Born Claimed: A Dark Omegaverse Romance (Broken Angel Book 2)

by Penelope Woods

  Bowing politely, Ruby exited. She subdued the whore. The babies would be waking up for the third time that day. Luckily, the milk was plentiful, but Ruby’s kindness was not.

  Chapter Four

  “Look at her. She’s everywhere,” Vash whispered.

  Killian didn’t want to see it. The modernity. The horror of LED lighting and false advertisement—it was on every corner. Her. His wife and beloved. His woman.

  The first time he saw her on that screen was enough. The world, for all its glint and glamour, was stale, and the fact that the Republic used the woman they loved made him feel sick to his stomach.

  Still, his tired eyes worked on their own accord. They were controlled by the urges of his heart, and he could not resist the flood of endorphins that followed when he peered into the synthetic lights that formed the shape of Rae’s eyes.

  “She’s a ghost,” he murmured.

  “Who knows if she’s even alive?” Lucas replied before biting down on a thin metal toothpick.

  They were all devastated. The mother of their children represented true beauty. She showed them how to have a heart, but they weren’t prepared for this place.

  Then, they saw it. The screen flashed and showed the image of two towers piercing high into the sky. Marble cut. They were beautiful, but they looked so far away from everything. It was as if no one truly lived there.

  “An alpha needs an omega,” Killian concluded. “Cassian thought he could have it both ways, but when he lost her, he was hit with the truth. He failed by thinking he could control her, but man cannot control woman.”

  “Use to, but not anymore,” Lucas said. “There was a good ten years of chaos. War. It’s hard for me to even think about those days now.”

  “We must be better than the rest by adapting,” Killian said.

  “My brother failed because he was a greedy sack of cow shit. Can we stop talking about him? It causes a deep depression inside of me,” Vash said.

  He twisted his head to face the gloom of the tunnel. At the end of the dark walkway, a ladder led down to a door. Above it, a small CTV camera waited to catch anyone who dared open it.

  Killian held his hand up, and they each slowed their steps. Vash, on the other hand, bent to pick up a rock. He lugged it at the electronic eye, and the screen smashed into seemingly infinite pieces. Running forward, he peered silently at the padlocked door.

  Vash shook his head and laughed loudly. “There it is. The entrance to the Cathedral. I can’t believe it, it’s really here…”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Killian asked.

  The other two alphas followed Vash’s lead and peered down into the tunnel. The door was locked, and a bright light shone through the cracks. “You’re taking us to a church?”

  In silent haste, Vash climbed the ladder and dropped onto the door. He hovered his hands through the light, the golden rays cutting against the darkness. “It’s not a church. It’s where they keep her,” he said.

  Killian chuckled and admired his pack brother’s tenacity for attention to detail. As soon as the explosion sent the walls of his prison crumbling, he’d hoped Vash had something to do with it. How, he had no idea.

  “Here? Not so sure,” Killian said.

  “Who told you about this place? It couldn’t have been here before the takeover of Dagon. We knew the inside and out of the western cities,” Lucas said.

  “Coaxed the guards into giving me the key code,” Vash muttered, eyes fixed on the light below as if it were actual solid gold.

  “How?” Lucas asked. “They didn’t say shit to me. They seemed to like to use their electrical prods more than their witty tongues.”

  “Every man has a price, and you know damn well I’m savvy enough to get him talking,” Vash snapped back.

  Lucas lowered his voice. “Translation: he sucked the guards off.”

  “I’d watch your tongue if I were you,” Vash said.

  Lucas made a gagging noise but quickly fell silent when Vash attempted to climb back up to thrash him. “If you must know, the blast killed most of the guards. I got the code from one of the stragglers as he was gagging on his own scrotum. Don’t fuck with me, boys. I don’t have the patience left inside me.”

  Suddenly, a muffled voice over a loudspeaker could be heard from underneath the door. “Specialist Helen Kurtfield, please report to Division 1 immediately! Helen Kurtfield, doctor to Division 1.”

  Killian swung down the ladder to get a better listen. “Shh… stop arguing!”

  “Divisions 6-12 have been relieved. Ten minute refractory period will commence straightaway.”

  “Helen? They have women specialists now?” Lucas asked. “Jesus Christ…”

  Vash began punching in the code to get inside. “It’s a whole new world. Rae is the queen, remember?”

  “The queen… I just can’t make sense of anything anymore,” Killian remarked. “Maybe I’m getting old, but the only thing I seem to give a fuck about is taking her from behind.”

  Vash breathed loudly. “Don’t get me started. I’m so horny I just might kill the next man I see.”

  “Keep it together, brothers,” Lucas muttered. “We’ll find her soon enough. And when we do, we’ll get to worship her warm hole for as long as we want.”

  “Sounds like heaven,” Killian said.

  Killian’s confusion didn’t just come from the women gaining access to certain jobs. He could accept a certain amount of changes, and even appreciate the omega’s new level of freedom. She had proved herself to be a loyal and worthy fighter, and he was positive that would reflect onto how she mothered their children. He’d never enjoyed the burden of being trapped in a system that put his life in danger on a day-to-day basis. This, however, felt different.

  The city was perfect, the people were less apt to violent confrontation, and the buildings were built to last. It made him think about his parents. It made him wonder if he could’ve had a different life if they had still been alive to raise him. But it didn’t make any sense to dwell on painful.

  As the pack leader typed in the last digits of the key code, his expression changed from excitement to fear. Instead of finishing the sequence, he paused and exhaled sharply.

  “What is it?” Lucas asked.

  “This isn’t going to be easy,” he said. “It’s been over two years. I just want to make sure your hearts are still in it.”

  Killian swung his rifle over his shoulder and stood upright. He didn’t feel like a soldier anymore, but that was okay. He wasn’t a privately employed killer. He was merely one small piece of his woman, Rae. Our goddess.

  Killian painfully recalled every moment alone in his cell. He thought about her so much that he must have gone over every strand of her amber hair in his mind’s eye twice. He longed for her smell, and he needed to give her his deep thrusts. Most of all, he waited for the day they could be a family again. “Strange. I live to serve her...”

  In the past, he would have kept this to himself, but now that he valued honesty, it was something he would admit readily. If anyone disagreed with his emotional sentiments, he would shove a bullet in their ass.

  “You and I both,” Lucas said. “I can still smell her. I can taste the sweetness of her pussy. I can feel her tight walls give way to us. I need her now more than I ever have.”

  Vash closed his eyes, even seemed to whisper a prayer before punching in that last number. When the code was complete, a green light flashed, and a pleased tone chimed, followed by the swift depressurizing noise of the latches releasing. Carefully, he opened the door and squinted through the near blinding bright light.

  The first thing that hit Killian’s senses was the abhorrent smell. All three of them dropped back and covered their noses with their palms and dirty shirts.

  “Fuck!” Lucas hissed. “What do they keep down there, zoo animals?”

  As their eyes adjusted to the light, the men dropped into a room. Killian expected to see a vast sanctuary—a place where a
ll of mankind could gather for the greater good. What he found was the complete opposite.

  There were endless rows of bodies—alpha men who gaped in horror and shock. Noises—horrible noises.

  Hunched forward, their bodies were made to grow inferior. Their skin was riddled with lesions and purulent boils. Their wrists were bound with circular cuffs, and large spikes had been driven in to their palms and insteps and left.

  Some of the men had already passed on. Dead and covered with writhing insects, the vessels waited to be cleaned by the next crew. There must have been thousands of them. It was unclear, but the rows extended down into what could only be described as pure hell. The ground had been carved out in a complex manner, spiraling downward like a nautilus shell. Down and down, the rows went, infinite and pure just like the universe.

  Then there was the deal with the smell. That rotting, moldy, and preserved scent of life… it was cum, blood and so much worse. Castration. Pain that should never be spoken about. Buckets of it. As soon as he realized what it was, Killian bent and vomited the last liquids inside of his almost empty stomach.

  Underneath some of the alphas were large metal vats with two prongs connected to each side. Each prong served a different function of control. In rhythmic motion, the machine moved and drained their seed. Seemingly unending, the men twitched and groaned loudly through their pain as they gave the last ounces of their life.

  The machine stroked their bulbous cocks, delivering lubricant around the thick shafts every few seconds. The sights, the sounds, the smells… it was evil incarnate, especially to alphas who had grown in decent conditions. All of the promises that were given to them had been broken.

  “My God…” Killian collapsed onto the mud before them. “They’re milking them for their seed.”

  It was unclear for what purpose, but the painted picture that lay before them was darker than they could have imagined in their prison cells. Never did they think man capable of falling that far into shackled depravity. The wars had taken a toll on them all, and now, these men were cogs in something far worse than its appearance.

  Vash took Killian’s shoulder, but he kept silent. After all, there were not any words that could console the brute so clearly dumbfounded by the new world and his role within it. The three of them backed away slowly from the sight, blinking as if they could block it out of their minds forever.

  “We shouldn’t be here,” Vash said.

  “And yet, you’re here.”

  The voice caused the alphas to turn with their rifles ready. Killian clicked the safety off and tightened his finger’s grip around the silver-tongued trigger. It might have been years since they fought in any real conflicts, but they still knew how to aim and pull a trigger.

  In front of them stood a tall and gangly man with retreating hair. His nose was fair and pointed, but his mouth twisted as if he permanently smelled shit.

  “I will waste you, scum,” Killian said.

  It was the first thing that came to mind, but it was the truth. Given the right amount of push, Killian would have ended him in less than a second. The only thing holding him back was the frail smile that cut through the lower side of his face. He was familiar, and he had a gleam in his eyes that spelled out his end. This man was his own worst enemy and not in the way the alphas were used to.

  “You’re not in a position to be negotiating,” the man said. “Plus, I think you and I have more in common than you want to admit.”

  “What in the hell is that supposed to mean? I’m an Ouroboros, through and through. Doesn’t matter if most of my pack leaders have been eradicated or imprisoned,” Killian growled. “Doesn’t matter if I no longer have a home. I have a family. You’re another shill for the government, and that means my whole being stands against you, in body and soul. Long live the New Republic, until I cut your throat.”

  “I’m not here to fight,” Severin sneered. “I’m here to make magic. To bring things together. To make sure the world connects properly. I know, you must think I’m the devil. In a sense, I am, but I offer you more than hell.”

  There was an odd shortcoming to the man, as if he quite couldn’t compete, but Killian forced himself to put it aside. He was dressed as a commander, and that meant he held a great deal of power. Physique and outer strength meant nothing in this new world.

  Still, Killian was restless and ready to start an ambush if that was what needed to happen. “Two more seconds, and I’ll decorate your body with beautiful silver bullets. Start talking,” he said.

  “Specialist Helen Kurtfield, please report to division three for cleanup.”

  “Poor Helen. She’s been cleaning up the bodies for months now,” Severin said.

  Killian felt his heart drop, and he nearly vomited again with aversion to the musky smell of death and seed. At once, it all began to sink in. It had been years since they’d escaped the war-ravaged fields, and the barracks that housed his fellow pack-soldiers was long gone. Nothing could take away his past, but he was a different man, a changed man.

  Eyes suddenly widening with excitement, the decorated leader stepped away from the aim of their rifles. Instead, he stood with them and breathed in the fragrant air with almost violent satisfaction. “My name is Severin. By now, the truth behind your heroic escape has sunk in. You have been set up.”

  Killian’s hand shook so much that he had to hide it behind his back and let the rifle dangle at his side. Through his great anger came only weakness and disappointment. There would be no family without Rae, and now the journey seemed fraught with peril.

  “It was you who detonated the prison,” Killian said.

  Severin giggled and kept his eyes on the men below them. “You know, I almost vetoed this place. I thought it a crude display of excess, a way for Ruby to boast of her power over the men,” he said. “But, as you know, when Ruby is set on an idea, she tends to get her way.”

  “You are an insufferable little man, aren’t you?” Lucas asked.

  “The Cathedral does not exist. I left the information with the guard to lead you here, and you came scurrying as any other cockroaches would. Only had to pay him a few coins for that. You can get anything you want with a little money and some charm,” he said. “But this is our time to bond over someone special. I just came from Rae’s quarters. She’s such a polite doll, isn’t she?”

  “Instead of boasting, you should keep your real intentions on display. Why keep us alive when you could surely have us dead?” Vash asked.

  “Well, I won’t lie to you. Eventually, the queen will have to be killed,” he said. Before they could lunge at him, he hurried his words. “But not for some time. Unfortunately, this tired population of betas needs more than death and tragedy to keep them satisfied. It wouldn’t be wise of me to murder the queen before she has given the speech to the New Republic, but, after some time, her death will need to be carried out.”

  Killian scoffed at the man. “You’re going to use us as scapegoats.”

  “Tell the public we are the queen’s killers. Captors from the Ouroboros days. It’s an easy sell,” Lucas said.

  “That isn’t quite my plan.”

  Severin paused and glanced down the long passageway. From the top of the pyramid of muck and mechanically pumped alpha slaves, a specialist wearing a white lab coat ran with absolute haste, her clothes stained with blood and other bodily fluids. Her arms flailed, giving the impression of a wild goose. Although her face was not visible, she was also familiar.

  “We are both playing on the house’s dime. You need me to see her. I need you for reasons I do not wish to reveal.” Severin stepped deep into the mud, splashing some on their ankles. “Come, follow. We need to talk.”

  As they walked through the rows of prisoners, Killian recognized some of the men’s tattoos. Some were Ouroboros traders from the region they were stationed in, but some came from other armies, most likely too small for them to know about. Killian quickly understood what Severin was showing them. If they didn’t play
their cards right, this could become their fate. The stakes were not just high. They fucking sucked.

  “Now, I personally know this type of pointless torture shouldn’t exist in any modern society, but it’s not as painful as it seems. It starts out as a very pleasurable experience for most males,” Severin said.

  “I’m not fucking a tube,” Lucas said.

  Severin bent and laughed. “I don’t expect you to. You are some of the last alphas left. You will be used for other reasons.”

  Lucas released the metal toothpick from his mouth. “So, if we follow you, we won’t end up here?”

  Severin kept walking, stepping over bodies until he reached a metal door. He placed his palm against a pad and walked into a long hallway as soon as the door opened. “Do you really think we’d milk you like these poor alpha cows? No, you will not be cast amongst the ranks of drained alpha soldiers. Fortunately, providing Ruby with three darling children was more than enough to please me.”

  Killian couldn’t take hearing his smug voice anymore. Now that they were moving, he lunged forward and forced Severin against the wall. Slowly, he lifted the aging man’s body by his puny neck. Desperate cries of strangulation bubbled from his closed air pipe, and the way his legs shook made Killian all the more apt to follow through with the killing.

  Vash stepped in and lightly took his arm. Killian shook his head and squeezed harder. “He took our children. He doesn’t deserve fairness.”

  “Fine. Go ahead and kill the moron,” Vash acquiesced. “But, once he’s dead, good luck getting us out of this place.”

  “I’ve seen those eyes. They’re familiar. We are walking into a trap,” Killian argued.

  He turned to see the door behind his counterparts. It had closed and bolted. If they wanted to escape, they would have to use Severin’s hand. And then, of course, they would have to walk into that spiral of hell and torture again. Unfortunately, Vash was right. They had to follow the demon.