I would pick death over whatever hell these boys had in store for me.
"Cass!" The shrill, pointed voice of my cousin had Cassian dropping his hands from my waist and taking a step back from me. Preston slid off the locker, falling into step behind him. Marc rounded out the group, his dark eyes raking up and down my body until I wrapped my arms around my torso with a shiver.
I glanced down the hall, torn between gratitude and fear at Bella's appearance in the hall. Her arms were crossed under her chest, her green eyes void of all emotion as she only looked at Cassian.
"Hey, sweetheart," Cassian greeted, as if nothing was wrong. Probably because to him, nothing was.
Bella wasn't his mate yet. He didn't owe her his allegiance despite being promised to her, plus she was almost two years younger than he was. But something told me even after their mate bond was secured and they were adults, I would still be seeing Cassian and his friends regularly.
My stomach cramped painfully at the thought.
"My father wants us at the house. He's planning to name his council before sunset," she informed him, arching a perfect brow. Her gaze slowly slid to me, her lip curling up slightly as she regarded me coolly. "He wants you and your mother at the house at seven."
Her father, my uncle, would most certainly be the new Alpha, barring any challenges. But no one would challenge him. Linden Markham had been groomed to be the next Alpha for the last eighteen years. He had spent nearly two decades making sure the pack knew who was boss.
There was no question in the pack who was in charge now that Alpha Warren was dead. His son would take over the Long Mesa pack.
There weren’t enough prayers in the world to save any of us now.
I watched Cassian, Preston, and Marc walk down the hall and out the door with Bella, leaving me alone in the hallway. None of them spared the omega another glance. I wasn't worth the effort.
A shiver skittered down my spine as I realized my uncle being Alpha might be far worse for me than my grandfather. Grandfather had treated my mother and I with apathetic indifference, barely acknowledging our existence.
But it was no secret Uncle Linden despised my mother, and by extension, me. Being hated by the new Alpha was the worst thing that could happen to any wolf - let alone an omega.
I waited several more minutes before heading out in the hot New Mexico sunlight. My feet started moving on muscle memory towards the house, every step drawing me closer to the Alpha who now controlled my fate.
2
My mom once told me years ago that it wasn't always like this. That once upon a time, she was my grandfather's golden girl. Adalynne Markham was Warren Markham's oldest child, and it was no secret my grandfather adored her. Honestly, she was loved and adored by the entire pack.
Female shifters were rare, and Adalynne had been the first Markham daughter born in several generations. She wasn't just a female, she was a Markham female. Which meant whoever my grandfather chose as her mate would help forge a strong alliance for the Long Mesa pack.
Females weren't just daughters and life bringers in the shifter world; they were currency. The ultimate bargaining chip for power in the shifter world where males outnumbered females three-to-one and birth rates were at an all-time low. A female, especially one with the pedigree of the Markham line, was almost priceless.
When she was a few years older than me, an alliance was planned between our pack and the Stone Valley pack of Arizona. The alliance would strengthen the borders between our packs. My mother was to marry the second son of their Alpha. It was to be the perfect marriage of two strong packs, giving both sides the most territory in the southern part of the continent. The guy my mom was engaged to was going to eventually be the Alpha of the Long Mesa pack with my uncle poised to be his beta.
That all changed when, at the mandatory physical a week prior to the wedding, the doctor discovered my mother was pregnant.
The alliance exploded into a war, and my mother, refusing to name my father, went from Alpha's prized possession to omega in a matter of hours. My grandfather had banished her to the omega section of the compound - a corner piece of land with a single, crumbling house that flooded anytime a storm rolled in from the desert. He never spoke to her again, turning all his focus to grooming his son, my mother's bitter younger brother, into being the future Alpha.
Uncle Linden had always resented my mother for the love their father gave her growing up. While my grandfather never spoke to Mom again, my uncle was happy to remind her of how far she had fallen as frequently and as vindictively as he could. He even took her best friend as his mate, forcing Zara to sever all ties with my mother after the mating ceremony was complete.
My mother's downfall was the greatest stain on the Markham line. Our family had been Alphas of the Long Mesa pack for over one hundred and sixty-five years. After my mother's indiscretion, no less than eleven wolves challenged my grandfather for Alpha. He defeated every one of them, but it left the pack fractured for years.
Even now, there were still those who hated the Markham rule of the pack. While my grandfather and uncle proved to be formidable opponents, my mother was an omega and completely at their mercy. And grievances against the untouchable males in our line were settled with my mom.
Looking back, I didn't see how bad it was through the eyes of a child. It wasn't until I was ten and came home to my mother sobbing, bloody and broken and naked on her bed, that I realized exactly how low being an omega in the pack was.
The omega house stopped being my home that day, and I finally noticed it for the prison it truly was. My only saving grace was my place in the pack wouldn’t be official until I reached the age of majority - eighteen.
But that day was only a few months away now.
I wound around the final turn of the dirt road that led to the omega house. The dust storms hadn't been kind to it. No repairs were ever done unless the omegas themselves did them, which wasn't often. Omegas focused on survival, not homemaking.
The two story house had four steps leading up to the weather beaten front door, one of which was missing a board. Part of the porch ceiling had rotted away, leaving a gaping hole to the cloudless blue sky above. The windows were grimy and the once white house was now a muddy tan. All the sinks inside it leaked, constantly dripping. The floors creaked and groaned and the wallpaper was peeling in chunks.
It was as broken and run down as the shifters that lived inside it.
There were four omegas, counting me, and we all lived together.
My mother and I lived in the smallest bedroom, tucked back in the far corner of the house. The room barely fit the double bed we shared and a dresser, but it had a large window that looked out to the mountains in the distance and a tiny private en suite bathroom attached.
Maisie and Shane were the other two omegas who lived with us.
I had barely made it to the first step when the front door swung open and a large male shifter came stumbling out. His gaze dropped to me, his smile leering as he finished zipping his pants. I stepped back off the step, moving to let him pass as I bit the inside of my cheek.
"Hey there, Skye-baby," he greeted. Allan Loomis, Preston’s father, was a common face around the omega house. I used to wonder if his mate ever guessed how often he was over here, but then one day I saw Norma Loomis going into the male omega's bedroom.
She and her husband were both at the omega house at least once a week.
My stomach churned, twisting into a knot that left me nauseous as Allan stopped in front of me. He glanced back at the house, winking at me as if we were old friends. It made my skin crawl. I wanted to bleach every part of me his eyes lingered on.
"Your momma's upstairs, but you might want to give her a minute. She needs to clean up a bit." He laughed loudly, hooking his thumbs in his jeans. He hadn't bothered with a shirt today. He reeked of sweat and sex. A combination of smells that constantly lingered in the house, no matter how many surfaces I wiped down or windows I opened.
; Granted, shifters had enhanced smelling along with several other fun bonuses like a faster healing rate and sharper eyesight, but I was almost positive a regular human could smell this stench from a mile away.
I fought the urge to curl my hands into fists, keeping them loose by my sides even as his eyes kept inspecting every inch of me, lingering in places that made me cringe. It was easy to see where Preston got his cruel streak from.
I skirted around him, almost making it to the top step when his heavy hand landed firmly on my shoulder.
"Tell your mom I'll see her later, will ya?" He squeezed my shoulder, hard enough to bruise, for a beat before letting go and continuing on his way as if nothing was wrong. He even fucking hummed under his breath as he walked.
Kill.
I pressed a hand to my chest, rubbing hard against my sternum. As if that would keep my wolf calm. Her temper seemed to be flaring more and more frequently.
I hated it. My emotions were already fragmented and jagged, exposed nerves being stomped on daily. The last thing I needed was a psycho wolf adding to the chaos in my head.
I closed the door behind me as I went in, the silence around me speaking volumes. I glanced around the open foyer, my gaze landing on Maisie, the other female omega. She was curled up on the sunken end of the couch in the living room. A worn book was held in her shaking fingers, her eyes squeezed shut. I didn't have to wonder why - Allan seemed to always have this effect on her. Usually it was her he came to see. It had only been in the last few weeks his attention turned to my mother.
Maisie was only a few years older than me, but the bruises under her eyes from worry and no sleep seemed to age her a decade. She was too thin, her clothes always hanging off her.
We were all on the malnourished side of skinny for that matter.
Maisie had come to the Long Mesa pack a year earlier from a pack in Central America. It was surprising that she was sent to the omega house, but then I learned the doctor in our pack determined she was sterile and incapable of bearing a child. Therefore, she was useless to the pack as a traditional mate, and since my mother and Patrick were the only omegas in the pack, she was sent to the omega house.
It was a cruel twist of fate that she escaped an abusive mate in her last pack and ended up seeking sanctuary in hell. She never had a choice to leave once she stepped inside the walls of the compound.
Not that it would have mattered if they found out she could bear a child, because shifters seldom had more than one child. She would have been married off to whichever male offered my grandfather the highest price. Either way, she was completely screwed in every sense.
Several males offered my grandfather to take her as their mate, but my grandfather thought she would be a better addition servicing the pack as a whole.
The two years before Maisie came, my mother was the only female in the omega house. I'm still not sure how she survived, even with the ability shifters had to heal faster than regular humans. The pack definitely preferred to have at least two available omega females.
"Mais," I started softly, taking a step in her direction.
She whimpered, the book slipping from her fingers and she curled her arms around her knees. She started rocking as deep sobs ripped from her throat.
"Fuck," I muttered, dropping my backpack and crossing the old floorboards to kneel in front of her. I tentatively rested a hand on her ankle. She jumped a mile, a keening wail slipping through her clenched teeth.
"Hey, Maisie," I cajoled gently, stroking the exposed skin of her ankle with my thumb, trying to calm her. "It's okay. He's gone. I promise."
Her eyes opened, luminous and wet. A tear spilled down her tan skin. "Gone?" She hiccuped the word, her accent thicker the more emotional she got. “Ya no está aquí?“
“Yeah, he’s gone,” I replied softly.
She gasped, reaching down to clutch my hand. Her jagged nails dug into my skin. "Your mother."
I swallowed around the growing lump in my throat. My eyes lifted to the water damaged ceiling. "I know."
She looked around the room and I could see her pulse fluttering at her throat. Her eyes turned to me. "He said ... Alpha Warren? He is dead?"
I nodded slowly, standing up. "Yeah." I wiped my palms on my worn jeans.
I didn't think it was possible for eyes to get any bigger. "Your uncle ... He is to be Alpha." She stumbled over the words, her entire frame shuddering.
I nodded again. The lump got bigger as the fear swelled in my chest.
"Dios Mío.”
"I need to talk to my mom,” I said, stepping back and heading for the stairs. I glanced back at Maisie as I went. She was curled in a ball, crying silently, her eyes staring unseeingly at the wall.
I made it to the landing and headed down the hallway to our bedroom, avoiding the broken floorboard that was ready to give any minute.
The air on the second floor was always hotter, stickier. The house had no air conditioning, so all the heat collected throughout the day and lingered on the second floor. I paused at the threshold of our room, not sure what I would find when I pushed the door open. Curling my hands into fists, I nudged the cracked door fully open with my shoulder.
The smell of Allan was stronger in here, sharp and pungent despite the open window. I started breathing through my mouth before I gagged. Looking around, I could hear the shower running in the bathroom.
My gaze dropped to the bed. The sheets had been stripped from, thrown in a careless ball in the corner beside the dresser. With a sigh, I went to the closet and lifted out a different set of sheets from the top shelf. I was just stretching the fitted sheet across the mattress when the shower turned off, and I was tucking in the flat sheet when the door opened.
My mother emerged in a threadbare towel amongst a cloud of steam. I could see her skin was pink from the temperature of the water. Fresh bruises marked her arms and legs, adding to the road map of scars that she had spent the last seventeen years acquiring. She winced as she stepped into the room before seeing me. Once she did, she quickly schooled her features and even offered me a small smile.
Years and a hard life hadn't dulled the beauty of Adalynne Markham. Her dark blond hair hung halfway down her back. Her frame was still thin, but still had feminine curves that even the edge of starvation couldn’t diminish. She had the same green eyes I did.
Markham green, was what the pack called them. A vibrant shade of emerald that looked as supernatural as we were.
She paused in the room, clutching her towel a bit tighter to her chest. "You're home."
I nodded quickly, pulling the quilt over the bed. I straightened and eyed her critically, trying to see any other signs of damage. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," she answered sharply, her voice tight. She turned to pull jeans and a shirt out of a drawer, and I saw the range of scars from her neck down her legs.
But it was the omega brand on her shoulder blade that always caught my attention. The puckered pink scar on her shoulder was nearly two decades old, the silhouette of the mesa with a ring around it branding her as part of the Long Mesa pack and her omega status. All the omegas bore the same mark.
I could feel my own shoulder ache, already anticipating the branding iron I knew would be my eighteenth birthday gift from the pack.
Soon, Skye.
That stupid reminder whispered against my ear, oily and insidious. Two words nearly brought me to my knees. As a child, my birthdays were somewhat happy days. The omegas at the house banded together to make me feel special in their own ways. Homemade gifts and singing filled the day, making me feel somewhat normal for a few hours.
I was the only child to ever live in the omega house - omegas weren't declared until they reached the age of majority dictated by Pack Law, which was at eighteen. My mother's screw up and my bastard status was all it took for me to get a permanent residence inside the omega house, despite being an infant in a world where females were a rarity.
Maybe with a different pack, a different Alpha, I mig
ht have climbed out of the omega status eventually. I might have even been adopted by another couple who wanted a baby of their own. Upon my birth, my grandparents and uncle had made sure the entire pack knew I was just as damaged as my mother. Hell, maybe even more so since she never told anyone who my father was. All anyone knew was that he wasn't part of the Long Mesa pack. So not only was I a bastard, but I was the bastard of an outsider and a pack betrayer.
The more birthdays that ticked by, the less the cause for celebration. The omegas were my family, my pack, but they knew what my eighteenth birthday would bring. My last birthday, only my mother acknowledged the day with a quiet "Happy birthday".
That was fine by me. I was happy to forget the day, too.
"I take it you heard about Alpha Warren," my mother said softly, ignoring my question. She never referred to him as my grandfather or her father. Always Alpha Warren.
"Yeah," I said slowly, sitting on the bed. I tucked my legs under me and looked away as she pulled on her clothes. "Bella said her father wants us at the main house tonight. At seven."
She stiffened and then sighed deeply, toweling off her wet hair. "I know. Allan told-" Her gaze dropped to me and I could see the worry there, stark and consuming. "Skye ... Maybe you should stay here. I'll go and speak with Linden alone."
"No way," I shot back sharply. No way in hell was I letting her go in there to face her psychotic brother solo.
She moved gingerly to the bed and sank down beside me, reaching out to clasp my hands in hers. "Honey, there have been talks, rumors." She hesitated, biting her lower lip between two rows of even, white teeth. Her small, button nose wrinkled with worry, and it struck me again how beautiful my mother was.
Whatever she was about to say was bad. She was practically vibrating with nervous energy. I steeled myself for the killing blow.
"There's talk that Linden will remove the age of majority law for omegas."
All the air rushed from my lungs. I wasn't prepared for that.
Not that.
Anything but that.
Sanctum (Blackwater Pack Book 1) Page 2