Oath of the Alpha - Eva Dresden Page 0,6
he’d long buried in the past amid the gritty taste of sand and death. Back braced against a tree, he set his hands to his knees and panted for what little air his straining lungs could suck down. Amber gaze traversing the swaths of cleared foliage, he knew Ath’asho had the right of it. Still, to sit by a fire, eating and drinking as if she wasn’t out there screaming under another man’s hands…
“I have to find her.”
“Er’it, please,” Ath’asho groaned, hauling himself up to lean against a broken stump. “We cannot go on like this.”
“I know, my friend.” Shoving away from the evergreen, Er’it made a weary path through the sundered brush. Mind made, he would do this, could do it, no matter the sickened horror twisting through his heart or the grief clogging the back of his throat.
“Er’it, what are you doing? Majesty, wait!”
Ath’asho bumbled after him, making his presence known even without his customary clanging armor. Stripped down to sweat-soaked pants and bare chest scraped raw by spiny vines and whip-like branches, he looked a different man altogether.
Not that Er’it himself looked much better. With even his medallion gone, reserves sapped dry by Aida in that tortuous moment, no one would guess him a king. Swiping a palm over his face and grimacing, Er’it trudged on, ignoring Ath’asho’s harrying. What he sought stood in the sunshine, soaking up the warmth. Mangled curse slipping across his tongue as he stopped well outside Kal’s patch of brightness, they stared at one another. Inky eyes serene, Kal huffed and ambled closer.
He couldn’t do it, not to Kal. Glassy gaze skittering away to find another option, anything he could latch on to, Er’it’s hands came up by habit alone to scratch at the soft cheeks of the Phylix nuzzling his chest. Forlorn sound grinding from his throat, he set his forehead against the magnificent creature’s and felt the sting of tears for the first time in what felt like eons.
“It would take all of them, my friend, and I cannot spare them,” Er’it whispered into the plush velvet of Kal’s face, stroking the dappled gray of his cheeks.
Snorting a response, Kal nudged Er’it’s stomach, encouraging him to continue scratching when he hugged the Phylix’s face close.
“Er’it, what are you doing?” Ath’asho asked, leagues past wary as he stumbled to a halt somewhere behind the pair.
“She took it all. I don’t understand how or why, but she stole every last vestige of magic from Tor’en and me both. Endi couldn’t even gather enough to heal the soldiers with minor wounds from the bandits.” Er’it shook his head, disbelief warring with something akin to pride. His Omega had depleted three mages and saw through the spell casting of at least one other. Not that it had done them any good. The act of slipping the medallion over her head, its protection spell cutting her off from any magic around her, had taken the last of his reserves. Even trying to touch her had pained him, pulling at an empty well and threatening to take Er’it—mind, body, and soul.
“Omegas aren’t supposed to have any power,” Ath’asho said. The firmness of his resolve crumbled in the wake of his words to leave him looking toward the forest with something close to fear.
“They’re not, and yet…” Er’it laughed, the caustic sound ringing through the clearing. He should be angry, and there had been a long moment where he’d screamed curses and expletives into the darkness, his men having to keep him from running blind into the forest after the thieves. It had faded to nothing as the sun pulled the inky blackness of night from the sky. The thought of Aida, so small and helpless, out there with a group of men thoroughly terrified him, no matter her unprecedented abilities.
Convincing himself it was only the loss of the promise of power had taken hours, most of it spent searching through the woods. Half the day wasted, exhausting everyone even more than they already were, he now stood clinging to a Phylix and praying for an answer that wouldn’t come.
“What do you intend to do?” Ath’asho asked, wary gaze swinging back to his king. Shoulders drawing back, muscles bunching, he looked between Kal and Er’it. He began to shake his head as a hint of understanding came to him.
“I don’t want to do it,” Er’it said in a vicious snarl pitched low and deep, keeping their conversation between them as soldiers dragged themselves back through the sundered