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

by Penelope Woods

  He let go and watched Severin clasp his neck. He coughed and gasped for air, tears rolling down the wrinkles that formed his face. Falling to the floor, his body trembled like a dying insect, neck swelling up with each breath.

  Killian pressed his boot heel against the man’s chest. How easy it would be to crack his ribcage. “Know this.” Killian leaned against him. “I could have ended you with pleasure.”

  Lucas flicked the toothpick at Severin’s face. “In the future, if you decide to act against us, I want you to remember this moment. We’re letting you breathe, maggot.”

  Vash lifted him and slapped his cheek, smearing his lips together before eyeing him and growling like a wild beast. “My pack is far too lenient these days,” he said, grabbing Severin’s scrotum and twisting. “Imagine all the things we could do to you…”

  Vash let go. Face red and full of shame, Severin adjusted the collar of his suit and stood, wobbling as he balanced. “Settle your energies, brutes, for I offer you gifts no one else would have thought to pass your way.”

  “We’re waiting,” Killian muttered.

  “If you want to see her, you must follow me,” he said. “But there is more waiting for you than her.”

  The door opened in a flash to the darkness of a massive garage. Inside, a prisoner transport bus waited, engine rumbling. It was one of the designs from the old world, back when they enjoyed power. Guards appeared from each side of the doorway fell to the knees. “Sir. We are ready to leave when you are.”

  Severin nodded and held his hand out. One of the guards handed him three dark hoods. He turned around and tossed them at the alphas. “Put these masks on,” he said. “And give me your rifles. Where we’re going, you won’t be allowed any weapons.”

  Killian released the safety and tightened a heavy finger against the delicate trigger. “Like hell—”

  But Severin held his hand in the air to stop him from speaking. “I know you don’t trust me, but you have no choice. If you come with me, you will know exactly what she has been through. You will get to see her again. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “We want our family back, you son of a bitch,” Killian growled.

  The commander traced the red palm prints around his throat with unsteady fingers. “It’s your choice.”

  With no other options to choose from, Killian erratically removed the rifle from his shoulder and threw it at the guards next to Severin. Picking up the black hood, he put it on and immediately felt like a prisoner again. Was this the man’s plan? To fuck with them and leave them empty-handed? No matter the case, he felt obligated to follow the bastard’s lead…

  Because Rae was waiting for them, and surely, she was going through much worse.

  Chapter Five

  Ruby watched politely as Rae walked through the marble tower’s front doors. Lining the walkway through the courtyard, the guards knelt and offered words of praise to the new queen. She acted delighted. Too delighted for Ruby’s taste, no doubt, but that was the point.

  “When am I supposed to address the people?” she asked.

  Ruby smiled and seemed to weigh her thoughts heavily. She stepped over the last of the marble steps and turned to peer at Severin’s office. On days like this, Rae wondered if she would stare longingly at him as he worked, hunched over his desk like the goblin he surely was. She wondered if there was any love between them at all.

  Rae knew the answer. Severin was missing, and it was no coincidence that she was being taken on a foolish trip to ease her fears.

  “Your speech has been postponed until things stabilize in the cities,” Ruby said, chuckling. “You know Severin. Everything has to be perfect-perfect.”

  “I suppose that’s decent,” Rae muttered. “I’ve been through enough as it is.”

  “I’m very aware that you’ve been through hell and back, sister. But I want to make it up to you. I want to show you that this life is much nicer than the one you were building with those… those thugs.”

  Ruby spat on the green front lawn of the two large buildings, known as the marble towers. She used the spike of her heel to drive it into the dirt.

  She paused, probably to see if her words harmed her sister, but Rae kept her face blank. Truthfully, she hadn’t seen anything quite like the towers. It was beautiful, but the servants didn’t exactly treat her with the utmost respect. If anything, she was handled worse than a wild dog.

  Still, she had to admit the grounds were exceptional. There weren’t any cars for tens of miles, at the very least, and if she asked for food or water, she was given fine wine, turkey legs, and so much more. Those acts of charity instilled an air of good faith inside her, despite the harsh truth of her daily abuse. And, someday, she would escape with the children and find her men.

  Someday… until then, she would have to smile and behave.

  “Forgive me if I don’t know how to feel about all of this,” Rae said. “It’s all so—”

  Ruby smiled before interrupting her sister. “New? Yes, I know. And I don’t expect you to celebrate the Republic either, but you must know that the changes are in the peoples’ favor. Take in the sights. The air is clean. The grass, freshly cut… Have you heard a single explosion since you came here?”

  “No,” Rae admitted. “I suppose I haven’t. Although, we are far away from the city of Dagon. Perhaps there are bombs there.”

  “In time, we will visit the city together. When we do, we’ll see all of the sights. We can go shopping, and then we’ll take subway cars into the theme park. They move much faster now,” she said.

  Theme park…

  Rae nearly smiled, but her happiness was stifled by the sadness of the reality. The clothing she wore belonged to Ruby. Even the braids in her hair were of Ruby’s doing. It was too close to the feeling of enjoying a bag of candy much too fast. If she accepted things, she’d tumble down into a spiral of depression.

  She would lose her life.

  Outside the grounds, a car waited, spilling fresh diesel onto the cobblestone pavement. Ruby opened the door and waited for her to climb in.

  Enjoy it while it lasts.

  But she couldn’t enjoy anything for too long. As soon as Rae walked toward the door, she saw the plastic child seats in the back row. At first, she couldn’t even comprehend the sight. It was as if nothing sat in them. But the seats were not empty. No—in the center lay three pieces of her heart.

  “Don’t you want to come with me?” Ruby asked with a twisted smile.

  Rae’s eyes gaped open. Unable to blink, she tried to speak, but instantly failed. “I—I—” Rae shut her mouth and betrayed a light whimper.

  Without care, Ruby walked over to the other side of the car and stepped inside. Carefully leaning over the carrier, she brought her voice into a sweet and motherly tone, causing Rae to shiver with disgust. “Oh, my children. You are behaving quite well today, aren’t you?”

  She stopped. Her babies, Rae’s babies, stared at her with bored expressions. It was as if she didn’t even exist. “Children…” Rae whispered.

  There were so many sleepless nights when she’d thought about this moment. It was going to be so special—she hoped and even prayed to a god she couldn’t fathom, but apparently those words went unanswered like the bodies on the sands of a decimated beach.

  The tide pushes up the shore, and it takes what is weak enough to be taken.

  Though it had only been two years, the three children were so grown up. They took them before she could name them, but Ruby saw fit to do it for her. There was Sawyer with his dark brown hair and beautiful blue eyes. On the other end, Rae’s daughter Joanna yawned and giggled to herself a deep secret. In the middle, Jackson sat sulking and flexing his teeny-tiny grip. Each one bore a heavy resemblance to their fathers. So much so that she couldn’t bear to be near them for more than a few seconds before wanting to weep.

  “I thought they might be a good edition to our foray,” Ruby said.

  Rae batted her eyes and tried not to cry,
though the pain within her throat was almost too unbearable to take in stride. At a certain point, she found herself stepping into the car, but only because a sliver of hope remained. She thought it might be possible to hold them, kiss them, to whisper words of love against their precious ears. She thought a lot of things, but it didn’t mean it would come true.

  Worst was the thought that all of her fears had yet to be realized.

  What if Cassian’s horrid, past experiments—the rapes, the torture sessions, and all the endless war—what if that was just the beginning?

  The car left the grounds and sped into the distance. Far ahead, Rae saw the faint green outlines of some shrubs and dense trees, but her mind remained fixed on her fussing children. Ruby had dropped the right strap of her commander’s dress, revealing her small breast. The tragedy of the sight impaled Rae’s heart. How could her sister do this to her? She couldn’t even produce milk, and they needed to be weaned…

  As the sun poured through the window she appeared as a stoic goddess, and Ruby eyed her like a brutal hawk. Ruby forced Jackson into her arms, causing him to squeal loudly. Rae jumped forward but was met with a harsh slap.

  Ruby, clenching her jaw with anger, tucked her child into her breast and forced his mouth over the malnourished nipple. There was no milk, and the boy immediately showed his distaste by ripping Rae’s eardrums with his cries.

  Ruby roared. “What did you do?”

  Rae turned away, but Ruby’s intentions were right out in the open. Finally, heavy tears of her burden fell from Rae’s eyes. She knew she appeared weak and unsophisticated, but she lacked the capacity for the insanity her sister clearly showed. It broke her heart into a million pieces, caused her to freeze up sideways, and eventually broke her spirit once again.

  “I-I’m so-rry…”

  Ruby panted like a lion. If Rae squinted hard enough, she might have been able to see the red of the blood dripping from her mouth. Finally, Jackson took hold of Ruby’s nipple and bit to satisfy his mother.

  “I mean it,” Rae muttered. “Look at me.”

  Slowly, she pulled Jackson away from her breast, revealing the thin pricks of blood. Rae gasped with revulsion and turned to stare at the calming fields outside the window. It didn’t help.

  Ruby grabbed her shoulders and violently thrashed, fists landing firmly against her shoulders and neck. Luckily, it had been years since Ruby led the coalition army to victory in Dagon. Rae had gone through much worse with her alphas, and any physical exercise was put to shame with the mental torment her sister made her suffer by keeping her alive after the pregnancy.

  The tantrum ended when the car stopped, but the toddlers screamed so hard it sounded like their vocal cords were scraping their throats dry. For a while, it was all that encompassed the vehicle, but as Ruby reconciled her violence by hurriedly combing her own hair, Rae could see the obvious weakness and wished to exploit it to no end.

  “You put on the tough exterior of a leader, yet your own children wish to bleed you,” Rae said.

  Ruby lashed back with biting words. “I have chosen to let Severin make you immortal, so it is only fitting I be permitted to explore death’s uncertainty. Beware, sister. Once your life expires, you will become an even bigger martyr for them. They will celebrate and shed tears of joy.”

  As the driver opened his door, a chill ran through the car’s interior. Quietly swallowing, Rae placed her fingers against her sternum. “Once again, I apologize. You are right, sister. I have a lot to learn.”

  When Rae stepped out of the vehicle, she weakly collapsed and fell into the dense blades of grass. Eyes open, she observed the dark and sun-soaked green around her. Monumentally vibrant trees created a cathedral of nature, shrouding them in a mysteriously innocent glow. Her lungs inhaled the fresh air around her, cold and pure. Beauty—true and natural beauty surrounded them.

  “What is this place?” she dared to ask.

  Dancing within the invisible air stream above her head, a bright orange butterfly swooped down and landed on her nose. “Oh my!” Rae nearly clasped her hand on the insect to catch it—it was so beautiful! However, out of respect for its life, she resisted the urge and let it linger until it flew away.

  Rae stood back up and wanted to laugh and express her joy, but the next thing she saw was her sister’s ugly face, thin from worry and too much obsessive planning. The children were kept in the car, out of sight and mind. Ruby tossed a heavy and very old rifle against her chest, hurting her but only mildly compared to most of what she went through. “You act like you’ve never been outside,” she said.

  Rae barely touched the bark on one of the trees but, worried she might get infected with some unknown poison, she secretly rubbed the sappy excess on her dress. “It’s been some time,” she admitted. “But I’ve never seen so many trees in one place before. Is this another gift granted by the New Republic?”

  “No, it is not,” she muttered. “This is what the world used to be like. It is the last vestige of the real world, before the alphas made idols out of machine and experimentation. Now, let that sink in while I focus. I think I see my first target.”

  Ruby breathed and took aim at a small bird perched in one of the trees. She squinted her eyes elegantly until the trophy matched up with her sight. “Ordinarily, it is uncommon to hunt such a docile target, but the urge to fire can be too strong, and most of the animals have been eradicated years before the Republic gained its strength back,” she added.

  Still, it was something to hit, and once the bullet tore through the air, both women felt a wave of exhilaration rush through their upper thighs.

  Rae ran forward and jumped over a large fallen branch hidden in the grass. Tossing her gun to the side, she yelled, “You got it!”

  Dead, dead, dead.

  If there was anything the world had to offer as consolation, it was the ascent of death. That was the only prize worth winning.

  Rae stooped to get a better sight on the blackbird, but her smile wavered as soon as she saw that the wing was twitching, erratic and sad. The endless struggle to hold onto life ended with muscle spasms, and the silence that came afterward forced more nausea into Rae’s throat.

  The morning dew hung on the blades, and life seemed to grace every inch of this space. Yet, Death cut like a scythe, and the endless toil of mankind merely lived to taste one dot of virtue. What did Death have to say about this? Absolutely nothing. Death makes a deal with the innocent, and so it goes, on and on until the world burns.

  The blackbird was just like her—brittle and weak but full of old truths. Myths propagated by sinister men wishing to justify the cruelest actions... Even Ruby must have known she was playing a man’s game by gripping her silly hands around the phallic instrument of death.

  Like a child, she dipped her hand into the green and red beneath her. She allowed herself the strength to hold the gift of nature against the clean air and away from the mixed soil. “I would like to keep her,” Rae said.

  Ruby lowered the rifle. The driver of the car came beside her and graciously offered his hand to stow the weapon until another animal came into a clearing.

  “A trophy is a very fine thing to want to keep,” Ruby said, seeming pleased.

  Rae didn’t dare move lest she disturb the soul of the poor creature. She wanted it to know that it died in honor, but sentiments such as honor seemed to only exist for the living’s appreciation. That was what she couldn’t wrap her head around. The most beautiful ideas lifted the dead from their graves, but they would never be able to experience them. To Rae, it seemed like a horrible punishment issued from an unjust system.

  Cassian had once remarked on how the world was built from chaos. But as her mind expanded with age, she came to realize even the worst madness served to prop up a very structured house.

  Ruby bent down next to her sister and kissed her temple tenderly. “It is now an icon.”

  “Like me? I’m an… icon?”

  Ruby nodded and turned her gaze upward. Ra
e followed her sight and traced the hypnotizing patterns of the branches and leaves of the trees. “Do we not reside in a natural cathedral?” Ruby asked. “Do you see? Everything has been constructed to reflect the hierarchy of the universe. Mankind binds its wrists with symbols. The lamb lives innocently to die by the lion’s tearing teeth.”

  “So it can live forever,” Rae said.

  “Infinite and pure,” Ruby added. “The world needs both lions and lambs. Otherwise, where would we be?”

  Heaven.

  Rae imagined a field of sheep, calmly grazing until the shepherd called them in for supper and sleep. She saw the image of that man blowing into a horn, another trophy. She thought of a warm cabin in the woods. Near a burning fire, a family watched the man hack an axe into a plank of wood to keep them warm. In this prophetic vision, a candle made from the belly fat of a whale illuminated the house so they could live in light. The world was built on the back of suffering, and mankind could hardly wrestle with this understanding, let alone admit it.

  Rae stood and clutched the dead bird to her chest, staining the white of her dress with splotches of rosy reminder. If her unkempt disposition angered Ruby, she did not show it. Instead, her demeanor had turned kind.

  Ruby lowered her voice to a whisper and positioned her face toward a small deer that had magically appeared behind a set of trees. The animal bent her neck into the grass to eat, ignoring the two entirely. “Now, grab your rifle from the ground. It’s your turn to tumble a beast.”

  Rae cowered inside her head. The deer in the horizon was exquisite and yet another reflection of her docile self. She was not a hunter, but she was becoming aware of the danger she was actually in. Without knowing when, there could only be one logical conclusion to her sister’s games: death and trophy. Eventually, a holiday might be celebrated in her name. She’d live on and on, and on and on, cutting the fields with her own dull scythe, for she was death and life’s quiet handshake.