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calix

TODAY HAS BEEN a bit of a trial.

First of all, I did not want to leave my omega. It seemed wrong . In the Polloi tradition, it wouldn’t be considered ideal, but it might have happened, I suppose. It would have depended.

If I had been of a bloodline close to the Vasilissa, if my pack had been important, then I would have either not had a job at all or I would have taken time off for the job.

But if I’d been way down the line, near the bottom, then my pack wouldn’t have mattered.

I can see there being pressure, even in the wake of bonding an omega, to say that alphas of that caliber should leave the nest and go make money for the pack.

I was taught that taking money from the outside world was noble. Sucking on that massive organism like a parasite, bleeding it dry. Anything we could do to benefit ourselves, whether it was taking jobs from them or charging them outrageous prices for our homemade jam, we did it.

But if things had been different, I would never have left her.

Of course, if things had been different, she would have bites from all of us, and we all would have been in that nest with her, naked, and we would have spent the day knotting her.

So, leaving her at all this morning, it wasn’t easy, but I did it.

I actually had an idea that what I was going to do today was to look into getting some drugs that could knock Acker out. Because if we’re worried about her getting free, the best thing we could do would be to sedate her.

I’ve been stealing rut-suppression drugs from Cedar Falls since I first got this job.

I originally got the job as a janitor to have access to the places in the facility where those kinds of drugs were kept.

Due to my alpha abilities meaning I was good at soothing omegas, I ended up working with them.

Anyway, I can get to the drugs. That’s not a problem.

So, I had plans of doing that today, and that was a big reason why I went in to work.

I don’t know why I’m keeping this job exactly, only that it’s a means to income—which none of us have—and that I feel we’re tied to Cedar Falls in some way. Whatever that way is, it hasn’t come to closure yet.

None of us are really in a position to make big decisions right now. Things are in flux, and we’re just hanging on, really.

The second reason the day has been trying has been the new bond.

I had some idea what this would be like, to have bitten an omega. People say that bonds mean you’re aware of each other, and that you feel each other, that you feel as if you’re sort of inside each other.

But I’d also heard that a scent-match bond was a lot more intense, and I had braced for that.

Now, I don’t know if this is more intense, but I know it’s inconsistent. Sometimes, I feel nearly at one with Lotus, as if we are not separate people at all but just entirely connected. Other times, I don’t really feel her at all. When we sync up, though, it tends to be, uh, jarring.

It was jarring when she was just worried about Knight’s whereabouts. That cut into me, and it made me panic. Did I need to go back? Was something wrong? Had Knight been kidnapped or hurt or worse? I knew he had mob connections. Maybe they had come for him, and—

But then, no, it all wiped out, because Arrow knew he was fine.

And she was just gone.

The effect of that? To be trying to do your job and overtaken by someone else’s panic, to feel the panic as your own, to add to the panic as it permeates you…

And then have it turn off?

Well, it makes me feel insane.

And that was before the sex part started, which, uh… well, then.

Having your omega’s second-hand orgasm wash through you while you are pretending that you’re not wicked turned on and trying to do your job? It’s, um, yeah, not entirely comfortable.

Clearly, this can’t go on. There’s got to be some way we can protect ourselves from unwanted bond leakage—for lack of a better term.

However, the good thing about this leakage is that I get another idea, which is that I can look for some kind of drug to give Acker that can completely take her out as a problem.

If we could give her amnesia—if we could give her the same kind of brain damage she’s given the alphas and omegas in the facility?

Well, I can’t think of a better solution to this entire problem.

Of course, by the time I get into the room where the drugs are all kept, it’s late, and I’m tired, and I realize I don’t entirely know how to do that.

So, the way that my mates were damaged was an accident. No one knows why some people react badly to the drugs and other people don’t, or else, obviously, they would have fixed it so that it wouldn’t happen anymore.

I sit with that thought for a moment before I have another thought.

Would they have fixed it?

Would someone like Acker have had a vested interest in making sure she got her little lab rats even if she knew she could have solved the entire problem?

Huh.

That’s something that requires further research. But if she did know, well, maybe that’s a clue to the way we could fix all of the omegas and alphas in this facility.

I steal some sedatives and then I let myself out of the room.

As I’m walking down the hall, a security guard is coming down the opposite way. I give him a wave and a smile.

He looks me over, not smiling back.

So, I become even more relaxed, projecting as much of an air that I’m supposed to be here as I can.

“You’re here late,” he says.

“Am I?” I take out my phone to check the time. “Well, headed home now. You have a good night.” During all of this, I have not stopped moving, because I’m projecting that everything’s fine, just fine. I cross him, heading for the elevator.

“You too,” he calls after me.

As I climb into the elevator, I know that’s probably not a good sign. That guy is suspicious. He wasn’t suspicious enough to stop me this time, but he’ll remember if he sees me out of place in the future.

Damn it.

lotus

I WANT TO be on Calix’s lap. I missed him. I realize I am drawing strength from this between us, this bond we have. He lets me sit on his lap, eager to be close to me, eager to give me whatever I need.

But I feel something else from him, a strain.

He is not meant to be the only alpha bonded to me. He is meant to share that bond. He needs me to get my other bites.

We are in the kitchen of the punishment house, and Striker is the only one there, because Arrow is out collecting Knight.

Arrow came back at one point, to tell us that Knight had gone off with some alpha to find out information from an omega here on the compound. We thought he’d come home after he’d gotten whatever he could out of her, but he never came back. Arrow said he was doing a lot of thinking.

Finally, when Calix got home from work, I told Arrow to get Knight back here.

Calix sets a plastic bag on the table. I can see the syringe, complete with needle, and the drug that will be injected, in it.

“It’s a sedative,” Calix says. “We can knock her out. If there was a clear sort of drug there that caused longterm amnesia, I would have taken it. But if there is, I don’t know what it is.”

“No, of course you don’t,” I say, snuggling in to him.

He absently rubs at his bite mark on the back of my neck.

It makes me purr.

He purrs back.

“Okay,” speaks up Striker. “Well, so we think the idea is a nonstarter?” I told him that I’d communicated it to Calix somehow.

“No, not saying that,” says Calix. “I think it requires more research. We need to understand why it affected you guys the way it did. Was that a freak accident or was it something preventable? I was thinking that if they knew what the variable was, they wouldn’t have given it to people with that variable. ”

“But she might have,” I say. “Because she said this thing to me about how you sometimes have to make moral sacrifices in the search of scientific truth. And if she thought she could learn things, she’d do anything. Anything at all. How many omegas did she have you guys kill, anyway?”

Striker flinches. “Too many. But you’re right. That’s exactly who she is.”

“Yes,” says Calix. “Believe me, I’m right there with you. So, I thought, okay, well what if she did know, and what if we can find that data somewhere. I got into the network and I have access to all the files.”

“You did?” I say. “When?”

“Well, when I was trying to find you guys, I called a friend of mine who has access to this sort of thing,” says Calix.

“So, anyway, I’m going to do a deep dive into that.

Or if we could get a laptop, I could go in to work, and you guys could be logged in here.

” He makes a face. “Okay, no, because there’s no internet here.

Maybe if we had a mobile hotspot…” He shakes his head.

“Not the point. What I’m trying to say is that if we can get in, we can possibly find out more than how give Acker amnesia.

Maybe we could figure out how to save all the omegas and alphas who are locked up down there. ”

I turn to look at him. “Yes,” I say.

Striker nods. “If we can do that—”

But the door’s opening.

I get up off Calix’s lap to look as Arrow and Knight are coming inside.

“Hey,” I say. “There you are. Where have you been? What’d you find out?”

“Nothing,” says Knight, looking very frustrated. “Absolutely nothing. It seemed like I was getting somewhere, but no matter what I do, I’m stuck getting nowhere.”

It’s exactly what I said the other night. I go to him and wrap my arms around his body.

He folds his arms around me.

“Where were you, though?” says Calix.

Knight sighs, letting go of me. “You’re going to be annoyed.”

“Oh, you did not go to Kyvelki!” says Calix.

Knight scratches the back of his head, sheepish.

“That’s fantastic,” says Calix, sarcastically. “Did you piss her off?”

“She seemed to mostly find me amusing,” says Knight, his voice dull.

“Thank Goddess for small favors,” mutters Calix.