Born Captive

by Penelope Woods

  Ruby stopped at the edge of the bed. “Just breathe. We have medicine here.”

  Ruby carefully spread her legs and reached for the catheter. She threaded it inside, more abrupt than Wren anticipated, but the pain quickly dissipated. “You’re going to feel a tight pinch from the needle in your—”

  Ruby jabbed the needle into her spine and slowly turned the clamp, watching as it ran the correct fluids into her. “We should have done that earlier, but you were knocked out cold,” Vash said.

  Wren merely gazed at them like a helpless, tormented rabbit. Hurriedly, the drugs swept through her system. Cradled in a warm blanket of pure acceptance, Wren gazed at the ceiling, directly into the bright lamps, watching as her vision gave way to the color of darkness. She didn’t feel even the catch of the knife as it brushed her open.

  The next thing she heard was the sound of new life tearing with beautiful sorrow, reaching out for the one who could care for them. Wren opened her eyes and nearly fainted when she saw the three babes, covered in sinewy fluids and thin cuts of embryonic sack. They lay still, crying and coughing against the air, the sound of delicate fragility.

  It was the most beautiful sound Wren had ever heard.

  Ruby carried the first two babies to her. They were two husky boys with chocolate hair, nearly identical to one another, except for a mole on the one’s neck. Then came the next child, a sandy-haired brunette…

  As if God were the one required to answer, Wren asked, “An omega?”

  She gazed at the babe with wounded eyes. The boys were crying, but her? She was silently staring with curiosity. “Oh, child,” she whispered. “This world doesn’t deserve you.”

  Ruby stitched Wren up and quietly threw her gloves into a waist bin. After washing her hands, Wren watched Ruby turn and peek a glance at the alphas. They were gathered around Wren in quiet awe. They were a tribe, but Ruby was very much on the outside.

  Clearing her throat, she stepped closer to the door of the room. “I’ll give you time to decompress.”

  “Ruby,” Wren said, voice cracking.

  Ruby paused with her hand around the doorknob. Noticing her hands twitching, Wren felt terrible for her. Ruby let them fall to her side. “Yes?”

  “Thank you. For bringing us together… for making sure I was cared for. It’s the first time I’ve felt… normal,” she said.

  Ruby forced a thin smile. “Yes. Well, then.”

  Vash started after her, but Killian took his arm. “Don’t,” he said.

  Vash looked at his children and noticeably shook. “I’ve got a bad feeling about being here,” he said. “What’s her deal?”

  Killian didn’t feel great about the situation either, but they had exhausted their energy levels. The west had succumbed to the east. A new world was being born, and as a soldier himself, he knew the importance of the optics. For now, he would support the new regime, until he felt infringed upon.

  “She’s a soldier,” Killian said.

  “Soldier or not, she’s suspect,” Lucas said.

  As the men sat and argued, Wren couldn’t stop staring at her babies. The joy she felt was akin to being reborn. “We will follow her,” she said.

  Vash kneeled against her hospital bed. “Precious—”

  Wren sat with a resolute look. “I don’t want to hear your protests. Not from any one of you. We have three children to think about, and this is what I need from you now,” she said.

  Strangely enough, the alphas all kneeled to her request. Gathering around the newly born, they observed and loved in silence. After what had happened sank in, they each spoke about what they went through. Killian and Lucas relayed what they saw in the city, and Wren confirmed the power of the bombs. She remembered Cassian dragging her to his boat as bullets ricocheted over their shoulders. She remembered Vash coming to her rescue.

  Vash met his mother, a woman turned inside out from the wrongs of men. Each of them had mended a broken piece of themselves, but, in turn, found more cracks in the structure. The world’s power structures were finally shifting—a cause they predicted, but didn’t necessarily believe in.

  The carnage of the world had been put on hold. For now, they had each other, and that mattered more than anything else.

  “We love you, omega. We will do anything you ask,” Vash said, bowing his head.

  Killian and Lucas echoed the sentiments by kissing the top of Wren’s feet. “Anything.”

  Satisfied, Wren smiled and snuggled with her children. Years of suffering had led to her feeling whole. As she closed her eyes, one thing comforted her the most. She would never wake up in a facility bed again, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to be controlled.

  Epilogue

  Ruby felt the weight of Wren’s eyes as she left the room. She walked through the hallway adored by kneeling men in leather, into her office to sit down and think.

  “With the captive in possession, the gap can now be filled,” a voice said. “She is the perfect queen, the most beautiful figurehead for a brand new era of dominance. Do you not agree?”

  Ruby turned her chair and watched as a guard carefully shut the door behind his back. “Oh, it’s you, Severin,” she said. “Come to fill my heart with more despair?”

  The man slithered close to the corner of her desk, fingers tracing the edges of the finely cut and glazed wood. The soldiers who served under her lead had lived well because of her, but she promised him so much more. Now that the world was won, she wasn’t sure how to approach things.

  “Come now. Do I instill such darkness in you?”

  Ruby gazed at the aging man, now in the late years of his ragged life. A relic from the old Republic, he and her priest were the ones who’d taught Ruby how to become a woman, as well as a leader. Under strict observation from Cassian’s failing military, the fallen leaders took to hiding. Severin, however, chose to raise and marry the girl. Together, they’d forged an army of their own. He was, technically, still her husband.

  Of course, it wasn’t the age that bothered her. It wasn’t his peculiarly small skull or cunning features. She knew the man too well. Knew his thirst for power. Knew how he turned when he felt helpless. She was the only one who could calm his nerves, but as she extended her knowledge and understanding, she wondered for how long they might last.

  Seeing what her sister had with that wretched pack didn’t make her feel any better. How they could give themselves over to love during a time of complete disaster and chaos made her sick. But maybe it didn’t matter what she wanted anymore. Ruby was destined for a life without any children of her own, and because Severin still owned her, he demanded a suitable place for her twin and her twin’s mates.

  None of it was fair in the eyes of Ruby, who would have rather kept them free and safe. “You stir my bowels more than you know,” she whispered.

  Severin shook the desk with a quick flinch of nerves. “Need I remind you that you promised me a job as minister of propaganda?” he asked.

  “Is that really the job title?” she scoffed and looked down at her nails. “Pathetic.”

  Severin clenched his jaw. “Every empire needs a story. I can be the one to weave it for you.”

  “And what’s in it for me?” she asked.

  “Anything you want. Freedom. Time to pamper yourself,” he said. She did not flinch.

  “An acting job as prime minister?” he asked.

  That tickled her fancy. “You will have her when she has recovered. For now, she will stay in strict observation,” she said.

  Severin loosened his shoulders and swiveled off the table. Apparently, her offer wasn’t good enough. Standing tall and rigid, he towered over her. “I fought on the front lines for this,” he said.

  Ruby stood and pressed her chest against his, raising her chin in defiance. “And I was there by your side,” she whispered through her teeth. “I’d think very carefully before telling me how to run my ship.”

  “I brought you to my town when the Republic fell,” he muttered, col
dly. “Cassian would have murdered you if it wasn’t for me.”

  Ruby glanced away from the man she deemed pathetic. A heavy sigh ran through her. “Yes. Your money went a long way. Now, go drink some champagne. You deserve it.”

  “I don’t need a glass of champagne, dammit. Give me her instead.”

  Ruby tried her hardest not to laugh, but the more she looked at Severin, the more she realized she was alone. She wanted her sister’s children more than she wanted the new Republic to succeed.

  She would agree to the terms they came up with, but one thing she wouldn’t let happen was for him to control her. “Is that an order, Commander? If it’s a child you need, you had one years ago, remember? What happened to him again?”

  Severin turned his back on the high commander and threw the door open so hard that it almost swung back and hit him in the eye. No, Ruby knew he wasn’t one of the finest alpha specimens, and he was a mediocre leader at best. That was why she resented him—because she knew she would have to give up her only sister to keep her leadership.

  His heavy footsteps echoed throughout the hallway, but he quickly ran back in the room to give his last word. “At the end of the day, she will be in my possession. She is just another slave to be taken.”

  She thought about the wreckage of the facilities. The strewn bodies—failed experiments of a mad man. “What’s left of them?” she asked herself, suddenly lost. She tilted her chair back and eyed the cracks running through the window behind her.

  Scanning the horizon, she watched the scavengers rummage through what was left of the city. Without warning, tears fell from her eyes, but she didn’t howl or make even a sound. Instead, she carefully inhaled and exhaled from her nose while focusing on the pressure of her pressed lips. “Forgive me, sister,” she finally whispered.

  She needed to fulfill her duties.

  Walking through the caterpillar of kneeling guards, Ruby paused at the door of the hospital room. She listened to the faint sounds of familial laughter. Suddenly, she wished she were in there as someone entirely unlike herself. She yearned to understand what it felt like to be loved.

  Twisting the cold knob, she calmly walked into the room, leaving the door open. Two of the kneeling corporals stood and followed behind her as a warning. “Wren,” Ruby whispered. “We will be leaving the city shortly.”

  Wren’s alphas stood and blocked Ruby’s passage. “What’s with the ensemble?” Killian asked, pointing at the threadbare soldiers.

  For a moment, Ruby faltered and forced herself to swallow. It gave her more time to think, and pause to relax her nerves. When she felt her adrenaline waver, she cocked her head and nodded at the soldiers. “Take them away.”

  “What the fuck?” Lucas muttered through his teeth.

  “She will be kept under strict observation by the illustrious minister of propaganda,” Ruby said, saluting.

  Bowing her head, Ruby’s eyes focused on Wren. She managed to whisper, “I’m very… I’m just sorry, okay?”

  As she walked out of the room, the guards circled the alphas. One by one, they took them into custody.

  “Hey!” Killian screamed. “Get the fuck off me!”

  Wren’s sister did not stop walking, but her cries fed into stifled pain. “You said I was special.”

  “You are special,” Ruby managed to say before slipping through the doorway. Then, allowing herself to pause without them seeing, she whispered, “And that’s why he gets you.”

  “No,” she whispered, voice tightening. “My children… no, you can’t do this!”

  Wren’s alphas fought tirelessly, but the guards’ skill to their craft was at the highest in the world. They were no match as over twelve blades lowered over their heads like spiked crowns.

  “Arms out.”

  The alphas were cuffed and taken to the holding bay where they waited assimilation. They were given a set of instructions. In twenty-four hours’ time, they were to be brought back to their respective hometowns—if an alpha was, so to say, lost, the matter would be dealt with by the wisdom of the bureaucracy.

  Blindfolded. Tonsured and smacked around. Thrown into the cargo hold with the other prisoners.

  Ruby ran to her office. She blocked her runny cries, though her office was near to her treatment room. He could hear every muffled syllable wallow against her throat pathetically. Whispering her prayers, Ruby focused on the one thing she could control right now. Her throne. The rest of god’s God’s grace would come later.

  The trained soldiers took Wren to a new room, where she would be looked after, prepped, and supervised for a week. Neither Ruby nor Severin would see her. These were strict orders from the highest levels. A set of doctors was arranged for her.

  As night fell, they took her children. When she lashed out in fear and confusion, feeling that all too familiar sorrow, they gave her a syringe of the good stuff, and Wren found herself back in her dark place.

  Only, she had no one anymore. She was all alone.

  As the men were in their respective lines to be sorted, they eyed the masses surrounding them. There were more survivors than they thought. People from the barracks. Dagon. Distant cities in the north. Everyone stood in line to be redistributed like trading cards.

  Killian glanced back at the three. “What do you think?”

  Lucas ran his fingers through the front locks of his fine hair. “I don’t think they’re bringing us back to the fields. The war is over.”

  “So what the fuck do they want?” Killian asked.

  Vash shook his head. “Don’t be stupid. They’re going to throw us in some two-by-four cell and never speak our names again.”

  Responding to some commotion in the back quarters, the guards prodded an elderly man until he was submissive and twitching against the concrete. Vash grabbed his pack’s shoulders, bringing them in so close that their foreheads touched. He couldn’t get Wren’s angelic face out of his head.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m not going down without a fight. On three, we fuck this place up,” Vash whispered.

  Lucas twisted his mouth, gnashing his fangs together. They were surrounded by guards. “You serious?” Lucas asked.

  Killian chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m fuckin’ in.”

  Vash felt his rage consume him. He longed for her taste, yearned to feast on her ripe cunt. Wren was their hard earned prize, and no one else was going to stand in the way. “On my count,” he growled.

  “One… two…”

  Three.

  Afterword

  …ending with that blade

  of rusted teeth to chew

  through the last of what’s left

  of those woods, a fast-driving

  diesel flatbed of felled trees

  and all of us in a tight spot

  between that chugging machine

  and the concrete barrier

  as we hope the straight back

  of our consonants will

  hold, even if they are quiescent

  monsters, reticent prayers,

  because we can’t help it, we lean

  towards letters that do not bend,

  try our exhausted weight

  on the middle of that state,

  that silent K—the shape of a man

  trying to hold up the ceiling,

  trying not to think

  of its falling

  as the sky’s.

  About the Author

  Thank you so much for reading Born Captive!

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  About the Author

  Penelope Woods writes dark reverse harem novels. Her mind is full of horror, sci-fi, and possibly too much smut. Possibly…

  She may or may not have a bionic eye.

  For more steamy and dark fun, be sure to visit and like my facebook.