What the hell was she talking about?
If I wanted to suck his dick too? Was she talking about Valden?
It sent fire through my veins knowing that she was probably one of the girls he had in his bed each day now. The ones who would strip for him without him even asking for it. Who probably kneeled to his desires in ways I would have wanted to if he still remembered. But even if I wanted to be one of those girls, I couldn't. Valden just didn't want anything to do with me anymore.
And I didn't want him to anyway. I really didn't.
But there was a clawing feeling that maybe she wasn't talking about Valden. What if it were someone else? Someone who asked about me?
I shook my head. There was no point in worrying about it now.
I had been directed to the White Wing as they called it, for cleaning duty. It was the name they gave to the central science lab where they did all the experiments and monitored our mutations and powers. Each room that passed me by in the wing was more sterile and fresh than the last one and I doubted if there was anything left to clean. Everything just seemed obsessively sanitized.
Until I reached the room that they wanted me to work in. There was no equipment inside, just a plain entryway hall leading into other similar rooms with flickering lights. There were people inside, scientists by the looks of it, running to and fro but no one seemed bothered by the omega standing in the doorway. The floor gleamed like ice beneath my feet and I could already smell the bleach. A few more steps in, and I realised why.
A pair of gloves, a bucket of water, and rags were kept near the large stain-ridden floor. The water was already pink from a mix of soap…and something else. As if someone else was already cleaning it and left it unfinished.
Which I felt like omegas weren't allowed to do in here without being punished. We weren't allowed to leave a task undone.
I knelt down immediately and inspected the stain until my heart stopped. It was red but dark and dried, crusting at the edges. It had probably been some time since the blood had been spilled, but the stain was large enough even after being cleaned halfway, which meant whoever it came out of, I wouldn't be surprised if they were dead. No one spilled that much and walked out a free man.
I dropped to my knees and got to work, gathering my uniform to one side and dipping the rags into the water, wringing them out. I had never seen this much blood in one place, not even in the periphery. What was surprising was that no one, none of the other workers looked concerned about it all. As if it were a daily occurrence for someone to bleed all over their floors.
What the hell went on in here?
I didn't realise this was supposed to be a slaughterhouse. Maybe this was exactly what happened to the omega wolves who disobeyed.
The room was overall quiet, just occasionally broken by distant footsteps or the hiss of machinery. Every now and then a door would open and I'd catch a fleeting glimpse of white lab coats.
The scientists.
The Lycans were the powerful ones, ruling the sectors and duty-bound to protect us, the only ones allowed into the mist outside. The ones with the wolf residing in us, our mutated selves turning us into monsters.
But the scientists were the real elitists, who controlled everything from behind the curtains. Three years ago when the sky cracked open and bled the blue and black mist, the only unaffected were the ones residing in the glass dome city of Kargahart.
Kargahart was originally built and owned by these scientists for their experiments and they had lived here for years along with other benefactors. And now, they were the only humans left. And this city was the only one that could protect the rest of us monsters from the even bigger monsters lurking in the thick mist outside the glass dome.
It took me quite a bit of time, longer than I expected, to get one section of the floor stain-free, and I was about to go to the next one when it happened.
Heavy boots.
They clicked in slow, rhythmic steps, unhurried and authoritative. Brutal.
I knew not to look up. Whoever it was, it didn't seem like someone whose gaze I was allowed to meet. I bent my head lower, forcing myself to feel invisible.
The steps got closer, and closer until the air got thick with their scent. I didn't notice until it seeped and coiled around my lungs, sweet and intoxicating but also primal and dark. The scent of their wolf, sinful pheromones clawing into my bloodstream. This wasn't one of the scientists.
The boots stopped directly behind me for a second. I clenched my rags tighter in my palms, my heart thudding, running at a million miles.
Then it continued, and I watched in horror as it stepped right over the spot I'd just cleaned, trailing a fresh mop of dark red liquid. Blood.
And then it hit me.
A deep thrum in the pits of my stomach. It was mild at first and then spread everywhere in my body like fire and heat and warmth. There was so much pressure, suffocating me, bringing out the wolf in me until it groaned, begging, stirring faster than ever before. Like a chemical reaction, I had no control over. The scent was filling me up like it was an intense weapon meant to control and it buried so deep until it reached right between my legs.
I gasped. My wolf whimpered.
This couldn't be happening. Not here and not now.
It wasn't just that they smelled like sin and desire all at the same time. No, it was that they smelled like mine.