by Lily Archer
She seems to think it over, then meets my gaze again. “At least you know who you are. I’m still trying to find my place here. And I’m not a fighter, at least I’m not a very good one. But maybe I fit some other way. Maybe sealing the circle will point me in the right direction.” When she adjusts her hips the slightest bit, realization hits me.
Beneath me. I have my Omega beneath me. I blink hard and know I should get up. Instead, I lean closer, the memory of her soft lips goading me onward. This is a mistake. One I’m desperate to make again and again.
Her gaze strays to my mouth. An invitation. I move closer, but instead of her lips, I kiss her throat, tasting her salty skin and feeling that flutter of life in her pounding heart.
She gasps, the scent of her slick coating the air as I run my tongue along her soft skin.
I have to stop. “My brothers deserve to share this.” I pull back. Did I just say out loud that Kyte and Jeren are my brothers? I did. And it feels … right.
“Um, Ceredes?” She wiggles her fingers. “These are going numb.”
“Sorry.” I release her and help her to her feet. “About your wrists,” I add. “Not about tasting you.”
She squints. “Was all the smooth talk and neck kissing some sort of diversionary tactic?”
I laugh. “Sure. Yes. All a battle tactic. Now grab that sword and run me through, or I’ll have to do it again.”
She moves toward the sword, then pauses and looks over her shoulder. “Promise?”
20
Lana
“That feels nice.” Kyte rests his head in my lap as Jeren throws his knives and Ceredes naps. We’re like a family of lions lounging in the sun. Apparently, cadets get one day off a week. Well, scratch that, it’s only half a day, but we’ve decided to make the most of it. Lying next to an azure blue lake at the edge of the academy forest with three Alphas in nothing but swim trunks isn’t so bad. Tilda splashes in the lake, she and Uaxin matching each other in swimming ability. They must have fins or something, because they move with complete ease in the clear water. I couldn’t keep up.
Ceredes snores a little. Is it weird that I find it cute?
I sigh and relax beneath a huge tree, the shade a pleasant break from the sunny lake. “This is so nice. We didn’t have anything like this in my town. Well, there was the city swimming pool, but I never went.” I run my fingers along Kyte’s horns, then through the strands of his silky, golden hair. “Women on Earth would kill for hair this color.”
“Why?” His eyes are closed, and droplets of water still dot his hard body.
“What do you mean ‘why’? It’s beautiful.” I keep petting him as he smiles.
“You think I’m beautiful?”
“I said your hair is beautiful. Don’t get cocky.” I pull his strands a little.
He nearly purrs.
“But yes, you are beautiful.” I ease my fingers along the edge of his ear.
“You are.” Jeren plops beside me and lies back, his knives gone. He somehow manages to stow them in hidden spots, and he always has a blade on him somewhere.
“Thanks,” Kyte replies.
Jeren quirks a brow. “I was talking to Lana.”
“Aww, you’re sweet.”
“You are, you know?” Kyte opens his eyes. “Beautiful, I mean.”
“Thank you.” I don’t know why it’s a universal trait that if a girl is called beautiful, her heart grows wings and flutters around in her stomach. But there it is, flapping its feathers and giving me happy tingles.
Jeren reaches for me and pulls me back so I’m lying on his bicep, Kyte’s head still in my lap, the buzz of our connection vibrating through me. “You have a good swim?” Jeren asks.
I turn and watch the ink along his neck. It seems to pulse with his heartbeat. “Yep. I mean, I can doggy paddle, which is technically swimming, so I’m good.”
“Is that what you were doing? I almost jumped in a couple of times because you looked like you were drowning.”
“Oh, shut it.” I laugh. “I didn’t see you out there.”
“I don’t swim.”
“Why not?”
He shrugs. “The flotilla—”
“Didn’t have anywhere to swim. Right.” I remember. “Yeah, I get that. It’s totally foreign to you.”
“Yeah. Just not my thing.” He turns toward me and presses a kiss to my hair.
Comfortable. Have I ever felt this loose, at ease, and happy? I can’t think of a time.
Tilda splashes from the water and sinks down on the edge of the fleet-gray blanket, then digs around in the picnic provisions. “Where’s all the meat?”
“Bottom of the box thing, behind the drinks.” I point.
“Got it. Here, Uaxin, want a plumari?”
She sits beside Tilda and glances at me a few times. I can see both her eyes with her wet hair pulled back. She’s got an ethereal beauty. I have no doubt she’d be on a New York runway if she were on Earth. She takes a plumari fruit from Tilda but just holds it in her hands, her gaze flitting from me to the Alphas, worry written across her brow.
“Don’t be scared. These four are like, best friends or something,” Tilda says in explanation. “An Omega best friends with Alphas. Crazy, right?”
Uaxin doesn’t respond but can’t seem to stop staring.
“Hey.” I sit up and touch her elbow. “They aren’t going to hurt me. Or you. They’re safe. I promise.”
She looks at where I’m touching her, so I draw my hand back. Boundaries, Lana. “Sorry. I just want you to feel comfortable.”
She takes a deep breath and seems to almost nod. Then she reaches out and pats my elbow awkwardly before taking a bite of her plumari fruit. She’s not staring anymore, and the tension in her shoulders seems to let up.
I lie back down.
“What was that?” Kyte’s voice ripples in my mind.
“Tilda said she was taken by some Alphas before the fleet found her. I think it’s why she doesn’t speak, and why she’s so skittish.”
“She’s afraid of us.”
“Yeah.” I can’t sugarcoat it.
“I don’t blame her. Lawless Alphas are a real threat to any Omega, especially if she goes into her needing around them.”
“I think they … did things to her without her permission.”
“Yes.” His tone is sober. “Being an Omega is dangerous. You saw that on the shuttle with us. I was doing everything in my power to control myself.”
“You did. All of you fought it.”
“But you weren’t in full needing. If you had been.” He pauses for a while. “If you had been, I don’t know if I could have stopped myself.”
“Don’t worry. I would have kneed you into impotence if you’d tried it.”
He laughs out loud, and Jeren turns to look at him. “Stop that.”
“What?” Kyte shrugs.
“Ass.” Jeren closes his eyes again and pulls me tighter against him. “Stick with me. Calarian nobles are notorious for their smooth talk. But Larenoans are known for bigger things.”
“Bigger things, huh?” I groan at his implication and glance at Tilda and Uaxin to see if they share my amusement.
Tilda stares at Jeren, her cheeks turning pink.
“You okay?” I ask her.
She swallows hard. “Fine. Just fine.” She stows her food and stands. “I think, um, I think I’m going back to my room for a bit.”
“But class doesn’t start for—”
“Just thought of some things I need to take care of.”
“Well, okay I guess, but I’ll see you later?”
“Yep.” She grabs her comm, opens a portal, and disappears.
Jeren, Kyte, and Ceredes burst out laughing, and Uaxin hides in her hair. Is she smiling?
“What did I miss?”
“She needs some alone time.” Ceredes leans up on an elbow, his wide chest on perfect display.
Uaxin rises and heads back to the water, perhaps to cover her amusement
.
Then I realize what Ceredes is saying. “Oh. You mean alone time. Like Henry Cavill time.”
“Yeah.” Ceredes frowns. “Who’s Henry Cavill?”
I get the distinct mental image of all three of my Alphas stealing a shuttle, heading to Earth, murdering Superman, then returning like nothing happened. I cough. “He’s no one.”
“Mmhmm.” Kyte doesn’t seem convinced.
Jeren smiles. “I got her excited.” He shrugs. “I can’t help it. I just have that effect on Omegas. I really shouldn’t go mentioning my prodigious size in front of them.”
“‘Prodigious size’? Oh, get over yourself.”
“It’s true.” He runs his hand down to my side and tickles me. “She is currently wanking while thinking about me.”
“Lies.” I laugh and retaliate with my nails in his side as Kyte complains about the jostling and Ceredes lies back down while keeping one eye on me.
Jeren and I settle down, the faint lapping waves and Uaxin’s splashing a calming backdrop to my lion pride’s naptime. I close my eyes, warm and safe, and drift off with my Alphas into a sweet, dreamless sleep.
The ship shudders a little as I dive through the waterfall and skim along the surface of the lake beneath it. I’ve gotten the hang of flying with uncanny speed. Even Master Daviti seems impressed, and plenty of the other cadets have been whispering about me during my first week here. I don’t care. This is the only class that makes sense to me. When I’m flying, all that falls away. I can control this ship, can make it do exactly what I want. It’s an extension of me, and the only thing that beats this sort of exhilaration is when I’m alone with my Alphas.
One of the other V-11s is already blinking red and heading back to the hangar.
“Are you ready back there?” I can feel Master Daviti, his clever mind already three steps ahead of me. “Today might be the day.”
“Gun’s ready. So am I,” Kyte calls. The guys have taken to jumping on my ship, each one of them rotating days with me. Their explanation that it will reduce suspicion seems like a good one, but I think it just makes the others talk about us even more. Especially Ilwen. And on my Ceredes day? She and I have come close to blows.
“You’ve got this. You almost had him that time a couple days ago. So close.”
“I wasn’t close. He turned on his side and slid that bird of his into a tight grove of trees. I flew right over him, then he popped up and tagged me in the ass.”
“Okay, yeah, but you were the last cadet down. That means something.” Tilda is almost humming with excitement. “This time, you can do it.”
I hug the terrain as other ships zoom by overhead. Only a handful are left, and one of them lights up red just in front of us.
“He’s here.” I slow our pace, the thrusters keeping us aloft without forward motion. A small herd of Cartax—sort of a mix of cow and deer—run across the shallow waters beneath us.
“There’s dinner.” Tilda peers down at the animals.
“Concentrate.” I pick up the pace and hew close to the side of the approaching ravine. It’s narrower here, the walls made of rock that crumbles with scary ease. But that won’t stop Master Daviti, so I can’t let it stop me.
“Whoa, this isn’t the best idea.” Avri leans back as I turn the ship sideways, then level out once I’m past the tightest part.
“Stop complaining. Let her work.” Tilda hits a boost for the forward thrusters to give me more control over smaller movements. We’ve quickly become a pretty good team when it comes to flying.
A hunk of chalky rock falls just ahead as another ship enters the ravine with us.
“Gavros.” I can tell his flying style based on the way he doesn’t bother to dodge the rock outcroppings and sends debris flying back into my view. “That thing’s a tank.”
“He’s in the old V4 model. If he keeps flying like that, he’ll bring the ravine down on us.” Avri reaches for the comm. “Gavros, get out of here.”
“I don’t take orders from you, Omega.” He snarls his reply.
“Gavros, the ravine isn’t big enough for your ship. Fly elsewhere,” Kyte says.
“Oh, the golden prince wants to tell me what to do, too?” Gavros’s tone turns even uglier. “How about you shove your pretty little crown where the—”
Kyte slams his hand down on the comm and cuts him off. “Dick.”
“I think we’re done here anyway. He’s spooked Master Daviti off this run.” I start pulling up and out of the ravine when Kyte says, “Hang on. Stay behind him for a bit, if you don’t mind.”
“All right.” I lower us and do my best to avoid the debris Gavros is raining down behind him.
Glancing back, I see Kyte’s fingers flying across his clear screen, words moving at impossible rates as he enters information.
“What are you doing?”
“Hang on.” He steps from his gunner seat and kneels. Pulling some sort of tool from his pocket, he opens a small hatch at the base of the chair and reaches inside. The clear, malleable substance that forms my controller also runs through the panel he’s working on, because he pulls it out and rearranges pieces of it, sort of like re-wiring.
Tilda taps my shoulder. “Eyes ahead, Captain.”
I turn just in time to see Gavros knocks down a huge chunk of rock, and I have to speed ahead before we’re crushed.
“He did that on purpose.” Tilda’s fingers fly across her screen as she re-routes power.
Another enormous pile of stone falls and narrowly misses our nose before crashing to the valley floor. The canyon is so narrow at this point, the top almost grown over, and no room for any ship to maneuver out.
“Dangerous in here, little Omega,” Gavros taunts. He aims for a natural stone bridge above that arches across the divide.
“Gavros, don’t.”
His wide airship aims right for it.
I steady my grip on the controller. “Everyone, hold on.”
“Got it.” Kyte closes the panel and re-takes his seat.
Tilda’s eyebrows pop up. “Kyte, did you just do what I think you did?”
Before he can respond, Gavros rams the bridge, the stone exploding out as he powers through it and sends destruction raining down on us. The craft shakes, each impact rattling the metal and my teeth. Sweat beads on my skin, my knuckles white as I grip my controls. I pull to the right as hard as I can and eek through one spot where the bridge is still mostly intact.
“It’s falling!” Avri points, and I push every bit of engine power I have into the rear thrusters.
The rock catches the back of our ship and almost pushes us down onto the side of the canyon, but I pull up, up, up until the dust clears and I can see sky.
“Gavros, you asshole!” Ceredes is yelling through all the comms.
I can finally take a breath. We’re through. We’re alive. And I didn’t wreck the ship.
“Nice flying.” Kyte doesn’t seem the least bit perturbed. “You might like to know I just armed this ship with an energy pulse cannon that can disable an enemy vessel.”
His words funnel down into my mind, and a light clicks on inside me. “You mean I can take down Gavros?”
“Yes.” He pulls up his targeting screen. “But let’s do it out on the plains, shall we? That way everyone will see it, and we’ll get the added bonus of not actually killing anyone onboard.”
“That’s a bonus?” Avri shakes his head, though he’s smiling. “You need to toughen up, Alpha.”
“Noted.”
I pull up and head away from the river area and toward the wide brown plains at the base of the mountains. Gavros will follow us. He’s cruel enough to try something else to take me out, and he’s taken to haunting me during class, as if he thinks I’ll lead him right to Daviti. And maybe he’s right. But not today. Today, I’m going to ground him. And, if I’m lucky, catch Master Daviti while I’m at it.
“Easy.” Tilda watches the rear view through her co-pilot screen. “He’s out of the ravine an
d gaining on us.”
“Good.” I continue at an easy pace.
“He’s closing.” Avri pulls one of his long braids between his teeth. “Almost on us.”
“All power in rear engines,” I call.
Tilda’s fingers fly across the screen, and I take off, the ship eating up the flat plains as my heart pounds. Nothing is more exhilarating than flying, and when I’m in this pilot seat, I feel like there’s nothing I can’t do.
“He’s tailing. Picking up speed.”
“I love to watch you work,” Kyte calls from behind me.
“You ain’t seen nothin yet. Get ready to fire.” I pull back hard on the thrusters and push forward on the stick.
“Pillars!” Avri shrieks and holds onto his seat. “My hearts can’t take much more of this!”
We nose-dive, then flip upside down, racing back toward Gavros’s oncoming ship.
“Got him!” Kyte yells.
“Fire!”
A light blue energy burst lasers out from the front of the ship and nails Gavros right in the view window. The ship’s lights blink, then die, and then the entire hulking bird starts losing altitude. But our lights flicker, too.
“Kyte?”
“I think the burst may have temporarily downed our…” His words are lost as he scrambles back to the plate and pulls it open.
“Kyte, I need power. Now!” I didn’t account for Gavros’s forward momentum, because I figured it would be easy enough to dodge him. But my thrusters have died, and his falling ship is on a collision course with us.
“Kyte!” Tilda and I yell in unison.
“Wait! Wait! Now!” he yells, and the craft lights up again.
But it’s too late. Gavros is already on us. I pull hard right, and the ship seems to push a little harder, give more than even I thought it could. But the larger craft smashes my left wing, and I lose all control. The ground approaches in a brown blur, and the last thing I remember is Kyte wrapping his arms around me.