“Yes?” he demanded once they were in the corridor, folding his arms over his broad chest as he glowered down at the female. Lord Tane needed to get her under control. He was a reasonable male, but if she started ordering some of the younger alphas about, she was going to get hurt.
The female stared up at him with a serenity he’d only seen in the eyes of priests—a sense of knowing that was as annoying as it was indefinable. “Do you understand what’s happening to your omega?” she asked, her tone too soft to take offense to.
“Yes.” Of course he knew. He was a healer as well as Serena’s alpha.
“We call it the Fade.”
That was news to him. The humans knew about this? “We have no name for it,” he conceded. “What else can you tell me?”
Her expression was serene, but her eyes were filled with sorrow and something else. Maybe anger?
“The kindest thing you can do,” she said, glancing toward the blaster holstered at his hip, “is to walk in there and kill her.”
He bared his teeth and growled, the deeper rumble hinting at how close his other side was to the surface. “Never.”
“She is dying, Healer T’kinn. You alphas can force a claim, but you cannot force an omega to accept it. She will die before she accepts you.”
“She will not die! I will make her happy.”
Again, that small, sad smile. “How?”
“I—” His words dried up and then he snarled. “I just will. She is my omega. I have given her everything. She will be happy. I will make sure she is.”
“You have given her everything but the one thing she wants.”
He focused on her, meeting her look with a hard one of his own. A beta should have looked down submissively, unable to meet the gaze of an alpha, but not this one. If anything, her look was hard with an edge of challenge.
“What is that?”
“Freedom.”
The word dropped into the silence between them. It rang with truth. Finality.
“What?” he barked a laugh, hating the unsure note in it. “She has the freedom of the city. She can see you, her friends… I do not curtail her movements.”
The Mother Superior laughed. It was like listening to crystal bells chiming. “You curtail her life, Tolathian. Since the L’crav came, we have all lived under the yoke of enslavement. You cannot undo what was done simply by being nicer about it than your predecessors. I have tried to explain this to the Lord Overseer, but he doesn’t see it. Not yet.”
“Var and Rath’s females do not have this condition. What do their omegas have that Serena doesn’t?” If this slip of a female wouldn’t answer him, he’d go to Var next. Someone must know. It was important to all their kind that they learn how to stop this from happening, starting with Serena.
“I cannot answer that. I don’t know what the difference is, but there is one. There are only three kinds of omegas, Lord Healer. The ones that fade, the few that thrive… and those who live free and never have to make that choice.”
His blood froze in his veins. “The ones that fade. Tell me about them. Now.”
She didn’t back up as he crowded her, no fear in her eyes nor in her scent. She tilted her head back to meet his gaze, way too bold for a beta.
“Healer, I would advise you to back up. Now.”
Before he could give voice to his anger that she was once again ordering him—an alpha—around, a low and dangerous snarl filled the corridor. The sound of death and destruction was instantly recognizable.
Hands out to his sides, he took a step back and then another before turning.
“Lord Tane, I didn’t see you there.”
The deadliest being on the entire planet made a slight nod to Kinn but never took his eyes off the Mother Superior. “I have warned you not to antagonize my alphas, Ariadne.”
“I was not the one doing the antagonizing.” She smoothed a hand over her white blonde hair, her face a neutral mask once more. “But as the Lord Healer has reason to be unsettled, I forgive him.”
Kinn had to bite his tongue to keep from reminding the female that she was in no position to forgive anyone. “The Fade. Tell me what you know.”
She raised her hands in a gesture of elegant surrender. “I already have. They make a choice, Healer. Serena has made hers.” Her eyes met his for the briefest moment. “The only thing that might stop it is if you give her what she needs. I can’t be sure, though. None of your kind have ever willingly made that choice.”
He looked from Tane to the tiny woman in front of him. “What choice?”
“Her freedom.” A note in Mother Superior’s voice made him feel like a small child once again, one who had missed the obvious lesson.
“Freedom?” He shook his head. She couldn’t mean what he thought she meant. “As in, to not be my omega anymore? That’s—” he looked to Tane. “That’s ridiculous! The bond cannot be broken. It would kill her!”
“As opposed to what is happening now?” She glanced pointedly over her shoulder at the closed door to the room Serena still sat in.
The Lord Overseer shook his head. “The bond is unbreakable. It’s always been this way. Once claimed, an omega and her alpha are bound for life.” Tane touched his chest. “And for every life thereafter. It is our way.”
“And it was our way to be allowed to make our own choices.” The Mother Superior bowed in a surprisingly elegant and formal motion to the Lord Overseer. “But ways change. I have given you what advice I can, Healer T’kinn. Do I have permission to depart?”
“Not yet.” Tane cocked his head in a way that made Kinn glad he wasn’t the one the overseer was looking at so intently. “What do you know about the membrane T’kinn found on Serena’s foot? The one that seems to allow omegas to hide their nature from us?”
“I have no idea what you mean. What membrane?” The expression on Mother Superior’s face didn’t change. Not by so much as a minute muscle tic. Her blue eyes, as serene as a mountain lake, looked back at them, wide and free of guile.
Tane sighed, the sound filled with a rattle of frustration. The hairs on the back of Kinn’s neck rose. That was not a good sound to hear the Lord Overseer make. Ever.
“Kinn, you may depart to care for your omega.”
He couldn’t leave the beta here with the lord, not with the tension mounting in the small space. She knew more about this Fade than he did, information that would be lost if Tane killed the woman. “My lord, I think I shou—”
“Go! Now!” Tane’s voice rose to a near roar. “Ariadne, you will stay.”
Interestingly, the woman hadn’t flinched, not even in the face of the overseer’s anger, whereas Kinn knew to withdraw. Quickly. It might be his healing hall, but it was Lord Tane’s citadel.
“She is just through here. I will take her another way.” He thumped his fist to his chest in salute to the overseer, nodded to the Mother Superior, and entered the room where Serena waited.
She hadn’t moved.
He took her hand, which was cool and slack in his. “Come, little star. It’s time for you to eat.”
“Yes, my alpha.” The words rang hollow in his ears. He was her alpha, and he was losing her. Worse. He was losing them both.