by Lily Archer
“Let’s seal it.” I look around at them, meeting each one in the eye. “You are my chosen Alphas.”
“May the circle never break.” Kyte kisses my hand.
Jeren kisses the other one. “May the circle never break.”
Ceredes kisses my forehead. May the circle never break.”
I stand in the center of all of them. “May the circle never break.”
Kyte reaches out and touches Jeren, then Jeren reaches for Ceredes, and finally Ceredes grips Kyte’s shoulder. A circle around me. One of power and love.
Jeren reaches out and takes my hand. The connection glows to life, our souls meeting once again and dancing around each other like long lost friends. He sees me, the real me, and I see him. Desire flows between us like the tide. Emotion threatens to overwhelm me. I let it and bask in the love he sends through our bond.
Kyte takes my other hand, and our connection sends out a blast of light, the tree limbs above us shaking, leaves floating down and bouncing off the orb of white light around us. I see his childhood, his amazing mother, his doting father. He is a male of light and love, his abilities to heal equal to his fierceness of heart.
“I love you, Lana.” His voice is a soft kiss, the pitter patter of rain, the sea on a bright morning.
Ceredes reaches for me, his palm beginning to glow like the rest of us. He almost makes contact when an explosion rocks us off our feet. The connection breaks as I slam into the ground.
30
Jeren
I scoop Lana into my arms as Kyte reaches for her, then throws up a protective barrier.
“Lana!” I push her hair from her face, and she opens her eyes.
“What was that?” Her voice is high, panicked, and I don’t blame her. The trees around us are on fire, the ozone scent of a virudivan grenade scorching the air.
I wrap my body around Lana’s, and Ceredes draws his energy sword.
“Power grenade.” Ceredes stalks to the edge of the shimmering blue shield. “Someone’s out there.”
“I thought the grounds were safe.” Her heart beats faster than a veradragon’s wings, and I keep her pressed against me.
“They are.” Kyte peers through the surrounding darkness. “Something’s wrong. The shields stopped functioning.”
“How is that possible?” She peers up to the dark sky. “They were working fine when we couldn’t get out.”
I tighten my grip. “No one will hurt you.”
“Something has broken through.” Kyte turns and looks behind me.
“Or it was let in.” I sense it, too, but it’s all around us. Danger coming closer. “Strengthen your shield.”
Kyte nods, and the blue barrier glows brighter.
“I’m ready.” Ceredes holds his sword up, prepared to jump into action as soon as Kyte releases the barrier to set him free.
“I can feel them. At least a dozen.” The skin along my spine prickles. “They’re surrounding us, closing in.”
“What are they?” Lana trembles as I keep one arm around her and palm a blade.
“Sentients.” Their perverse nature grates on my consciousness. Twisted biology and flesh mated to metal has a particular signature, and I sense it everywhere I look.
“Send out the Omega, and we’ll allow you three Alphas to leave here alive.” A male voice, but more than that. It’s several voices melded together into one so that it goes off like a bomb blast, the trees around us shaking and the barrier flickering brighter.
“No.” Ceredes doesn’t yell. He doesn’t have to. His stance is pure defiance.
“We have no need to spill your blood … At least not tonight. Hand her over and live. Refuse and die.”
“If you want her so badly, come and get her!” This time Ceredes bellows, and Kyte and I join in with our own roars. No one will take her from us. I will annihilate anyone who dares threaten it.
“Don’t invite them in!” Lana smacks my chest.
I almost ask her to hit me again. But the danger is too real, the air around us growing thicker, and figures appear from the scorched trees.
“Sentients.” Kyte counts them out loud. “Fifteen, looks like.”
I do my own count. “Five for each of us. I like these odds.”
One of them holds up a hand, and the rest stop. He continues approaching, giving us a view of his hulking body, most of it some sort of mech. Half of his face is gone and replaced with cyborg components.
Lana shakes harder as the Sentient walks around the blue shield and looks straight at her.
“Give her to me.” He stares as if transfixed and holds out a robotic hand. “This Omega is mine.”
My grip on the knife tightens, and my desire to strike another has never been so strong. I want to gut this monstrous cyborg for just looking at her, and it has the nerve to claim ownership?
“Drop the shield for one second,” Ceredes grits out. “No more.”
It isn’t easy to give her up, but I ease Lana into Kyte’s arms. “He’ll keep you safe.” I drop a kiss on her hair.
Kyte gives me a nod and tucks her under his arm. I join Ceredes at the edge of the barrier.
“You will die. All three of you. And I will take her anyway.” The creature sneers, though it still hasn’t taken its eyes off Lana. “But at least it will be good practice for my soldiers.”
“Commander Warverian.” Lana’s voice shakes as she names him.
“You have some old intel, my Omega. I’m now High Commander Warverian.” He stalks closer.
I itch to drive dagger into his one organic eye.
“I’m not yours.” She straightens her spine, her head high. “These three are my Alphas.”
“These whelps?” Warverian laughs. “No. They are not worthy of you, but I am.”
“Now.” Ceredes and I dart from the protective sphere, and it reappears immediately.
“Be careful!” Lana calls.
I pull my second knife and twirl it in my palm as the other Sentients crowd around us. Some are cyborgs, and some are from other races. All of them wear thick armor and bear power weapons. I’m no fool. Our chances are slim. But there’s no way we’ll ever back down. Not where Lana is concerned.
“Kill them.” The leader lights his energy blade and lunges for Ceredes.
I meld into the night and dart for the nearest soldier. Their armor is formidable. The problem is, when thick sheets of metal are used to cover essential organs, there are necessarily some areas that need more give. At joints, especially. I shove my blade into the nearest cyborg where its arm meets its body. The little jolt of electricity I feel tells me I’ve hit something vital. The mechanical half of it collapses as the organic part screams for help. I move on to the next as an arc of blue light shoots from the protective sphere and sends one of the Sentients at my back flying into the smoldering trees.
I give Kyte a nod of thanks and go to work on the next one, the creature’s head covered in eyeballs and its eight arms swinging wildly at me. This is going to get messy. I slice through the first piece of it, black blood spurting in a stream onto my clothes. Ceredes fights to my right, he and Warverian covering wide swaths of ground as they duel with their swords.
Two of the soldiers across the clearing draw energy guns and begin firing at me. I dodge and run into the darkness, then circle around, nothing more than a whisper in the night, and shove my blades into each of their throats.
Searing pain runs down my side as another cyborg lunges for me, its long craninthium blade cutting through my dress uniform. I hit the ground and kick out, sweeping it onto its back before ramming my knife into the organic half of its face.
“Jeren!” Kyte yells as two Sentient cyborgs use their virudivan charges to try and break his shell.
Lana screams when a chunk of the shield shatters. One of the creatures reaches in and grabs her hair, yanking her toward it. White-hot fury courses through me, and I vault from my spot on the ground, land on my feet, and throw my knife into the back of the creature’s
head. It doesn’t stop. Kyte reaches for her, but another grenade goes off directly over his head, and he falls in a smoldering heap.
“Lana!” I run for her despite the burning wound in my side and cut the arm from the creature who grabbed her.
She struggles to her feet, then rushes back toward Kyte, but Warverian is already there. He wraps one arm around her waist and crouches. When he springs forward, his mech half lights with virudivan power and carries him far over the trees with Lana in his grip.
Her scream dies away into the distance. They disappear just as the academy barrier reignites, cutting us off and destroying any chance of pursuit.
31
Lana
Warverian ignores my struggle and my screams as he launches us miles away from my Alphas. The force of his lift-off takes my breath away, and the landing is just as brutal.
I bang on his chest as he strides toward a contingent of soldiers. “Let me go.”
“You belong to me, Omega.” He looks down, and I realize he must have been a handsome male before he replaced half of himself with mechanical parts. Oh, and also joined forces with evil. That, too, is an issue.
“My name is Lana, and I don’t belong to you. Now, let me go or High Commander Bartanz will—”
He shoves me into the arms of another cyborg. “Do not put so much as a scratch on her.”
Motherfucker. “You’ve got some nerve! As I was saying, Bartanz is going to rip a new black hole where your ass is!” Nevermind that I’ve got problems with Bartanz, too.
Warverian turns just as a ship shoots free from the school’s barrier, its guns glowing red in the night.
“I know that ship.” I kick the half-man, half-machine that drags me backward, but I’m like a bug in its strong grip. “Let me go!”
Warverian aims a blast at Master Daviti’s ship, but he easily dodges and lights up the ground in front of us. He’s careful, though. He doesn’t come anywhere near hitting me.
“Back! We have what we came for.” Warverian motions, and cyborgs as well as the others around us retreat to the ship. I’m jostled, then slung over the cyborg’s shoulder.
I kick hard with my knees, but only wind up with aching knees. The metal parts are too strong. How can anyone ever defeat one of these? Whoever thought this cyborg thing up is brilliant. Sick, but brilliant.
A blast behind me singes my hair, and I crane my head up to see Master Daviti’s ship firing at Warverian. The Sentient uses a blaster and returns fire, but Daviti dodges the small blasts with ease. His ship is picking up speed. I can see what he’s going to do before he does it.
I press my cheek to the cyborg’s metal back and hope I survive this. It would be a miracle.
Master Daviti flies overhead, then lets loose a barrage onto the Sentient ship. I can’t see it, but I can hear the sound of metal crunching, explosions, and Sentients screaming. The biggest boom is followed by a wave of scorching heat. It’s like someone took a blowtorch to my legs, and I cry out as the cyborg who’s carrying me drops to the ground. The pain in my calves is blistering, and I can imagine my dress and then my skin charring and falling away.
I shove away from him, igniting new agony in my legs, but his mechanical arm grips my ankle and won’t let go. The Sentient ship is on fire, the wreck popping and wrenching, the entire mass of flaming metal listing toward me. I’ll be crushed.
“Let go, asshole!” Despite the pain, I try to kick free from the cyborg’s iron grip, but it isn’t releasing me. Instead, it crawls toward me, the organic half if its face blackened from the blast.
I turn over and try to crawl away as best I can. All I see is Warverian coming for me, though he’s missing an arm. No, no, no.
My mind screams for my Alphas as Master Daviti makes another pass. He doesn’t fire, just flies low over the smoking wreckage he created.
Warverian’s seared face is a mask of wrath as he stares down at me. He kicks the other cyborg’s head once, twice, three times until it makes a sickening crunch, and a splash of gore paints the ground beside me. “I said not a scratch.”
I dry heave and try again to crawl away.
The hand finally releases my ankle, and Warverian scoops me up into his one arm with ease, then backs away as an enormous hunk of the ship falls over, sending up a whoosh of fire and dirt.
I cough as thick black smoke wraps around us, and I’m helpless. Utterly helpless, because I can’t feel my legs anymore. The burning pain has turned into an even more frightening numbness.
“Let me go,” I choke the words out.
“Never,” he snarls, then crouches as his virudivan parts power up.
“No!” My protest is cut off as he launches us high into the air.
We fly over the plains, but all I can see is the wide black sky above, the flickering light of a million stars, and the swirl of a nearby galaxy.
“Kyte, help,” I think to him. “I can’t feel my legs. I’m cold. Something’s wrong.” Panic threatens to swallow me up, to take away all my thoughts. That and the chill that’s set in. The wind roars in my ears, and I shiver. I’m having a hard time just breathing, and the bite of the wind stings my eyes.
We land again, and something pops in my back on the jarring impact.
I can’t scream anymore.
A smaller ship is waiting for us. Plans within plans. Warverian is high commander of the Sentients for a reason, I suppose.
Darkness encroaches at the edges of my vision, but I refuse to pass out. At least, I try to refuse. The black streaks grow and ripple as Warverian takes impossibly huge strides toward the ship.
We’re close when another craft crashes down in front of us. I just catch the outline of it before it hits. A V-11. My yell is caught up in the thudding impact as Warverian is thrown back, and we hit the ground so hard I think I might be dead.
My sight dims as the monstrous Sentient finally releases me and clambers to his feet, standing in front of me like a shield.
“This Omega is mine.” His voice, the melding of mech and living tissue, is straight from a nightmare.
But it’s met with one that promises rescue.
“You aren’t taking her. She is bound to us.” Ceredes lights his energy sword.
“We are a circle.” Jeren seems to flicker in and out of shadow.
“And you will never take what’s ours.” Kyte looks at me, his gaze giving me what I need to fight through the pain. He’s healed, the burns from the grenade completely gone.
Warverian lights his own sword, this one marked with a cruelly serrated edge. “I gave you a chance to escape with your lives. Now, they belong to me.”
I shiver, my body shaking so hard that my teeth chatter.
Ceredes jumps in first, his blade sizzling as it connects with Warverian’s, and their dance begins. Kyte runs for me and drops to his knees. When he looks at my legs, he blanches, the golden hue leaching away.
“That bad?” I try to watch Ceredes and Jeren as they duel with the one-armed Sentient, but my eyes don’t want to cooperate.
“You’ll be all right.” His voice is waving around me like heat off blacktop. “Lana.” He takes my hand. He’s so warm. I’m cold.
“Lana.” He presses his palm to my cheek. “I used my power on myself. I had to. I didn’t know you’d need—”
“You’re warm,” I mumble, but the words don’t coalesce into anything. Just sounds.
His voice grows farther away.
He calls my name.
I want to answer, but I can’t.
Because I’m gone.
Lana’s story will continue in two (or maybe three because I love this story so, so much) more books of the Omega Academy. Thanks for reading. And to tide you over, make sure you check out my Fae’s Captive Series.
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About the Author
Lily Archer believes in fairies, mermaids, and fierce fae warriors. Armed with nothing more than he
r imagination and a well-worn MacBook, she intends to slay the darkest beasts of the fantasy worlds and create true love where none seemed possible.
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