Born Captive

by Penelope Woods

  “Teach me,” she said.

  “And then what?” Killian asked. “You turn on us and run?”

  “I will protect you like I did back in the barracks,” she sneered.

  It was the first time she’d talked back to one of the alphas, but she felt it warranted. Now that she had a weapon, she could stand on her own two feet.

  Vash held out the insignia tablet and let it shine brightly. “We are of the blood,” he said. “Soon, she will be, too. For now, we must accept her strengths and use them to our advantage. Cassian knows how we view situations. He has studied us with great care. With her, our movements will be more… unpredictable.”

  Reluctantly, Killian glanced at the omega. Her brown hair hung in thick waves across the front of her stunning face. Noticing her sudden strength, he was taken aback and a little bit annoyed. He had never seen a woman like her before.

  “I’m special,” she said, stepping forward with new confidence.

  “Yes. You are,” Killian said, tossing her a holster to wear. “But I’m afraid you won’t be able to handle your truth.”

  Killian turned around and kept walking. The worst part about this was that he knew he was connected to her now. They’d beaten her and bruised her into submission. Breaking her into a million pieces, they promised to be the glue that held her together. Turns out, she was the glue the entire time.

  Vash reached into his pocket and pulled out the second pill the doctor gave him. Swallowing it, he clenched his throat as it traveled through his burning esophagus.

  “We will go to Wren’s village, Varikar to find a specialist,” he said.

  Wren felt hope bloom inside her ribs. Such joy that she ran toward Vash and kissed him, bowing in obedient worship. “Thank you,” she said.

  “We will now breed you in your old bedroom. Thank us later.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The journey to Varikar was arranged and handled by a street vendor near the station. Out of money and forced into uncomfortable darkness for hours, the alphas didn’t say a word. Instead, they slept. Sometimes, when a bump would wake them, they would each take turns peering out of the bullet holes that traced the body of the vehicle.

  The packing truck took them deep into the country where houses were sparse and the old fragments of war stood petrified on the stage of unpaved roads and tilted wagon wheels.

  “I know this place,” Lucas whispered.

  Wren curled her chin against his chest. Her fingers traced a line around his deeply inked tattoos and other faint battle scars. There was something hidden inside him, a pain he wouldn’t dare let out until now.

  “You have been to Varikar?” she asked.

  “I grew up in a town south of here. It was not known as Varikar then,” he said.

  “But it must have been. I remember it so vividly,” she said.

  Lucas was prepared for her childish ideas. She had been groomed by Cassian long enough to forget key details such as names, though he had no doubt she had been taken from the town.

  The artifacts of war brought familiar demons back into his heart. Ages ago, he’d fought those battles. Him and his father. But that was before the Republic fell and cities broke out into numerous civil conflicts.

  That was before mankind fell.

  He’d never seen his mother again. Never saw his brothers, sisters, and optimistic neighbors who’d told him he could become somebody greater than himself. The rug had been pulled out from underneath their feet. Somehow, Lucas had learned to harden his heart. And once he killed enough to people to satisfy his bloodlust, he set his sights on Cassian.

  They disembarked from the vehicle, stepping into the muddied soil. Bone fragments and gravestones littered the north side of the town. Fog slowly rolled through the emptied and ruined horse stables as the sun started to rise over the horizon. The village itself seemed completely abandoned.

  “Is this how it always looked?” Vash asked.

  Wren swallowed and looked back at the waiting vehicle. “I… they must have left… they…”

  Lowering her body to the sludge below, weakness weighed her down. She was about to give up when she felt Lucas’s hand rub against her shoulder. “It’s not your fault. We couldn’t have known they torched the place.”

  “This entire time, I gave into the illusion that they were waiting for me,” she said, tears dropping like rain from her smooth cheek. “Nobody is waiting for me.”

  “We have all lost something great,” Killian said.

  Wren reached into her holster and pulled out the revolver. Despite the alphas’ efforts to stop her, she ran into the ghost town in search of her old home. What she found was a mirror version, not quite the same, but close enough that it left her confused and tired.

  Cautiously, she touched the bricks that still barely held the foundation up. A great horror was felt here, and Wren wondered why she had felt the need to come back. It should have been obvious that they were all dead. Why wouldn’t they be?

  “We should go,” Vash said, placing his hand over hers.

  She pulled her hand away and walked through the front door, facing the inner hallway that she remembered so well. But as she walked farther, she noticed that the home was different. There were extra rooms.

  “None of this makes any sense,” she whispered.

  In the corner of the main room was a small chest. Vash immediately knew what it was: the chest that housed his father’s old belongings. And he knew who had left it here as bait.

  “Cassian,” he whispered.

  This wasn’t Wren’s home. It was his. He recognized it now, the home he grew up in before his father took him away forever. Suddenly, the rooms felt alive again. He could see his mother near the stables outside. She was walking toward him, arms outstretched to hug his boyish body. She looked so beautiful. But then, the vision fragmented back into reality.

  Cassian had programmed her for this. It was the only answer to his problems. Program the women with false memories until they acted out certain behaviors. But why would he use Vash’s memories?

  “Wren, we need to leave,” Killian insisted.

  Vash was transfixed by this place. “I will not go. Not without knowing what happened to my home,” Wren said, turning with hurt.

  Walking to the chest, Vash bent down and ran his hand over the gold filigree. The design, murderous as it was in nature, was the old insignia of the snake growing in a pit of hot coals.

  Vash wasn’t like the slave traders in his “adopted” family. Sure, he was raised to be a soldier. That was the only life he knew. But it wasn’t him. And the hard truth was that none of the people standing in that room with him knew what it was like to be themselves.

  “Is it inside?” Killian asked, eyes narrowing.

  Heart pounding against his sternum, Vash opened the chest and stared at a small vial of liquid. He quickly took the glass chamber and held it against the foggy lighting of the window.

  “He has decided to keep me alive,” Vash whispered, throat strained with apprehension.

  “Or kill you faster,” Killian said. “Better to throw it away. We will find a doctor in—”

  Vash crashed his fist against his chest. “There is no doctor!”

  “You could die, Vash,” Lucas said.

  “And who would care?”

  Vash stood and nervously cracked the glass over his mouth. Small drops of fluid dissolved into his tongue, quickly distributing the contents through the active muscle tissue. Gulping thirstily, he licked the excess off his lips and growled.

  “You fool!” Lucas cried.

  Vash tongued at the inside of his lips and proudly smiled. “We will find out in a few hours if I pass,” he said.

  Wren lost control. Her voice dropped, deep and raw. “You… you brought me here to trick me. This… this isn’t my home. It’s a trick!”

  Watching as her eyes darted between the three tormenters, Vash took her arms and swung her off her feet. “We’re going,” he said.

  B
ut Wren fought back and out of his arms. She scraped her heels, tripping against the heavy pull of the mud. Sobbing, she said, “Somebody… please tell me what’s going on.”

  Vash stood in the middle of the group, tall and ominous. He held out his hand to pick her up. “If we leave, I will tell you everything that I know.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “We have all been manipulated,” Vash said as he faced the window of the train. Through the wiring of the cable cars, he could see the city of Dagon growing taller in the distance.

  “No one has been manipulated more than me. More than my kind,” Wren muttered.

  Vash slung his back against the armrest. Oddly enough, he felt better. But the question kept flashing in his mind like a strobe. Why? Why give him the cure after spending all this time trying to drive him into the earth? What was it that Cassian wanted from him now?

  “You are an omega. It’s in your nature to be handled,” Vash whispered.

  Wren’s body shook, but before she could react, the train car came to a grinding halt. The men rushed out of the crowded exits, and Wren struggled to keep up.

  “Do not tell me what is in my nature,” she said, taking his forearm.

  Vash kept walking until they reached the wall of broken buildings. With new health and vitality, he waited at the entrance of the safe house.

  “Are there others like you?” she asked.

  “Other factions? They don’t measure against the Oroborous,” Killian said.

  “If you want to know more about your nature, Wren,” Vash sneered, “you will follow me inside and stop making a fuss.”

  Wren followed, but she held the pistol steady.

  “I want to know what I really am,” she said.

  The alphas sat down on a torn up couch. Hands against his forehead, Killian muttered, “First, we should tell you who we really are.”

  Wren paused for him to speak, but Lucas took the reins. “We have all suffered.”

  Wren wagged her flowing hair. “I’m sick of hearing that.”

  “Do our lives not matter?” Vash asked.

  Looking straight into his eyes, Wren answered. “If omegas found a way to rise to power, they could keep the alphas in a facility. They would be routinely stroked until milked, ten times a day. As much as they could provide, we would drain and collect for more testing. If you fuck up one time, we could rule over you.”

  “The omegas wouldn’t stand a chance against our fists,” Killian said.

  Killian stood with the intent on beating her back into submission, but Wren pulled the gun on him faster than any of them could react. The other two watched with unease. “Don’t fucking move,” she said.

  “Fucking whore,” Killian whispered through his teeth.

  “You see? I have fists, too. They’re shiny, metal, and as alluring as the kiss of death,” she said, grinning.

  All of the men’s triggers seemed to go off at once, but they did not react. One movement and Killian’s brains could end up sprayed against the wall. His anger turning into harsh amusement, Killian lowered himself to the floor, dropped his head, and actually bowed.

  “Is this what you want? Power over us?” Vash asked.

  “Vash,” Lucas hissed.

  Wren stood powerfully above Killian. “I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

  Killian crawled forward until his hands met her dirtied feet. Raising his head, he placed his palms flat in the air. As much as it made him nervous, it also excited him to see her reacting like this. “We need each other,” he whispered, bone growing thick between his thighs.

  Slowly, he arched his back and extended his hips. His mealy foreskin parted into a blooming shine. The strong muscle tissue on the underside of his shaft and corpulent sac throbbed.

  Wren placed the end of the gun’s barrel against his winking urethra. “Tell me what I am,” she said.

  Killian closed his eyes, finally able to give his trust away. Never in his life would he expect to give his trust to an omega, but they were supposed to be the ones who reshaped the world. Some sacrifices were to be made for progress.

  “That village is not your birthplace,” he said.

  Silently, Wren nodded

  “Do I even have a birthplace?” she asked.

  “You are special, Wren. All of this is for a reason,” Lucas said, lowering to a prayer position.

  Vash soon followed, although reluctantly. “We found you for a reason.”

  Wren swayed the gun. Don’t make me repeat my question.”

  Vash looked at the floor, voice cracking. “No,” he said. “You don’t have a home. Well, not really.”

  “We are your home now,” Lucas said.

  Wren fell silent for a moment, but Killian braced for the storm. Winding her arm back, Wren screamed and cracked Vash’s cheek with the butt of the revolver. She gnashed her teeth, hammered her fists, and screamed in their eardrums. Finally, she spat on Vash’s incensed face and grabbed his sac, ready to twist.

  “All of you… you lied to me.”

  Lucas lifted his eyes and wrapped his fingers around her feet. “They brainwashed you. Filled you with memories. We had no say.”

  “We did what we had to at the time,” Vash said. “If you knew too much too fast, you would have got us killed.”

  Wren squeezed the sac harder, until the rough skin turned a darker shade of purple. Her eyes flew open, lashes curling, devastatingly beautiful against the ridge of her brow. “All of this is your fault, you inbred fuck,” she said, furiously. “And who is my father? My mother? Who the fuck made me?”

  Uttering a shrill scream, Wren let go and collapsed against the wall. She could have killed the alphas if she wanted to. She could have raped and carved out their insides with sharp tools. Instead, she’d let them live.

  Because she was alone, and without them, she’d be lost in worse darkness.

  The alphas stood up slowly, their blood trailing to the floor. Gently, they came to her. They wrapped her in their arms, providing her the warmth she now craved. In this world, nobody could win.

  I am of the blood.

  It hit her as hard as a punishing shockwave grenade, not that she knew what that felt like, but she could assume. “I am Cassian’s daughter. Aren’t I?”

  Vash kissed her temple and sighed, breath hot. “Yes,” he admitted. “Cassian extracted his DNA in an attempt to make an omega copy of himself. A perfect bloodline. What he created was you.”

  Wren choked on her stinging tears. She remembered the omegas’ voices at the facility. The tone and inflection. They sounded just like her.

  “And the other women in the facilities… they’re…me?”

  “Botched attempts,” Vash said. “He couldn’t get the coding right after you. The rest cannot breed.”

  “But you can,” Lucas said. “You were born with three cervixes, each leading to a different compartment in your uterus. Incredibly rare. In fact, there are no known omegas with that characteristic anymore.”

  “Three…?” Wren’s voice fell flat.

  “You weren’t the first he tried to create,” Killian said.

  “You were lucky,” Vash said. “A complete mistake. He’s been trying to copy you ever since, but he is a failure.”

  “Is that all I am? The obsessive failure of a madman?” Wren asked.

  “We have given you more free rein than any other alpha would in the sector. Clearly, there is more to you,” Lucas said.

  She looked down at her tight belly. Placing her palms flat against the skin, she took a deep breath and felt it expand. “What if I can’t bear your children? What if I’m just like them?”

  “The data suggests that you aren’t,” Vash said. “I made sure to read each document before trying to find you.”

  Wren still had so many questions, but her mind felt worn down. “You are his brother. That means you are of his blood, too. We are the same,” she whispered.

  “We were all found one way o
r another. Vash is an illegitimant child. You are not related by blood,” Killian said.

  “Is this true?” she asked Vash.

  He nodded with contempt. “As Cassian and I watched our father’s last flames burn out, my mind became fixed on how he found me. I was taken as a child, during the first village occupations. My town was ravaged. Women were raped and killed in front of my very eyes. My own mother… well…”

  Vash grew up knowing he was different. Cassian was a better fighter, killer, and lacked foresight. Still, his father had trained him the same and expected them to rule together. Truth be told, he had been preparing for these days his entire life. All of the men had. Unfortunately, for Wren, she didn’t get the same privilege.

  “After my father died, everything changed. Cassian became hungry for revenge. Casting wars on all neighboring cities, he harvested the omegas. I believe he wants to be God.”

  “You alphas underestimate the power of omega women,” Wren said with confidence.

  “Tell me. What would you do in our situation? We have been cast out of the toughest slave trade unions in the continent,” Killian said.

  It was obvious that they were great warriors, but the terms of their cruel game had changed. They needed the omegas, whether they wanted to or not. Wren would show them the way.

  “I know how to aim,” she said. “I proved that in the barracks. Cassian is a part of me only.”

  “That doesn’t tell us how you’ll take on his might,” Lucas said.

  “His cock will lead me right to him,” she said.

  The alphas stared at her in silent wonder. She held the ability to bear more life than anyone on the planet. Bowing their heads in unusual respect, they waited for her next move.

  “Now.” She traced her fingers around the hem of her dress. “You may knot me. You will conquer me again and again. But above all else, you will serve to please me and vow yourselves to me forever.”