“She is close,” he muttered.
The stench of her haunted him. Every alley he searched stank of her blossoming cunt. Lowering his nostrils, he roughly inhaled the skin of his fingers. “Mm,” he moaned.
Another army nearly found them in the city. He knew his brother would be dumb enough to visit the old safe house, but he didn’t expect to be greeted with the sight of their helicopters. His intelligence team let him down, nearly steering them into a suicide mission. Naturally, they would have to be put to death.
Cassian was given Vash’s charcoaled kits, the DNA swabs ruined by the swift demolition. If Cassian didn’t find his brother first, he would surely die from the parasite.
A fiend of an alpha stood before Cassian, displaying the picture of an unknown beta. “Got one squawking in the barracks.”
Cassian didn’t move. “Kill him.”
Everything had been in reach until Vash stepped in. This was supposed to be the time when his empire manifested from underneath his calloused feet. It had to start with the omega. Without her, he couldn’t achieve greatness.
He could hear his mother’s breathing mix with the radio signals in his earpiece. Adjusting the silicon knob, he bit down and prepared for the abrupt change in frequency. “I didn’t want to leave our quarters,” he said.
“It was for your own good. You’re getting closer to finding her every single day,” she said.
He’d rather be back with the copies. Even if they were too dumb to understand their situation, it gave him more comfort to be around his creations than mix with the brutes on the outside. “And if they’ve already knotted her? You have carefully avoided the question.”
“You mustn’t manifest these images,” his mother said, voice crawling into his cerebral cortex.
Cassian’s eyes searched for someone else to blame other than himself. Noticing an officer of the high command walking from a set of tall pillars of cracking rock, he locked eyes with the man. “You’re right, Mother. I will remain… optimistic.”
He imagined her pleased face, wrinkles caressing a noble smile. “Good boy.”
The thuggish creature stopped and threw a blade into the sand. Kneeling with grace, the brute bowed his head. “Sir. We’ve found a lead.”
Cassian reached for his blade to slowly run it through his gut, but the alpha had said the words he had been waiting to hear for weeks. “A specialist was found crushed in the pipes. Says he knows where to find your brother.”
Cassian followed the officer to the corroded steps away from the sands. Barnacles clung to the edges as the toxic water clung to them. The smell was rancid—Cassian always loved the shores of this continent.
“He was never my brother,” Cassian muttered. “Where is the specialist?”
“The Omega Unlimited nightclub.”
Cassian looked up at the skyline of the city and felt nothing. The fires from the areas of destitution fanned against the looming buildings. The entire horizon was sulfur yellow.
Cassian brought his hand around the butt of his blade and squeezed the tough leather. “You took him there?” But before the man could speak, he cut into the trader’s abdomen and watched him gawk with perplexity.
He abhorred that place. Naturally, all of the talent was of her code. EC23. Wren. They were flawed units. As new varieties were born, the old models were filtered out through a time-based system. Four years of work before complete eradication.
He despised seeing the old models.
The substandard copies could not bear life. Still, they weren’t like the betas. They produced slick and pungent scents. Cassian monetized the ones he didn’t kill, banishing them to a different kind of slavery.
The club sector was a cesspool of debauchery and scum. As he pushed his way through the crowded streets, he looked up at the neon insignia in the middle of the courtyard. The image of a black mamba gagging on its tail was the perfect metaphor for everyone around him. Time would catch up to them, and once it did, they’d be forced to choke on its excrement.
Below the luminescent entrance of Omega Unlimited, a speaker blared the words: “I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning of the end.”
As soon as Cassian set foot in the darkened establishment, everyone stopped to gawk at the brute. Even the copies stopped dancing to gaze at him.
Walking toward a drunken trader, he forced his hand around his throat, tightening to an extreme. “Where is he?”
The man gagged as Cassian collapsed his cartilage. “Useless,” Cassian said, tossing him to the side. Feeling his anger get the best of him, he walked toward the copies.
“I could kill you all just like him. One by one, I could watch your bodies burn on the shore.”
“You are looking for your brother?” The thin and wavering voice reverberated from a nearby room.
Cassian didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he made his way toward the doctor, fists tightening. “You cured him,” he finally grunted.
The doctor’s head had been dressed with gauze, but the blood had already begun to soak through. Backing into the corner wall of the room, he cleared his throat. “Only temporarily,” the doctor protested.
Shutting the door with force, Cassian made sure nobody could see or hear them speak. “When it comes to my release, I don’t have a preference for gender. Don’t make me take you here. It will hurt more than your head.”
Acknowledging his weakness, the doctor kneeled and scowled. “You’re right. I came to you, not for my own advantage.”
“I employ 25 percent of this city,” Cassian growled.
“Including me,” he said.
Cassian reached for his holster, where a long pistol lay strapped. “Your advantage is quite clear.”
“Either way. The world must go on. Your ideas must continue to spread,” he said.
Ideas spread like a virus. Cassian didn’t care about the meaning behind his actions as long as he got to the goal. Even if he didn’t, he’d be remembered. His death would mean nothing against the grand realization that the copies would bring the new world.
“Are you a prophet?” Cassian asked.
The doctor stumbled on his words and tried to work back through his error. “I am not,” he said, “but—”
Cassian pulled out the pistol and arched it down against the sopping mess of blood. “Who are you then?”
Closing his eyes, the sad sack lunged forward with crocodile tears. “I am just a loyal servant.”
“You offer cures to God’s afflictions,” Cassian said. “Who gave you the right to direct the course of the world, beta?”
“I am not laudable,” he said.
Cassian’s voice was thunderous. “You are pathetic. You aren’t worthy enough to untie the straps of my sandals.”
Sputum graced his lips and chin. “I am just a voice who calls to you for forgiveness,” he said.
Cassian cocked the handgun, cringing when the metal clicked into place. “Where is he?”
Finally, real tears boiled against his aging eyelids. Leaning forward, he laid prostrate and vulnerable. “They spoke of the barracks.”
Firmly planted on the trigger, Cassian felt the warm heat of the gun explode outward like entropy. His wanton disregard for any life but his own or his mother’s was clear. The doctor slumped in a pool of ordure, now past his prime.
He got what he came for. Next, he’d have Vash and the concubine begging for his seed.
Chapter Nine
Surrounded by the sound of the pouring rain, Wren clung to the bed sheets and cowered. Her ears were focused on the abrupt tapping, but with each window boarded up, Wren had to leave her imagination to paint the stormy scene around her beautiful house.
“I don’t want to leave,” she whispered.
Weeks ago, she would have been ecstatic to escape. But as she found a new rhythm with the alphas, she wouldn’t accept their exit. The men had coddled her too much. They fed her fruit and took a liking to her cheery, chubby smiles.
“Precious, we can’t stay in the city. We’ve discussed this,” Vash said.
Wren didn’t understand their reasoning. Would she be forced to move every few weeks? Was that what omegas were forced to do?
Sitting on the mattress, Killian traced a finger around the lock of her collar. “You must listen to us, Precious,” he said.
Wren looked at the alpha and sighed. “You’re right.”
Naturally, the ovulation ritual was of biological imperative. They tended to each wound and fed her pills to filter out the pain. When she was healthy, the alphas checked her lips, savoring the fluctuating flavors.
Lucas moaned and fed her a taste. “Delightful.”
Twisting Wren’s taut nipples, Killian lowered his mouth and applied heat to her neck. His rough facial hairs scratched her like sandpaper. Strangely, she enjoyed it. “Do you adore the taste of your pussy, Precious?”
They’d taught her so many words, too. “Pussy,” she whispered.
Wren gulped the sour taste down and smiled. As she enjoyed the warmth Killian gave her body, she sank into his wide chest. “You have taught me to enjoy so many different things,” she said.
As cute as Wren was, Vash ignored her new optimism. Glancing down at her fine heap of pubic hair, he asked the men, “What is the viscosity and transparency of her vaginal excretions?”
“No more clear, bright crimson blood,” Killian said, cruelly.
“She won’t bleed anymore,” Lucas said.
Leaning over Killian’s body, Wren felt her pride escalate. “I have learned how to take you.” She giggled.
Vash bent his mouth over the prickly muff. Tasting the viscid slick that leaked like slow-moving lava, he held her legs spread. “She will reach the peak of her ovulation in a few days’ time,” he said.
Killian nodded but looked slightly worried. The barracks wasn’t a safe place for fugitive traders, such as them. If Cassian was to find them somewhere, it was there. “Will we make her a nest in the barracks?”
Lost in thought, Vash said, “I’m not sure.”
Admittedly, he hadn’t thought that part of the plan through. He and the alphas talked it through for days but couldn’t agree on the next steps. Lucas, for one, was completely against the idea.
“The barracks is big enough to blend in,” Vash argued.
Lucas’s eyes flashed so wicked Wren’s backside curled against Killian for more support. “I don’t give a flying fuck. I’m not risking my life for this.”
“Aidrick. He’s my Plan B,” Vash said.
“He will turn us in, the snake,” Lucas hissed.
Aidrick was a trader from the south sea border zones, near the coast of Dagon. Though he wasn’t technically a part of Cassian’s regime, he benefited from their business. Vash always thought of him as a good friend, but it was clear Lucas thought differently.
“I need those kits, Lucas,” Vash said, trying not to argue in front of the omega.
“Then buy the kits in Dagon. There are street vendors on every corner,” Lucas said. “I don’t understand the danger of staying in a city like Dagon. For one, there are enough CTV cameras to fill an island. Two, it’s practically run by Cassian and his men. Sure, the barracks weren’t safe, but we have a better chance of keeping the bitch in our control if we keep moving.”
“The tests have a high probability of being faulty,” Vash argued. “Plus, you know the regulations put on doctors and specialists.”
“Used to be we didn’t have to follow the law,” Lucas said.
“When a citizen makes an appointment with any specialist, it must be documented with the correct identification software to register the person’s thumbprint,” Vash said.
Killian wound his arms around Wren’s soft body, squeezing lightly. “Vash is right. We need to be careful. We don’t have the privilege we used to have.”
“What makes you so sure we’ll find what we need in the barracks?” Lucas asked.
Killian felt the urge to throw fists. The more he thought about the future, the less certain he became. “Whether we like it or not, we need to keep moving.”
Vash wanted to keep her as she was. The outside world was full of things that could taint the omega, reintroducing her to ideas that would ultimately lead to her regression. None of them wanted that, but the looming threat of torturous imprisonment and even death seemed like a worse fate.
Vash slammed his fist against the drywall until it left the prints of his knuckles. “Enough!” he screamed. “Cassian’s overconfidence and stupidity led me to her. Me. I found her, which is why it is now my choice to make the next move.”
Lucas showed his rage. “We will not make her nest in that… place.”
“Very well,” Vash said.
None of the arguing should have been done in front of Wren. When they hurled insults at each other, it frightened the brittle flower, now closer to ovulation and, in the near future, child rearing. If they kept it up, she would surely try to make a run for it.
“Please stop fighting,” she whispered, soft and sweet.
The men stopped and stared at her. Continuing, she spoke up, despite the consequences. “Lucas, we must go to the barracks. Do you wish for Vash to die?”
Lucas sucked in a deep breath and exhaled. “No. The pack’s legacy is important to me.”
“Then, we will go. When we buy the kits, we will head to a safe place where you can knot, and then I will nest. I know where we can go,” she said.
The three alphas lurched over her. “Where?” Vash asked.
“My hometown, Varikar,” she said. “There is a doctor there. You can get the treatment you need.”
“You will not be reunited with your family,” Lucas warned.
Most of the villages had been overrun with traders and the like. Varikar, wherever the hell that was, would be no different.
“We talk later,” Killian said. “For now, we should keep moving forward.”
Her wreckage and ruin had been cleaned and tidied. All trace of their squatting had been cleared with the utmost attention. If another pack of traders found the abandoned home, they would come out empty-handed.
After the men dressed her in thick robes to mask her identity, they left the house, never to return.
Screeching, the train came to a sliding halt near the crowded platform. “How many more stops?” Lucas asked, eyes searching the passengers who boarded.
“Just keep your hoods up and stop talking,” Killian muttered.
Vash dug his fingers into the omega’s waist as he eyed two possible traders boarding the rundown train. Looking at his feet, he paused until their scent wafted into the back of the car before speaking up. “Sixty seconds before we get into the barracks.”
Every movement was a risk. Omegas could move freely with their owners, but with Cassian’s brand, any authority could see that they didn’t own her.
As the train sped forward, Lucas stared through the crowd of fetid alphas, hand on his holster.
Wren watched him curiously but did not say a word.
True, Wren had only spent a few weeks under their control and care, but she had a general sense of how they worked. The bond of their pack connected them, but she wondered how far that went.
“Hey, you.” A cold-blooded alpha stood before Wren. Her glossy eyes rolled upward to face the man.
Killian stood up and removed his revolver, pressing it into the man’s gut. “Get moving.”
Smiling, the man revealed his rotting teeth. “Persuasive, aren’t you?”
“One blast is all it takes to remove you from history,” Killian growled.
But the man didn’t seem to care. Forcing his hand around the barrel, he stepped forward. Still, he looked at Wren, and not the men.
“All I want is your forgiveness,” he whispered.
The ringing of her ears seemed to occur before the gun actually went off, but Wren knew it to be a trick of the mind. Strangely, Wren noticed that the rest of the passengers had lowered their heads
. She was the only one still staring at the man’s exploded head. His body, a sunken mass near the moving doors, spilled more blood.
Killian quickly holstered the dripping and blistering weapon. “Fuck me,” he grunted.
Vash cursed under his breath and stood up with his hand in his jacket pocket. A stale attempt at rectifying the pitiless murder, he pulled out a small badge that flashed Cassian’s insignia with neon cathodes. The ones who peeked at the logo, quickly looked away in fright.
When the train car stopped for a second time, Vash yanked Wren up and onto the platform. The station itself was unlike anything she had seen, though that had become a trend for her.
Wren couldn’t stop thinking about the man in the train. “Why did he ask for my forgiveness?”
Ignoring Wren’s badgering questions, Vash pulled her through the front doors. Outside, a group of drunken traders bumped Wren’s frail body, causing her to fall to her knees. She gazed up at the tall arena that stood a short walk away from the station.
“I didn’t expect this,” she whispered.
Killian pushed her forward and out of sight. “Too much talking,” he said. “You’ll get us killed.”
Lucas followed them to the entrance of the small base. “Welcome to our old home.”
And that’s when she realized where they actually were. The barracks was the main camp for the alpha slave traders who worked under Cassian.
Walking inside the arena, Wren saw the number of alphas near her and felt the sudden urge to cower and run. “No,” she whispered. “W-we can’t stay here!”
Vash threw her forward with a hard smack. If she simply complied, the rest of the alphas wouldn’t ask to see her branding. Even if they did, Vash could probably come up with a lie that stuck. After all, he was the savage’s brother.
Wren’s careless acting out didn’t help their cause. “Would you like to go back in the closet?” he asked. She shook her head. “Head down, before somebody sees you.”
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