“You’re a hunter,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes. You were born to kill.”
“As were you,” I muttered. “So, let’s get this over with. You said it earlier. Humans are destined to play out their trauma. It’s like a game to your kind, but each of you fails to recognize the real impact of your actions. I took advantage of your hospitality. Does that make me deserve death? Kill me then.”
“You saw her. You took her. You did whatever the hell you wanted. The way I see it, you’re an intruder. The manual has strict orders for intruders. Eradication by any means necessary,” he said, standing straight.
“I gave her what she wanted,” I said with a weak grin. He smacked it off my face and pulled on the lever of my chains, raising me higher into the air.
The shame was tough to handle. I was supposed to be better than this, but my sins were catching up to me. I saw Mia and the goodness she represented. She’d made me yearn to wear that pussy down, to give her a baby, and I lost track of what was at stake. I complicated things.
Yes, I had a fucking bounty over my head. So it went. I did what I had to do to the people who wanted to murder my race. I helped detonate bombs. We blew through the first wave of soldiers. I shot down their monoliths of war. And when we were shackled, I helped lead the rebellion.
We were their slaves, but I would kneel for no man.
It was a noble cause, but all noble causes come to an end.
When they came to eradicate us, our group had already started to fall apart. Tensions were high. Some of our most beloved had already taken their lives. They were our heroes and martyrs, but it didn’t feel like anything special. They killed themselves because they knew they’d be tortured, knew we’d all experience hell. The more who died, the more distant I became.
All hell broke loose. Detonations went off around the capitals, and, somehow, I found a way out. Our men and women, now a worldwide coalition of force, surrounded the city exits. No one would leave. No one would return.
It was my calling. One by one, like valiant soldiers, we held our formation, forming a wall around the capital. Our oppressors gave the count. Ten to one.
As I watched my brothers and sisters’ bodies explode, felt their hot blood splatter across my face, I went ballistic.
Fire warmed my body, but my heart was destroyed. Everyone was dead or dying, and I couldn’t focus on anything. Bombs shredding the ancient roads threw me back. My father... he grabbed my arm and told me to run.
I hesitated, but he pushed and ordered me to leave. I looked at my father for the last time and saw a noble warrior. He was a man who would sink with the ship, no matter what.
I retreated like a fucking coward.
I’d lied to Mia, but not in the way that Cade thought. She knew about the rebellion, about the blood I spilled. I lied to her when I said that I didn’t miss my family. I needed her more than she knew.
“The woman is mine,” I commanded.
Cade took another swig of whiskey before holding the emptied bottle up to the light. Clasping the handle, he broke it over my head. Glass sprayed everywhere. My skin cracked, spreading blood across my vision. This was torture.
“I’m getting that bounty money, Talis Critas,” he said, palm caked with whiskey, blood, and glass. He walked toward the exit.
“They’ll just murder you,” I said. “If you’re even granted access to their planet, you are a human, vastly inferior to so many of us in the universe. And you—you’re inferior to your own kind. They will take me, kill you, and stand me on trial. You will have failed.”
“A deal is a deal,” he said.
He wouldn’t make it there to get the money, anyway. Even if he did survive the trip and their brutality, what kind of a life could he make? I had no doubt he was running through those thoughts in his mind without really studying the consequences. He was so cunning at times, but his greed was strong.
“Just leave Mia alone,” I said. “Whatever you decide to do, this is about me.”
He stopped and didn’t even turn. Facing the door, he just laughed. “Mia? That pretty little sunflower? How do you expect me to hold back on that one?”
I was tiring. Hung in the air, I could feel my blood flow cold. It was hard to keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time. I was wanted, dead or alive, and he was leaving me here to die.
Cade walked over to a screen on the exit door. He punched in a few numbers, before the lights flashed over our heads. Soon enough, the alarm systems blared like a screaming heartbeat:
“Emergency shutdown period has begun. Please initiate offline sequence overhaul or all systems will be terminated.”
Layered in red-and-white glaring lights, I closed my eyes and shook my head. The last month had been the worst in history.
I was giving up. In a few minutes, the ship would self-destruct. All the food would perish. The oxygen levels would begin to decrease. Those in the cryo-chamber would suffocate in their plastic body bags, woken from a nightmare, knowing one thing only: the people of Earth had failed.
Cade grabbed the crowbar and headed for the exit. Before he got through the door, he stopped and smiled. “You know what? Screw the bounty. This ship is going down, but yours is attached to the cargo hold, right? I’m thinking that I take sweet Mia. Who knows? Maybe we find a way out of this mess.”
They would die from his insolence. My child would eat its way through her womb before they could get out of here.
“When I find you, I’m going to ruin your body. I’m going to erase you from this universe. Do you hear me?”
Cade stopped, but he merely laughed.
He left. He was going to find my woman. I was powerless to stop him.
This was how it felt to be in love. An eternal fire, biting close to your ankles.
Despite my failures, there was still time. I heard the sound of footsteps coming from the other end. A person shrouded in darkness appeared. As the figure limped past the sequenced lights from the computers, they came out of the darkness, carefully wielding an assault rifle. She was covered in blood, and nearly fell over when she saw me.
“Juliana?”
“Help me,” she whimpered.
But just before I could get her to explain, I looked up.
Everything seemed to slow down. Cade appeared one last time. “On second thought, you can both take the bounty and shove it.”
He waved, and I watched his other arm crack the airlock loose. As soon as the door whooshed open, he ran, diving down into the ducts underneath the platform.
“Juliana!” I screamed. “Hold on, dammit!”
The door opened, and that’s when our bodies flew out into the vast darkness of space.
12
Mia
Running.
Running. The center starts to chip.
It will not hold.
Our existence hangs by a thread...
Running.
I felt useless and lost in a maze of confusion. Every corner I crept by led me farther away from everyone. The lights were on the fritz again. Sometimes the hallways would glow before shutting down to complete darkness. The temperature was changing, too. Now that the command module had shut down, the air was cooling, causing condensation to build around every inch of the ship.
I couldn’t see a way out of this. The lights would flicker on for moments, and I’d run forward, grabbing onto the nearest pole or handle I could find. Then, I’d be shut out again. My ears would pick up on footsteps. I could hear faint murmurs, but I had no idea where they were coming from.
Lost and afraid, I glanced out of one of the windows. We had been floating for days without any power to the ship’s engine. I looked into that dark abyss and then down at my belly. I was changing so fast, it was remarkable.
If I lost Talis, I’d lose everything. My child. Our child.
I needed a place to rest. I could feel it within me, growing at such a rapid rate it worried me. I needed him to guide me through this, but I couldn’t find him,
no matter how hard I tried.
I kept running until I reached the familiar control center. Half expecting to see Cade, I stopped and carefully lowered to the floor. A sharp pain ricocheted throughout my belly, and I seized, but it slowly eased up. Regaining some strength and balance, I crawled toward the system lock. I initiated the retinae scan and waited for the appropriate green light to flash and issue a positive-sounding beep. Instead, the red light shut off, and the computer locked down. “No, no, no.” I hunched to type in the override password.
A green screen appeared with red font in the center: Override Denied. Please try again.
With haste, I reentered the password. Again, the warning popped up. I tried one more time, but when it failed, the lights turned off around me. One by one, the computer’s fans slowed to a halt. There was no longer any technological hum. The room was silent and still, except for the liquid sound of the overrun condensation dripping from above.
I was fucked. I wanted to scream for Juliana, for Talis, for... well, the rest were dead. Butchered by a bastard we should have quarantined long ago. With all the systems down, the cryo-chamber must have been terminated. Their vitals would be unresponsive.
As fast as I could without sight, I ran back toward the ship’s interior, where the cryo-chamber were. The door was open. The cold and foggy mist was evaporating near the edge of the door. There was the harsh glow of red flashing lights. There were blaring alarms, one for each sector of the ship. I walked into that room, but I already knew they were dead.
I found them in their bags. Lifeless. Their expressions were stiff and pained like some of them had been trying to escape from the inside.
Tears stung my eyes. A cold chill ran through me before I fell against the wall, gasping and choking with an aching melancholy. I turned away and covered my mouth, breathing to center myself once more, but it was so hard. I was alone now. Cade had Talis, and I hadn’t a clue how to fix this.
I nearly broke down, but there was a job to be done, and I was the only one left to do it. One by one, I dragged the bodies toward the hatch to the outside. I geared up slowly, clasping my mask over my face, breathing in the stale oxygen supply. And crying. Because nothing was going to be fixed. Because we were all going to die here.
I secured myself in and opened the hatch door. I felt the heaviness of space, so empty and hollow, yet full of something evil. “We were never supposed to come here,” I said as the bodies floated down into the space below the ship. I closed the hatch and watched their bodies slip away, already frozen in time.
I needed to get back to the control center, but I didn’t run. I simply took my suit off and walked back. It felt like I had nothing left to gain. And that meant I had nothing left to lose.
“Starship T1-95 Pandorum to mission control. We have an emergency. Do you copy?”
It was the first real call home in years. I waited for the sound of a voice, but I couldn’t hear anything over the alarm systems. Not that I expected them to answer. “T1-95 Pandorum to mission control. We have an emergency. Do you read me?”
This was it, my breaking point. I thought coming here would change things. I thought I could change the course of humanity. But out here, I’d only learned one thing. Fear, violence, and sex were the three guiding forces of life. I faced two out of three. Now, it was time to face my fears.
“Cade!” I screamed against the sirens of emergency, running down the steel corridor.
I slipped against the growing wetness of the interior. Another sharp pain stabbed against my stomach, so severe I screamed out of necessity. Something was happening to me. Changes. The seed. It was so powerful...
I writhed on the floor, hands hovering over my stomach. I didn’t want to know, didn’t want to feel it, but I lowered my palm and felt something swell and push against my flesh.
Vomit projected from my throat and guts, leaving me wet and breathless, a weakened woman sprawled out on the floor. I closed my eyes and listened to the humming of the outside, the near-perfect silence we existed inside of.
It was feeding off me. My baby. It was a girl. Somehow, I could already tell.
I shifted onto my side and let out a guttural scream. Whatever was happening would kill me.
Talis had warned me. An alpha should never breed a non-omega. Apparently, our bodies just weren’t made for it. The knotting was a bit unnerving, but every time I thought about the suction, the true care of his cock, I wanted it again. How was that alpha not made to fuck me?
I managed to push back onto my legs before using the wall to stand again. Slowly, but surely, I made my way toward the end of the hallway. I wasn’t going fucking anywhere. If I did, it would be after I took care of the asshole who destroyed everything.
I knew it was Cade before I saw his gangly body cut through the brief-and-flickering light. He paused and focused on me.
“Cade,” I growled and clutched my stomach, feeling more of my child as it bucked inside me. The gestation period; it wasn’t possible for it happen this fast.
“You know, I don’t even want the bounty.”
I stumbled against the wall, ignoring his words. My pistol dangled from my hand, knocking against my hip.
I grew more and more anxious. The longer I walked, the more pain I felt. The stronger I wanted to be, the weaker I became. I was a fading star, one who couldn’t face the facts. We were supposed to die here. So why was I still acting like a hero?
“You were saying something?” I asked.
Finally, the barrel of my gun was against the center of his stomach. One move and more than enough bullets would rip through his liver and intestines. A sign of worry flashed on his face before he erased it with fury.
Moving closer to me, so close that the toes of his shoes tapped my boots, he lowered his voice and traced his fingers around the front end of the barrel. “I don’t want the fucking bounty,” he repeated.
“What bounty?” He had to be talking about Talis.
“The alien you so desperately whored yourself out to keeps secrets,” he said, pushing his stomach into the gun until it was now or never.
“What secrets?” I urged him to answer me.
“He destroyed an entire race of people, Mia. Millions of innocent lives, destroyed. Poof. And without any reservations either.” His voice was almost nonchalant. He was enjoying this far too much. And when he knew I had no evidence to refute this claim, he pushed the doubt in further. “You let the most dangerous man in the universe fuck your brains out. Now, you’re giving birth to his child. I ask you because I’m a friend. What is your plan here?”
Friend? Plan? The most dangerous man in the universe?
It took me by surprise. Talis was a brute, but he promised to be there for me. “I don’t believe it,” I said, taking a step back. “His planet was destroyed by the people who kept them slaves.”
What felt like electric shocks pulsed inside my ovaries. I lurched forward but kept my gun pointed. Cade’s smile definitely didn’t comfort me.
“He took you and raped you. And now, look around. We’re alone here, Mia. Not only has the world forgotten about us, but so has your... alpha,” he said.
“I... he’s coming,” I said with tears in my eyes. I was holding onto the belief that he didn’t use me, that there was no bounty, and that he was what he said he was. I wanted the good convict back, the alpha who let down his guard for one girl. Was it really all a lie?
Cade couldn’t stop himself. He took hold of the barrel and squeezed until his palm weighed the gun down. “He took you,” he said, licking the dryness away from the red valleys of his chapped lips. “He took you before I could ever get a chance. But now, you know the truth. We’re dying here, Mia. Everyone is dead, and we’re the last ones walking. I don’t care about the bounty anymore. The last memory I want to enjoy is fucking your skull clean as you die.”
There were no more smiles. The need for philosophical discussion had come and gone. The only thing left to do was pull the trigger.
Cade got one thing wrong. I didn’t give a fuck about anything anymore. Whatever Talis got himself into, he did it for his people. I was sure of it. I would stand by my man.
I clenched my finger around that firm metal hook and prepared for the kickback of the gun to fuck up shoulder. But the gun just jammed, and I wasn’t a trained killer.
Cade shoved the barrel down, knocking the butt of the rifle against the bridge of my nose. I crumpled to the floor, a mess of rushing blood and sinus heat. I couldn’t see, nor could I move. The pain was so abrupt I thought I might black out.
I should have blacked out.
Cade stood over me, looking pleased with his capture. He took my hair by the roots and pulled me up, observing as the streams of red formed into large droplets. “Sometimes, I miss home.”
He dragged me across the floor.
“Sometimes I miss it so much it drives me fuckin’ mad!” he shrieked and pulled harder.
My entire backside slid against the rough metal floors, and, every now and then, he’d nudge my head up by my hair just to get a rise out of me.
Cade was losing steam. As he dragged my body, his breathing quickened, and his eyes drooped with exhaustion. Sometimes, a man can turn powerful at the moment of his crisis, I thought.
The casualties of our space shuttle would always haunt me. I’d never rid myself of what I had seen and experienced. But this place, Cade, and all of the bad that came with it would not be remembered by anyone else. Somehow, that was comforting.
“I miss the mugginess of Louisiana the most,” he went on. “Miserable summers. Nothing to do except sit and watch the trees sway, the leaves lookin’ like the hair on Sasquatch’s ass. I miss the crawdad festivals. I miss the women. The bars. I miss being free and... I miss pussy. Don’t mind if you’re pregnant, honey.”
“You’re disgusting,” I said, spitting blood onto the floor.
He looked at me and laughed like I just got the joke. Only, it wasn’t a joke.
He practically swung me forward, stuffing my body into a room past the hallway. I managed to find some last bit of energy and lunged forward. He knocked my back with a crowbar, hard enough to lay me down flat.
Seed: A Dark Sci-Fi Omegaverse Romance (Alpha Unknown Book 2) Page 9