Candescent

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Candescent Page 8

by Zoey Ellis


  Ria had scratched out his en­try and put in­stead: Gen­eral “Im­pris­oner” Thorec, Oc­cu­pa­tion: im­pris­on­ing, chas­ing, and fight-fuck­ing in­no­cent Omegas, Lo­ca­tion: never in the same place as Ria.

  Thorec’s ir­ri­ta­tion at the en­tire sit­u­a­tion melted a lit­tle. She was goad­ing him the way he had her, and for some rea­son, it felt right. Strangely, his mood light­ened.

  Ex­am­in­ing the stack of parch­ment, he re­al­ized that she had mixed up all the pages so that they were out of or­der. It was a smart thing to do, but only if she hadn’t wanted him to no­tice some­thing.

  So he set about putting the stack in or­der, look­ing through each page to see what Ria had seen. It took longer than he thought, but even­tu­ally, he re­al­ized there was a page miss­ing. When he looked at the pages be­fore and af­ter, eighty-six and eighty-eight, he re­al­ized she’d taken a page that listed Lox war­riors at the palace.

  Thorec grit­ted his teeth. So the Al­pha was a palace war­rior. That cer­tainly didn’t make any­thing eas­ier.

  Neat­en­ing the sheets of parch­ment into a pile, he took it with him when he left the room. Ria was head­ing to the palace. He didn’t know how she in­tended to nav­i­gate the palace—it was the most se­cure build­ing in the Lox Em­pire, but he knew that wouldn’t stop his Ria. The prob­lem was, if he was go­ing to chase her to the palace, he had to be more care­ful. As much as the em­peror had given his bless­ing, he wouldn’t want Thorec’s hunt to dis­rupt the gen­eral ac­tiv­i­ties at the palace.

  He re­joined Ro­clan, the Al­pha work­ing with him, to dis­cuss their op­tions. At least he knew he would re­cap­ture his Omega to­day.

  “There are twenty-eight Lox war­riors who came from Ariyon, Gen­eral,” Ro­clan said, peer­ing at a sheet of parch­ment on the ta­ble.

  “Twenty-eight?” Thorec scowled. “Is there any way to re­duce it?”

  Ro­clan flicked the page over. “I’ll see how many of them are palace war­riors.”

  Thorec nod­ded and re­placed the books he had been look­ing at. The records keep in cen­tral Ashens had the most de­tailed in­for­ma­tion about the Lox and its war­riors in the en­tire known Lands, but to use it to try to find one spe­cific Al­pha was like try­ing to find a par­tic­u­lar drop of wa­ter in the White Ocean. Those doc­u­ments had so much in­for­ma­tion, it was dif­fi­cult to know where to start. It had taken them far too long to find out how many had come from Ariyon. Thorec cursed that he hadn’t re­mem­bered to ask Hal­vard in the Ariyon moun­tains the name of the Al­pha.Ria must have known his name or had a way to iden­tify him, be­cause how else would he have known who she was re­fer­ring to?

  “Only three are palace war­riors,” Ro­clan fi­nally said.

  “Good. That’s a bet­ter num­ber to deal with.”

  “How do you want to do this?” Ro­clan said, glanc­ing up at Thorec. Ro­clan was one of the first Al­pha’s Thorec had trained when he’d be­come gen­eral. “Do you want to visit all three, or should we split them up?”

  Thorec paced across the room. He couldn’t af­ford for Ro­clan to be the one to find Ria, but he couldn’t visit all three Al­phas at the same time, and time was of the essence. Then he had a thought. “Is there any in­for­ma­tion about where in Ariyon these three Al­phas came from?”

  Ro­clan flicked over a few sheets of parch­ment be­fore he an­swered. “Yes.”

  “Of any of them from the moun­tains?”

  Ro­clan peered at the sheets. “Yes. Jaythen.”

  “I will go to him. You go to the oth­ers. The palace ad­min­is­tra­tors can give us their cur­rent lo­ca­tions.”

  Ro­clan nod­ded and rose to his feet. “If you’re right on this, you know your Omega quite well.”

  Thorec made a noise in the back of his throat as they ex­ited the room. “She is smart and fierce.” He couldn’t help but re­call her fe­roc­ity in bed, and both his heart and his cock ached. “But she is pre­dictable.”

  Ro­clan nod­ded. “And this other Al­pha she is try­ing to find… Jaythen?”

  “Let me deal with him,” Thorec said, his voice gritty.

  “You know he may not be at all aware of who she is or what she wants,” Ro­clan pointed out. “Omegas can be… dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand.”

  The way his voice low­ered, Thorec glanced at him as they headed out of the records keep build­ing, and to a wait­ing car­riage. “It sounds like you have ex­pe­ri­ence with that.”

  Ro­clan’s face hard­ened, but he said noth­ing more. As they set­tled in the car­riage, he said, “I am grate­ful to be help­ing you, Gen­eral Thorec. I miss our train­ing bouts—I learned a lot from you, though I have to ask. Why did you pick me for this?”

  Thorec was silent for a mo­ment. “You were one of the first war­riors I trained and were one of the fiercest. You are bold in ev­ery­thing you do, and you’re hon­est.

  Ro­clan’s jaw hard­ened, and he looked out of the win­dow.

  “I also heard you had been very keen on the pair­ing events they do here at the palace. I thought you may un­der­stand why I am so ea­ger to find my Omega.”

  Ro­clan stared at him, clearly sur­prised, but then shook his head. “Then I am not the right Al­pha to help you, Gen­eral. I stopped at­tend­ing the pair­ing events.”

  “Why?”

  Ro­clan’s ex­pres­sion be­came closed.

  “I heard you chal­lenged Com­man­der Torin for an Omega,” Thorec said, ob­serv­ing him. “That is im­pres­sive. Many would not dare.”

  “I did not win,” Ro­clan scowled, his whole body tensed. “He beat me and won the Omega.”

  “Was she yours?”

  Ro­clan leaned back on the seat, his scowl fad­ing to a tight ex­pres­sion as he looked upon Thorec. “I would have said yes be­fore the bout.”

  “And now?”

  Ro­clan shrugged. “She is pretty. But when our Lox broth­ers, who have found their true mates, talk about their Omegas… I never felt like that about her. The bout made me re­al­ize it.”

  Thorec in­clined his head. “Then you have yet to find her. Why did you stop go­ing to the pair­ing events?”

  Ro­clan’s tone was solemn. “There is no Omega for me.”

  Thorec frowned. “You don’t know that.”

  “I have par­tic­i­pated in many pair­ing events, Gen­eral,” Ro­clan growled. “She has not been among them.” He clenched his jaw, low­er­ing his gaze. “I think some of us will never find our true mates. There are not enough Omegas for us all.” His eyes flicked up to Thorec’s. “You are lucky.”

  Thorec thought of Ria—his per­fect mate, his great­est chal­lenge—and said noth­ing. He couldn’t deny that.

  “Yes, Gen­eral,” the ad­min­is­tra­tor said brightly. “Jaythen’s pri­vate quar­ters are next to the train­ing grounds, if you ask any of the war­riors there, they will tell you.”

  Thorec thanked her and headed down the cor­ri­dor to train­ing grounds. The two that Ro­clan was in­ves­ti­gat­ing were in a dif­fer­ent part of the palace.

  It was late in the night, but some war­riors were just fin­ish­ing their train­ing. Thorec care­fully made his way to where Jaythen’s pri­vate rooms were, and stood out­side the closed door, pre­par­ing him­self. This was the Al­pha Ria had come to find, he could feel it. He had no idea what the Al­pha would do to when he re­al­ized Thorec had al­ready de­clared a claim on Ria. Some Al­phas could be un­rea­son­able, even Lox war­riors.

  Pulling out his dag­gers, he gripped them firmly, then kicked in the door.

  What he saw height­ened his rage un­til it ex­ploded out of his con­trol. Ria was in the arms of the Al­pha. He hugged her close, en­clos­ing her with his body, his eyes closed as his head rested on hers, though they jumped apart when the door banged open. Ria screamed, jerk­ing away from the Al­pha, but he held onto her, his eyes on Thorec. He
straight­ened slowly, pulling Ria around his body, so she was be­hind him.

  “Re­lease her,” Thorec bel­lowed.

  The Al­pha’s eyes flicked over Thorec’s uni­form. “Is there a prob­lem, Gen­eral?”

  “Yes,” Thorec bit out. “Move away from her.”

  The Al­pha frowned. “This doesn’t seem like Lox busi­ness.”

  “That’s be­cause it isn’t. Move!”

  “What do you want with her?” The Al­pha’s voice hard­ened. “She has come to visit me, and I in­tend to pro­tect her.”

  “That is my job!” Thorec bel­lowed. “This is your last chance to move, war­rior. Pick up your weapon.”

  The man hes­i­tated, then lurched for­ward and grabbed a thick sword that leaned by his bed.

  Thorec tight­ened his grip on the han­dle of his dag­gers. He was more than will­ing to bat­tle for Ria if that’s what was re­quired. In fact, he wel­comed it.

  “Stop!” Ria called from be­hind Al­pha. “Please don’t fight.”

  “Quiet, Ri­ora,” the Al­pha said, keep­ing his eyes locked on to Thorec. “The gen­eral is ob­vi­ously ill. And he is look­ing dan­ger­ous.”

  Thorec frowned. Ri­ora?

  “Gen­eral, please stop this,” Ria said, inch­ing away around the Al­pha un­til her eyes locked on to his. “You don’t un­der­stand.” She placed a hand on the Al­pha’s arm. “I need to stay here with him—”

  “You do not,” Thorec thun­dered, rage whip­ping through him. “You are ig­nor­ing ev­ery­thing that in­di­cates we are true mates, Ria. If I al­low that, you will be mis­er­able, and so will I.”

  The Al­pha, Jaythen, low­ered his sword an inch. “You are true mates with the gen­eral?” he asked, sur­prised.

  Ria hes­i­tated and then shook her head. “We can’t be. You don’t know any­thing about me, Gen­eral Thorec.”

  “Don’t I?” He couldn’t help but smirk. “I know what you taste like when you’re about to come, Ria. I know the sound you make when you lick my—”

  “You don’t know any­thing that mat­ters!” she shouted. She glared at him, fu­ri­ous, but her skin red­dened the way it did when­ever he com­pli­mented her.

  Jaythen made a face of dis­gust. “I don’t want to hear that.”

  “Then fuck­ing leave!” Thorec or­dered. “This is be­tween me and my Omega.”

  Jaythen stilled for a mo­ment, then sheathed his sword.

  “No, don’t go!” she gasped, grip­ping his arm. “What are you do­ing?”

  Jaythen turned to face her and grasped her by the shoul­ders. “Are you true mates with the gen­eral, Ri­ora?”

  Thorec growled as she be­gan to shake her head, but then she stopped.

  “I don’t know,” she whis­pered. “I don’t think so.”

  “Don’t you want to find out?”

  Thorec stilled. He wasn’t ex­pect­ing him to say that. What was go­ing on here?

  Tears formed in Ria’s beau­ti­ful brown eyes as she looked up at the Al­pha, and Thorec could hardly bear the sight of them. “You’re the only one who can help me fig­ure out who I am, Jaythen,” she said. “You just need to make a de­ci­sion to help.”

  “I can tell you as much as I know, but I don’t think it will help you, Ri­ora,” the Al­pha said, his voice soft. “I was only twelve; there’s noth­ing I can tell you that will be use­ful now.”

  “What are you talk­ing about?” Thorec de­manded, inch­ing far­ther into the room.

  “You don’t know that!” Ria cried, her eyes wide on Jaythen. “We just need a bit of time, and you might re­mem­ber things that would be use­ful to me.”

  “To what end?” The Al­pha re­leased her drop­ping his hands. “Are you even a ser­vant in the palace, or did you use your skills to find a way in?” His gaze turned wary. “If you want to know more about your­self, you should look at that be­hav­ior first.”

  Ria’s face dropped and she stepped back in sur­prise. “I did what I had to do to find you, Jaythen. We are sup­posed to stick to­gether; that’s what fam­ily does.”

  “We can try—I def­i­nitely want to try.” The Al­pha lifted his shoul­ders. “I am a Lox War­rior, Ri­ora. I live un­der a strict struc­ture of train­ing, rules, and pro­to­col. If you stay in Ashens we can keep in touch, if you want that, but I can’t drop ev­ery­thing. I can’t leave the Lox.”

  “But you’ve been dis­charged,” Ria said. “There’s noth­ing keep­ing you here.”

  “That is not what it seems,” the Al­pha replied sharply. “And if I leave now I’ll never be able to ad­dress it.”

  At his words, Ria’s shoul­der’s sagged, and she shook her head as she turned away from him, clearly dis­ap­pointed.

  Thorec dropped his dag­gers, his eyes flick­ing be­tween them as he ob­served them both. They were fam­ily? They did in­deed have the same dark hair and tanned skin.

  Jaythen glanced at him. “Your best chance right now is with the gen­eral,” he said to Ria. “You shouldn’t balk at the idea of your true mate. It is a bless­ing—”

  “I know, I know.” Ria tried to snap at him, but a sob es­caped her. “I should just give up ev­ery­thing I’ve tried to do for the last cou­ple of years and be with a man who says I’m his at first taste.”

  Thorec growled. He sheathed his dag­gers and ap­proached them, ad­dress­ing the Al­pha first. “You do not lay claim to this fe­male.” It was sup­posed to be a ques­tion, but it came out as an or­der.

  “Fe­male?” Ria’s tear-filled eyes hard­ened, and it was a beau­ti­ful sight. “That is not my name.”

  “I have no idea what your name is,” Thorec shot at her. “You seem to have more than one.” He turned to the Al­pha, still wait­ing for an an­swer.

  “No,” Jaythen said firmly. “She is my sis­ter.”

  A gust of re­lief re­laxed Thorec… some­what.

  “If I was, you wouldn’t aban­don me for the Lox,” Ria said bit­terly. “You would come with me and help me fig­ure out who I am.”

  “Come with you to wan­der the Lands?” Jaythen shook his head in dis­be­lief. “That’s not the way to build a home, Ria.”

  Re­al­iza­tion hit Thorec. Ria said she’d been trained for a pur­pose, a cause. Her brother sug­gested she’d used her “skills” to find him… as though she’d had spe­cial­ized train­ing to in­fil­trate a build­ing. Sud­denly sev­eral things slid into place. Ria had been taken from her fam­ily when she was young, and she’d trav­eled all over the Lands but didn’t feel like she had a home. She was try­ing to learn who she’d been be­fore she was taken, but who could pos­si­bly re­vert back to who they were when they were so young?

  Be­fore he could put any­thing into words, Ria shot past him with a burst of en­ergy that seemed to come from nowhere. She grabbed the door frame and used it as an an­chor to pro­pel her­self into the cor­ri­dor.

  Thorec bel­lowed out a curse. “Stay here,” he or­dered Jaythen, as he ran out of the room af­ter her.

  He chased her through the quiet, dark­ened cor­ri­dors of the palace, and while he gained on her the longer they ran, Thorec made no real ef­fort to catch up with her im­me­di­ately. He took plea­sure watch­ing her run in front of him, her body at ex­er­tion as she tried to es­cape him; it made him hard. And any­way, there was no magic she could use in the palace to es­cape that eas­ily. So he took his time gain­ing on her, en­joy­ing her at­tempt to flee, and an­tic­i­pat­ing the mo­ment he would have her back in his arms.

  But as he fol­lowed her around a cor­ner that led them into a fairly busy hall­way, all amuse­ment fled.

  Ria ran straight to where sev­eral Al­phas were gath­ered, and jumped on to one of them, wrap­ping her arms and legs around his torso. The Al­pha stepped back, bark­ing out in sur­prise, au­to­mat­i­cally bring­ing his hands to her back.

  Thorec couldn’t help the growl that es­caped him, pulling a da
g­ger from its sheath as he ap­proached. To his ut­ter hor­ror, Ria pep­pered the Al­pha’s face with small kisses, cov­er­ing him with hard pecks as she clung to him tightly.

  “Ria!” he roared, un­able to be­lieve what he was see­ing.

  The Al­pha she clung to dropped his hand from her back when he saw Thorec ap­proach­ing, hold­ing his palms up in sur­ren­der, but as Thorec ar­rived, he could see Ria whis­per­ing into the Al­pha’s ear.

  A blind­ing, hot ug­li­ness hur­tled through Thorec. He lunged for­ward and ripped Ria from the Al­pha’s body, wrap­ping his arm around her waist and drag­ging her off him, roar­ing as anger pounded through his veins. Sheath­ing his dag­ger, he turned her in his arms, forc­ing her head up so she was forced to look up to him. “How dare you kiss an­other Al­pha,” Thorec bel­lowed.

  “What does it mat­ter?” Ria spat at him. “If he had found me first, you wouldn’t even be here claim­ing to be my mate. All you Al­phas are in­ter­change­able. You all say the same thing re­gard­less of if it’s true or not. As soon as I get the chance I am leav­ing. You will never find me!”

  Thorec gripped her hard, in­censed at her at­ti­tude. She had chal­lenged ev­ery inch of his worth to her, and he couldn’t al­low it to stand. The in­stinct to claim her, to prove that he was the only one wor­thy of her swept through him in a jagged on­slaught of arousal. He tore through her tu­nic, rip­ping down the length of it un­til it fell from her.

  Ria gasped as he pushed her onto the floor. “What are you do­ing?”

  “You haven’t yet learned,” Thorec said, his voice dan­ger­ously low. Pin­ning her to the ground, he tore her panties away and un­buck­led him­self.

  “Learned what?” She fought to move his hands from her but he was too strong. “Ev­ery­one is watch­ing us, Gen­eral!”

  “Good!” he thun­dered. Shift­ing her into po­si­tion un­der­neath him, he pressed into her tight heat.

 

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