I Fell In Love With Two Rogue Brothers On The Run

Amara

The third time you are born into nothing, you stop being surprised by it. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.

“Are you done with that pot yet?” I ask myself. My voice is small in the quiet kitchen.

“Almost,” I answer back. My hands are deep in the gray, greasy water. “Just one more spot of burnt porridge.”

“Does it matter? They won’t notice if it’s clean. They didn’t even notice you were at the table tonight.”

“I know,” I say. “But if I don’t scrub, I have to think. And thinking is expensive.”

I am nineteen years old in this body. My parents, the people who share this house with me went to bed an hour ago. They didn’t say goodnight. They didn't look at me. To them, I am just an Omega. I am the girl who cleans the hearth and keeps the floor swept.

“You’ve had better parents,” I whisper, rinsing the iron pot.

“I have. The first ones were the best. They loved me so much it felt like a heavy blanket. I miss that blanket.”

“The second ones were okay too,” I remind myself. “Until the war started.”

I stop scrubbing. The water is cold now. A memory cracks through my head. I see a pack square. I see the sun shining on a man’s dark hair. Corvus. In that first life, I thought he was my destiny. The mate bond was there, flickering like a candle in a drafty room. I remember waiting for him to reach for me. I remember thinking my life was finally starting.

“He didn’t even hate you,” I say to the empty kitchen.

“No,” I reply. “Hate would have been a gift. He just looked at me like I was a bug he had accidentally stepped on. He looked bored. He walked away, and I just... I just withered. I died because I thought I needed him to live. That was a stupid mistake.”

“And the second life?” I ask the shadows in the corner.

“The second life was faster,” I say. I can almost feel the cold sting of the blade. “Father died. Mother found a new man and forgot I existed. Then Corvus came. He didn't wait for a bond that time. He just killed me. He knew who I was, even if I didn’t know why he hated me so much.”

I shake my head and dry my hands on a rough cloth. The cloth is scratchy and smells like old wood. This is my third life. My name is Amara, which means eternal. My mothers always give me that name. It’s a joke the Moon Goddess plays on me, I think.

“Focus,” I tell myself. “Three days ago. Tell me what you heard.”

“I was in the hallway,” I answer. “The floorboard didn't creak because I know where the soft spots are.”

“And what did Father say?”

“He said, ‘Take her. She’s just an Omega. We don’t need another mouth to feed.’ And then I heard a name I knew. Corvus’s network. He’s looking for me again. He’s trading grain and iron to small packs just to find girls who look like me.”

“He sold you,” I say. My heart doesn't even speed up. I am too tired to be scared. “For three sacks of grain and a promise that the pack won't be raided.”

“So, what’s the plan, Amara?”

“Step one: Pack the bread I hid under the floorboard. Step two: Take the small skinning knife from the drawer. Step three: Get to the Gray Woods.”

“Step three is a problem,” I point out. “The Gray Woods are full of monsters. 

I move across the kitchen. The floor is cold under my bare feet. I reach into the wooden drawer and feel for the knife. My fingers wrap around the handle. It’s small, but it’s sharp.

“Is this it?” I ask. “Are we really doing this?”

“We have to,” I say. “If we stay, Corvus gets us. If he finds me again… I don’t get a fourth life and he wins.”

“Wins what?”

“I don't know,” I admit. “But he’s been chasing me through three lifetimes. I must be something important. I just wish someone would tell me what it is.”

I blow out the small oil lamp. The kitchen falls into total darkness. The smell of the burnt wick lingers in the air. I stand there for a moment, listening to the silence of the house. My parents are snoring in there rooms. They don’t know their trade is about to walk out the door.

“Goodbye, Mother,” I whisper.

“She won't hear you,” I remind myself.

“I know. I’m saying it for me.”

I head toward the back door. My bag is already hidden by the woodpile outside. I just need to get through the door, get the bag, and run into the trees.

“One foot in front of the other,” I say. My voice is a tiny ghost.

I reach for the heavy iron latch of the door. My fingers are an inch away when I hear it.

The sound of boots on the porch.

I freeze. My breath stops in my throat.

“Is that them?” I ask in my head. “Is it the men who bought me?”

“It's too early,” I answer. “Father said they would come at dawn.”

The door doesn't rattle. There is no knock. Whoever is outside doesn’t think they need to ask for permission. The latch moves. It clicks... a sharp, loud sound in the dead quiet of the night.

The door begins to swing inward.

“Amara,” I whisper.

“I know,” I answer.

“Run?”

“Where?”

The door opens all the way. The moonlight from outside spills across the floor, cutting a long, white rectangle into the dark. A man is standing there. He is tall. Taller than any man in our pack. He is wearing dark leather, and the smell of rain and old pine needles comes in with him.

He doesn’t look like the merchant’s guards my father talked to. He looks like something much older. Something much more dangerous.