Oath of the Alpha - Eva Dresden Page 0,13
hunger for the man who made her blood sing. He’d given her that same world, shoving her into it headlong and heaping an endless wealth of emotions she could not begin to cope with on her head. She wanted it all—his fury, his annoyance, his need. Heart thumping out a cadence that resounded in her ears with the strangeness of his name, Aida sobbed.
The anguished circle of her thoughts broken by ragged shouting, she jerked upright. Wild gaze darting around the clearing for what new danger came to befall her, Aida could not understand why the men hunched on the ground. She saw no malignant presence, no evidence of magic as she knew it, yet she found Miyenth limp in Rhyn’s arms, half sprawled across the forlorn earth with nothing but the whites of rolling eyes showing.
Aida toppled backward off the fallen log as the ground did not just tremble but shook. Furious shudders rippled through the distorted trees, the tangled growth rattling and hissing. A roar of whispers murmured in her ears as Aida sought the source of such a thing.
She screamed as she found it, her skin alight with an eerie blue-white glow that sizzled and crackled. Arcing out in vicious forks to create a field of lightning in shades of summer sky and bleak winter, it did not crawl up her arms as she knew magic to do. There was no coating of it just above tender flesh, like a glove of light and power. This light came from her, seeping from her hands and face, turning her tunic gauzy with the brilliance of it.
Slamming through the incandescent glow, it pierced the ground like a well-honed knife. As crooked and knotted as the woman wielding it, the blackened staff refused the frigid glow. Darkness a shield around it, it sank deeper still as Aida continued to scream her terror into the dimming sky. This shouldn’t be happening, not with Er’it’s medallion sitting precious and solid between her breasts, the metal molten against her. Scrabbling fingers melting into the murky ground, Aida felt its softness. Malleable, vicious, angry—it wanted something from her she couldn’t understand. It was the same as she’d felt in Otaso’s dungeon, the presence that clawed and bit, choking and punching, leaving Aida too weak to even cry out in pain. It, too, wanted something from her.
It was coming for her now.
The woman above her guffawed, croaking a rattle that sounded more like death than humor. She hauled the staff free of the dirt, bringing the knobbed end down on the side of Aida’s head where it landed with a sickening crack.
Blackness. Complete and void of any sensation other than the cold permeating her bones. Aida wanted to sob, though she wasn’t sure if it was in relief or terror. It was too much like the dungeon, but the awful light remained quiet. Thoughts skipping in mad, rushing dashes, she wondered if this was death, the Abyss swallowing her up piece by piece until there was nothing left of the young woman she once was.
“What is she?”
Not dead then. Miyenth’s trembling voice permeated the darkness, bringing a flutter of lashes, crusted and tacky with decrepit tears. Forcing her eyes open, Aida squinted at the bright light of the day blinding her, groaning as it punched through the back of her skull.
“An Omega.” The woman leaned over Aida, blocking the light with the ratted edges of gown and hair, each blending with seamless destruction into the other. Her face bore the ragged brunt of time and wear, each heavy fold parchment thin and fading to dust. Frayed locks, mottled and streaked in a patchwork of mossy gray and pitch, swayed around Aida’s face as the woman bent low with the aid of her staff. “Ripe as well. I’d say you were ready to pluck in a day or two, but it seems someone already has.”
Brow furrowing, Aida pressed back into the warm ground to put more space between her and the strange woman. It made the crone laugh, the hideous rattling sound ricocheting through the trees and slamming around Aida’s skull. Hand coming to her temple, Aida felt the syrupy warmth of blood staining her hair and cheek.
“Yes, hit you right upside that pretty head. Going to tell me your worth as Rhyn Lirkinson wishes you to?” Eyes the brilliant green of emeralds and showing no sign of her age narrowed, pinning Aida with their cold light.
“Thank you,” Aida whispered in a parched, tight voice.
The woman