The hardest part of loving her was letting her go. Letting her do this, even though every fiber of my being wanted to do it for her. I knew I couldn’t. And if Beta Liberation kept attacking omegas, Natasha was in just as much danger as every other omega out there.
The only way to save her was to let her walk into this danger. I was relieved she had a communicator to contact the ship, however. They would pull her out if she tapped the screen on her wrist in the right way.
My own communicator seemed more and more likely to be broken, since I hadn’t been able to check in with the ship at all in the past couple of hours. At least it was still managing to communicate across the city to Natasha, even if long-distance wasn’t working.
I picked up my weapon and headed for sector two with lead in my gut. I would be near, even if I couldn’t go with her. It was all I could do, since I couldn’t get hold of the ship.
***
Natasha
The address was a very shiny silver building which seemed to be taller than the clouds. Growing up in a high rise block of flats, I had never been intimidated by the height of a building before now.
There was no sign on the door to indicate which company this belonged to. Maybe it was shared? Or maybe whoever owned it wanted to hide their identity. I took a deep breath and went through the door.
Two alphas were on security.
“Can I help?” one of them asked.
I smiled at him. “I’m here for a meeting with Lenor. Tell him it’s Edel.”
“Edel?”
I nodded.
“Top floor.” He indicated the lift behind me. I walked into it, trying to act like I was supposed to be there. According to the buttons in the lift, there were a hundred and eighty-nine floors. One-hundred and eighty-nine layers all stacked on top of one another. All that concrete pressing down on me from above. I hated thinking about it.
After I pressed the button, I kept my face frozen until the doors were closed, then I exhaled a sigh of relief as the lift started climbing the floors.
The doors opened. I was on the roof. A man in a long robe was looking out across the city. He looked important.
“Sir?” I didn’t know how else to address him since I didn’t know his name. He turned and I saw his face. Old, but he had clearly undergone lots of plastic surgery, or maybe they just had really good face creams here. Regardless, his eyes were very crinkled and the skin around them was papery.
“May I help you?” he asked. His voice was soft and very well-spoken. If there was a fancy university somewhere in the city, I’d bet my eyes he’d gone there.
“Lenor sent me. I’m Natasha.”
“Ah, our rising star. You joined one of our crews a few days ago and already are showing your prowess at completing tasks for us.”
It wasn’t lost on me that he’d saidoneof our crews. Beta Liberation had others. Each of them committing crimes and raising money for their puppet masters. They were such an extensive organization, and I was beginning to think there was nothing I could do to take them down by myself.
“Aye. I work for Ghil.”
“And he works for Lenor. Who works for me. As does almost everyone on this miserable ball of rock. I’m sure you know who I am.” He paused expectantly, like there was no chance anyone on this planet wouldn’t recognize him instantly.Fuck.He was either so up his own arse he was going to be a twat, or he really was someone important. Either way I was in trouble.
“I don’t, sorry.”
He raised a brow. “I am often in the news reading statements and cleaning up the messes caused by our leaders, the alphas. I am Oriel.”
Shit. That was someone I should have recognized. On the ship, before I’d first been put on the planet surface, Larla had told me about this man.
“The Grand Vizier to the Emperor. You look so much more impressive in real life, sir,” I breathed, hoping I could gloss over my ignorance of something really fundamental.
“I have a very special job for you, and since making your acquaintance, I am even more certain this is a role you can fulfil.”
“Anything,” I told him.
He smiled, but the top half of his face remained motionless.