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  He breathed heavily as a realization came to him. He had to get her ready for his culture so things had to happen in the right order. His craving for her would be sated—there was no doubt about that—but now he had to prioritize adjusting her to a new life. After all, he was now the owner of an Omega. The one dynamic that no longer existed in his Lands. The one dynamic whose return to his Lands would change everything, for both him and everyone in his society. So he had to be careful with every step he took. She was too important.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SHAYA

  Shaya lay on the bed, curled up and tense, her eyes still watering at the pain between her legs. As soon as the Alpha left the room, she released the sobs she been trying to hold in the whole time he was inside her. She knew it may have come to this, but she had no idea it would be so immediate. As soon as he'd gotten her alone and naked, he had used her the way her sister had warned Alphas used Omegas.

  Her sister, Kyus, was the only reason she hadn't fought him wildly or tried to get away. When it came down to it, she had signed up for this. She had actually volunteered to come in place of her sister because she knew how much it would uproot and hurt her. Kyus had always protected her, looked out for her, and taught her everything she knew about life even though Shaya knew she was a burden. Her sister was a spy, traveling from one place to another and completing tasks and missions that put her in constant danger, but were immensely important to her. Luckily, for the last ten years, she had been able to secure property in a wealthy country in the Western Lands and infiltrate the higher society. That was how they lived the majority of Shaya’s life. Kyus then set up home with her soon-to-be husband, and Shaya was brought along as her servant, but Shaya knew Kyus was always taking a big risk by having her in her life. She had said plenty of times that spies should have no vulnerabilities, but she knew she was Kyus’. Shaya had never known how she was going to repay her sister, until now.

  Her sister had been found out and discovered. She didn’t know how, but when King Malloron ordered the shinno to take her sister, it seemed like a punishment—worse than a prison sentence—and she knew she couldn't allow it to happen. She had seen Kyus with her future husband and knew she loved him. She couldn't let her be taken. So she had volunteered.

  And the moment she had been led from the room, she decided that she wasn't going to be weak. She wouldn't let the situation break her. She wasn’t as strong as Kyus; she had none of her training or skill or intelligence, but she would be strong for her. She would make her proud. And that meant not allowing herself to be broken by anything that happened.

  Slowly, she got up, wincing at the searing pain still clutching hard between her legs. Her body felt strange. She could feel the lingering remnants of the pleasure that had overtaken her before the brutal pain. The shock had been just as startling as the pain itself, but that was her own fault. She should have expected it. He had made her feel pleasure so that she wouldn’t fight him when he used her as he wished.

  Carefully, she pulled apart the bundle of clothing to find a strange-looking fitted tunic dress made with coarse material, a fur overthrow, thick boots, and undergarments. She hobbled over to the washroom in the corner of the room and quickly washed before putting on the clothing. But once dressed, she couldn't shake the strange feeling that had descended on her. She was no longer herself. With these clothes, she abandoned everything that she had known from her life growing up—her life with her sister. With these clothes, she had no connection to anything or anyone she understood.

  She sat on the bed, waiting for the Alpha to return and carefully wrapped her head back in the material he had pulled off. Her hair was the one thing that she wanted to maintain in honor of her sister. It had been the one thing Kyus had enjoyed spending time doing—caring for her hair. It became time they used to catch up on each others’ day. Kyus would tell her about her frustrations with the people of the Land and Shaya would talk about what she’d done in the gardens.

  After her head was wrapped, she carefully examined the room. It was larger than she thought rooms on ships would be, and it had a tiny round window from which she could see the ocean. She stared out of the window at it for a long while, partly in amazement, and partly because she could still see what looked like the Western Lands far in the distance, getting farther and farther away. Never to be seen again.

  Tears filled her eyes as she realized the true nature of her situation, but she blinked them away, sighing as the view of the Western Lands turned into a foggy mirage. She had no idea where they were going or what would await her when they arrived. All she could do was try her hardest to remain strong until they got tired of her. In a way, she was glad that the Alpha saw fit to use her straightaway. The worst of it was out of the way now, she knew what to expect in the future, and she would try her hardest not to break.

  The door to the cabin suddenly opened and she spun round to see the Alpha entering. Every time he was in a room, the space felt charged, and she was sure it was because he was enormous. Muscles bulged from every part of him and were visible even through his clothes. Every heavy step he took seemed like it would make the world shake, and she had the urge to shrink away every time she was in his presence. He was the epitome of every giant and mean monster in the stories Kyus told her when she was a child, except he was extremely good-looking. That contrast confused her greatly, because in the stories all the good-looking people were kindhearted, but that was not the case here. The strip of sunlight blonde hair that ran along the top of his head beautifully matched his unique eyes. In the daylight, they looked turquoise but in the shade of her cabin, they looked almost teal. Either way, it wasn’t that she hadn't seen anybody with that kind of eye coloring before, it was the fact that his gaze was always fierce, and when his eyes were on her, it made her feel strange.

  He closed the door behind him and walked into the room a few steps to stand before her. All the nervousness that usually filled her when she saw him came rushing back in a jittery, trembly cloud, but this time it was accompanied by shame. He had seen and touched a part of her that no one else had seen, that no one else should have seen yet.

  He looked her over, nodding appreciatively at her new clothing. “Your tasks will begin immediately,” he said, his voice a rough rumble. “This will be the last time I will be speaking to you in your tongue. The Southern Isles will be your new home and you will speak the language. The best way for you to learn is to hear it regularly.”

  Shaya stilled. That would definitely make things harder for her.

  He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes lingering on the material on her head, but he didn’t make a move to remove it again, much to her relief. “Follow me,” he ordered finally. “And stay close.” He hesitated, then said, “Yamves ash,” as he beckoned her to follow.

  Shaya nodded but he had already turned and exited the room. She hurried after him, keeping close behind him as he navigated them back through the quiet corridors. As they traveled farther away from her cabin, she saw other members of the tribe. They looked very focused, walking with purpose, their expressions serious and barely acknowledging one another other than a slight nod. This was different from how she had seen them before they boarded the ship. They had been laughing and jesting with each other, some of them even sparring with weapons as they stood on the port waiting for all the shinno's cargo to be loaded. Now they seemed like completely different people.

  She watched the shinno's muscular back as he walked before her, wondering what awaited her when they reached the destination. She suspected she would be raped sooner or later but had no idea what else to expect. Although there wasn't that much information about the Southern Lands people, it was rumored that they were simple but extremely brutal and raw. They had none of the social expectations found in the Western Lands, choosing to live off the land and abiding their own unique rules of their culture. And yet no one knew exactly what that was. Although trading existed between the Eastern and Western Lands, the Southern Land
s were very much set apart. Not much trading happened between them and the outside world, which led many to believe that they were less civilized. She hadn't given it much thought—there had never been any need to. Growing up she had thought that she would always be with her sister, and anything that she encountered Kyus would explain. But the exchange happened so quickly. She had no chance to ask questions, and she certainly couldn't ask any now.

  Her best guess was that the Alpha who led the tribe, the shinno, would want to use her any way he saw fit and possibly pass her on to his men, which would be horrific. That seemed to fit the kind of behavior Kyus had told her about, however, it struck her as unusual that he had specifically wanted an Omega. Maybe there was something more that he needed her for, but that did not fill her with any kind of comfort. In the Western Lands, King Malloron, had wanted strange things for his Omega, such as a potion to affect their bond, which she found to be extremely strange. Her sister, Kyus, had been furious at the idea, saying that the bond between an Alpha and Omega should remain pure, and that if the king wanted to interfere with it, it meant he wanted to treat her badly. Shaya didn't have much to say because she had no idea about what was supposed to happen between an Alpha and Omega or their bond; only that claiming bites were initiated by the Omega.

  The Alpha descended down a number of flights of stairs to a deck that was busy with activity and radiated an intense heat. She followed the Alpha as he led her to a stern-looking woman standing in the center of the deck. Just by her stance, the woman seemed as though she had more status than the others. She was most certainly older; her face was hard, with tough-looking skin and thin gray hair tied back into a braid. As he spoke to her, Shaya turned to look over the deck.

  Four columns spread out evenly, holding up the deck above but along one length of the side a high balcony gave a restricted view of the ocean. The whole area was filled with people, all busy and moving about in a confusing jumble. Strangely, all of them shone with sweat and hardly any sound was made apart from low murmuring. The only still area was where a group of men stood around several huge gray boulders.

  Shaya peered at them, wondering what they were doing but it seemed they simply watched the boulders—barely moving as they stared. She craned her neck to see why the stones were capturing their attention so intensely, but other than having slightly different color tints, the stones seemed normal.

  She glanced around the deck, but nobody else seemed to notice them acting strangely. Even though the men stood still, they shone with sweat, and as she watched them, a wave of nausea rippled through her.

  A hand gripping her arm brought her attention back to her immediate surroundings. The woman was leading her by the arm toward the side of the deck where the boulder men stood.

  Shaya looked around for the shinno, but he was walking ahead of them, veering in a different direction and she was somewhat relieved. She hated being around him. He made her feel… out of sorts; nervous, fearful, and something else she couldn’t figure out. There was a strange jittery feeling when she was in his presence, and when he touched her, it transmuted to a feeling she hadn’t been able to resist. When he had first wrapped his arm around her in the cabin, she’d been terrified, but after a moment it felt so pleasurable; his thick body against hers, his face tucked into her neck, his hand running up her stomach as he breathed her in. She couldn’t help succumbing to that feeling, but now she knew what it led to, she would try to avoid doing it again at all cost.

  The woman came to a stop by a bucket with soapy water and a cloth and pointed at it, speaking in that strange language of the tribe. Relief filtered into Shaya. Was that all she’d be doing? She could certainly clean. The woman then pointed at the floor next to the bucket where black pipes wound between the floor and wall, and every few inches along was the open end of a pipe. They were caked in grime and soot.

  Shaya nodded enthusiastically and set to work.

  As her sister’s servant, cleaning was a normal and natural chore she did everyday, so this wouldn’t be a hardship. Shaya set to work scrubbing the pipes, hoping that this would be all she would be doing. However, the pipes took a lot more effort than she would have thought. By the time she managed to get a small area of a pipe shining, she was almost panting with exertion and sweating from the heat of the deck. As she rinsed out the cloth in the bucket, she glanced around the deck again and noticed that a few feet behind her was the men and boulder area… and also the shinno. He stood with the strangely motionless men who still stared at the boulders. Except the shinno wasn’t looking at the boulders. His fierce gaze was on her.

  A jolt shot through her and she quickly looked away, fear and nerves spiking, but out of the corner of her eye, all the men began to move simultaneously, and her curiosity brought her gaze back to them.

  In pairs the men moved each boulder, tackling one at a time as they lifted and rotated the rock before placing it down carefully then stepping away to again remain motionless; however, this time, it only lasted a few moments before they hoisted a different rock and rotated that one. They continued this behavior like some kind of organized dance that they all knew the moves to.

  Shaya stared at them, confused. What were they doing? Why would they have boulders on a ship? And what was the point of moving them in that way? But the more she watched, the more she realized that the rocks actually changed color at the point of rotation. Their tints ranged from blue to purple to orange and then red, but it seemed as though the different tints required a different number of rotations, because the orange and red tinted rocks were rotated and held longer than the other colors. Finally, the men all placed their boulders down, and stepped back, sweat streaming from them as they stood still, staring once again at the boulders.

  Shaya watched them entranced by the behavior, her eyes drawn to the shinno. He was bigger than the rest of the men and his chest didn’t heave as rapidly as the others. His muscles contracted and bulged through his strangely shaped tunic, and somehow Shaya couldn’t pull her eyes away. But then his eyes lifted and met hers, and another jolt shot to her core, as well as horror that she was caught watching him. She quickly turned her eyes away and back to her bucket and continued her efforts to get the pipes clean.

  Within an hour she was exhausted and nauseated. The heat on the deck seemed to pull all energy from her muscles and her stomach rolled constantly, but the stern woman wouldn’t allow her to stop working. Any time she did, she was slapped on the arms and head with a flat wooden paddle until she continued cleaning again. Eventually a girl with brown eyes and curly bronze hair, who looked about Shaya’s age, came to change her bucket water and that was the only time she was permitted to rest. When the girl returned, she lowered and pushed a cup of liquid into Shaya's hands and then mimicked her drinking, smiling and nodding to encourage her. Shaya took a sip and sighed as the cool water slipped down her throat. She gulped some more down, but the girl stopped her from drinking too fast. She mimicked sips, small little sips from the cup, and Shaya nodded that she understood, then sipped down the water while the girl fiddled needlessly with the bucket, blocking her from view of the woman.

  Shaya glanced at the shinno and he was already looking back at them, the frown on his face deep, and she quickly gave the girl back the cup and continued working.

  Hours passed before the stern woman indicated she could stop, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she staggered to her feet, rubbing her aching knees, only to find the shinno looming at her side, that gaze piercing her.

  “Yamves ash,” he instructed and began walking. Follow me.

  Shaya cautiously followed him back up the stairs and along the decks, struggling to keep up with him. Thankfully when they passed through another crowd of his tribe, the shinno grabbed her again and held her against his side, taking most of her weight, and she couldn’t help but lean on his hard, bulky body in relief.

  He escorted her to her cabin but when he entered, he didn’t release her. Pulling her around to his front, he held her sti
ll and looked down at her, examining her face.

  Shaya battled the nervous fear inside her once more, hoping he would leave soon. Her insides jittered wildly and it was beginning to feel pleasurable being against his body, which she didn’t want. There was also a slight peppery but warm scent coming from him, faint but enticing enough for her to breathe in deeply for more of it.

  “Dess effet choyett, Shaya,” he murmured, his eyes roaming over her face.

  A blast of annoyance swept through her and she turned her head sharply to the side.

  The shinno grabbed round the back of her neck, and turned her head back to him. He spoke again, different words this time, a warning tone in his voice, but when he repeated “Shaya,” she turned her head again sharply.

  Using every ounce of courage, she said firmly. “My name is Katashaya.”

  The shinno’s arms tensed and a rumbling growl vibrated between their bodies as he grabbed the material that covered her head and forced her head back to him, gripping her tight as he roughly rumbled his strange words.

  Shaya pressed her mouth together firmly, aware she couldn’t move her head, determination blazing through her as she glared at him, but she couldn’t help but notice that close up, the shinno was even more handsome than she thought. No, he was beautiful. His features were strong and tiny curls of blonde hair sprinkled over his square jaw. His unique eye color was so pretty in this light, but his menacing glare seemed to puncture right into the core of her, peeling back her layers to reveal how weak she really was.

  When he said her name incorrectly again, she shifted her gaze to the wall behind him, tears filling her eyes as she fixed them on a spot beyond him.

  The shinno bellowed, and she flinched at the vibration of it pulsing through her like she was nothing but air. He released her, and she stumbled backward on her weak knees, but not far enough. He grabbed her by the shoulder and ripped away the entire front of her tunic with his other hand.