Night fell on the castle like a heavy velvet blanket of moonlight. The guests had long since left and there was only silence around. In this thick gloom, two figures crept along the ancient walls, their steps almost weightless. Their movements were confident, polished. They glided in the shadows, trying to stay away from the dim light of the torches and the rare guards. Who were loud, heavy creatures with the bodies of bears and devoted eyes to their master.
One of the girls, tall, with short hair, sharply looked at the nearest gap in the wall and, nodding, extended her hand to her companion. The other, slightly shorter, with long strands of hair, deftly slid after her, and for a moment both froze in a narrow nook, listening to the night sounds of the castle.
"Are we sure we're going the right way?" The younger one whispered, her voice trembling, but full of determination.
"Trust me," The older one answered quietly, her eyes shining with a determination that left no room for fear.
Without wasting time, the girls stretched out their hands to each other, and their bodies began to change: their skin glowed golden, their hair merged into streams of light. And the next moment, instead of two human figures on the stones, there were only two small golden beetles, shimmering in the moonlight, almost invisible to the eyes of the guards.
They made their way through narrow cracks in the walls, unnoticed by the sleepy monsters that guarded the perimeter, and their tiny bodies moved with incredible speed, flying from one stone to another, like two sparks of living light, carrying with them a secret and a threat.
When an old outbuilding rose before them, its walls covered in damp spots and ivy. A small window, half-blocked with dirt and cracks, beckoned them forward. After looking around once more, the golden beetles softly landed on the ground and in the next moment again assumed human form.
And in the dim moonlight it was visible that both girls wore their hair a golden shade. The same shade that the one who was now sobbing on the other side of the bars had.
On the other side of the window, Omega was still kneeling in the dirty cage, his arms wrapped around his thin body, as if trying to hold back the pain that was tearing him apart from within, which would not let up for a moment. His shoulders were shaking from sobs, dry tears were leaving warm streaks on his cheeks. His heart, squeezed into a shapeless lump, was pulling down so hard that it seemed that it would tear him apart from the inside.
Muffled sounds were coming from outside, sometimes laughter, sometimes laughs, snatches of songs that were laced with a rough, drunken delight. Omega convulsively grabbed the bars of the window, clinging with his fingers so tightly that his nails cut into the metal, trying to at least see, to understand what was happening outside his new cage. He stood on tiptoe, stretched his neck with all his might, but the darkness of the night and the thick, crooked glass prevented him from seeing anything intelligible. Realizing that he would not see anything, he fell asleep for a while to ease the pain of the heat.
When he woke up, he no longer heard the noises of the guests. He exhaled heavily and curled up into a ball. And just when he, clenching his teeth in helplessness, was about to give up, a shadow flashed across the wall in his field of vision. And then another shadow.
They appeared next to his cage so silently that even the night wind did not carry their steps. Omega jerked back, instinctively pressing himself against the opposite wall, his heart began to beat faster, fear paralyzed his muscles, but the next second one of the figures raised her hands, demonstrating empty palms in the window, and spoke.
"Please, don't be afraid," The girl with short hair said softly, her voice was quiet, "We are not enemies."
Omega didn't answer.
He only looked at those hands with wide-open eyes, in which fear and fatigue were reflected.
"We know that now everything sounds like nonsense," The second one, who was a little taller, with long golden hair, added, - but we know much more about you than you do yourself.
She spoke calmly, almost tenderly, but there was anxiety in her voice, as if time was running out. They kept looking back.
"And we..." The girl with short hair hesitated briefly, "We are sorry that we came so late."
Omega blinked, inhaled heavily, trying to drive away the obsession, but his body betrayed him: his legs buckled, his temples began to pound, a sharp, hot pain flared up in his groin. The heat sharply intensified. A pain so strong that it felt like his ribs were breaking ran through his body.
He collapsed to the floor, clutching his stomach with his hands, ashamed of his own body, which obeyed neither his mind nor his will.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl with short hair rush forward and quickly hand him a small glass jar through a high window, inside which something thick and golden was glowing.
"Drink this," she said firmly, "it will stop the heat."
But Omega, with difficulty raising his head, hissed through clenched teeth:
"I will not accept... anything... from strangers..."
His voice was weak, almost inaudible, but full of determination.
The girl with long hair, the one who looked older, slowly squatted down next to the cage and said calmly, so that her voice could be heard by the Omega:
"You may not believe us. You may hate us. But if you don't drink it now, if you stay in this state without an Alpha by your side," she paused heavily, giving weight to each word, "you'll just die."
The Omega closed his eyes, feeling the weight of heat pressing on his consciousness, every cell in his body aching, demanding an Alpha nearby.
But he'd always wanted to die, he'd thought about it so often that death seemed like an old friend to him. Was it worth giving up death when it came?
(...)
But now, with the breath of these strange people so close, with the throbbing pain in his chest, he realized: he didn't want to die like this. Not now. Not here. Not in a cage.
He clenched his teeth, clenched his fingers into fists so hard that his nails dug into his skin, and, with trembling hands, snatched the jar that stood on the high window.
The potion burned his throat, it flowed like a hot fire down his esophagus, and almost immediately he felt the weight of his body leave. His body only trembled slightly.
Raising his eyes, full of distrust and fatigue, he hoarsely asked the window:
"Who are you... and why did you come?"