by Sara Fields
I reached back, pulling a small gun and a knife from my belt. I was ready for this fight. More than ready. Those betas didn’t know what they had coming for them.
Chapter Ten
Alaric
Ten beta soldiers moved ahead of us in formation. They appeared to have been stationed in a nearby building close to the wall. They were large, for beta soldiers anyway and outnumbered us two to one.
Nikki, the others, and I slid to a stop.
Finally, it was about time for a goddamned fight. I felt like I hadn’t had a good one in ages and I was really craving it. This whole war was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me and I couldn’t wait to see how it turned out. I couldn’t wait to see the look in the betas’ eyes when they realized that they were going to lose.
It’s why I got involved in this whole fucking thing in the first place. I was bored out of my mind in the wilds. Nothing ever seemed to fulfill me and when I’d been invited to the Central Gathering, I’d gone for sheer amusement. I hadn’t actually cared about the omega objective, or the fact that more alphas had been forced out into the wilds then. In fact, that part had been rather amusing in a way. None of the banished alphas had known the rules of the wilds or any of our ways. They’d been from the city. Inexperienced and unchallenged, but at least many were trained in the ways of battle. That had made them at least mildly interesting.
But I’d gone along to the Central Gathering anyway. Volunteering had seemed exciting even. Sneaking into the city and training the omegas to fight for themselves had been fun, but then something had changed.
I’d met Nikki.
I discovered the silver-haired omega, a sweet, little courageous thing who would do anything to save those she led.
I’d seen it.
I could see it now. My eyes glanced to her icy ones, the ones full of feisty bravery, the ones lacking any sort of fear whatsoever. She was prepared to fight. She was going to get her omegas out of Tharia, no matter what it took.
I’d seen everything that made her who she was and with the others, I’d decided to claim her as my own. She was my mate for life. And that meant that I’d never let anyone hurt her. They’d be lucky if they even got close enough to have a chance.
I grinned though. Nikki wasn’t one to shy away from a fight and I wasn’t about to stop her. Should it endanger her comrades, she’d rush into battle, just like I loved to do. We were similar in that fashion, which only served to prove that she was perfect for me in every way.
A loud crash sounded outside the wall and many of the betas turned away to see what it was. Nikki took advantage of that moment of distraction. She attacked.
I watched her move with fluidity and grace as she rushed toward the ten soldiers, not even looking back for our protection as she drew both a knife and a gun from her waist belt. With the precision of many years of training and preparation, she leapt from the ground and landed on the shoulders of one of the men turned toward the wall. She wrapped her body around his waist, gripping her legs tightly around his torso. Her arms surrounded his face, her fingers digging into his eyeballs and he cried out in pain at the sudden, unexpected assault. Another soldier sprinted to grab her from the right-hand side, but she was too quick for that. With a swift twist, she shot the man rushing toward her point blank in the forehead with the gun in her hand. He didn’t even have time to defend himself before he dropped straight to the ground, his eyes already glazed with death.
Next she took the knife in her hand and swiftly dragged it across the throat of the man she’d initially attacked. He struggled and tried to pull her arms away from him, but it was far too late. With grace, she dropped to the ground easily, landing on her toes as the man collapsed to the ground beside her. A grisly pool of blood grew beneath his twitching form.
Gods. She was fucking flawless.
“Well, are the four of you ready to fight with me or what?” she goaded with a smirk and I chuckled just as she caught my eyes. A daring grin poked at the edges of her lips and I decided that she was utter perfection.
“More than ready, omega. More than fucking ready,” I replied.
I ran forward, pulling my favorite weapon free, a sword. I bent my knees and rushed toward the remaining soldiers. They were wholly unprepared for such a weapon and instead rushed to pull out their guns. They hadn’t even loaded them yet.
What kind of fighters were these? Not even a fucking challenge.
I swung my sword overhead and then shifted to the right, toward a man that was trembling as he held his gun. He attempted to load it one bullet at a time, but his hands were shaking so hard that he dropped more on the ground than he actually loaded in his gun. I whirled the blade over my head and brought it straight down, resulting in a decisively killing blow right between his eyes straight through his skull. When I pulled my weapon free, he dropped like a stone. Dead. Battle count one.
A war cry sounded behind me, but the deafening sound of a bullet silenced the yell immediately. I looked to the side to see what the commotion was and saw Damiyen grinning, his gun level with my foe. I looked down. Another beta soldier down. I laughed heartily and tore into another unprepared soldier, all while Ethan and Viktor subdued their own combatants.
In very little time at all, the five of us had demolished the small beta group, leaving a grisly, bloody trail in our wake.
I quickly wiped my sword free of gore on one of the dead betas before the five of us made for the break in the wall once more. Behind us, I heard sounds of similar skirmishes occurring between the Omegaborn and the beta army. I prayed that their fights went as successfully as ours.
We’d planned for the difference in strength between the betas and omega by keeping their groups large, by teaching them stealth and maneuverability and that guns should only be used if they had no other options. Knives and swords were silent and just as deadly as a gun, more far more undetectable, if they were careful anyway.
Right now, thousands of omegas should be making their way through the city to the broken wall. Thousands of them vying for freedom and we were going to give it to them.
We ran the last bit toward the wall, no more than a block in distance. We met no other ready groups of betas on our way to the wall. They hadn’t been prepared for this kind of attack. None of them had even remotely expected that we might break through the wall, one that would require teamwork between both those in the city and those outside of it.
We’d caught them off guard and it had worked just as perfectly as Damiyen had anticipated. Now the battle would truly begin.
I was so fucking ready.
Behind us, the sounds of boots hitting pavement indicated that the omegas were running the streets. The beta army would need time to move their forces, to get them into formation but by then, it would be too late. The omegas would have escaped and then turned back to fight with the alphas.
The five of us reached the hole in the wall and turned, prepared to help the omegas fight and escape should the betas put up any semblance of resistance. The first wave of women rushed at us, some of them bloodied and injured. We watched as they surged past us, followed closely by the second group not far behind. From either side, I could see men gathering, betas preparing to stop the escape of the omegas from the city.
I watched them carefully, seeing them assembling in formation and without delay, they attacked. The five of us waited until most of the omegas had rushed by, but a large number of them turned and stood behind us.
And then the battle well and truly began.
Ethan, Viktor, Damiyen, Nikki, and I were all comfortable in a fight. We fanned outward in a circle, backs to each other as we focused on the enemy. Battle cries sounded loudly as snipers shot from above, but we’d readied ourselves for that too. Some of our best marksmen were situated above on the wall, beta allies that had abandoned their posts with Philip’s army. They had years of training and without delay, quickly divested the attacking snipers of their lives, leaving us to focus on those that we h
ad to fight on the ground.
Nikki moved like a feral cat. Her movements were swift and sure as she balanced between fighting with a knife and a gun. She used her bullets conservatively, knowing that she only had a defined number of them before she had to reload and even then, she didn’t carry a large number of them. She relied on her speed and strength, using her skills she honed over the years to twist, turn, and slice through her enemies.
She’d tied back her hair, but the silvery strands were soon stained with blood. Had her leather not been red, it would have been a terrifying sight indeed. She tore through one after the next with a ferocity that surprised every single man she encountered. As she fought, more and more omegas tore by, until finally, the last group appeared just around the corner from our position.
The cries of betas echoed loudly around us, but the shrill screams of the omegas we lost in the battle were louder. Nikki gritted her teeth and surged forward, viciously attacking a man who had just broken the neck of one of her omegas with only his hands. She was brutal and quick and before he had a chance to react, she’d buried her knife to the hilt right into his kidney from behind. He dropped dead as she pulled her blade free.
A strange humming sound filled the air and I stilled, searching the streets for any indication for what it could be. Gears grinding. Rocks scraping against the ground. The sound of steam billowing out into the air.
I realized that I knew what it was.
Damiyen had hinted that the betas had access to certain high military power tanks, a much-guarded government secret. He’d devised a plan to counter such a powerful vehicle, should we encounter one. I fingered the grenade at my belt, a specially made explosive filled with the same liquid fire that had blown through the wall. Every single one of us had one, just in case. Now we were going to get to use them.
I grinned.
Now the party was really going to get started.
I glanced to the side and saw Viktor pull the bow from his back. The heavy copper-colored tank turned the corner and he pulled the red-tipped arrow from the quiver on his back. He cocked the arrow in place and pulled back the string of the bow. Then he released it.
The arrow sailed straight and true, firing straight into the grate at the front of the tank. For a second, the world was quiet and then the arrow exploded. Designed as a much sleeker and more efficient form of the grenade at my waist, the red-tipped arrow was a formidable explosive and shot into the sole weak point of the tank, it was deadly.
The explosion rocked the tank back and forth, gears screaming to turn but ultimately failing. Another carefully shot arrow shot straight down into the barrel of the massive gun atop its hull. After a long second, the barrel exploded into pieces and rendered the tank ultimately useless.
The last of the omegas poured out from the city streets and moved behind us. Then we all moved out of the city walls and back into the wilds.
Chapter Eleven
Nikki
Most of my omegas made it out. I’d seen a number of them fall, which I’d known was going to happen, but it still tore through my heart just the same. Their faces forever entombed in the finality of death would be permanently seared into my memory for the rest of my life. For a second, I allowed myself to grieve, but then I quickly pushed it aside.
Now was not the time to focus on death. We had a war to win.
Behind me, I could hear the alpha horde roaring with their approval. They were ready to fight. With the Omegaborn safely out of the city, I climbed up onto a boulder, lifted my arm up into the air, and shot a bullet into the sky, signifying it was time for the horde to invade.
The wilds went insane with their battle cries. Now that I was out on the battlefield with them, I could see even more of the army they had built. This area of the wall had a clear sight for miles, with trees edging around the grassy plains. The number of people fighting with us covering the lands was both a terrifying and imposing sight.
I looked out across the frontlines and saw a line of colossal elephant-type creatures with massive tusks and dark brown fur running toward us. They were huge, at least several stories high and angry. Metal armor guarded their sides as well as the top of their heads. On their backs were large baskets that held a fair number of alpha soldiers prepared to fight on the front lines. The elephants hurtled forward, trumpeting with fury and waving their tusks formidably back and forth as they did so.
In that moment, beta soldiers came pouring out of the city and the whoops and cries of the alpha horde surged forward. Hooves and paws pounded into the ground and at the edges of the plains, a quiet thunder rumbled, the sound formidable and ominous.
I remembered the red eyes of the beasts in the trees, the ones that breathed fire into the air above. I turned toward where I saw them last in the forest and then, they began to emerge from the trees. I didn’t recognize them. They crawled forward on all fours, their movements like those of a mountain lion. They appeared as though they were gray, almost as if they were covered in soot in the light of day. Their faces were feline, with scarlet eyes, sharp teeth, and giant bull-like horns that glowed red just beneath their skin, almost as though actual fire burned within its veins. On either side of the battlefield, ten of these creatures raced forward, their movements like a cheetah racing across the grassy plains.
Beside me, Damiyen grunted his approval.
“The skotaurs haven’t gathered in those numbers since ancient times,” he said softly.
“They’re terrifying,” I responded quietly, breathless as I watched them move across the battlefield with both grace and deadly speed.
The skotaurs reached the first segment of beta soldiers, attacking first with vicious claws, but then something changed. Their nostrils breathed smoke and when they opened their mouths exposing vicious fangs and brutal roars, they breathed fire down onto the beta soldiers.
They had no defenses from that kind of attack. They’d expected gunfire, knives, and even small explosions, but nothing like this.
The elephants reached the outpouring of beta soldiers next, sweeping their tusks back and forth, knocking them over, crushing a great many more, and skewering others with a vicious intensity that left the beta army reeling. The elephants stopped for no one. Once they reached the wall, they jumped up on their hind legs, placing their front feet on the edge at the top and allowing the alpha soldiers to use their bodies like a ladder. The soldiers within the baskets climbed out onto the walls, firing their guns and swinging their swords as they took out the horrified soldiers who watched with a sense of disbelief.
The alpha soldiers met the beta army with a fervor that spoke to their feral natures. They tore through the superior numbers, surging toward them like a hot knife to butter. Overhead, the great birds soared back and forth, some of them dropping large boulders from high above onto the dome. The riders atop their backs took out a fair number of betas guarding the walls.
With the alphas at the forefront of battle, the Omegaborn joined in with them, using their smaller size and stature to weave easily in and out of danger, cutting the tendons behind their enemies’ knees with precise slashes that left them defenseless.
The horde fought hard and soon enough, they had gained ground, edging closer and closer to the wall. The betas still poured out of the city, trying to keep the alphas out but even I saw that it was a losing battle.
I stood tall on my boulder, watching. Observing. Prepared for whatever this battle was going to throw at me.
To my right, I saw a redhead fighting beside her men. I quickly realized it was Triss. Next to her, another woman fought by her side. I didn’t recognize her, but she was a brunette, likely an omega by the looks of her. They fought through a few beta stragglers and then made their way over to me.
“Triss. It’s good to see you alive and well,” I grinned.
“You too, Nikki,” she said, while watching as my eyes turned to her fellow soldier. “This is Raven. She’s been tremendous help to us in furthering the cause,” she then replied, coc
king her head toward the brunette omega female.
“It’s good to finally meet the woman who inspired all of this,” Raven said, and I couldn’t help but smile warmly in her direction.
“You’ve gathered quite an army out here, you two,” I observed, glancing out along the field to see the numbers rushing the gates, the massive amount of people who had come to help free the omegas from their prison and the oppressive beta rule they’d suffered under for so long.
“We’ve had a rocky past, us two but when we come together, we’re a force to be reckoned with,” Raven said and Triss smiled.
“Never thought I’d see the day where the two of us would fight together as allies, side by side,” Triss replied honestly, her gaze nervous as she glanced back at Raven.
“How about fighting side by side with me as a friend instead?” Raven asked, meeting Triss’ eyes warmly. The air between them held a slight air of tension, but it quickly withered away into nothingness. I had a feeling these two had a rich history, but whatever it was had been pushed far away in the interest of coming together in order to fight for what was right.
“I can do that,” Triss grinned and then they turned to me, their faces serious then, but they paused when Ellie and Ehsan ran up to join us too.
“Nikki,” Ellie gasped, slightly out of breath. Her eyes looked worried and the lines at the corners of her eyes were crinkled with anxiety.
“What is it, Ellie?” I asked, glancing around us to ensure that we weren’t in any imminent danger. I saw nothing so I turned back to her instead.
“It’s Philip Savile. His genetic medication is ready, the thing he calls the omega solution. He’s having it loaded into something like a flamethrower and he intends to spray it onto the battlefield, onto our alphas and omegas. Without their natural tendencies, he knows it’ll weaken us. It may be enough to turn the tide of war against the Omegaborn,” she rushed to say.
I gritted my teeth as my eyes tore toward the wall. I could see where Philip stood, could see the yellow glint of the shoulders of his military jacket as he walked along the walls. I chewed the inside of my cheek.