Born Captive

by Penelope Woods

  Her tongue pried her lips apart. Despite her reluctance to let go, she had been molded before. It was simply a question of whether or not these men were better than the former. She had more questions to ask, but it was obvious to her now that she wasn’t only to be used like a dirty sock puppet. There was more to this.

  “I’m Lucas. The big guy you seem to trust? He’s Killian. You’ve met Vash. He pretty much leads our section of the pack,” he said.

  Wren was confused. “Pack?”

  Killian groaned and smacked Lucas’s arm. “Get back to it,” he said.

  Lucas dropped to the floor. Waving for Vash to bring the syringes, cotton swabs, and various holders, he let out a sigh of deep calm.

  Killian took a cotton swab from Vash and collected her saliva. She tasted the oil from his hands and hacked, dry. Snatching her tongue, he exhaled, low.

  “Here it is,” he said. “Odd placement.”

  Wren slithered her tongue back and rested the slippery muscle behind her front teeth. “I’ve… I’ve never seen it,” she whispered.

  She’d felt it—although, at times, she forgot about it. But she knew ownership was important. It kept families together. It was the backbone to healthy fertility.

  But, as all the omegas experienced back at the facility, strong prayers went to the dead and came back as empty. The women found themselves on their kneecaps every night, whispering away the demons and chirping for the light that never came.

  The world was more rigid than she knew. It still ran in the same way as before. Only, now, alphas felt less of their shame. Business was cutthroat. Instability ravaged economies. Cities were held together by the quality of their industries. Sex, violence, and voyeuristic needs for glamour bathed them in ravenous poverty and unappeasable thirst.

  But some people existed to survive.

  “Got it?” Vash was too dazed to pay attention, but he was sure he saw it on her tongue. The serpent choking on its own asshole. There was no mistaking it.

  That was the world.

  He jerked his hand into a drawer and pulled out a small glass vial. Hands shaking, he bit into the cap and choked back the drops of health that remained inside. He shivered and let out an exasperated cry of regeneration.

  Lucas shuddered. “Will you manage? This could take weeks.”

  Vash quickly nodded, but the writhing, gnawing sensation coming from his leaky gut arched his body against the wall. With a sharp inhale, he laughed. “With her, I can make my own serum.”

  “Myths,” Killian warned.

  “I believe they are real. An omega’s filth is our vitality. From the moment they give their cunt to the world, it’s our burden to cowl and ride them into the womb of the earth,” Lucas said, neck inching forward.

  The other two alphas looked about as uncomfortable as he felt. The city was bustling with people, and they’d just blown the shit out of one of the breeding domes. The crime was huge. The omegas inside would go to waste, like spoiled produce. Their owners would post the bounty. They’d hunt for their whores like a toolpusher drills for oil.

  Feeling quick exuberance take over his body, Vash took the swab and inserted it into a glass ampoule. Forcefully, he took Wren’s hand and poked her finger with a sharp needle, collecting the thin blood.

  Wren shuddered back. “Ouch!”

  Lucas squeezed her cheek and bent to lick her all the way to the temple. “Precious. We’re almost done here.”

  Vash towered above her with new strength. He could have broken her if he only wanted to break a woman, but he had more important worries than forcing an omega to submit. The wounds that covered his body had faded into small markings, only hints of something devastating.

  He held the needle and made sure to wait for the tip to heat up. Wren backed, scurrying across the cement floor until the base of her spine hit the drywall.

  “W-what is that?”

  Vash grinned and knelt toward her. She rolled into a ball. “Oh, come now. Don’t tell me you’ve never been scented before.”

  Killian rolled his fingers into a fist. “You’re taking her scent for your own pleasure?”

  Vash swiped the hot needle away from his sight but clicked the vacuum on. “Stay put.”

  Lucas looked betrayed. He took her tongue once more to inspect.

  Curiously, Vash observed as the hood above her clit swelled. Beneath her nest of pubic hair, her lips were closed, but a drop of liquid dripped down the hanging flesh. Vash reached down and swabbed her to collect.

  That’s when he arched the hollow needle against her neck. The prick dug inside her skin, latching into neighboring pores. Her scent flowed through the tube underneath until it sat enclosed in a plastic bin below.

  “Sometimes, it feels like my heart has ripped in half,” she said, falling across the floor like an angel with broken wings. The gold that fragmented her hair sparkled against the faulty lighting of the room.

  Vash had to let the samples sit before he could make use of their contents. If he could. There was always that possibility, even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it.

  “It’s over,” he said.

  When he drank the tonic, all of his tensions eased.. The alpha inside of him washed away into a sea of weakness.

  Vash eyed Lucas and Killian curiously. “I’ll be in bed shortly. We may need to filter out the negative swabs.”

  They left the room, but Killian kept his eyes on Vash until he passed the doorway.

  “All of what I did is to your benefit,” Vash explained. He waited for a response, but when she stayed silent, he noted her resilience. It would be a problem for him, he decided. Still, he continued.

  “Your neck won’t be sore tomorrow, and the tests will come back positive.”

  Wren blinked her eyes and wobbled sideways against him. “Tests?” she whispered.

  Wren looked away and rubbed the crook of her neck.

  “You’ll cure me,” he said.

  Vash sat above Wren. Despite his lack of hunger, he still wanted to claim her. But she bore the brand on her tongue. She was his. Well, it was a gesture of faith that the public would hold an insignia as contract. The pack would wait until their crimes caught up with them.

  Nothing mattered except the omega.

  “You’re hymen is intact,” he said, proudly.

  Wren nodded. “I guess he didn’t handle me,” she said. “Not all the way.”

  “But I could,” Vash said, gloating. “I could bend you and twist you around until you burst with my seed. If I wanted to, I could knot into your guts and pull them out onto the floor.”

  He felt his heart start to beat. Finally, his cock stirred in his pants.

  Wren’s greasy, matted hair fell across her face as she lowered her eyes. Her back arched—a glaring display of her lack, that sexual need that only an alpha could fulfill. Vash was fully aware that she had been through the hell of dying already. Now, she appeared as ready for the inevitable, the final knotting that would seal her fate as a thoroughbred piece of cunt.

  “I know,” she said. “And if that’s what you need, I’ll give you all the slick you can handle.”

  Her eyes rolled up to peer at him, soft like a kitten’s. Vash cocked his chin forward and bit her lip, pulling and clipping too hard. He sucked around the soft cushions of her mouth and slowly dug his way to her tongue.

  He enjoyed the sweet taste of her amphibious licking, but the more he let her tempt him, the more he grew enraged. In a few days, he would start to decline into a mess of pus and leaking death.

  His hands tightened around her skull, squeezing to break. At the final moment, he let go and gave her space. “I can do whatever the fuck I want because you’re mine. And once I have you, the pack has you. They’ll share your glistening nectar and pour the liquid into a trough for us to bathe in together and gorge. We’ll tie your body on a stick and furrow our faces into your pubic hair. Lucas will suck your clit raw until you quiver with dull orgasm.”

  Wren felt each action
as he read the list off from his head. She wasn’t the only one who could do things, but the situation these men had on her was too big to overcome so soon.

  “Why do you do it?”

  He lowered his eyes on the pet. “Do what?”

  “Take.”

  Vash ran his tongue against his lips. “You either breed or you own. It’s in my nature, and it’s my pack who will have you until you’re bred dry. You will then tend to our needs.”

  But Wren looked at Vash and saw someone who had nothing. “You lack,” she whispered.

  Vash jerked forward. Standing above her, he placed his hand against her cheek.

  “Go to bed and dream, omega. Tomorrow, they will be full enough to breed you,” he said.

  Wren looked into his jet-black eyes and felt a rush of warmth spread between her legs. The feeling of pleasure was followed by guilt’s heavy hand of remembrance. She had been taken before. She’d be taken again.

  All she wanted was to do the taking.

  Chapter Five

  The smell of oil and acrid blood. The painful blast of cold to the heart. The taste of dirty fingers to palm, clasping around dainty lips.

  Fragmented flower.

  Wilting mother.

  Tree from which I bloomed.

  Wren opened her eyes to darkness. One quick lift from the floor, and she was pulled into the warm and binding arms of Lucas. His tattoos coiled around her throat like an anaconda.

  “Sh, sh, sh,” he whispered. “Heard something.”

  Wren felt her gut lurch from the sudden realization of danger, vomit pouring from her mouth onto Lucas’s palm. The thick liquid ran through his fingers, collapsing onto his knuckles and rolled onto her concrete bed. More than anything, she wished for her pills. If she could, she would have taken them all to drown in a sea of inflated love—the only love she knew.

  As she got used to the darkness, she listened to the sound of light footsteps coming from below the flat. Somewhere in the hallway below, people were moving and checking. She could hear the intruders comb through the building.

  No matter where she went, she was a target. Without a true guardian, she was up for grabs. Not even a marking made a difference. She was merely the final frontier of their disturbing and horrid sagas.

  The sounds faded into silence. The pack waited approximately two seconds before the feeling in the room turned into hesitant urgency. Killian peered through the open door.

  Suddenly, he waved everyone forward. Wren was silent against Lucas, skin and parts still exposed to the roughness of his tactical clothing. Slowly reaching upward, he pulled a set of goggles down over his eyes. The other hand loosely gripped a pistol, elbow jerking in Wren’s sternum.

  “Don’t worry. I can see. Stay near me,” he whispered. “They won’t kill a prized omega.”

  “What do they want?” Wren whispered.

  Hushed tones against her eardrum, whispering words only Wren could hear, Lucas said, “To bring you back.”

  Home.

  It was somewhere familiar. It was a place with a room. There were other omegas, too, but their delusional nature didn’t make for the best housemates. Not to mention, she would be transferred to a new facility, a highly guarded prison, somewhere on the opposite ends of the earth. That meant new doctors, new omegas, and a whole round of preparing her big fertility celebration. She was the right age.

  Why did her cunt have to be the source of so much pain? If she could carve her womb out from the core of her body, she would. She’d curl into a ball of flesh and bite a path inward.

  “We go,” Lucas whispered, nudging her forward.

  Pistol shaking, Lucas followed Killian and Vash.

  Vash bent and placed a key into the lock of the window. The bars released with a light clicking noise. He pushed the glass panes forward until the salt and gasoline air wheezed into their lungs.

  The first two alphas took a leap of faith into the night sky, falling onto the set of ropes that acted as a ceiling for the merchant-filled alleyways. Lucas lifted Wren’s tender body onto the windowsill, but she shuffled back against him.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  Lucas grinned and knocked her ankle with the side of his hand. Wren’s feet gave way, and the hand of gravity swung against her, tipping into the unknown. The stars above spun around her into a cobweb of broken dreams. Soon, her back hit the soft knots of the rope. Lucas dropped in after her, landing square on his feet.

  Killian ran forward and clutched the front of Vash’s shirt. “How the fuck did they find us?”

  Peering up at the balcony, Wren saw the flash of lights shining on the wall. A sharp frequency resonated throughout the flat before filtering back into a low rumble. A moment passed before the complex burst into flames and exploding concrete.

  “It’s not them,” Vash whispered. “It’s another militia group.”

  It was in this moment when the elephant in the room presented itself. She was the most important woman, the most fertile pussy in the world, and the alphas needed to knot and nest her quick.

  “Who the fuck?” Killian asked.

  Lucas bit his lip and shrugged. “Lots of people on our tail now. Could be bounty hunters looking for a quick buck.”

  Killian shook his head and suddenly stared at Wren with all the malice in the world. “No. They were soldiers. I saw them before you woke. They looked… fearless.”

  Vash pulled out a blade and tore at the netting. “It doesn’t matter. My fucking kits are ruined. I’ll have to start all over again.”

  Killian kicked the blade from Vash’s hand and stooped down with his own twisted razor stretched out flat. “Stop worrying about the kits and start telling me how we were found,”

  “As if I know.”

  “Please!” Lucas hissed. “They found us like they find anyone. Cunning ones always sniff out the cake, but we must get the fuck out of here if we want to breed into her frosting.”

  The men howled with laughter. Killian brought the blade into the rope, cutting a hole for the alley where they could get to cover.

  Wren stumbled onto the eroded cobblestone and fell. She would have surely broken her face had not she softened the blow with the back of her arms.

  Lucas swooped his arms down and pulled her up. “We won’t have you scuffed.”

  “I have a feeling it’s going to get a hell of a lot harder from here,” Killian said.

  Lucas jogged forward and licked the edge of his canine teeth. “Back to the pipes, eh?”

  Vash whipped his head angrily at them. “We had to go back, anyway.”

  Reaching into his bag, he drew out a set of clothes for her to wear. As she took the clothing into her hand, she saw that it was one size too small, but they would have to work.

  Trembling with exhaustion, she stepped into the thin panties and adjusted the tight shirt and jeans that hugged her moist mound with comforting security.

  Before Vash could run, Wren felt a surge of familiarity and took his hand. She hadn’t worn clothes in so long. The feeling that she was human took her by surprise. Soon, she was wrapped in her tears.

  “I won’t take a step until I know who you people are,” she said, quivering but strong.

  Wren waited for their answer, but the sounds of boots marched nearby. “Best keep moving,” Killian said and bound his fingers between her weakened biceps muscles.

  Wren jerked and bucked, but she could not break free. The four ran toward the other side of the alley, ducking into a recess near some garbage. As Lucas pressed his hand against the nape of her neck, Wren spotted a group of armed traders, shirtless and covered in thick, gray paint.

  “Who are they?” Wren whispered.

  Killian covered her mouth and leaned near her ear. “Soldiers from the old Republic.”

  “They lost their power for a reason. They don’t have resources to fight anymore,” Vash sneered.

  “Don’t be so quick to talk,” Lucas said. “They walk out in the open for a reason. Cassian has let
the region go to neglect. Give it a few years—they’ll be running the show soon enough.”

  As the militia coursed through the alleys, they wreaked havoc on neighboring flats. The sounds of omegas’ violent screams reverberated through the concrete valleys of the city. Succulent sounds of soldiers undoing holy wishes, ruining all that wasn’t the prize.

  She heard the gunshots ring out. Almost immediately, the sounds of a women’s begging stopped. One by one, the lights dimmed. The silence broke with the muffled tears from neighbors who restrained their loss as best they could.

  What kind of a mad world had Wren fallen into? There were no police in sight. No guards, no hero to speak on their behalf. The flesh of the ripe ruled over men’s thirsty tongues, and business went as far as it pleased the ruling class.

  Still, the alphas held her back and covered. Making sure she was safe to tend to their future wants, they kept her life intact and gave her the agency of a two-year-old. To Wren, that was somehow monumental, and the generosity allowed her to trust.

  In the middle of the pathway, there was a muddy manhole. Vash ran and quickly dug his hands into the filth. Twisting, he brought up the cover and stumbled back, dropping it to the side.

  “In.”

  The inside was damp and putrid. Decaying forms of all kinds hung across the wall like a living, breathing organism. A set of huddled and emaciated alphas stood in a nearby pack, eyes reflecting the purple hollow of their souls.

  Wren’s feet plopped into the contaminated water. Forced to wade through it, she gagged and held her breath.

  Lucas clasped a leash around her neck. He locked it in place before giving her a quick smack to the cheek. “Where you running off to, rat? Did you forget you’re our property?”

  “We established that I’m not yours,” she said.

  Lucas nudged her ankle and watched her fall into the sludge. “That’s twice,” he said.

  Vash hacked against the stench. “We shouldn’t be here.”

  “First things first. We get you on your feet again,” Lucas said.