Her personal hell was the undying memory of her older cousin—how hard he had fought when massive soldiers seized him. She had been a frightened child of eight. The boy, her hero, had been only thirteen.
The last time she saw him he was calling for his mother, blood dribbling from a split lip. It took two of the soldiers to cart him away.
Morgaine’s aunt had been held down by her own people when she’d tried to intervene. The settlers had not done it to be cruel. They had done it to save her life.
Endless, awful months followed where her aunt wept for her stolen son. No amount of reimbursement had eased the woman’s despair. What was money when one’s only child was gone? When she knew she would never see him again?
If the Alphas marked you, there was no return. Ever.
No one knew what became of those they took, and any who dared to ask were silenced. Her aunt had been unable to hold her tongue the next season the Alpha invaders returned. Begging for news, the woman had run to the first soldier she’d found. He threw her off. She scrambled to another. As the story goes, it was the fifth, less patient brute who’d hacked out her tongue.
No son, no way to communicate… it was less than a year before she took her own life.
Morgaine would never let such suffering befall her mother. And there was one sure way to prevent it—she’d not let the beasts set eyes upon her since that morning they’d found her mother’s sister hanging from the rafters of her own humble cottage. Not when a coil in her gut warned that she would be taken next.
Terrible dreams and pain strong enough to freeze her muscles always came as warning that Alpha arrival was imminent. A blessing and a curse she dared not share. A secret of such magnitude… an unexplainable alarm that cautioned of their arrival? Should the Alphas learn of it, and find the settlement empty? Everyone would be hunted and punished… and she would be executed for insubordination.
No matter what she had to endure, she would never leave her mother desolate and alone.
No matter the agony or sickness or fear that descended with their ships.
Season after season, Morgaine had bested it. She had carried her secret into the woods and would do so again.
Yet that morning, her body was a twisting ball of agony, and she was almost unable to move.
Groaning, Morgaine threw her legs over the side of the bed. Braced against the cot, it took four tries before she was able to lift her torso. The movement of pitching forward sent each limb into a spasm, leaving the girl falling into a haphazard pile on the ground.
Fresh rushes muffled the thump of her collapse, but Morgaine tossed a frightened glance to where her mother softly snored nearby. Her graceless landing hadn’t disturbed the woman’s sleep, but the rising pained scream trying to rip its way out of Morgaine’s chest would.
Biting her tongue as the fresh wave of hellish fire churned her guts into knotted agony, Morgaine forced herself to be still and silent. Her mother slept on, rolling over to snore all the louder.
Blood-laced spittle dribbled from the corner of Morgaine’s mouth when she parted her teeth and dared suck in a breath.
It was imperative not to wake her mother, but by the spirits, she had to get out of their cottage before she gave herself away.
That way, the woman would not have to lie if questioned. That way, the responsibility would be squarely on Morgaine’s shoulders if her noncompli
ance was ever uncovered.
As if she too understood that some things were better left unsaid, after all these years, her mother had never questioned why Morgaine was conveniently gone when Alphas stole through the settlement—had no inkling that pain warned her child of the invasion.
It was Morgaine’s great shame to bear—for every time she fled, others were taken who might have found refuge if they’d only known to hide. But if she were to warn her neighbors, she would be exposed. Others would know there was something wrong with her, that she was a lawbreaker, and she knew in her heart that should an Alpha lay eyes on her...
…they would ruin her.
With her only aunt dead, her mother would be alone with no other family to comfort her.
If Morgaine were taken, who would know how to find toxic hicklim berries to make the lovely green-dyed fabric her mother was famed for sewing? Who would collect eggs and pluck the chickens? How would her mother survive alone?
Morgaine would chew her own arm off if it meant keeping the woman safe.
Boiling fever and excruciating pain? Morgaine deserved them for keeping her secrets. The good woman snoring in the corner did not.
A wave of nausea curled Morgaine’s tongue into a bowl. Gagging, she convulsed, watched the room grow darker, and was moments away from losing consciousness right there on the floor.
The males had come closer. There was no time to waste.
Arms weightier than stone pushed a traitorous body to stand on shaky legs. Biting back another scream, she grabbed the first garment she could reach. Fingers twisted by cramps fumbled the laces of the gown, leaving it hanging indecently off her shoulders. There would be no boots. She could hardly lift a foot to move forward, stumbling one perilous step at a time until she reached the humble cottage’s only door.