Stronger than Truth

by Dakila Reed

  “I know I told you we’d talk,” Liam mumbled quietly. “Give me thirty minutes. Or maybe an hour.”

  At the hoarseness in that voice, Wayne’s resolve crumbled. Before he even knew it he was already moving. With huge strides he crossed the room. He stopped dead in front of Liam. The silence, the whispers of the soft furnace in the fireplace, everything seemed so loud yet faraway. Liam looked up at him, a tear streaking down his face. Liam wiped it with the palm of his hand and dropped his feet to the floor. Slowly, almost hesitantly, Liam let his forehead rest against Wayne’s forearm. And there quietly cried.

  Wayne didn’t say anything. He knew Liam wouldn’t appreciate it if he showed any pity. But it wasn’t pity Wayne was feeling. Rage. Seething rage that he was too small to solve this on his own. Rage for Liam being treated this way. Rage for why this place was so fucked-up. Every muscle and fiber in Wayne’s body was aching to lash out and wreak havoc. But what would it solve? Like Liam hiding his tears, Wayne could just stand and swallow the fury and hope for that one single moment they could make them all painfully pay.

  They were in that comforting silence. For a long while. For a stolen long while. When Liam pushed back against his chair, his tears were nowhere and back was the feisty glint in his eyes. Those same amber eyes were regarding Wayne with funny contempt.

  “I didn’t want to shed a tear in front of anyone. Ever.”

  “Why, do they turn into pearls? I should have watched closer.”

  Liam snorted and slouched into his chair. His face though still flushed, was much more… composed, better. The man said “thank you” as he closed his eyes.

  Wayne stepped back and quietly sat at the chair across. He allowed himself to watch Liam’s face, highlighted by the live soft hints of light coming from the fireplace. Wayne observed, memorized all those damp streaks on the man’s cheeks where the tears had fallen. The shadows made those incredible lashes longer. The usual cold façade much human. And Wayne found himself sinking back into the chair too.

  Liam was never a saint. Yet the man was innately good. He was a very driven, strong man contrary to what this place had painted omegas to be. Liam was fascinating, irritating, confounding and had unknowingly wedged himself into the fragments Wayne had long neglected. As he watched Liam take on that very needed nap, Wayne finally admitted silently to himself; he cared for Liam Bridges.

  “So Regem Wayne,” Liam began. “Regem means ‘king’ in Latin right?”

  Liam was already wide awake, alert. He was on his bare feet, heading for the huge frosted windows for some reason. The man swiped the palm of his left hand against the thick glass. It revealed a vague, smoky reflection of Liam. There was no denying that little smirk on his lips though. Turning around, Liam let his weight lean against the low sill, arms crossed, he eyed Wayne again with that same expectant, reading gaze.

  Somehow, the rush of that new energy Liam found from napping was contagious. Wayne who’d spent the last of his thirty minutes watching Liam sleep, stretched his arms over his head and killed the cricks around his neck and back.

  “Yeah. Regem is king,” Wayne finally answered, his brows drawing at Liam’s snort. “Why?”

  “Nothing,” Liam said while grinning. It obviously didn’t make it ‘nothing’.

  “What is it?” Wayne asked. He wasn’t about to make his name a big deal but there was something in the way Liam was grinning that was hard to ignore. “I most definitely am not royalty if you’re going to ask. My ancestors have been enforcers from the beginning.”

  “Nah, it isn’t that.” Liam cocked his head to the side, fine strands of hair framing his eyes. “Just, ‘King Wayne’ makes me want to laugh out loud. Sounds so… aristocratic.”

  “Whatever. It’s hardly amusing.”

  “It is!” Liam contradicted. “You’d be the wandering king if there ever is one.”

  Wayne pointedly looked at Liam’s eat-shitting grin. Although his name was the last thing he wanted to talk about, seeing Liam like this for a change made Wayne at ease. Liam could make fun of his name for all he cared.

  Liam turned his head slightly towards the side, staring outside the darkness the frosted windows offered. His smile had slowly vanished, in time of the falling snow. His eyes were oddly melancholic. “Regem Wayne, the wandering king. It fits isn’t it? Most AD agents sent in espionage are those who chose not to settle to anywhere. District to district you all go, one mission to another. You’re exactly that.” Liam looked back at Wayne. “Right?”

  He could only stare back at Liam’s eyes. No matter how he tried to form an answer to that simple question, for some reason, admitting it he didn’t want. What the hell was with that?

  “Are you married?”

  That had Wayne’s senses snapping back. He was almost into the lull of Liam’s presence.

  “Why?”

  “Just deducing you,” Liam replied. “You’ve never spared all the other omegas here a glance. There is something clinical in the way you look at them. How can you continue with a job like yours if you are already someone’s alpha?”

  Wayne swallowed. The thickness in his throat was stubborn. He pursed his lips. He didn’t avert his gaze when he said, “My omega, my fated, is dead.”

  Something changed in Liam’s face. A flash of sympathy. A knowing, understanding gaze. A swirl of being reminded that distinct pain of losing someone. Pain that throbs and dulls most times but was always there. That loneliness and all the bleakness of losing one’s fated carry. Liam nodded. All those emotions gone in an instant. It wasn’t a surprise. Where Liam was, he couldn’t be emotional.

  “Well, like they all say, we who have met our fated mates are under a different star. We’re blessed like that. You agree right?”

  “Yeah. Even if they were taken so early and… brutally.”

  “It depends on how we see them.” Liam smiled. “At least we’re agreeing now to some things.”

  Liam threw another look outside the window, meanwhile Wayne roamed his eyes around the room that was slowly being eaten away by darkness. The light from the fireplace had softened, catching and trying to lengthen its time before it completely expired. The heating system was set at a low that the room felt still too cold to be comfortable. He looked back at Liam who was now watching him quietly.

  “How are you so sure that this room has no ears?” Wayne found himself asking. It had been bothering him ever since.

  “I just know.”

  “That’s hardly reliable.”

  Liam nodded. “True. But it’s a minor detail we could leap over.” Liam crossed his arms once more and inclined his head to the side. “Tell me why you’re here in The Prey Ground.”

  “You already know.”

  “Well a few more details might help.”

  Wayne stared at Liam and saw the man wasn’t going to let it go. He straightened on the couch and drew a breath. “For a long time now, AD thinks someone with a high position within the organization is backing up Sierra Via, along with this prostitution shop.”

  “The AD thinks?” Liam sarcastically spat. “I think anyone with a functioning brain inside their thick skulls would’ve noticed that early on. But then again, AD has become a too massive body. Like someone with a huge gut who no longer could see their own dick.”

  Wayne broke into a chuckle. “That’s your mental representation? I’d gladly put that down in my paperwork.”

  Liam bit his lip, his eyes clearly accusatory. “So why only now is AD taking some actions about some bad blood? There are lots of shifters here waiting. I used to wait myself. What took you guys so long?”

  He sighed. “AD is undergoing internal cleansing. Even before, some would raise concerns about Sierra Via, but before long, those with a say are already veered to a different concern. White manipulation. ‘Go to other more pressing issue first’ is their usual line. Some of the concerns left to pile and forced at the back of a long list are now being prioritized. Like this.”

  “Well,” Liam sta
rted derisively. “Better late than never I guess.”

  “I’m here to put a name and a face to the AD traitor.”

  “Or traitors.”

  Wayne opened his mouth, and found himself nodding once. It was a possibility he didn’t want to think about. But a possibility it was. And it could be ugly.

  “Do you guys suspect anyone?” Liam pressed. “I may be the manager here, but where I can press my hands into is limited. I’m telling you already that I can’t give you any list.”

  That made Wayne grit his teeth. His thoughts pounding over each other a mile a minute. Liam’s clearing of his throat pulled him back out of his head.

  “I heard though that there’s going to be a huge gathering of The Prey Ground’s patrons and sponsors.”

  Wayne almost leaped off the seat. “When?”

  “Morning. Friday at ten.”

  It was already Wednesday. Almost Thursday by the clock saying eleven-forty.

  “The gathering is set while all omegas in the roster and the kids you saw are outside. Once every Friday of the month, we’re allowed and sometimes forced to catch that fleeting sunshine.”

  Wayne found his fists balling up so tight his knuckles were white. If there was one best way to check for faces, that was the best occasion.

  “You’re breaking into the gathering. I can see it in your face,” Liam said.

  Wayne nodded. His nerves were suddenly on high. There was a figure like time and numbers he could count now that wasn’t there before. Abruptly, Wayne found his gaze snapping back to Liam.

  “Have you ever tried escaping The Prey Ground?”

  “While my child is their hostage?” Liam said, almost a whisper. “No. Never. I won’t leave without him.”

  A silence came over to them. A silence that was intensified even more by the embers in the fireplace choking their last. It was too quiet that Wayne could hear every motion, every glide of Liam’s hand into the sill. Liam straightened from his perch and faced the huge window framing the dark. “I’ve been planning for it though. Like I told you, I need to do it myself. AD may be trying now. But I need my son off this place. And I don’t want to be too late.”

  “How?” Wayne was surprised at the raw worry his voice carried.

  “After all these years,” Liam mumbled, his silhouette barely visible. “How many omegas are known to escape from Sierra Via, or even from just The Prey Ground?”

  Wayne didn’t have to reply. His silence was answer enough. No one has ever reached even the borders. Or no one has survived to tell the tale.

  “You saw it too. Most of the massive entrances in all the wings are wide open.”

  Wayne was almost to the edge of his seat.

  “It’s not the bastard alphas here we call the number one foe. It’s the cold. It’s the number one enemy of us here. We’re often threatened to be left outside. Feel the burn of the cold seeping through the soles of our feet until it bit off all our limbs. Shifters in human form would never survive.”

  “Then why not—”

  “Shift?” Liam sneered. “See… that’s why no one has ever been able to escape. We can’t shift. Well, at least that was a couple of months before.”

  Wayne found himself standing. “What do you mean you can’t?”

  Liam sighed, almost like reliving it was a taxing thing. Wayne though didn’t doubt it was.

  “The first time I got dragged here with my three-year-old then son Laurent, I was mad. Really really mad.” There was laughter in his voice that sounded ominous in the dim. “All they did was beat me up, force me into submission, and beat me up some more. I guess I was too much to handle. They did throw me outside.”

  Wayne looked out the window himself. Just the sight of the white expanse seeping the darkness already numbed him.

  “I tried to shift. And I can’t.”

  Stupefied, Wayne just stood there. He tried to process it but his mind refused to work. Calling one’s wolf, especially in a life or death situations was almost instantaneous. A part of their nature. Half of their souls.

  “It took me months to realize why,” Liam whispered. “There’s something in the drinking water. There’s something in there that messes up with an omega’s physiology. We all drink on the same water system, alphas are untouched. But all the working omegas in the roster, including all those doing the household chores have been affected. They couldn’t all shift. Escaping and running into the snow was not an option when even clothing is controlled here. I have the few privileges for being the only working male omega in the premise. But that’s the reality of the situation here. They did something with the water.”

  Liam raised both his hands and traced for the window’s handle.

  “I wasn’t docile. But I pleased all the clients thrown at me. I actively whored myself to the Prey Ground’s owner. In pitch darkness, he fucked me over and over again. I don’t know who he is, what his face looks like. I’m too lost in whatever they injected me. For too long I was half doped, half alive. I guess being my male omega helped. That rarity is what they are selling me for and the owner, fucked in the head, thought to at least keep me happy. I wasn’t happy. But that did give me a title and a little freedom around here…”

  Wayne was about to say something but Liam cut him in.

  “I became the manager. I wasn’t just torturing omegas just so you know. I didn’t hold that information about shifting. I’ve been discreetly sending out to every single omega in The Prey Ground not to solely drink from the water system. I don’t know what’s in it precisely but as long as it’s not concentrated, or fresh from the water system, it doesn’t impede shifting.”

  “How? How do you know all this?”

  Liam laughed a quiet laugh. “I experimented it with my self. One day I drank water from The Prey Ground’s source. The night after that I can’t shift. The following day, I tried drinking some from the source and…” Liam gently pushed the glass windows open. Just very slightly to scrape the frosts and scoop a small portion of the snow that accumulated at the edges. He closed the window again and brought the snow into his mouth. He swallowed. “I used the snow where it’s unsullied by The Prey Ground. I ended up knowing and still being in touch with my wolf.”

  The man walked away from the window and headed for the bedside table. He turned the lampshade on, casting warm yellow muted light over the small side of the bed. “Nobody knows— except me and a friend— that omegas here down to the cleaning persons are in touch with their wolves again. The time is all we are waiting for.”

  Wayne followed Liam and hovered just a foot away from the bed. “Your friend?”

  Liam nodded. “I won’t be able to send out those messages without him. He’s also the reason I’m sure this room is safe.”

  “Who?”

  Liam shook his head. “I promised not to tell. It’s better if we let some other information just lay within ourselves. You’re the one sneaking into a trap full of snakes. You’re much experienced with that thought that the smaller we know about each other the better.”

  With a tight smile, Liam climbed on the bed. He pushed the thick covers, settled himself in and eyed Wayne as though he was weighing something within his mind. After a few seconds, Liam shook his head, his shoulders slightly sagging in defeat.

  “I didn’t want to tell you. But I guess it’s better if you’re already prepared.”

  Wayne waited. His agitation growing by the second Liam second-guessed.

  “My client earlier. He said he’s Valdrick Stephan. AD Commissioner on Energy Resources.”

  For a moment, Wayne thought someone had pulled the plush carpets from under him.

  “So he’s that popular huh? If you could only see your face.”

  Damn right Valdrick Stephan was popular and very familiar with him. The freaking bastard had been one of those honorable guests who came during Larri’s funeral. The Commissioner on Energy had even shed a few tears. The same man who was practically at every event veering for omega protection a
nd equality. The same man who just five months ago said omegas should be stopped being treated and looked at as just an object of sexual satisfaction. And yet, he was hearing now that same man was in the sin district and had bought Liam for a couple of hours? The chance a man in such a high position being alone in such vile pretensions was next to nothing. Either Stephan had little friends, or there were many as big as Stephan in this huge gilded cage called Sierra Via.

  “Regem. Is he a friend?”

  “No. He’s never a friend and will never now.”

  Laying himself on the mountain of white pillows Liam had piled himself, he let the covers hide him up to his nose. “My words aren’t enough. You’ll have to get proof for that right?”

  “Hopefully by Friday yeah. I seriously want to see him laughing and enjoying himself. So I could enjoy myself when his face falls down in front of the jury.”

  Liam nodded, still just peeking from underneath the white covers. His eyes looked tired, the soft light like a little fire in his darkened eyes.

  “Can I ask a favor?”

  Wayne stepped closer, watching Liam cocooned from the other side of the bed. “What?”

  The man snaked his arm from underneath the cover until his hand was resting on the center of the bed. “Hold my hand.”

  Though initially surprised, Wayne walked closer to the bed, took up the space on the side and took Liam’s hand. He knew this very well. He knew this want for physical contact. Most of the ones he’d saved from prolonged captivity craved physical touch. And mostly these omegas wouldn’t reach out to those who they didn’t trust. The fact that Liam had shown how distressed he really was, and this wanting to anchor himself somehow with Wayne was something that made his chest swell in pride and weirdly, sorrow.