Secrets in Smoke by Ashe Moon
4
Thomas
He knew.
It didn’t matter that he was in dragon form, that look of shock and recognition in his eyes was clear. Then he shifted back to human form, and his words pierced my armor straight to the core I’d shielded for so long.
“You’re not an alpha?”
All I could hear was the roaring rush of blood and the drumbeat of my heart. I’d never wanted to run away from anything before, but at that moment, the urge to flee was incredibly strong.
“You’re not an alpha,” he said again in a low voice. Rainor’s disbelief was as plain as the shame I felt at that moment.
There was no point in trying to deny it or convince him he was wrong. “What are you going to do, then?” I said. “Now that you know the truth about me.”
“I…I don’t understand,” Rainor said. “You’re an omega? How? I knew there was something different about you, but…” He shook his head. “How have you been able to hide it this whole time?”
I collected myself, and though my heart was still racing, I was at least able to think clearly. I kept a small bottle of the mask on me at all times in preparation for an emergency like this, and this was the first time I’d ever had to use it. I stripped off my wet jacket and shirt and folded them onto the crate of tomatoes. The air was cold on my damp skin and gave me goosebumps. I dabbed a bit of the mask onto my palms and applied it to my body. Rainor stared.
“What is that?” he said, wrinkling his nose. “Oh, that’s the scent I know. That’s the alpha you.”
“You can learn a lot of stuff from the old alchemy-craft books,” I said, putting the bottle away. “I’ve done this almost my whole life.”
It seemed like Rainor was having a rare moment of speechlessness. No sarcastic comments, just a look of bewilderment.
I picked up my clothes. “I think that’s it for today,” I said. I was angry, but it came from a place of embarrassment. “See you for training tomorrow.” And I turned and left him there without another word.
Castelle had seen the whole thing happen and she was waiting for me inside with a towel and a concealed bottle of the mask from my quarters, but I reassured her that everything was fine. No one other than Rainor had been there to know.
“Can you trust that dragon?” she asked, walking me up to my room.
“If I didn’t trust him, I would’ve never agreed to work with him.”
“I don't understand why he wants to sabotage you every chance he gets,” she said.
“I don't think that’s his intention. Not sabotage. It was an accident.”
“Then what is it? He doesn’t treat you with any respect.”
“He’s a prick. But it seems like he only acts that way to people he trusts. Anyway, I don’t need him to respect me.”
That was what I said, but if that were so, why did I care so much about proving myself to him? I did want Rainor to respect me, and it felt like I wanted it even more than the respect of my own men. Rainor and his fire flight had always been a high challenge, a standard I could never seem to reach, and Rainor had always held that over me. Maybe he did it because he knew I cared so much. Was I that easy to read? Was being an omega the only thing I’d managed to hide from him?
Alone in my quarters, I stripped the rest of my uniform and took a quick bath. It was evening, and I still had work to do and a patrol to lead before I could get some rest. As I sat in the steaming water, I suddenly began to tremble uncontrollably. The realization of just how close I’d come to complete ruin had just hit me. If it’d been anyone else…or if anyone had been there with him… what would I have done? It was a damn miracle this was the first time it had happened. I’d been lucky to have kept this thing secret for so many years.
And then Rainor’s face came into my mind. The way he’d looked at me. He’d seen my true self, and all I could feel was shame. Weakness. “I knew there was something different about you.” I could imagine what was going through his head—I was an omega, I didn’t deserve to be captain, I didn’t deserve his respect, or anyone’s. I was a charlatan, a coward, I was in hiding. And I would still hide, because what other choice did I have? To make a name for myself in this world, hiding was the only thing I could do. What made it worse was that I’d felt like I was getting to understand Rainor and even accustomed to him. There were moments during training that revealed another side of him to me, and I saw his commitment to my success—and the success of the Watch. He did care. He wasn’t just an asshole. There was loyalty and devotion in him that I’d noticed in Altair, too. A dragon’s loyalty, maybe. But now, it’d all been fucked. I didn’t know how I would face him tomorrow. He would look at me differently. Maybe he wouldn't want to train me anymore.
I hit the water with my fist, frustrated at the situation and the way I was thinking. Thomas, you’ve dealt with harder things. You’ll deal with this challenge, too.
The next morning, Castelle knocked on my door and told me that Rainor had arrived early.
“He wants to speak to you before you begin,” she said. “I’ll tell him he needs to wait.”
“No,” I said, buttoning my jacket in front of the mirror. “Just send him in.”
“Into your quarters?” she said, sounding surprised. “Are you…prepared?”
“He already knows,” I said. “No point in wasting time waiting.”
A few minutes later, Rainor entered. In the mirror, I saw him pause in the doorway, and I told him to come in and shut the door behind him. I had the bottle of mask in my hand and was in the middle of applying it. The ribbing I expected never came. Rainor stayed silent, his arms firmly crossed over his chest, his eyes on the floor. My pulse picked up and a rush of doubt came into my mind, telling me that Rainor didn’t want anything to do with me and the Watch anymore. I waited for the inevitable. I could see the awkwardness in him, that he couldn’t look at me anymore now that he knew I wasn’t an alpha. He’d already had such a low opinion of me, and now there was absolutely no reason for him to respect me. I was an omega. He was going to refuse to work with me. He was going to tell me training was over for me, that he would be working with Castelle instead.
“Say it,” I said. “Say it and be done with it.”
Rainor shifted his weight from one leg to the other and brushed his hair back with one hand, a frown settling on his face. He looked so roughly hewn, his features carved from rock. Suddenly, his usual mountain-like stature seemed to shrink, and he looked up and caught my eye in the reflection.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
The unexpectedness of the apology hit me harder than any of the things I’d feared he was going to say. I nearly staggered from hearing it. I turned around to face him and he kept my gaze, his arms returning to their usual position over his chest. He squeezed himself tightly and nodded like he was confirming what he’d said.
“I fucked up yesterday,” he went on. “I’ve put you in a bad position, but I want you to know that your truth is safe with me.”
I blinked at him. My mind had ceased to function at that moment, with everything he’d just said bouncing around like an echo in a cave. An apology had been the last thing I’d expected to hear out of his mouth.
“Can we continue to work together?” he asked cautiously.
“Alphas aren’t supposed to want to work with omegas,” I said. “And omegas aren’t supposed to be the captain of the Watch. My whole life has been spent fighting against this truth, and now you’re here breaking it, going against everything I thought I knew. You really want to work with me, knowing what I am and what I’ve been hiding from you this whole time?”
There was a gleam in Rainor’s eye as he smiled at me, his usual demeanor returning to him. “We dragons don’t go by the same rules as humans, you should know that by now, Thomas. Especially not my flight. Alpha, omega, it doesn’t matter. If there’s a fire in your gut and loyalty in your heart, that’s all I care about.”
My racing pulse hadn’t slowed down, but now it was without the bite of fear that had been present before. And there was an excitement there for having been seen, and then I realized how happy I was that Rainor knew I was an omega. I was relieved, not just because he didn’t care, but because I didn’t have to conceal it from him. My world had expanded to two people. Small, but it still felt like a weight had been taken off my back.
“I’m looking forward to continuing to work together,” I told him.
His smile widened into a grin, and he gestured to the bottle of scent mask on the counter. “It’s too bad you need to wear that stuff. Now that I know, it’s gonna drive my nose crazy. It’s like my brain is saying one thing when my nose is telling me another thing.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“I caught your scent as an omega. Uh…” He suddenly looked embarrassed. “You know. Our senses are stronger than humans. Now that I know you’re an omega and know your scent, it’s hard to wrap my head around that strong-ass alpha musk coming off you. I always thought there was something a little weird about you. Now I know one of the reasons why.”
“One?” I said.
He laughed. “Come on, Captain. Let’s get to work.”
The idea of Rainor thinking about my omega scent was going to stay in my head for a long time. I knew dragons could remember scents like humans could remember faces—I’d read about it in a book—and now he had me in his mind, not the alpha that I’d carefully crafted and presented my entire life, but the omega. He was the first alpha male to know that part of me, and I wondered if Rainor could really see past the truth.
Everything in my experience told me it was impossible, that eventually, he too would reject my existence. I didn’t know how to face this doubt that lingered inside like a wound that refused to close. But I felt something else, too, like a tiny candle flame coming up in vast darkness, a feeling that it might be possible for me to live as myself.
