NEW UPDATEEEE!!!!!!!!

If you don’t know, we’re currently in a ‘Chapter month’, meaning no extras and only updates!

Tonight, Patreon and my website got 3 new updates of OMEGA in the Gold tier! If you want to read ahead to Chapter 25, follow the links on my message board!

Otherwise, they’ll be out in a week!

——-

Luciel

“Do you know that I am the one meant to do the summoning?” I ask as I cross the bridge to the library, willfully entering the monstrous jaws that is Maeve’s ire. “My rank sits higher than yours.”

“Your rank would be mine if not for my temper,” she returns, and my smile rises fast. “And if I came to you, how would I maintain my most important duty of watching him?”

This was about Peter then. I had surmised as much by the very angry missive that had been delivered to me in Maeve’s angriest writing.

COME SEE ME! HE LIES!

“You hold the post because I trust you,” I remind, and she repays my praise with a snarled fang. I encourage her to show more of it. “In a way, you hold the greatest responsibility in ensuring the bomb is safe.”

“The bomb is safe,” she retorts as I stop before her post in front of the library’s grand doors. “Now, we must talk.”

“With him in earshot?”

“He can not hear us,” she dismisses quickly, frustration mounting with my casualty. “He is studying for his mission of valour in one of the reading pits.”

My nose wrinkles automatically.
Valour was not something one calculated.

I step forward, and with a frown I ignore, Maeve steps aside enough to open the left door a slight amount.

I peek through the gap, eyes zoning almost instantly to the pit he has claimed. Light shines within it, and while the glass dome hides much inside, I spot the top of his head and the various stacks of books surrounding him.

Studying for valour… He grew stranger by the day.

Peeling myself away, I leave Maeve to shut the door and follow her as she wordlessly marches to the center of the bridge. Her hair creates music with each step, the wooden beads knotted at the bottom of his braids a hollowed instrument when knocked together. It makes a harsh sort of sound when she turns to face me.

“He lies.”

I raise a brow. “He lies?”

“Yes, him— the little wolf,” she says with noted exasperation that seems pointed towards me more than ‘the little wolf’. “He lies. He is not who he pretends to be.”

I frown as a discomforting sort of resistance thickens within me until it is pushing against the seam of my lips.

“Is that so?” I breathe, trying to make it a question of interest rather than disbelief.

I did not think Peter was incapable of lying. We all were and did. I just found it hard to imagine him doing it believably when he was always coated in a thick layer of fear.

Maeve pointedly disagrees. “Yes, his device proves it.”

She reveals from some part of her the small device I know to belong to the wolf studying valour, and my frown immediately etches deeper.

“I gave that to Atieno,” to then give to the omega.

“He gave it to the boy who then gave it to me,” she dismisses flippantly, beads rattling. “I had a look into it and his affairs, and it paints a better picture of him. A real picture.”

I force my frown not to deepen. Maeve had no doubt taken note of it already, and I would soon suffer for such idiocy.

“I am listening,” I say instead, making my tone accepting, almost eager.

She straightens her spine like a strung bowstring. “He is no scared whelp,” she declares. “This trip was his fifth expedition abroad. The others were just as far-reaching. He must have encountered other supernatural creatures and vampires too, and yet with us, he has acted none the wiser and continuously fearful.”

“You assume he encountered others,” I fill in, and she scowls, but it is a fair point. “He worked with humans. There is the chance that he did not encounter any other vampires, ever.”

“But there is still the chance that he did, and if he did, then he was angling to con us.”

I allow myself to blink only once. “And he would have done this for the purpose of…”

“Gaining sympathies,” Maeve hisses as though I am a fool. I almost feel it for I can not follow her line of thinking. “A cowering creature is often dotted upon, unless in the wild.”

“And you think us the dotting type?” I ask with a laugh. “To be sympathetic to a creature who would fear us? That we have been so?”

“Obviously not,” she dismisses quickly, a vein appearing by her temple. “The plot did not work here, but it likely was a plot conceived.”

“Right…” I reply, and there is no way to hide my scepticism. “He played fearful so that we would sympathise with him as he tried to gain favour to be my mate.”

“I have read up on his kind, and omegas in particular. They are known to manipulate wolves with their delicacies,” she states grimly. “Some packs fear omegas.”

“But we are not wolves,” I retort, and her jaw suffers for it. “It is not that I want to dismiss you, it is that that seems a weak point, Maeve. You must see that. Whether he is a manipulative omega or not, it has not changed my plot to see him gone. He is only still here because he has proved himself more stubborn than we imagined.”

“More stubborn than you imagined,” she corrects and I gain a scowl.

“How long will you make that particular point?”

“How long will you need me to?”

“Tell me of other lies,” I sigh as I lean against the bridge’s iced parapet. “More convincing ones perhaps.”

“He is a pervert.”

My eyes bulge as I sputter a choked laugh. “A pervert?”

“The media he consumes,” she sniffs as she shakes her head. “It is a filthy sort.”

I stare at Maeve, mouth agape until I realise that she is entirely serious, and that suddenly tasks me with the mission of biting the inside of my cheek to contain myself.

Maeve had always been the prudish type.
She was not the type to shy away from nudity, but she was the type to pin an open collar shut.

I remembered it being a frustratingly annoying trait to get used to when we first met, but I hadn’t glimpsed it in years until now.

I welcome it fondly.

“Pornographic?” I hazard, only teasing, but she looks away, bitterly bashful.

“In nature,” she confirms, and it becomes a true struggle to keep my face plain.

Maeve aside, could I imagine the wolf who shied away from my gaze consuming content raunchy enough to scandalise Maeve? Hardly. But that same wolf had a rather telling package hidden in the bottom of his trunk and so, on second thought, I very well could.

Whichever it was, Peter would likely combust if he knew what we spoke of.

“You think this is funny,” Maeve snaps, at the end of her rope now.

“Not funny,” I correct, meaning to follow it immediately with something rightfully placating, but not a single word comes to mind.

The trouble was, Maeve was rather intuitive. The most perceptive of us all, which was what she was isekela— second in command.

Her judgement was as true as her blade, and I trusted it impeccably, but for all her wisdom, Maeve was a biased sort. When she allowed it, her own predilections could overtake her judgement, and there was none that seemed to ruffle her in this new age more than Peter.

“There is something else,” she states, her tone somewhat colder, and I know I have well and truly frustrated her now. “Though I did not think it important, you might.”

“I thought the news of his perversions important.”

Terrible. I am terrible, but I am, who I am.

“There are other men.”

My amusement fades in an instant, struck down by that whip she called a tongue.

Another thing about Maeve: she knew just where to strike to make any creature bleed.

“But that is not important, is it?” She asks without bothering to mask her savagery.

It is a trap.

Yes, and there would be a new issue for Maeve to fixate over. It would be too much interest where there should be none.

No, and I would be left forever curious.

“Men?” I frame it as idle curiosity.

Maeve hums and offers nothing more. The demon.

Another angle then. “That is of interest, as he is only here because of a claim for me to be his mate.”

Dark brown eyes narrow, sighting my parry and meeting it with one of her own. “I should keep a close eye on it then. Unless you would rather…”

“No,” I answer, and she nods slowly.

A moment passes. It is one engorged with tension.

“You look upset, Luciel.”

“I am not upset.”

She feigns a pout. “No?”

“No.”

We stare at one another, and while we stand as we have always been, my mind churns to think ahead of the ten steps hers has undoubtedly already taken.

“I will report to you then,” she says after a long stall. “If there is something to share of Shilao or John.”

Shilao.
John.

Peter’s ‘men’.

Why in all the realms was he here if— what was all of this if he had others, options? Active, present ones? What was the point in it? What was the point in any of it?

Was it a pretence, as Maeve claimed, or did he expect me to share in his imagined world where I accepted him and his bond?

He would be mad if that were the case, for I did not share.

“Are you sure you are not upset, Luciel?” Maeve asks as she props herself against the bridge’s wall too.

“I am not,” I grit out, and she raises a brow. “I am fine, but if I am, it is with you.”

“Oh,” Maeve’s beads rattle ominously as she tilts her head, eyes gleaming. “Is there another reason to be?”

I fist the hand she can not see, but she still hums, recognising her victory.

“Well, if that is all.” She pushes from the bridge, never one to relax for long, but always one to play with her food. “I shall return his device to him and monitor it between exchanges.”

She waves it about, teasing the secrets lying within.

She smiles. “Until you call on me, pylen.”

I restrain myself from calling her a bitch.

Dismissed, I do allow myself to linger or show my hand again. I take my leave, but make it only to the other side of the bridge before I think to ask—

“How was it?”

Maeve stands at the door again when I face her again, but she still hears the whisper anyway. I do not need to clarify; she knows what I mean and that we have moved on from the topic of the wolf.

“As it always is,” she replied quietly. “Hard.”

Then why do you still go?

I could not avoid the place where I lost Arraya, but Maeve could avoid where Nkosi was slain and never feel the burden of it. Instead, she visited each year, on the day, and I still could not place whether it was her therapy or her punishment.

“If you need—”

“I know,” she replies, adding a smile to ease the burn of her swift decline.

I nod, chest straining over my still heart as it always does for her, for us, before I leave so that we do not have to delve any further into the past or face all the marks it’s left behind.

──────────✧──────────

He attends dinner now, apparently.

It was never that he was not allowed. In actuality, there was little he was not allowed to do without chaperoning. I just had not assumed that he would be, but he is, and warmly so, by Zawnté, who seems to have taken to him as quickly as Atieno.

The usually isolated pair sit, eat and chat with him, and he does the same while making a very concerted, if stagnant, effort to get Maeve to join them as well.

He is yet to succeed in prying her attention from the wall she stares at while she stands behind him.

For now, the only company at his side remains the stack of books sitting beside him, the only towering figure he does not seem to mind. He is not so shy here, even with all the voices raised around him as others eat and drink and laugh. If anything, he is almost as relaxed as he had been when it was only us and the auroras. Almost.

“S-So, it c-can be anything?” He asks, between spoonfuls of his soup.

“For you? Yes,” Atieno answers evenhandedly.

“For those who swim here from other mainlands, that is marked as their mission of valour,” Zawnté continues, giving more. “For those with magic, the Trial is decided by their source of magic, but also their personality.”

“Since you are the first werewolf and you did not cross an ocean, your mission will be your own.”

Peter gulps before he attempts a nod even as he pales.

Zawnté was right about the Trial being adjusted by a person’s nature, but of course it would be. What called for courage in Maeve would never match what called for courage in me. Much seemed to require bravery from Peter, but thus far, he eventually displayed it each time.

Peter does not appear to remember this. He frets until his heart matches that of a hummingbird, his mind undoubtedly conjuring the very worst, when in reality I still have not worked out what his mission will be.

“Why do you stress needlessly?” Zawnté asks with genuine curiosity. Peter’s heart pauses its labour. “You do not know what it is, but you did not know what the first Trial was either, and you conquered it. So, why do you choose doubt over confidence?”

Peter blinks at him until he ducks his head and crouches into himself, mistaking it as an admonishment. It seems a habit. He spins his wooden spoon within its bowl, parking his shame there as if that will free him from answering.

It will not. Shame was a tool used to strengthen in this clan.

He realises it eventually, though he is a shade pinker by the time he does. “I-I-I do-don’t kn-know,” he says in the end and that at least is an answer.

“You should figure it out,” Zawnté advises before returning to his meal. “Once you know, you can correct it.”

The subject is ended, but not for Peter, who lifts his head enough for me to spot his eyes and the surprise swimming in them. Gratitude soon follows, and it brightens him before he ducks again, this time to hide his smile.

Their conversation continues, and while all below are surely conscious of my presence above the roofing, Peter remains none the wiser. He does not know the castle well enough to know its secrets.

Behind magic and ice, I watch him for the clan, for his next Trial, and also for Maeve and her superstitions— to see if he acted differently when he did not know I was near. He is the exact same from what I can notice, only with slightly more stuttering and less frequent blushing.
He hides behind his hair more, and tugs at it the way a child might a blanket. Another terrible habit. His better ones, remain how he keeps checking on Maeve, even as he jerks and retreats each time it earns him a glare. He slumps after each failure, but musters the courage to try each time again.

It is a game of cat and mouse, where the mouse tries to befriend the hungry cat.

With the others, he is, in ways, more comfortable and in others, less. He can not meet Atieno’s gaze but succeeds more frequently with Zawnté. Though when it comes to conversing, his replies come quicker when the question comes from Atieno.

He is comfortable with them both, but not as comfortable as he was with me.

Me, and perhaps John and Shilao.

I grit my teeth, flinging the names from my mind, but they will soon wither back in. Damn, Maeve, leaving worms to fester in my mind.

What was I supposed to do with the knowledge? Ignore it, obviously, but how when he had been the one to appear and upend my life? And what was the point in all of this chasing if there were others?

Maeve would not have mentioned them if they were past flings or lovers; she was not that vindictive, but she was wicked enough to plant a seed, even if they were just friends that had shared a past.

And she only did it because she wanted to see what would grow— if I would react, investigate or Gods’ forbid, confront Peter with it.

I would not. I was not that untempered, and for all her nonsense, I did not think Peter feigned his interest in me, unwanted as it was, and we all had a past. I certainly did, and I shared nothing of it, so why would I expect him to share his?

I force my mind to follow these more sane paths while I finish my observations before I eventually peel myself from the wall and slip from the hidden alcove above. I take myself to the library and need no assistance in investigating which books he had claimed for the night.

The list is admittedly surprising.

The entire Atlas of each topographic map of the surface through the ages.
The recorded Lineages of each clan member, before joining the clan.
Tales of folklore from each member’s former tribe

The common thread is obviously to learn about us, to learn our ways of thinking, but that does not make the strength of it any less impressive.

I was still deciding whether to set his mission above the surface or within the castle, but if he learned the surface as thoroughly as I suspected he would, then it could only be the castle. And I had not thought to crowd his mission around folklore, it was interesting that he thought it might, and that his brain followed that train of thought.

Interesting and somewhat annoying.

What in all the realms would I give him to do?

I work my mind, considering, just as the library door creaks open.
I disappear into one of its corners, already knowing it is him.

“I-I’ll be q-quick,” he whispers to the person behind him, “I-I just w-want o-one more.”

“Go then,” Maeve hisses from outside. “And only one.”

Peter nods and scampers inside, and though his footfalls are not heavy, they sound in the quiet of the library. His hair slips from his face in his dash, revealing in full his pure expression of glee as he takes in the library again as though it is for the first time. He grins, eyes glowing, and there is no doubt how much he adores this simple space.

He is not alone, but he might as well be, as he sticks to the walls and scans the underlying titles with a familiarity I almost can not believe. It had only been a number of days since he was first introduced; he could not know it yet.

And yet, with my own eyes I watch him drift his fingers along the hidden etchings before he plasters his hand beneath one column, triggering the internal key. Magic slots through the wall, following the vestiges of his intent to find the subject of his desire, but that should not have been possible unless he’d read it before.

He must have, for the book slots out of its home above, its frozen sleeve melting away before it drifts down into Peter’s waiting palms.

An account of all past wars and recent strife.

Twisting, Peter readies to leave, but stops midstep. He straightens, back stiffening as though yanked, and though I do not breathe, I still keep myself still.

He turns, and though he does it slowly, he faces me. He can not see me yet, not where I stand in the shadows, but he has sensed me; there is no doubt about that.

I could leave, move faster than he can follow so that all that is left is a trace for him to mourn, but I do not. I stand still and wait to see if he will venture into the darkness to find me.

Hugging the tome to his chest, Peter glances at the door only once before he takes a careful step forward. His heart quickens, brows furrowing just slightly as he tries to find me in the darkness, but when he can’t, he carries on anyway.

These steps are quiet, angel-soft, and even as anxiety buds inside him until he’s on the edge of fear, he continues his careful approach until he breaks from the light and joins me from the shadows.

Relief gushes into him all at once, the display of it unmistakable. He sucks in a shaky breath as his shoulders fall and his frown fades to make room for his fast smile.

“L-Luciel,” he whispers, excited.

“Peter,” I return, neutral. It only makes his smile widen.

“Wh-What are y-you doing here?” He asks, inching a step closer.

“What most do in libraries,” I answer as I pluck a scroll from the space behind me and round it for his viewing. “Reading.”

Peter’s mouth falls into a small ‘o’ before he nods and lifts his own book for my inspection. “M-Me too. W-Well, not y-yet. N-Not right now. I-I just g-got th-this.”

I nod, and he flushes before he lets his head fall.

“How did you find it so quickly?” I ask before he can crawl entirely into himself. “How did you know how to look?”

“Oh, I-I w-watched o-others,” he answers, glancing around. “I-I saw t-them u-use their h-hands, b-but wh-when I-I tried, n-nothing came. It-It only d-did for bo-books I read b-before.”

“So, you read every single book in the library already?” I ask, disbelieving. There were thousands. It was impossible.

Peter shakes his head. “N-No, o-only their ti-titles.”

That was… “Smart,” I praise, and blue eyes catch mine. “Very smart.”

Peter’s blush burns bright before he pulls at his hair again. His heart tells of his joy as he hides away. “U-Um, h-how a-are you?”

Surprise trickles through me, unwarranted.
It was a normal enough question, simple conversation, but when was the last time I entertained simple conversation?

“Maeve will not be happy if she has to look for you,” I reply instead, and it is as though I’ve sapped the water from his roots.

He wilts, shoulders falling with disappointment even as he tosses a panicked glance at the door. “You’re r-right,” he agrees, looking down. This time he does not look back up.

“Fine,” I answer, sighing. “I am fine.”

Peter blooms back to life.

Eyes alight, he preens at me, and I wonder if this new light in the library bothers anyone.
I also wonder who Shilao is and who John is.

“Peter!”

Maeve doesn’t bother being quiet or whispering; she snaps his name at the door so loudly that Peter yelps before he turns and runs to it.

“S-Sorry, M-Maeve,” he murmurs as he races to her.

Maeve hears none of it, and for once, she is too busy scolding him to notice my presence, and I thank the Gods for that. I also thank them that she misses the hand he waves behind his back before he slips between her and the door.

THEY”RE SO FUCKING CUTE AEJKFNW4FRNHE3R43RN

THOUGHTS????????

Nah, I love that last scene cause why is it like they’re secretly dating when they’re barely talking and Luciel is uninterested?!?!

Peter has movesssssss, subtle but they’re good.
That wave??? Respect.

Love love loveeeee the Maeve and Luciel conversation at the start, it gave more insight into her at the end with her own past and troubles, but also, added a nice little touch with the Shilao and John name drop lmfaoooo

I love this woman!!!!

If tou missed it, we’re currently in a ‘Chapter month’, meaning no extras and only updates!

Tonight, Patreon and my website got 3 new updates of OMEGA in the Gold tier! If you want to read ahead to Chapter 25, follow the links on my message board!

Otherwise, they’ll be out in a week!

Until next time,

Byeeeee Humansssss