Chapter Ten
Miles
They gave me towels and showed me to a bathroom to shower. The Alpha who’d taken me north seemed particularly keen to get me clean. I wasn’t quite sure why but I was happy to do it. The scent of those Alphas -my Alpha team- still clung to my skin, sending my stomach roiling every time I caught a hint of them.
The Alpha who kept telling people he was mine was different. I liked how he smelled. The other Alpha here, Heath, looked at me like I was a problem. He didn’t smell like he was mine but neither did he smell wrong, like the others. Would he be on my Alpha team up here in the North? How many would there be?
I wasn’t sure I could go through all that again. My arm still burned where the other Alpha had held his dead mark to my live one. My mark didn’t look any different but the skin around it crawled.
The shower was exactly what I needed. Warm water falling in sheets across my skin, steam rising around me, so all the dirt and sweat was washed away. I found some bodywash and scrubbed hard. There was a need there, to rid myself of every last trace of those Alphas’ scents. They seemed to be on every inch of my skin, even behind my ears and under my arms. And in my hair.
It felt strange to run my hands over my head so I tried not to think about it. But once I was out of the shower and standing in front of the mirror, it was impossible to ignore my shaved head and my stark, bruised face staring back at me.
What had I done? I’d run from my duty, from my country. I was a traitor. I’d turned my back on my Alpha team. Worse than that, I’d turned my back on my family. On my father. Even miles and miles away, I could feel the heavy weight of his disappointment. How did I fix this? How did I make it right?
It was odd to find myself sitting at a table in a stranger’s kitchen with a bowl of soup in front of me. Even weirder somehow to realize that it was just an ordinary home. Sophie, the woman who made me the soup, left the room, reappearing a few minutes later with a baby in her arms. The baby fussed, and she walked back and forth, rocking her.
“So your name is Miles, right?” she asked. “We saw you on TV.”
I could feel what little blood left in my face drain away. With everything that had happened after they started processing me, I’d forgotten the events of that day.
“You seemed so happy-” she paused. “No, happy is the wrong word. You seemed accepting, content with your choice.”
“I was. At least, I thought I was.” But then they’d stripped me naked and locked me in a dark room for what seemed like an eternity. “How long has it been? Since that day?”
Frowning, she took a seat opposite me. “You don’t know?”
“Things got… muddled. It was dark and-” I shut my mouth.
“They kept you in the dark?”
I didn’t want to say more, still confused from the sedatives Jethro had given me or maybe from the days of no food or water.
“It’s been four days since you were on TV that first time.”
I caught the inference. I’d been on TV since. They were probably replaying it, over and over. The next generation of Omega recruits. But maybe they’d stopped now that I was missing. Would they be broadcasting the fact that I was gone?
The implications of what I’d done, of the choice I’d made, were finally catching up with me. I needed to talk to Jethro. To tell him I’d made a terrible mistake.
I didn’t have long to wait to speak with the Alpha. He came to find me as I sat staring at the bowl in front of me. I wanted to eat it but I couldn’t bring myself to. Every time my hand reached for the spoon, it shook. In the Center, food had been the gift of my Alpha team. It seemed wrong to just take it.
Jethro dragged a chair around the wrong way and straddled it, resting his arms across the back.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better. Still sleepy. Still cold.” So cold, the kind of coldness I wasn’t sure I’d ever be rid of.
“You’re not eating your soup.”
It was an observation but allowed me enough room to ask. “Can I?”
Jethro frowned and cocked his head to the side, watching me closely.
“Of course. It’s for you.”
Relieved, I was able to reach for the spoon and ladle some into my mouth. Jethro seemed content to watch me eat for a while before he spoke.
“I wanted to talk to you about what we’ll do next.”
I let go of my spoon to give the Alpha my full attention.
“So did I. I… I need to go back.”
Clearly, that wasn’t what he’d expected me to say. He froze.
“Back? Back to the South?”
“I’m a traitor. I’ve betrayed my country, my people, our Alpha troops. I’ve turned my back on my family.”
I heard a noise by the door and looked up. Another Alpha had arrived. He was staring at me strangely, like I’d sprouted a second head.
“Miles.”
Jethro drew my attention back to him.
“You want to go back to the South?”
“It’s my duty, my purpose.” I felt like a broken record, the words coming easily to my lips, again and again, but sounding like fragments, words chopped into pieces and tossed around.
“What if they’re wrong, about where your purpose lies?”
Jethro leaned closer as he spoke, his voice quiet but firm, drawing my eyes to his again.
“But they’re not. I’m an Omega.”
The Alpha stretched his arm out toward me, his mark glowing brightly.
“You’re not an Omega. You’re my Omega. Hold your arm out.”
I did. Side by side, it was easy to see how similar they were. Turn mine upside down and reverse the image and it was his.
“Put your mark on mine,” he urged.
I started to shake. The other Alpha, he’d done that, place his mark over mine. And the pain, the pain…
Pulling my body inward, I shrank back into my seat, but I was too afraid to pull my arm away.
“Please. Please don’t make me.”
He pulled his arm back, slowly and deliberately, looking away for a moment before glancing back at me, his expression troubled.
“What did they do to you?”
I didn’t think he was really asking me a question, but I answered it, nonetheless.
“They called it processing.”
I drew my arm back, wrapping it around my middle, safe from prying eyes and Alpha touches. For now, at least.
“Miles, I’d like you to stay in the North and be my Omega. I won’t force you to stay, but I need you to give me some time to explain the purpose you’d have here, as Omega Prime.”
Omega Prime? I’d never heard that title before. What did it mean?
“Do you think you could agree to that? Not to staying indefinitely, but for a few days. Enough time for us to get to know one another, and for you to understand what it would mean for you if you were to stay here.”
I should have said no, insisted he returned me, but his words weren’t the words I’d expected. Would it be like in the South?
“How many Alphas?”
A frown crossed his face.
“What do you mean?”
“How many on your team? How many would have to… touch me?” How many strange scents on my skin, burrowing inside me?
“None, Miles. That’s not how it works up here, in the North. There’s just me. I’m your Alpha. No others. Just me.”
I glanced toward the door, but the other Alpha was gone. Jethro saw where I was looking.
“Oh, that’s just Blaise. He’s a friend and an Alpha, and if we bond, he’ll be part of our clan. Heath, too.”
“So he… he won’t…” I looked down at my arm, at my mark, the memories of the other Alpha pushing his arm against mine flooding me.
“Damn it, you’re shaking,” Jethro said softly. I glanced up at him as he got to his feet, pulling off his jacket, and laying it around my shoulders.
Crouching next to my chair, he seemed to take pains not to touch me. But this close, his scent called to me, earthy and warm with a hint of spice underneath.
“No one here is going to hurt you, I promise. Do you really want to go back there? Nothing will have changed. They’ll put you right back in that room and start the processing all over again.”
I shuddered at that, pulling the Alpha’s jacket tighter around me. It smelled like it had been freshly washed but it also smelled like him and I took comfort in that.
“I…” What did I want? Did I even know? There was a war going on inside my head, between duty and fear. And right then, fear was winning.
“You don’t have to decide right away. But if you and I are to have a few days to set things straight, we can’t stay here. There are people looking for us even now. It won’t be long before they track us here. And I don’t want to bring trouble down on my friends.”
He reached for me and I felt shame because I wanted it. I wanted him to touch me, to feel the rightness that contrasted just how wrong the other Alphas had felt.
His fingers tipped my chin up, his eyes meeting mine.
“Will you come with me, Miles?”
I nodded, relief warring with misery. I wasn’t ready to go back, not yet. What difference were a few days going to make?