His gaze dropped to his injured arm. It was a clean cut, but it was bleeding heavily. Too heavily. “What was on that blade?”
“Poison,” she threw the word at him like a challenge. “I’ve killed you. Better kill me while you still can.”
Human poisons didn’t worry him. Even if they did, he could hear the forced bravado in her words. “Do not lie to me.”
“Fine. It’s something to make wounds bleed longer and faster.”
He looked at the knife again. He hadn’t taken the time to really look at it until now. The blade itself was small and curved, little more than a viciously sharp hook. Almost as if it were meant for...
Xarth.
He’d seen them before, with female bodies left out in the wilderness.
“What is this? Why do you have it?” he demanded, anger dropping his voice to a low growl.
“It’s not meant to be a weapon,” her voice was soft and a little sad, her gaze still on the blade as if she was thinking of trying to grab it again. “It’s to give us a way to escape our suffering.”
“What suffering?”
“Of being what we are. Omegas. Breeding slaves.”
“You are more than that! You are the future of our race.”
She laughed bitterly. “We didn’t ask for that. Or the pain that comes with what we are. Even if we aren’t claimed, there’s pain. As omegas get older the curse gets worse. It weakens us. It’s agony. Some can’t cope and give themselves up. The rest walk into the wilderness.” Reaching down, she traced a short line across her inner thigh. “They don’t come back.”
Fury of a kind he’d never known before boiled up inside him. Not the heat of battle or the raw red of anger, but a terrible cold that turned his blood to ice in his veins.
“You.” He stopped and had to force himself to say the next word. “You kill yourselves rather than be claimed? How many! How long? What curse?”
He wanted to shake the answers out of her. He needed to cradle her close and make her swear to him she’d never do such a thing.
She tried to move back but he wouldn’t let her. “Talk.”
“Being an omega is a curse.”
Each of her soft words hit him hard.
“Even if we aren’t found and claimed, once or twice a year all choice and rational thought is removed. The pain and craving...”
She shuddered and closed her eyes.
“It drives some mad. The older we get, the harder it is to cope with. Like it’s eating us from the inside out. How long?” Her lips curved in a bitter, haunted smile. “Ever since you changed us.”
“That’s not right. Twice? Pain?” The ice receded, leaving a pit of acid churning in his gut. “You would take your own life rather than submit to my claim?”
She lay beneath him, no fight left. The tracks of tears that rolled down the side of her cheeks accused him. He frowned. She seemed... smaller... like this, and she had been tiny enough to begin with. The need to protect her washed over him, but a core of rage remained. And it demanded answers.
“Answer me, omega,” he snarled, the rough edge of frustration and command in his voice.
“Twice,” she confirmed. “For my mother and me, it comes twice a year, and it hurts. The time is coming when my mother won’t be able to fight it any longer. I wanted to be with her until then... but if I can’t, at least I can join her in death. We can both be at peace, which is more than you and your kind have ever offered us.”
Omegas who went into heat twice a year. A mother and daughter who were both omegas.
He sorted through the information and tried to file it away for later consideration. For the moment, his focus was on her. She’d rather die than be with an alpha. What had the xarthing L’crav clan done to these females?
He fixed his gaze on hers. “I can offer you more than that, shar’ai. Food. Comfort. Protection. You will have it all. I am A’rath of the H’thor, Master at Arms to the Lord Overseer himself, and you are my omega.”
She hadn’t moved, watching him with wary eyes. He hated the fear in her eyes and in her scent. It stank, acrid to his sensitive sense of smell, and he wanted it gone. Wanted it off her skin. Carefully he levered himself up, every cell in his body protesting at the distance. He should be buried balls deep in her, claiming her and making her his as his nature demanded... but he couldn’t, not while she was scared—no, more than scared. For all her smart mouth, she was terrified of him.
“You will not kill yourself.” He sank the blade into the nearest wall with an idle flick of his wrist, making sure it was out of his little female’s reach. “You will eat. And bathe. You may choose which you will do first.”
Fire sparkled in her eyes as she glared up at him—rebellion, pure and simple. It took his breath away at the same time it confounded him. She was omega. He could tell by her scent. More, she was his omega, but even terrified she was defying him. She shouldn’t be able to defy him. Not after so much time in his company. His pheromones should already be working on her and ensuring her compliance.
Omegas obeyed their alphas. This was the way it had always been. He should want her compliance, so why wasn’t he forcing her to obey? Why did he relish the challenge in her eyes?
He needed to talk to Rett. His brother had more insight into these humans than anyone else. But that would wait. For now, his focus was on Savannah. “Choose.”
“You’d let me bathe alone?”
“No. You cannot walk. How would you manage to bathe without help? I am your alpha. I will care for you.”
She narrowed her eyes, her lips pressed together until they almost disappeared. Then she rubbed a hand over her dirt-stained arm. “I would love to be clean. But...”
Her gaze flicked to him and he read the wariness in her expression. She didn’t want to disrobe in front of him, which was ridiculous. He could take what he wanted any time he wanted, as was his right as her alpha. But the idea of her willing submission was more enthralling.
“Then I will make it so.” He flashed her a wicked smile as an idea struck him. “I will even agree to be blindfolded this one time.”
“You will?” The hope in her eyes was better than any drug he’d ever sampled.
“I will. For a price.”
The hope vanished and her face lapsed into a neutral mask. “What price?”
“A kiss. Your lips on mine. I want to taste you, little one. That’s all.”
For now.
She watched him for long moments, studying his expression. He held his breath as she assessed him, fascinated by the way her thoughts showed in her eyes like quicksilver. She should never play varka. She would lose the clothes off her back.
“Just a kiss. A single kiss, nothing else?” she asked and he knew he had her.
“Just a kiss, shar’ai. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Silence stretched out between them—a pause that would have driven him insane, but for one thing. His father had taught him that a good hunter did not chase. Instead, a good hunter waited for his prey.
“Alright.”
Her agreement felt like a major victory. “Good.”
He raised his voice to one of command. “System. Run a bath. Hot but not scalding. Low light.”