Candescent

by Zoey Ellis

  “I haven’t heard of any out­sider be­ing in the moun­tains.”

  “It would have been early this morn­ing. I want to know if any­one has seen her,” Thorec in­sisted. “She would have come for in­for­ma­tion.”

  The moun­tain con­tact frowned. “Wait here.”

  She headed to a nearby hut and spoke to the man he had seen Ria ar­gu­ing with. Af­ter a few mo­ments, she re­turned with the man in tow. “It seems that she was back,” the moun­tain con­tact said dis­ap­prov­ingly. “And Hal­vard said he is the one who spoke to her, sur­pris­ingly.”

  “She was dif­fer­ent when she came back,” the old man in­sisted. “She was much more re­spect­ful.”

  “What did she want?” Thorec asked.

  “She wanted to know about some­one who lived here years ago,” the man said, lean­ing on his long stick. “She wanted to know what hap­pened to him.”

  Thorec stiff­ened. Him? He hadn’t been ex­pect­ing that. Un­ease twisted in his stom­ach. “Who was he?”

  “A man who lived here, an Al­pha.”

  “What did she want to know about him?” Thorec al­most barked.

  “She wanted con­fir­ma­tion that he did in­deed live here and where he was now. She needed to find him.”

  The un­ease in Thorec’s stom­ach soured. “And what did you tell her?”

  “She al­ready knew much about the man,” the man shrugged. “I think she had been with him be­fore. But I told her that he was sta­tioned in Ashens last I heard.”

  Thorec frowned. Sta­tioned in Ashen? “He is a mem­ber of the Lox?”

  When the man nod­ded, Thorec growled long and hard. Ria was look­ing for a Lox war­rior? That was why she was ask­ing all those ques­tions about the army—it wasn’t be­cause she had an in­ter­est in Thorec, but some other Al­pha. That put him on edge slightly. He needed to know what kind of war­rior this man was. “Do you know why she was look­ing for him?”

  “She said she be­longed with him.”

  For a mo­ment, Thorec couldn’t see or hear any­thing. Po­tent, pri­mal rage clawed in him vi­o­lently, urg­ing him to find and claim what was his, and make sure she never made the mis­take of deny­ing that claim.

  When his sur­round­ings fi­nally re­turned, both the man, Hal­vard, and the moun­tain con­tact had re­treated back a few steps, star­ing at him as though he was dan­ger­ous. But he didn’t have time to deal with them right now. “I as­sume she is head­ing to Ashens next?”

  The older man nod­ded, fear soft­en­ing his fea­tures.

  “How is she trav­el­ing there? I didn’t see her on the way here.”

  At that, Hal­vard glanced at the moun­tain con­tact, guilt streak­ing across his face. “Well, we got talk­ing, and it seems that she knew quite a lot about our older cus­toms, not so much the new ones since the Lox came.” He rose an eye­brow at Thorec. “Sur­pris­ingly, she is not a fan of the Lox.”

  “I know,” Thorec growled. “I want to know where she is.”

  “She needed to go to Lox Palace,” the man said hes­i­tantly. “And since magic is not per­mit­ted, I took her to where she could get there.”

  The moun­tain con­tact’s face be­came stern as the man spoke. “Hal, you didn’t! You know that is not per­mit­ted to out­siders!”

  “She al­ready knew of it, Kolina,” he in­sisted.

  “How?” the con­tact ex­claimed. “No out­sider knows that—no one!”

  “I don’t know.” The man shook his head, con­fu­sion fil­ter­ing into his ex­pres­sion. “She knew many of our cus­toms.”

  “What are you talk­ing about?” Thorec de­manded. “Where is she?”

  When they both didn’t an­swer, Thorec drew his sword. He was tired of tip­toe­ing around these peo­ple. They knew some­thing about Ria, and they would ei­ther tell him or die.

  The moun­tain con­tact, Kolina, stiff­ened at the sight of Thorec’s sword. “We have a por­tal here.”

  Thorec didn’t think he would be sur­prised by any­thing the moun­tain peo­ple did or said, but this was in­deed a shock. “You re­al­ize magic is il­le­gal un­less per­mit­ted by the em­peror him­self?” he said harshly. “You did not dis­close this as part of our treaty.”

  “I know,” Kolina mur­mured, shoot­ing a harsh look at Hal­vard. “But it is deep in the moun­tain range and very dif­fi­cult to get to. It is main­tained by the en­ergy of the moun­tains, we do not con­trol it. Well, most of the time…”

  “Take me to it,” Thorec thun­dered. “You have bro­ken the treaty, and I will deal with that an­other time. Right now, I need to find this woman.”

  “I can show you,” Kolina said mis­er­able, though she looked at Hal­vard like she was go­ing to rip him apart. “It is not that far, but it is a tricky route.”

  Thorec nod­ded. “Lead the way.”

  As he trudged be­hind the moun­tain con­tact, his mind re­volved with all he’d been told, but could only reach one con­clu­sion. Ria had lied to him. She told him she didn’t have an Al­pha when clearly she felt she be­longed to the Al­pha she was seek­ing. It didn’t seem to fit with any­thing she’d told him about her past, but if she’d lied about that, what else had she lied about?

  In a way, it didn’t mat­ter. There was no one else for Thorec but Ria, and she would come to that con­clu­sion too. The lies, she would have to pay for, but she would still be his. And as long as the other Al­pha didn’t try to fight him for her, he would live.

  The way to the por­tal was in­deed dif­fi­cult, full of steep climbs and rocky paths. Thorec looked care­fully to en­sure that Ria hadn’t fallen some­where and in­jured her­self. When they fi­nally reached within sight of the por­tal, Ria was nowhere to be seen.

  “She must have gone through it al­ready,” the moun­tain con­tact said war­ily.

  Thorec growled, and the moun­tain con­tact stepped back from him ner­vously. “How do I use it?”

  “The por­tal?” she said in sur­prise. “You just step through. You pic­ture where you want to go when you step through.”

  Ria would have been smart enough to know it wasn’t pos­si­ble to en­ter Lox Palace via magic. “If she went to Ashens, but couldn’t go to the palace di­rectly, where would she end up?”

  The moun­tain con­tact shrugged. “De­pends on her ex­pe­ri­ence of the palace and if she had been there be­fore. If she had, she would most likely go some­where nearby, but if she hasn’t been there be­fore, she could end up any­where.”

  Thorec nod­ded. Ria hadn’t been to the palace be­fore, but she had prob­a­bly trav­eled to Ashens. The whole thing made him ex­tremely ag­i­tated. Not only was Ria head­ing to the heart of the Lox Em­pire to find an Al­pha, but she was also go­ing to be sur­rounded by Al­phas con­stantly. And no magic could be used in­side the palace; she would be com­pletely vul­ner­a­ble.

  “Tell the guard at the en­trance that I will not be re­turn­ing for my steed,” he said to the moun­tain con­tact. “Some­one needs to col­lect him and re­turn him to the base.”

  The moun­tain con­tact nod­ded, but Thorec had al­ready turned away.

  Pic­tur­ing the en­trance to the palace, he stepped through the por­tal af­ter his Omega.

  * * *

  Chap­ter Five

  THOREC

  “So the Omega is some­where in Ashens or some­where around Lox Palace, in­tend­ing to cause may­hem.” Com­man­der Torin stared at Thorec with his steel-grey eyes. His eyes were lighter than Thorec’s, but no less stern. “Is that the gist of it?”

  Thorec growled. “No, Com­man­der. I am re­spon­si­ble for her. I in­tend to bring her back to Ariyon. I just need the sup­port of my fel­low war­riors to stay out of my way as I search for her, and not harm, frighten, or fuck her if they find her.” He spoke in a con­trolled and tight tone, but frus­tra­tion roared up in­side him, threat­en­ing to burst at the idea that any
of those things could po­ten­tially hap­pen to his Omega.

  “This is not some­thing that you should have left your post for, Gen­eral,” Com­man­der Torin said. “The way­ward Omega can be dealt with by me. You should have re­ported it.”

  “She is my Omega,” Thorec said.

  Com­man­der Torin’s eyes nar­rowed. “How can she be your Omega? You met her a cou­ple of days ago.”

  “I just know she is mine.”

  Torin’s ex­pres­sion was hard. “You were with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you took this Omega within a day of meet­ing her,” his com­man­der said sternly. He shook his head. “If you had been at­tend­ing any of the many pair­ing events I in­vited you to, you would have the train­ing to con­trol your­self.”

  “Train­ing would have made no dif­fer­ence, Com­man­der,” Thorec growled. “I still would have known she is mine. It’s in her scent and in her beauty. It’s in the way she looks at me, and the mo­ments be­tween us when we are to­gether.”

  Torin stepped for­ward, his face dark­ened, un­til he was inches away from Thorec. “You al­ready know the em­peror has made as­sur­ances, Thorec. Not only to his em­press, but to the Omegas and to the peo­ple. The pair­ing events ex­ist for a rea­son. You can­not just take an Omega when­ever you hap­pen to come across one.”

  Anger gripped Thorec. “She is not just any Omega,” he thun­dered. “She is mine. Just be­cause I didn’t meet her in a fuck­ing match­ing event does not mean she be­longs to me any less!”

  Torin’s eyes flicked to his neck. “I don’t see any claim­ing bite on your throat, Thorec,” he said bit­terly. “If this Omega were asked if she’s yours, would she say yes?”

  Thorec’s fin­gers twitched, and Torin be­came un­nat­u­rally still.

  “It doesn’t mat­ter whether she agrees or not,” Thorec said evenly. “In­stincts can­not be de­nied.”

  Torin watched him care­fully for a long mo­ment be­fore he spoke again. “The Lox will re­tain her,” he said fi­nally. “You will not get in­volved. If you in­sist on in­ter­fer­ing, you will be de­tained. Is that un­der­stood?”

  Thorec roared, ex­plod­ing with the anger that had been build­ing up. “You have no right! I found her. She is mine. What­ever Al­phas she is here to seek will be de­stroyed by my hand. If you in­sist on in­ter­fer­ing, you will be de­stroyed as well!”

  Dis­ap­point­ment and anger jumped into Torin’s face. “You would give up your po­si­tion as gen­eral?” he asked harshly, his voice low. “You would risk ev­ery­thing you have gained, all the re­spect you have earned by re­fus­ing me on this?”

  “Re­spect?” Thorec al­most spat him. “What re­spect? I’m a babysit­ter for ob­sti­nate recluses, tucked away in the ru­ral farm­yards of Ariyon, where no­body else wants to be un­less it’s to stare at magic rocks.” His anger thrashed as he snarled. “This is my life now! The life of the war­rior who was one of the first to give Drocco his sup­port, who was once cru­cial to your strat­egy meet­ings, plan­ning how to siege cities and towns and vil­lages. My abil­ity to fight, and train, and strate­gize was once es­sen­tial to you and the em­peror, and now I am lit­tle more than a fuck­ing tour guide! Tell me ex­actly what I’m giv­ing up?”

  Toric frowned. He re­mained quiet for a long time and then turned away, scratch­ing his stub­bled chin as he paced across the room. Stop­ping by the win­dow, he clasped his hands be­hind his back as he looked out, speak­ing but not look­ing at Thorec. “You are not a babysit­ter, Thorec. You are the most ex­pe­ri­enced gen­eral we have in the Lox. You are one of the few who un­der­stand the true pur­pose of the Lox and why we must unite the East­ern Lands un­der the em­pire.” He turned to look at Thorec. “Not ev­ery gen­eral has the in­sight you do. Not ev­ery gen­eral would be able to see the big pic­ture and un­der­stand why the Ariyon moun­tains and its peo­ple are im­por­tant to the rest of the lands.” Torin’s eyes soft­ened slightly. “Many who joined the Lox joined to fight, but it is a dif­fer­ent time now, Thorec. We are no longer at war. We are try­ing to build a new life for ev­ery­one who lives in the East­ern Lands, a life that fol­lows the prin­ci­ples that we all agreed to when we join the Lox. None of us are do­ing what we used to do when the Lox was young and ex­cit­ing, when we were over­com­ing bat­tle ob­sta­cles and sce­nar­ios that we never thought we would over­come. It is dif­fi­cult to ad­just to that idea, but ad­just you must.”

  “I have ad­justed the best I can,” Thorec snapped. “I have not com­plained since you told me I had to man­age Ariyon, nor have I ever asked to be re­al­lo­cated. And I will con­tinue to man­age it for the rest of my days if that’s what you want. But not with­out my Omega.”

  Com­man­der Torin said noth­ing for a few long mo­ments, but Thorec held his eyes, glar­ing at him fiercely.

  “Wait here,” Torin said, be­fore ex­it­ing the room.

  Thorec let out a harsh ex­hale, clench­ing his fists to­gether. His life was full of frus­tra­tions, and the only time they had ceased re­cently was when he en­coun­tered Ria. His raw anger about her dis­ap­pear­ance had trans­muted into a harsh smol­der­ing burn in the mid­dle of his chest. He still couldn’t be­lieve that she had been seek­ing an Al­pha the whole time—that she po­ten­tially be­longed to some­body else when he’d claimed her! The thought was abom­inable. If any other Al­pha felt strongly about her as Thorec did, he would gladly duel him to the death. There was cer­tainly no point in liv­ing his dis­ap­point­ing and frus­trat­ing life if he could not have the Omega who be­longed to him. Dy­ing at an­other Al­pha’s hand to win her was the only way it made sense. By the end of this whole or­deal, he would ei­ther have Ria back in his arms, in his bed, and on his cock, or he would be dead.

  When the door opened again, Torin re-en­tered, fol­lowed by the em­peror and em­press.

  Thorec straight­ened, as­sum­ing the po­si­tion of at­ten­tion in the pres­ence of the Leader of the Lox, but he was wary about what he was go­ing to say.

  “At ease,” Em­peror Drocco growled.

  Thorec re­laxed but kept his eye on him. The em­peror was clearly al­ready ag­i­tated. With a larger war­rior’s build than most Al­pha’s, the em­peror was a force to be reck­oned with, even be­fore he be­came em­peror. The em­press was much smaller, with curly hair and wor­ried ex­pres­sion.

  “Thorec,” Em­peror Drocco greeted, gravely. “I hear you are putting us in a dif­fi­cult po­si­tion.”

  “That is not my in­ten­tion, em­peror,” Thorec replied. “I sim­ply want my Omega.”

  “She has not claimed you,” the em­press said. “What you are ask­ing us to do is to be­tray an Omega. Once we be­tray one, the oth­ers will be­come con­cerned about the prom­ises we made that they would be safe here.”

  “She has yet to rec­og­nize me as her true mate,” Thorec con­ceded. “But we have spent lit­tle time to­gether. She hasn’t had the chance to make that choice.”

  “Hunt­ing her down will not earn her fa­vor,” the em­press shot back.

  “She will not be hurt. She will sim­ply be re­tained and brought back to Ariyon.”

  “And what if she doesn’t want to go?”

  Thorec’s jaw hard­ened at the idea. “She needs time with me. It’s pos­si­ble she doesn’t un­der­stand what I’m of­fer­ing her be­cause of how… in­stinc­tual things were be­tween us. She must come with me to de­cide, even if forced.”

  The em­press shook her head in an­noy­ance, and the em­peror, who had been still and lis­ten­ing qui­etly stepped to­ward him.

  “And what of the Al­pha she is look­ing for?” he asked, ob­serv­ing Thorec. “What would you have done with him?”

  “If he has touched her, then he needs to die!” Thorec’s eyes flashed. “There is no rea­son he would not smell me on her.”

  The em­peror growled a
nd shook his head. “I can un­der­stand what you are say­ing, Thorec, but you are be­ing un­rea­son­able. If this Al­pha she is look­ing for is a Lox war­rior, that is a lot of Al­phas to go through. She could be here for days, and she will most likely wash you off her. An­other Al­pha can­not be blamed for her in­ter­est in him.”

  Thorec’s anger surged, but Torin stepped for­ward. “How do you in­tend to cap­ture her?”

  “I don’t know how she ex­pects to find the Al­pha she’s look­ing for,” Thorec growled. “I need time to ob­serve, to an­a­lyze, to see where she’s been. And then maybe I can find her.”

  “Why are you do­ing it this way?” Torin asked. “The Lox can find her eas­ier.”

  Thorec shook his head. “It has to be me, Com­man­der. I can’t ex­plain it. I need to be the one to cap­ture her.”

  “I will au­tho­rize this on one con­di­tion,” the em­peror said.

  Ev­ery­one in the room turned to­ward him, watch­ing ex­pec­tantly for what he was go­ing to say.

  “You may cap­ture her how­ever you need to,” he said.

  “Drocco,” the em­press said, ir­ri­tated.

  The em­peror held up his hand. “But you will not take her from this palace un­less she agrees to it. You will need to prove it to her. Prove to her you are her mate, prove to her why she should claim you. If you can­not do it, if there is noth­ing be­tween you but this en­joy­ment of each other’s in­nate ex­pe­ri­ence, then she should be free to mate an­other, and find a home wher­ever she pleases.”

  Thorec growled, clench­ing his fists and tak­ing a step for­ward. It was the most ag­gres­sive move he’d ever made in the pres­ence of the em­peror, but he didn’t care. “I was with you, Em­peror Drocco.”

  The em­peror frowned. “When?”

  “I was with you when you trav­eled across land and sea for your Omega. When you were pre­pared to kill any­one who would stop you from bring­ing her home. I fought at your side in honor of the phi­los­o­phy that we are Al­phas who need our Omegas. Al­phas who some­times need time to con­vince their Omegas that they are trea­sures to us and not what his­tory has led them to be­lieve.” He held Drocco’s gaze. “So I will be tak­ing my Omega home when I find her. If you wish to stop me, kill me now.”