She couldn’t stop gazing at the two boys. Their eyes had already started to wander and search for adventure, and Rae wondered if they didn’t resent her for what had happened. She kissed them and whispered, “Someday, you’re going to take on the world’s sins. And once you do, please don’t forget about me. Don’t make the same mistake so many other alpha men have in the past. Allow yourself love. Strive for hope.”
And then, taking the young girl into her arms, she ran her hand softly across her cheek. Her eyes did not fall away from her mother. Did she even remember her mother? She hoped that she did. “And you, my little bean. You’ll feel it the most, but you keep pushing, okay? The world needs more women with voices.”
For what felt like minutes, she played with her children. She kissed the tops of their eyelids, their plump and doughy cheeks, and every soft spot on their stomachs. But they weren’t babies anymore. She had missed out on so much. All because of Cassian. All because of her sister. All because the universe wanted to ruin real heroes.
And that’s exactly what she was. She knew it as much as everyone else did. She wasn’t a victim. She was a fucking hero, and she’d get her revenge.
Standing, she peered down into a center entrance, the same entrance Severin had forced her in for her coronation. She felt her chest pump. Every inch of muscle clenched. She didn’t want to have to do this, but it was a necessity. Rae gave one last kiss to her darling children. “Noah, climb. I need to give you my children,” she said.
Noah choked before responding. “W-what? No, no, no. This is not part of the equation!”
Rae had already started to descend into the glass chasm. There was no time for any of their weakness. Virgil’s plan was smart, but he hadn’t given them the full picture. If he had, none of them would have agreed to continue on with the clandestine rebellion. “Fuck your equation, Noah. We need to get you and my children out of here. How big is this bunker? Are we talking a hundred square feet, or what?”
Noah rushed to climb as Rae was already inside the complex machine. “Big enough to fit our people and then some,” he said.
Rae nodded. “Good,” she said, wrapping the complex wiring around her body. Now that she understood what all this was for, everything was in clear sight. She placed her finger against the glass, tracing the cracked edges where Killian hit earlier. He had no idea that he almost detonated the entire world by trying to destroy this masterpiece of death.
“Don’t do this,” Noah said from above her.
“Well, you climbed up here fast,” Rae replied with a smile, but it fell from her face as the weight of the situation failed to put her at ease. “Please, keep them safe until my alphas come.”
“You don’t know they will come here,” he said. “And even if they do, wouldn’t you want to hold them in your arms in safety? Don’t you lie awake at night wishing you could be a family again?”
Don’t you, Rae?
She asked herself that question every single fucking night. Of course, she yearned for their touch, their hold, their masculine scents. But Noah didn’t realize a damn thing. If the bomb could be stopped, she would be the only one able to do it.
Voice turning angry as a jaguar, she screamed, “I said, take them!”
Nothing more needed to be said. Noah held the babies in their crib. He was quite shaken, but he’d manage. Meanwhile, Rae had a job to do. She turned her focus inward and closed her eyes, stretching both arms outward. Slowly, the synthetic embryonic cables coiled around her arms and fastened around the wrists. They held her in place, and suddenly, she remembered the hunger of the alphas’ eyes during the coronation ceremony. Did they know of Severin’s plans? Probably not, but as terrible as all of those men were, she didn’t wish them harm. She merely wished to turn this thing around.
As the cables wrapped her, her feet left the ground. Soon, she was floating in the small space of the glass womb. With her circulation shut, she lost sensation of her limbs. And as the mechanics raised her into the center of the womb, where all of society once saw her as a modern deity, she felt dizzy. She was losing herself. And soon, the liquid would fill to the brim, suffocating her. Below her hanging body, she could now see Noah and her likeness, the babies lying near their feet.
She’d felt all of this before. When Severin first brought her out of her darkened room, he’d made sure to ease her into the new role. A few weeks together, re-teaching her what she once knew. Except, the interpretation was much different. He reconstructed her like building blocks, but it was much different than Cassian’s way. He was snide but gentle, cunning, but he always left a trail of breadcrumbs. That’s what Rae had noticed from the get-go.
She knew what to do because she remembered what he told her. What he told everyone at the coronation. As she started to grow weary, she placed her palm against the glass. “Turn the valve,” she said.
“I won’t,” Noah stated, standing strong.
“Turn the valve or we all die,” she said.
“I don’t understand. Virgil never gave us further instructions.”
Noah placed his hand on the rusted valve. The auditorium was empty, but she heard Ruby’s voice repeat those fatal words from the past. “The queen is dead. Long live the queen.”
“The bomb will detonate in ten minutes, unless—”
“There is no way to disarm the bomb. We’ve studied it for years. The mechanism that holds it together is... absolutely exquisite.”
Pushing forward, the clone leaned against the central computer below. Her shoulders pumped into the air, and her sadness made her appear much older. “The bomb will go off unless she is put inside. Unless—”
Rae laughed angrily, but she had accepted her next move. It was inevitable. “Unless I give myself to it.”
“To... who?” Noah asked, trembling.
“Not who. What.”
A group of footsteps echoed nearby, followed by the loud jeering of three men. Three alphas. Three undeniably sexy, highly obsessive, and consuming alphas. Rae recognized their call, and the sinking of her heart only continued. She didn’t think she would have to sacrifice everything with her entire family present.
Killian stopped around the corner, chest pumping and shaking between breaths. “The machine,” he said. “Unless you give yourself to the machine.”
Now, real tears were present in Rae’s eyes. They were the type of tears that rolled down like perfect streams, tiny trickles of liquid that might as well have spelled out the history of her sadness. She had to give up everything again. But this time, she really had to disappear. She had to become something else entirely. And who even knew what would happen after her body became a slave to its operating system?
Part woman, part machine? A true goddess among men? But would she even exist?
“It’s more than just a bomb. Isn’t it, Killian?” she asked.
Killian remained silent, but he wanted to scream what he thought might be the truth. But as much as he had changed, it was still hard to disclose his feelings. In a fit of emotional turmoil, Rae asked one more time, “Well, isn’t it? What happens if I get hooked to this thing, Killian?”
She was already lost to them, already connected…
By now, the rest of the alphas had joined them, and they were all staring back at him for answers. Lowering his rifle, he knelt against the ground and stared at the water nearby. “I don’t know.”
Noah eagerly checked the time. “We have two minutes left, guys.”
“Killian, don’t,” she growled with sharp worry.
“She said it was the Third Revelation… that everything would be okay in the end,” he said. But when he rested his forehead against his dirtied hands, it showed that he didn’t have a clue.
None of them did, and her trust in the world was dwindling.
Her heart raced, but the ache within her veins hurt the most. Strain. So much strain. She trusted him. Trusted all of them. What was happening? Why were her men letting the world consume her?
“Don’
t let this happen, don’t—” The realization hit her straight in the chest. “Am I… am I going to die?”
Killian rocked his head in anguish, threading his fingers into his hair before trying to rip out every last strand. He let out a roar and ran toward Rae. The animalistic confusion in his eyes was startling but understandable.
The glass would break; it had to break by his blows. He was stronger than a tank. He was her soldier. But even he could not shatter the glass. Try as he might, it was as resilient as steel.
He hit until he bled, and he bled until he had nothing else left to give. Noah took the kids to safety, but time’s deadly hand was always counting down to the end.
Rae dropped her guard, allowed the machine to take her. There was obviously no key to stop the detonation, except for her. The special one. Their precious omega.
“Go with your gut,” she said, giving in, not up. “Don’t hesitate to make strong decisions. You’re a father now. I need you to be strong for the kids. For Vash and Lucas. You hear me?”
As quickly as she said their names, the pack joined together and ran, smearing their hands and blood on the glass as if they could touch her. She tried to do the same, but she was growing weaker by the second. “You taught me how to be free,” she said.
Vash lowered his head to the glass. “You taught me how to forgive.”
And Lucas kissed his palm before clenching it into a fist. “You taught me how to believe in myself.”
“I love you. More than you might ever know, I was always faithful to you.”
“Don’t do this,” Killian said, crying with the men. “You’re not going anywhere. You hear me?”
“Hooked up to this machine?” she asked, speaking rhetorically. “Killian, it’s okay. Just... please, tell the kids about me. Don’t let them believe the world is as bad as it seems. There are moments where it’s all worth it.”
Noah released the valve. As the water started to rise within the capsule, she closed her eyes and smiled. This time, the rushing liquid wasn’t even cold. She was numb to everything.
“We planned for so much,” Killian muttered. Then, rolling his fists together, he let out a frantic scream. “I killed my father. We gave everything for this family. Now, what do we have?”
Vash grabbed Killian’s arms, pinning them behind his back. He let out a rushed lament. “Don’t say anything you’ll regret. Trust me. I went through what you’re feeling. It’s not worth it.”
“You’d know best,” Killian growled and pulled away. “My only regret is that I gave myself to something I knew never existed. I gave my entire being for a fight I thought I would endure.”
Lucas wound back and smacked Killian’s face, ready enough to keep swinging. “We have children now. It stops here. With or without the New Republic, we need to be the fathers most children never have.”
“And if it doesn’t work? If the world continues to spiral?” Killian asked.
Lucas clenched his metal toothpick, anxiously swaying it against his lips. “Then, we did our best.”
Instead of fighting back against the cables that were closing in around her like a well-fed and growing ivy plant, Rae simply stared at her babies and felt the most love anyone could ever feel, a burden that caused her heart to swell. Oddly enough, the pressure felt like drowning.
“I love you,” she said, voice muffled by the glass. “All of you. I can’t separate myself from you now. No matter what happens, no matter where I go, I will be here, with you.”
The water swelled and swiveled around her navel. Within a few seconds, her body would start to release air and sink under. But what would happen next? Death? She wondered but knew that giving herself over was the right move. She had empathy for the hunted, for the other omegas of the world who suffered as well, but she was nothing like the blackbird her sister shot in that forest. She would soon come to understand everything.
The cables entwined, finally coursing over her mouth before the water could.
She thought of how she must have appeared to them. For years, she tried to gain her freedom back. “Look at me now,” she said. “I am lost, always lost. Back in the womb.”
Rae fell forward with a heavy sigh, but a thin smile pressed against her fluid-covered face. Embryonic sac and bits of earth floated around her. A plume of smoke rose in the distance. The alphas stood behind her, wielding their heavy metal weapons. They were a team, and anyone who stood in the way had to be annihilated. Only, this time, there were no clear enemies.
Rae could feel the life drain from her, and pretty soon, she’d be reduced to a floating specimen. She had one last thing to say, a few words for them to understand her story before she passed away. “I was born a captive whore, and I don’t give a shit what that makes me to the world,” she muttered, eyes facing the cold asphalt of the darkened road. “I made my life into something meaningful.”
“The next rapture has started,” the clone muttered. The pupils in her eyes seemed to glow a different color. Everyone must have felt it—the change in the air. It was as hot as a pressure cooker.
“What the fuck?” Killian grunted. “We have to save her, goddammit!”
Rifle outstretched, he took aim and fired, but it was just like before. The bullets did no damage. Whoever engineered the giant weapon knew how to build. It couldn’t have been Severin. He must have had help.
The cables continued to twist inside the capsule, turning like strong tentacles. After just a few seconds, they seemed to take up as much space as the water inside itself. Coiling around her mouth, they pried her lips open and took hold of her tongue. Like snakes, they circled and opened her throat. Each ripple of pliable cable formed the inside and outside of her body. Rae let out a scream that was quickly cut short. It was the most awful sound in the world.
“There’s no time. We need to get to the bunker, or we will all suffer the same fate,” Noah said.
Soon, the blue took over her eyes. Gently, the water engulfed her, while the cables provided her air, sustenance, and most importantly, an undeniable energy that she had never felt before. It was as if she had found the way into the heart of the universe.
Eyes closing, Rae gave in like a young babe near her mother. Her mother was not of the earth. Hers was unnatural and robotic. Her mother was a suffocating and deadly weapon.
The importance of her life drifted away like a soft dream. Yes, she was vital, but her death seemed to be the only thing that could fuel the next rapture. If she could speak again, she’d say, “Don’t worry. Everything works out in the end.”
Just like clockwork, the machine began to rumble. Pins, screws, and other metallic plates bent with pressure until they popped around her. The underground maze they had gotten so used to started to fall apart. The floor soon gave way and dropped lower as the sound of rusted metal pieces scraping together filled the room. Noah took the children, hopefully in good faith, and ran in a separate direction, toward the bunker none of them would follow into.
Rae could still hear every single word uttered, albeit muffled behind the glass. She could feel the sway of the water, the hushed splashing from within her new home. With her senses numbed, and her airway full, she thought she might drown, but low and behold, she was kept alive.
A strange, warm, and viscous liquid drained through the cables. As it glided down her throat, her body started to react violently. Limbs twitching, she wondered if this was going to be the end. But, again, it was not. Well, not technically.
Once the liquid filled her pathways, she could breathe again, and this time, she felt connected to something much bigger. Though she could not form the words, she took it as a deep connection to the earth. The flow of energy felt so different. Peaceful. Equal and balanced.
“What is happening to her?” Lucas asked, turning away.
Vash bent down, shielding his head from any incoming shrapnel. Retching, he vomited across the floor and fell into his knees. “Don’t die on us, dammit…”
“Look around you. It’s time,
” Killian said. “All of this has to happen.”
Vash twisted his head and fought frantically to decide his next move. Darting back to his feet, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of cuffs. Without hesitation, he cuffed himself to the structure and leaned his head against the glass. He allowed a smile of relief. His skin was glazed with the sweat of hard work and dedication. He deserved this, deserved to take the night off. What did he care? If the bomb blew, he had still managed to find an ounce of luck in this world. Didn’t that count for something?
“I’m not leaving,” he said.
The underground facility started to crumble around them, shaking, with Rae in the center of it all. Sweet Rae. Omega Rae. Their person. Taken, claimed then trained. And then, lost…
She was stationary. If she was breathing, it was impossible to see her body.
She was gone.
Really gone.
But to where?
Vash got stuck on the hard blame. He had failed them. As a leader. As a brother. As a pack alpha. Those years in the prisons… things happened. He was beat, but not just busted up. They’d really broken him, as if they were trying to mold him like clay. They weren’t human. They were something else entirely. And worst of all, that’s exactly what he’d expected. So now, he’d sit and wipe the sweat off his face and smile, yes, smile because he got to have her.
Every now and then, Lucas would shoot him a worried glance, but he’d always straighten out his face and wink. Killian was on his own journey now. The pack… well, for some time, they had split. He knew he’d be forced to bear the brunt of his actions. He was the one who’d found her, brought her to them, and he’d be the first to lay down his life for the bitch who stowed the children he was forced to give up, yet again. It was her wishes, this time, and he would obey.
Collapsing, he muttered, “We created a power vacuum. How could we have been so stupid…”
He tried not to react with too much wistfulness, but damn was the sour strong, and damn were his eyelids weak. And fuck the dirt that life was made from, and pity the ones who held themselves back. Some things hurt. Life hurt. But he was built to last, and he’d do so until he was forced under.
Born Claimed: A Dark Omegaverse Romance (Broken Angel Book 2) Page 19