Not so much as a blink was
offered, Morgaine lost in a mental retreat.
So he dragged her like a sullen child to the sleeping pit, the Omega offering no protest when he laid her down.
She offered no life at all.
He organized her limbs. Kneeling at her side, he scooped up the fur scraps and dumped them over her body for warmth. Sergeant Uriel even used the flat of his hand to brush her unblinking eyes closed. “This transition is only as difficult as you make it, child.”
Was it child now? What happened to girl? How about Omega?
Why had he never once called her woman?
She was of age, possessed all the skills a woman of standing must know. She had even been courted properly by a few young men from the settlement. Every last one of them had heeded her refusal like a man. With dignity and kindness.
Even smarmy Hanna’s boy, Cassius, had only moped for a few days.
Alpha males were the childish ones with their demands and threats if they didn’t get their way. Yet she was the one lying flopped over the cushions of the sleeping pit like a disgruntled toddler.
It wouldn’t do.
How many painful cycles had she weathered when the Alphas came? Dozens. She had borne excruciating pain far more graciously than this. She had endured. She had survived.
She was not a child.
Sniffing, she’d sat up in the dark and let out a troubled sigh.
The room had grown freezing again, the stinking furs offering her only source of warmth. Toying with a piece, she absently ran the soft white fluff back and forth under her fingers.
They wanted her to sleep, but they could not force her.
The could force her body, but they could not bend her mind.
Take away everything, clothes, comfort, safety… but her knowledge and years of experience would always be with her—her weapons in this cold, dark place. And she wanted them to know that.
In the small hours, trapped in a freezing, dark room that stank of men she’d never met, she made a stand.
Like any industrious woman born in a settlement, she knew how to skin, stretch, and cure a beast’s hide. She knew how to prepare it into fine edging for garments and how to line winter clothing for warmth.
Alas, sewing fur required a sturdy needle and thread, two things she did not have. But tearing the edges of soft hide and tying the strips together would bind two pieces just as well. And plenty of fur had been provided.
Under the cover of dark, she worked the scraps of soft fur, ignoring the scent tickling her nostrils. Hour after hour, her fingers grew swollen and stiff from the effort it took to tear hide. She didn’t care, for when her fingers blistered, she used her teeth. As diligent as she would have been over her loom, she grabbed at random bits, rent, tied, knotting segments into panels, until she had enough to cover her nakedness. The faster she worked, the more sloppy her creation grew, fatigue and desperation warring within her body.
When morning came and Sergeant Uriel stepped through that impossible wall, he found her dressing in a mangled fur wrap she was still building around her. Red-rimmed eyes were unwilling to glance up from her work to address him.
“What is the meaning of this?” The Alpha’s question was not aggressive, nor did it carry the weight of imminent punishment. It was merely inquisitive.
Dry lips parted, Morgaine muttering to herself as if lost in a spell. In all of it, only four words made sense. “…I am no child.”
“Put it down, Morgaine.”
Clutching the furs to her chest, she peeled her lips in a snarl and growled. The low uneven rumble, warned of a cornered beast willing to harm itself to harm the other. “You told me to sleep under the furs.”
Bedraggled, eyes sunken, and skin sallow, it was obvious she had not slept at all. The Alpha chose to contemplate, standing at a distance long enough that the Omega went back to tearing and tying, tearing and tying, over and over until she’d gone through all the fur.
When it was complete and there was no more work for her reddened hands, he asked, “And what is it you intend to do with that now?”
Pulling the garment tighter around her body, she ignored the Alpha-stink, and stared forward. “Be warm.”