Wild by Sara Fields
Chapter 3
Ivar
I watched the city for some time before I ventured inside. The guards along the walls and at the main city gates didn’t seem particularly concerned with the people coming in, not that there were many. Unusually though, it appeared that no one was heading out. Overall, there wasn’t much activity at the gates, which seemed very strange for a city of its size.
“Keep your weapons sheathed,” the head guard yelled as I approached the gate, and I nodded once with understanding. I kept my head down and walked through unhindered.
I imagined a sight like me was common from time to time, a solitary individual traveling from somewhere in the wilds. As long as I didn’t cause trouble, I wouldn’t draw attention and they wouldn’t cause me any delay in my search for the Recruiter and the intriguing omega he’d captured.
It didn’t take me long to learn that the city went by the name Rosethorne. I’d never heard its name spoken even once in my life and that was curious indeed.
I traveled inside and found a stable to house Dandelion in for a time. I had plenty of coin on me and made sure to pay the stable master handsomely to assure that my stallion would be kept safe with the utmost care. The stable hand looked trustworthy, but I’d make sure to check on my horse later. Once he was settled, I lurked just outside of the building with the intent of learning more about the city and where the cultist and his captive had gone.
I listened to the people on the streets just inside the outer wall, and most of the gossip on the street was centered around the tiny omega with purple eyes. There were a lot of angry words thrown in her direction and I wasn’t quite sure why. Some of the men and woman called for her death. Some of them talked about her with such vitriol that it stoked my own fury, but I kept quiet.
“Omegas are worthless. They bring nothing but death and ruin down on us all,” one of them blathered. I bit my tongue hard enough to keep myself silent as I walked along.
His words resonated with me long after they were uttered and not in a good way.
I wandered through the people along the street, asking a question here and there in an effort to learn more about the walled city that had been hidden away from us all this time by the mountains. The winds were stronger here and there was a hint of saltiness on the breeze that spoke to an ocean not far off in the distance.
I came upon a pub and entered. I took a seat at the bar and ordered a pint of mead, listening to the words of men who had clearly had too much to drink already even though the sun had only just reached its peak in the sky that day.
“Did you see her? Brought in here like a stray,” one man scoffed.
“People are going to die because of her,” another muttered.
My ears perked up.
“Any time an omega is brought through these streets, it bodes an ill omen. It means that soon they will come,” yet another answered.
The pub wasn’t particularly small, but it didn’t have very good airflow. I sniffed the air, noticing for the first time that it was full of beta men. Even the women that crewed the bar were betas. In most other places, alphas and omegas were a normal part of society. It was strange to not see any of them out here in the more common areas.
I downed my pint, now more suspicious than ever of this place. I tossed a coin on the table and pushed myself up, leaving the pub in silence and keeping my eyes cast down on the floor.
I wandered through the streets, taking time to scent the air in several crowded places.
All betas. Not a single alpha, other than myself.
Definitely no omegas either.
Sure, alphas and omegas were a rare breed, but it was statistically impossible not to have either pretty much anywhere in a settlement like this. There were tens of thousands of people living safely inside these walls and the more I walked along the dirt roads, the more I was convinced that every single one of them was a beta. The uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach grew larger and the sudden intense urge to know if Revna was still healthy and alive caught me off guard.
I needed to know what the Recruiter intended to do with her, but more than that I needed to find her.
I started asking questions, but none of them were answered.
The people on this outer section of the city were furious at her arrival, but there was an undercurrent of fear beneath their words that they refused to explain, as if just speaking about her would make something terrible come to pass. I tried to bribe some of them into telling me why, but not even one of them would utter a single word about why they were so frightened. Eventually, I gave up and moved on further into the city center.
It was easy to pass the second and third walls and as I drew closer to the center, the more the whispers spoke to the mysterious omega that would bring tranquility and peace rather than the ruin the outer ring spoke of. I changed my travel outfit to one of a high-end merchant’s, and finally to an elegant noble that befit those who lived in the innermost circle. I moved silently through the cobblestone streets, taking in the marble tiles that lined the sidewalk and the way they came together in an intricate design that led to the religious sanctuary at the center. I noticed that a certain group of men moved around the city freely wore thick white robes and that everyone who passed nodded to them in reverence. As soon as I was able, I procured a set of my own too.
The people whispered of the acquisition of a new omega at the Temple of the Gods, that a man from the Cult of the Blood Moon had been the one to bring her deliverance.
His people had been my enemy for a very long time.
I had served in the Alpha Brotherhood my whole life. Our leader, the Ghost, had recruited my brother and me when we were very young. We functioned to uphold the will of the gods and had done so for centuries. Our members worked hard to infiltrate nearly every city on the planet. To this day, we operated as the most powerful secret organization in existence, but we were opposed by only one other.
The Cult of the Blood Moon was a stain on the continent. They operated by nefarious means, not caring who they hurt or killed in the process. Their agenda was fueled by power and money as they tried to tip the world into full-blown chaos.
I was here to weaken them in preparation for a war the Brotherhood knew was coming.
When the moon rose that night, I donned my stolen robes and walked in through the front doors of the temple that night. I strode through the temple as the priests did, mimicking their behavior by bowing my head at the right times and pressing my palms together in a whispered prayer. When no one was looking, I slipped down the halls and ventured deeper into the temple with every intention of finding out what happened to the Recruiter and the stolen omega within these walls.
I explored the upper floors first until I stumbled upon a garden situated up the roof. I walked around unhindered. No one stopped or questioned me. At first, I thought the only ones up here were the white-robed priests, but when the breeze picked up, it brought with a scent of something else that made me freeze right where I stood. There wasn’t just one omega here. There was a group of them. By the strength of their fragrance, they were all gathered together close by.
I approached the rail and looked down into the temple, and that’s when I saw them.
A group of ten women were sitting on the edge of a fountain several floors below. Each of them wore a satin gown the color of lavender. Surprisingly, they all appeared to be happy and healthy and the furthest thing from prisoners that I’d ever seen.
For a while, I just leaned over the edge and watched them, studying the way they talked amongst themselves and listening to the way their laughter carried on the wind.
“I wonder who will be chosen next,” one of them whispered and I narrowed my eyes.
“I hope it’s me,” a small blonde one answered excitedly.
Chosen for what?
A female priest walked up to the omegas and whispered something softly enough so that I couldn’t hear. The women stood up obediently and filed after her. I pushed off the railing and found a corner that was well hidden from anyone passing by. I waited a good deal of time until I was sure no one else was wandering the rooftops and then I climbed over the ledge and descended into the lower gardens. Hidden beneath the residual aromas of virgin omega was a more familiar scent and my relief at finding it was immediately overwhelming.
Revna was somewhere close.
The gardens were vast and mostly dark at night. In a few places, the dim light from the stars lit my way so that I could see the rainbow of colors of the flowers that grew here. As I ventured in deeper, the vegetation grew darker, and I heard the sound of a waterfall a short distance away. I followed its soothing echo and approached a white marble railing. From overhead was a constant stream of water and when I looked down, there was a pool beneath another few stories below.
I reached underneath my robes and unhitched a rope from my belt. I looped it around the edge and lowered myself down just as the moon shone down through the opening above, casting just enough light off the pool of water to shine throughout the room. A swirl of colors bounced off the walls and I found myself mesmerized by it for a brief second. Eventually, I swung myself back and forth until my boot caught the edge of the manmade body of water, and I lurched hard enough to catch my foot on the ledge, peering about the room with curiosity as I did so. The pool flowed through the center of a rather large room, bisecting the floor into two circular halves and disappearing somewhere off into the dark. The gentle trickle of running water was peacefully soothing and I sighed in appreciation. It was really quite beautiful, a hidden garden oasis inside this mysterious temple at the center of the city.
The floor was covered with dark green leaves and as the moonlight flickered around the room, an incredible number of small white flowers began to open. The petals glittered like opals and when I knelt down to reach for one, it closed as if it protested my touch. I pulled back and left it alone. It opened once more.
I wasn’t here for the scenery, though. I was here for something else.
Revna’s scent was all around me and I finally stood up, looking for her.
“Who are you?” a feminine voice echoed throughout the room, bouncing off the water and the walls as if she was all around me. My cock stiffened as if it recognized her.
I lifted my head. I knew that voice.
“Revna,” I purred.
“You know my name, but I don’t know yours,” she hissed. I smiled. This little omega certainly had bite and that only made me want to know more about her.
“I expected them to have you bound to a bed somewhere,” I answered, turning my head just enough to see that she was seated on a bench just alongside the flowing water. The moonlight caught her eyes just so and I could really see that lavender color for the first time in all its glory. They were mesmerizingly beautiful, full of sparkle and light like nothing I’d ever seen before. She was watching me study her with a certain curiosity, and I found that I didn’t want to look away, not even for a second.
“I expected the same, alpha,” she muttered under her breath. I drew closer, breathing in her delicious scent. Fuck. In close contact like this, her scent was like bouquet of fresh fruit and vanilla and just the slightest bit of lavender. I wanted so much more of it. It was making my cock very hard, and for a moment I struggled to maintain control. When I finally managed to get my instincts under lock and key, I took a forceful step toward her and she lifted her chin defiantly.
“Turns out the people here worship an omega like me. I’ve never been so primped, prodded, and spoiled in my life,” she added. For some reason, the words sounded sour, as if she had hated every second of it.
“Have they hurt you?” I asked her carefully.
“No,” she answered. It remained unsaid, but I was left with a feeling that she regretted that too. I risked another step in her direction. I narrowed my eyes and she breathed in a shaky breath at my close proximity.
“I’m happy to hear that.”
“Why?” she asked. I didn’t answer her. I didn’t know why I cared about her wellbeing. I shouldn’t. I hadn’t come to this city for her. I’d been sent here on another mission.
She was just a distraction. She was a temptation, simple as that.
“The man in the red robes, where did he go?”
“I don’t know. He sold me to this place for a great deal of coin and I haven’t seen him since,” she replied.
She rose from her seat, taking one casual step after another toward me. We’d moved close enough that we could reach out and touch one another, but neither of us did.
“None of my attendants are alphas,” she whispered and the way her voice quivered at the end of her sentence caught my attention. My gaze dropped to the fullness of her mouth and everything in me wanted to kiss her and claim her as mine. She dragged her teeth along her lower lip, trying to stop it from trembling but I noticed all the same.
I wanted to trace my thumb along that lip and feel the heat that simmered just beneath her skin.
“Tell me your name,” she insisted.
I shouldn’t tell her, but what difference did it make?
“It’s Ivar,” I finally answered.
“Why are you here?” she pressed. She moved closer to me and I couldn’t help myself as I looked her up and down, taking in the enticing curves of her body even though I knew that I shouldn’t.
She was wearing a satin dress just like the others. Up close though, it was obvious that she was wearing nothing underneath. Her nipples were hard. I could see the stiff little peaks through the thin fabric, and I breathed in deeply as my eyes lingered down the length of her torso, dipping down to the crux of her thighs.
There was more to her scent now and it was making my cock that much harder.
She was wet. Her slick was beginning to gather between her legs.
My alpha raged inside me and I did the last thing I should have done.
I reached out to touch her.
