Born Captive

by Penelope Woods

  15

  Part Two

  In the world of clay

  A hidden treasure are we.

  The kingdom of our sway

  Endures eternally.

  Since we have passed

  The night of the flesh at last,

  We are ourselves the Guide

  And life’s immortal tide.

  -Rumi

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cassian stepped over the mash of freshly cracked bone and oozing tendrils of mind matter. The trader looked down at his partner’s lifeless body and swallowed feverishly. “They’ve been spotted outside of Dagon in the Minx Province,” the man said.

  Shivering with abjuration, Cassian couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Why was he being told this? Did they want to drive him mad?

  “They’re… nesting her,” the trader said.

  Cassian couldn’t hear any more of it. Quickly unsheathing his blade, he drove it into the idiot’s youthful heart. His chest blossomed into a blackened mess of red, a bitter lake for the man to choke on.

  “You alphas breed like rats.”

  Alphas, omegas, betas. They were all part of the problem. The only one working toward a solution was Cassian.

  Turning, Cassian pulled the blade from the trader’s heart and peeked at the omega copies dancing near the bar. They shinnied up and down the gleaming poles, lights decorating their ornamental bodies. Looking back at him blankly, the copies kept their trained smiles fixed like flashing vacancy signs.

  He lowered a cloth against his blade to clean. “I am a cultural engineer,” he whispered to himself. “And it is my duty to rid the world of unnecessary clutter.”

  For generations, men had feared power. Knowing that it could never be eradicated, they thought they could manage it instead. Cassian laughed at the thought. His thirst not only begged for conquest. He wanted to bask in the glories of history, like the great men before him. Like the men who ruled with elaborate wear and décor. As powerful as he was, he still didn’t have that. Still lived in shit. Still went by the way of his cock.

  Mankind was destined to build, destroy, and make new of the mess. They were urged by God to present a new copy of His meaning.

  Cassian. Wren. A world built entirely from his genetic coding. That was the obvious next step.

  A new tree of life.

  For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.

  “When you reach a certain goal, you find you can no longer stop,” Cassian muttered to himself. “You enter into a role different from yourself. Once a man. Now, a god.”

  The women stared dumbly as he meandered throughout the space of the club. Tracing his hands across the slick stage, he stopped when he felt the indent of one of the copy’s feet.

  “I’ve grown tired of the men,” he said. “They can be put to work, but they always cause trouble.”

  The women still didn’t understand. How could they? They were his first set of copies, made purely for men’s pleasure. Their feeble minds could hardly grasp pictures, let alone words.

  That was the problem. He’d come to realize the omegas’ minds were necessary for his satisfaction. Mother was growing old. Soon, she would pass. She needed a successor, or he would rule the earth into a solitary pit.

  Mother kept his mind ageless. She allowed for the appropriate flow of power. Every decision had been weighted by her suggestions.

  “Do any of you listen?” Cassian barked.

  “I’m listening,” his mother said. Again, his earpiece rumbled against the cartilage. “Let them please you. You’re so close, darling.”

  “I can feel it, mother. But she has been soiled.”

  Power coursing through his veins, he relied on her words to paint a picture of the future. “When you rescue her, you can mold a new set of copies.

  “The variations are too difficult to get around,” he said, analyzing the dancers’ eyes. A common thread connected them all. Yet, they weren’t the same. A mosaic of abstractions. Wren was a total fluke.

  “Just find the girl.”

  “When I do, I’ll rip the babes from her womb.”

  Cassian tore out the earpiece and lowered his pants. One by one, the omegas fell to their knees. Crawling to the foot of the stage, the women began kneading the limp shaft between his legs. They moaned in automated unison. “Daddy…”

  No, they weren’t listening to a word he was saying. They correctly assessed that something was bothering him, but they couldn’t appease him with any new thoughts. Nobody could.

  Except perhaps Wren. She might be able to, but he couldn’t count on it. Once he took hold of her again, he’d have to deprogram her for months.

  Leaning forward, he let the curious sex dolls seek their milk and cookies. His entrenched pleasure sat dull like rocks at the bottom of a vast flowing river. He shook forward, but ended up feeling worse.

  Broken and well nested, Wren would give in to the compulsion to gather new knowledge. If she was anything like his mother, she would come looking for him.

  Patiently nurturing his cock onto the kittens’ tongues, he waited for his deflowered empress. The next time she saw him, he’d offer her a seat near his throne.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Something isn’t right,” Wren muttered through the tight convulsions that pressed against her bladder. “The babies… something is wrong.”

  Her pregnancy issues were her own fault, she thought. They came as punishment for thinking about running away, for thinking about finding Vash and bringing the pack together. Each night, she would wake from terrifying nightmares.

  The dreams felt like premonitions. Vash, lost in the middle of the cobalt seas of Dagon, flailing and gasping for air. Her arms wrapped tightly around her belly.

  Every night, she’d watch him drown, the life dragged out of him before he hit the shoreline. When she could touch him, he was a deep shade of blue. The more she shook his rigid body, the more dead he became.

  “Please,” she whispered. “You have to believe me. Something terrible is happening.”

  Silently, Killian placed his hand against the underside of her belly. He firmly pressed and analyzed the movements. “This hurt?” he asked.

  Wren shook her head. The shocks were more than physical pain. It felt like the walls inside her were giving out.

  “Explain the pain to me,” Killian said.

  Wren searched for the right words to use, but she couldn’t explain it. She simply knew it to be true. “If you can’t help me, I will find someone who will,” she said.

  Exhaling low, Killian sat down behind her. Slowly, he kneaded the tight clumps of muscle. “Vash will be back any day now.”

  She tensed and pulled away. Reaching behind her neck, she felt the subtle teeth imprints. “I need all of you during this process,” she said.

  “Killian is right,” Lucas said. “Any day now.”

  Wren sucked in a breath and swallowed. More shocks reverberated through her insides. “I need a doctor,” she said, very carefully. “The babies… they will die.”

  Killian stopped massaging. “We examined you to the best of our capabilities,” he said. “Everything appears normal.”

  “Normal,” Wren repeated.

  Lucas took her hands and squeezed. “Precious, the city is crawling with hoarders now.”

  Wren closed her cracked lips together and nodded. “I know what can happen,” she said.

  “One more week,” Killian said. “If he’s not back by then, we’ll seek a doctor.”

  “We can’t wait that long!” Wren cried.

  “Stop talking, or we’ll break out the cuffs again,” Killi
an said.

  The tension eased inside her womb, but it would be back. The alphas could not understand the strong intuition pregnancy offered an omega. Calmly breathing through her flared nostrils, she came up with a new plan.

  “Okay,” she said. “Fine. A week.”

  “You got yourself a deal, Precious,” Killian said, smiling.

  She wrapped herself in guilt as the alphas realigned her bedding. They kissed her as she left, and she seemed to inhale their scents with stronger passion.

  She couldn’t stay in the house any longer than she had. As important as her rest was, she knew the alphas couldn’t understand her forewarning. Her dreams painted a picture for her; one she felt obligated to follow.

  She was still missing something. Like a ghost pain, she felt the absence grow inside of her.

  Wren waited for the night to wrap over their heads like a warm blanket of deception. She knew where her gun was. Knew how to sneak past the sleeping alpha bodies. And once she was outside, she made sure the weapon was loaded and left.

  She walked over the ruinous landscape and wondered how many wars were fought just so she could get to that moment. In some ways, history really worked that way. Was it possible she was the answer to the world’s suffering?

  The hardest things seemed to fall on her back, but she was ready for them now. Her time as a captive made her aware of certain rhythms that seemed to guide the world. She could feel the earth’s pulse. All of these perceptions might have been falsely identified. There wasn’t any concrete science to them, as far as Wren was concerned.

  Yet, time and time again, she proved herself right. She knew there was something more to her story, that she had a destiny. She’d sensed it the moment she talked to the other omegas in the facilities. The others were empty and devoid of imagination, but her—she was everything to so many people.

  She embraced her intuition with a strong and confident attitude. She wasn’t immortal, but she was incapable of failure. The quiet pasture of land eventually led into a wasteland of eroded tools of energy extraction. Large fences enclosed the area, and the sea’s curling foam could be seen in the distance.

  Searching for the way toward the water, Wren found a cut in the gate. She stepped carefully onto the rocks and lowered down to a new platform. Faint slivers of sunlight broke through the infinite darkness of night. As her feet met the sand, she could feel the minute breaths of heat of day, but the rumblings of thunder overpowered the sound of crashing waves.

  She scanned the rough waters for a sign but wasn’t able to see any detail. Near the shore was a rocky jetty that led to a damaged standing watchtower. She ran toward it.

  They would be checking on her soon. Maybe in ten minutes time. Maybe fifteen. Either way, she would be hunted again. She pulled the revolver from her holster and released the cylinder. Quickly inserting the cartridges, she rotated the cylinder back into the weighty frame.

  Sucking in huge breaths, she calmed her nerves. Sometimes, the thunder would die down, and the crashing of the waves against the jetty could finally put her at ease. It reminded her that, no matter what, things were a constant ebb and flow of the opposite of what you expected at the time. But every now and then, the world aligned itself to better ideas.

  Misty salt hung against her cheekbones as she stepped to the foot of the lighthouse door. Reaching for the crystalline knob, she felt the smooth ridges open with a noticeable hitch. The door opened with a heavy thrust of her shoulder against the wood.

  Sawdust lifted around her, suspended inside the shards of light. The entire structure was a wreck. A small staircase rounded upward to the top balcony. Still, the thunderous cracks of violence in the sky resounded above her. Wren carefully took the steps to the platform and made her way through the narrow helix.

  At the top of the stairs was a door, which Wren had to open. This was it. She remembered all of this from her dream. This was when she’d see Vash, lifeless on the sands below.

  Her stomach sank with despair. Had she undergone a lapse of judgment?

  One foot at a time, she stepped onto the balcony, throat closing with anticipation. As her eyes met the shoreline, acid burned inside her belly. Her pulse quickened to a machine gun rhythm, and she recoiled in horror.

  It was Cassian. “You came. I love it when you come for me.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Where the fuck is he?” Vash forced his way into the alpha’s quarters, hands gripping the rifle propped against his chest.

  Aidrick stared back in disbelief. A large cast wrapped around his leg, weighing him down. “Please,” he whispered, hands in front of him. “I don’t work for him anymore.”

  Vash kept the gun aimed. It had been a hell of lot harder to get into the barracks the second time around. He wasn’t stepping out of this place empty handed.

  “Go on,” Vash said. “Tell me, or I’ll dismember every tendon in your body.”

  Aidrick let out a defeated breath. “I have nothing now. My omega has been… eliminated.”

  “You were whoring her out to hundreds of men throughout the sector. Don’t play the victim card—you’re no fool,” Vash said.

  “Thousands,” Aidrick corrected him.

  “You’re proving my point.”

  The wall lining Aidrick’s quarters was lined with stolen goods. Vash laughed and nodded to himself.

  “My profit margin has been greatly disrupted,” Aidrick growled.

  Vash forced the barrel of the rifle against Aidrick’s cock. “Fuck your profit margin. There are more omegas waiting for you. Do not lie to me.”

  “Cool it, Vash! I don’t need any more shit.” Aidrick swallowed glanced down at the wounds the other alphas gave him.

  “Looks like you’re healing decently enough,” Vash said.

  Aidrick paused, seemingly weighing his options. “I don’t hear a counter offer,” Aidrick said.

  Aidrick knew the game as well as anyone did. Loyalty meant nothing to the rats on the outside, but the trade was sometimes worth it. “All of my chips,” Vash said.

  “What am I going to do with a few chips?” he asked.

  Vash dropped the bag onto the floor. “Five hundred thousand.”

  Aidrick’s eyes lit up. “That must have taken ages to collect.”

  “Hundreds of raids,” he said, nudging the bag closer to Aidrick’s bed.

  Before Aidrick unzipped the bag, he paused and turned a lighter shade of skin tone. “Do the others know of this?”

  Vash shook his head. “No.” He hadn’t told the other alphas about the money. They would have dissuaded him. “I don’t care anymore.”

  “About?”

  “This world. People like you. I’ve grown tired of the desperation,” he said.

  “You’re beginning to sound like Cassian,” Aidrick said.

  “The difference is I know that I can’t save the world.”

  Aidrick started for the bag and unzipped the leather. The cobalt and silver coins magnetized him. “You will destroy it instead?”

  It wasn’t a question Vash wanted to answer. The only thing he could count on was the knowledge that he would undo his brother’s soul. He’d cut through his lungs until the blood met his airways. Whatever the world did after was the rest of mankind’s doing.

  “Ninety-three miles into the ocean from the shoreline,” he said. “That’s where the omegas ship in from. I deposit most of them at the clubs. But you knew that already.

  Most of them.

  Vash knew more than Aidrick did, but he couldn’t picture this facility. As far as he knew, the Republic’s structures on the water were all demolished.

  “A plant?” Vash asked.

  “For Cassian’s brother, you don’t know too much about him,” Aidrick said.

  “I have been left out of the decision-making process,” Vash said through clenched teeth.

  “It’s where he hides the best of the best. The ripest you can imagine,” Aidrick said.

  “The coordinates,” Vash
said.

  Aidrick wrote them down, a sly smirk on his face. “And you trust that I’ll lead you to him?”

  “If these coordinates don’t lead me to him, I’ll string you out in the pipes,” he said. “Consider this a warning.”

  Vash had no time for games. Releasing the trigger of the rifle, he sent a bullet into his robust shin. Shattered fragments sprayed across their body, met with Aidrick’s harsh cries.

  Vash didn’t believe the world was capable of any more change. Mankind, as far as he was concerned, had repeated the same mistake after same mistake. It was tireless and incessantly captivating. He watched as men worked to their ruin. The books of history weren’t needed when the obvious end was in front of them.

  He took until the taking meant nothing to him anymore. For that, he could thank Cassian. He got him to think of a different life, promising him vast fortunes of empire and then the absolute control over production of humanity.

  Everything became an industry ready to be exploited. The world itself deserved to be a decayed ruin because the rules of civilization required a drastic end of flames and ruin.

  But if they could become God, everything would change in their favor. Cassian showed him his vision through elaborate choice of words.

  It gave Vash a feeling of emptiness and left him hopelessly alone. The world had no more excuses to fall back on, and all Cassian wanted was the chance to rule. His obsession with power would be his own demise.

  Reaching into his pocket, Vash felt his hollowness consume him. Vash was not the soldier he thought. He was a man on the verge of complete surrender.

  He floated in the dark cargo hold of a freighter. One trip. No return. It didn’t matter if he died because there was nothing more to get from the world. It had run out of excuses.

  The waves rolled the boat, keel clacking against the curl of the next. They never seemed to cease. Vash’s stomach twisted into knots, and his head spun with relentless images of death and despair.