkness clears, and we’re in one of the training buildings, bright and quiet. But the world doesn’t stop spinning around me, and I feel myself rock right before my hands slam to my knees and my lunch lurches from my stomach to spill all over the floor, my gagging vaguely embarrassing, but I can’t bring myself to care.

“ Ugh, Lowe!” Nyx puts her hand on my back and begins to rub. “You can’t transport us like that without warning! Mira hasn’t been through your torture before.”

Arlowe leans down beside me, her eyes apologetic, but nose scrunched in disgust. “Sorry, Mira. I forgot.”

I put my hand up in the universal sign of “I’m good,” but take a minute before standing up straight, nice and slow. The world has stopped rotating around me, so I take some cleansing breaths.

“ I’ll clean this up.” Arlowe vanishes in a puff of darkness and returns in an instant with some cleaning supplies and hands me a bottle of cold water, which I accept gratefully.

Her curse is pretty handy, although you couldn’t pay me to go through that again.

After sipping the water, I tell her, “I can get that,” but she waves me off. I notice she has cleaning gloves on. Where the heck did she get all this stuff?

She’s finished, gone, and back again faster than my still fuzzy brain can process, the smell of cleaning chemicals the only evidence all that had just happened.

“ Well now!” Arlowe smiles big, her cleaning scrubs gone, everything back to normal. “I guess I gave us a bit too much excitement to start, so want to take a little walk and get some fresh air?”

“ Sure,” I say before Nyx can admonish our friend again. I can feel her desire to argue, and while I appreciate her protective nature, I don’t want our last day together for a while to be fraught with fighting.

We go back outside, this time to the outskirts of the property where the forest borders the well-kept grounds. Their breath puffs white as we walk, and I notice both my friends snuggling into their coats and scarves, shoving their hands into their pockets. The weather doesn’t bother me at all, yet I open my mouth to tell them we can go back inside where it’s warmer, but Arlowe interrupts me.

“ How are your boy toys?”

My head shakes as a smile stretches across my face and turns to a smirk. I’m getting used to her teasing. “Oh, you know, they’re boys. And...toy-ful.”

Nyx snickers beside me while a loud laugh bursts from Arlowe. “Toy-ful? Does that mean they know what they’re doing when it comes to the female form?”

That wipes the smile from my face. “You know I can’t—”

“ Sorry,” she mumbles. “I know.”

Now I’ve killed the vibe. “So, is there anyone you have your eye on, Lowe?”

Nyx chuckles. “Oh, she used to.”

My brows raise. “Really? What happened?”

“ He’s not here anymore.” Arlowe’s tone is flat, which is not normal for her.

“ Oh.” I turn my gaze to her and cock my head. “I’m sorry.”

She lets out a disgruntled sigh. “Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you’re here for a while, right? It’ll happen to us all eventually.”

“ Kiyoshi was sold a couple of years ago. I think to the Pacific Asian Empire,” Nyx offers. “I believe they try to buy all those who are descendants of families from there.”

“ Kiyoshi?” That name…

My spine straightens, and I stop walking, shock freezing my steps. “Kiyoshi Sato? Rai’s brother?”

They both stop walking as well, Arlowe turning to face me with a frown. “That’s him.”

I must look like a fish, my mouth opening and closing, words completely escaping me.

Arlowe smirks and starts walking again as she calls back, “Those Sato boys are hot as hell.”

As my brows rise higher, Nyx gets closer and whispers, “She’s downplaying it, like everything else. She loves him.” Her dark eyes pierce mine, and she bites her lip, the understanding there is overwhelming.

Nyx knows the battle I’m waging with myself. She’s going through it, too. And it must be even worse for Arlowe, being separated from the Alpha she loves.

I watch her back as she keeps walking away from us, her movements slow and trudging.

I shouldn’t have brought it up.

My feet hustle to catch up to her when a siren wails. It’s coming from every single building, so piercing that I have to cover my ears, as do my friends.

“ What’s going on?” I shout.

Arlowe and Nyx both shake their heads before Arlowe motions for us to follow her. We jog around the building toward the pathway leading from the main building to all the secondary locations. When my foot touches the stone path, there’s a commotion and shouting coming from the direction of the main building. About five soldiers are running our way, chasing a male Omega, his golden collar bouncing with his rapid steps, his sweet scent turning bitter with fear.

The soldiers chasing him keep shouting for him to stop; one calls him by name in a pleading tone.

My brows draw tight, confusion floods my senses. The Omega draws nearer to us; his eyes connect with mine, wild and fearful, and then his collar turns from gold to red.

There is a terrifying pop, and his collar explodes, taking his neck and head with it in a rain of blood, sinew, and bone. His body crumples to the stone path.

Everything stops. There’s no sound, no movement. I don’t think I’m breathing. But then, as my body begins to quake, Nyx collapses to the ground with a thud, and Arlowe starts to vomit like I had a moment ago. And I…

The soldiers surround the fallen Omega’s form, the Beta who had called out to him is ashen, his wide eyes catch mine. He is more shaken than I am, while the others shout orders and look at the body in disgust.

The soldier looking at me didn’t want this. I don’t know if it’s intuition or what, but I can just tell that this man felt something for that Omega.

The creature inside my chest rages within its confines, and the Beta soldier stands up straighter. Through his sorrow, he gives me the slightest head shake, as if warning me not to do something. But I know there’s nothing I can do that won’t end in me turning out like that Omega, headless on the cold ground.

The Beta looks at his fellow soldiers and says something I can’t understand, and then he’s approaching us.

Arlowe is helping Nyx sit up, and I can feel their cringing as they attempt to move away from the Beta, but I put my hand out to them in a stopping motion.

The beast in me growls while a sense of calm washes over me that the back of my mind tells me I should not be feeling.

The Beta walks up to me, slow, his hands slightly in front of him, fingers spread. When he’s close enough, I can read the patch on the front of his uniform.

Hansen.

“ You all need to return to your dorms.” His voice is quiet, soothing, despite the horror behind him. Despite the terror in his eyes.

The creature in me chuffs. Deceiver.

It doesn’t mean he’s lying to me, but…

My nostrils flare, and I scent him as his eyes widen, taking his aroma deep into my lungs. Muted, bland, like all Betas. And yet there is something beneath it that I can’t place. Something that doesn’t belong to a Beta.

His fearful eyes, the color of slate, turn pleading. My head tilts as I look him over, my actions foreign, like I’m not in control. When my chin lifts at him, I find myself saying in a calm voice, “We’re going.”

The man seems to almost deflate with relief when I turn to my friends’ questioning gazes and gesture with my head up the path to the main building.

I lead the way back in silence, the creature inside me warring with my fear and devastation.

This thing is beginning to gain some control over me. The thought sends my heart racing, and I feel dizzy.

As I cross the entrance, the voice inside me is clear.

We must escape.