Chapter 1
The winds shifted and rustled the walls of the camel hide tent, bringing with them the scent of dew-wet earth. Dawn was approaching. I took a deep breath, released it slowly, and accepted that this would be another sleepless night. I listened to the drone of the males talking on the other side of a partition that separated the tent into two rooms. Behind me were the soft breaths of my mother and siblings, who slept. I closed my eyes and boiled. I must be exhausted, I thought, because I knew better. I fisted my resentment down and reminded myself to know my place. Feelings like this are insidious and only lead to more pain.
Light from the males’ oil lamps peeked through the seams of the partition where I sat waiting to serve. With nothing else to do, I watched the reflection flicker on the heavy brass tea set in my lap. Its trembling tempo, the sighs of my sleeping family, and the speech of the males were like a lullaby. My eyes rolled, and fatigue almost engulfed me, but falling asleep was inexcusable. So, I bit my tongue hard enough to make my eyes sting and chased the weariness away.
I’d knelt for hours, facing the embroidered panel. Waiting for my father, Inlah Ag Attaher, the mighty Alpha of the Ayur Pack, and his esteemed guests to retire. The lower half of my body was numb, and I desperately wanted to stretch my legs, but I knew what would happen if anyone noticed. Slaves should not be seen or heard.
Finally, I heard the soft scrape of an empty cup. I stiffly rose to take the kettle off a small brazier, wrapping the scalding metal in a cloth. I pushed the stiff leather of the panel aside, revealing the powerful males my father was hosting, and silently slunk in the background toward the empty cup left for me to refill on the floor. I was about to pour the bitter tea when the male I was serving froze. I held my breath to listen, but only heard my pounding heart.
My father leaned back. “The Winterland omega princeling.” He said it like a warning. I glanced at my father for instruction, but his dark eyes were focused on the entrance of the tent. So, I continued pouring and tried not to be curious about the newcomer, the mysterious, high-born pup who shared my status.
The encampment was hushed today as I made my way to the well. News must have spread like a grain of sand in a sandstorm. No one was comfortable with that pale-skinned scum in our pack, even if he was just a pup. I overheard Abba telling his guests that the pup had been sent to us by the Winterland King as a punishment. To learn humility.
The way the Alpha told it, it sounded like the Winterland pup didn’t know his place as an omega. I felt sorry for the juvenile male. Especially when I found out that my father placed him in the same caste as I was, from this day forward, he was a lowly Akkan. Despite his royal blood, he was now an Omega slave, like me.
Rubbing my eyes, I lowered the empty camel bladder into the well and waited for the telltale sound of skin hitting water. I was tired, but that was nothing new. What was new was the omega fosterling from the Winterland. I wondered what he was like…
Slam.
I was roughly shoved out of the way. I hit the ground, and the sting of scraped flesh and the taste of dirt consumed my senses. But I didn’t care about the pain. I cared about losing the water skin in the well. My hands opened wide with the strike, and I dropped the rope. Quickly, I pawed the ground around me and followed the sound of the rope hissing against the earth as it plummeted. And the goddess be praised, I found it. I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed the rope and sucked in the scream as the friction burned my fingers and palms. I had to stop that bladder from becoming lost in the well. And I did. I almost wept in relief.
Dropping anything in the well was a punishable offense as it risked contaminating the only water source the pack had for miles. We could all die because I was a stupid, clumsy Akkan. That was when I remembered I had been shoved. I looked up at the wolf, who pushed me, and saw a middle-aged Ellah with a bulbous nose and an ample belly, smiling widely, eyes narrowed and gleaming.
Anger flared and was immediately dampened. Seven years ago, I would have fought back. The entire pack would have supported me. That was before I woke on my sixth birthday with my caste mark. When I was a cherished princess of the Ayur pack. Overnight, everything had changed. It was so finite that it knocked the wind from my body. It hadn’t taken long for my pack to beat the privilege out of me until all that was left was a shrunken, scared pup.
So when I looked up to see who had pushed me, only deference showed in my eyes. Surprise, surprise, it was Mohad. He was part of the Annan, the warriors’ clan, and was the Beta—my uncle’s omega. We might have the same crescent marking on our necks, but the difference between us, an Ellah and an Akkan, was a gulf as vast as the desert we loved.
I don’t know why this wolf hated me so much, but he took any chance he could to grind my face in the sand. His lips pulled back until I could see the tips of his fangs. “Akkan whore,” he said, then he spat at the dirt in front of me.
I saw his eyes notice the rope straining in my hands, and he licked his thin lips. My only hint was when he reached behind his head. Woosh. Slash. Hiss. Splash. He had cut the rope with his scimitar. I stared at my smarting hands where the rope had once been, then looked Mohad in the eyes. I was so shocked that he’d risk the pack that I broke the instinctual law of eye contact—a tenet so deep, only an act of supreme will could defy it.
The concussion of his strike rocked my body, but I didn’t feel the pain. How was I going to get the camel skin bladder out of the well before it degraded and rotted and poisoned the only well we had for tens of miles?
