Unknown Omega

by V T Bonds

  Vander and I lunge at the same time. Me to the female, Vander to Seeck.

  I grab her out of the air, ending her descent. Before I can stand, she’s gasping through pained lungs. I cradle her to my chest like a child and look down at her. Her wide eyes blaze in desperation and hatred. She wears clothes at least four times too big for her—the neckline slips down her arm and exposes injured flesh. Her shoulder has a busted welt surrounded by a massive purple-and-green bruise. The wound has reopened, smears of blood and sand covering her skin. Even through that, the bruise is obvious.

  Before she’s gained her wits, she’s growling.

  I hug her, hoping to convey safety, and on instinct purr for her.

  Her growl stutters, her almost white eyes filling with confusion, then she narrows her focus on me. The searing loathing dims, and her confusion grows.

  The bruising on her face has lessened, and swelling no longer hides her cheekbones, but she’s pink enough to merit a burn, some areas looking as though they might blister.

  Her growl kicks back up, but with less venom. It feels more like self-defense than manic intent.

  Her aroma is a terrible, wonderful mixture. She smells of soap, blood, a strange beta male, Seeck, and the enticing lure of Omega. The scent of her release lingers, but the sweet aroma of slick is absent.

  I finish rising to my full height and squeeze her against my ribs, encouraging her to snuggle into my purr.

  Her growl ceases, but instead of burrowing into the comfort, she starts to struggle. After a moment of wasting energy, she looks up at my face.

  Her hand lifts and rests against my breastbone, where my purr is strongest.

  “What are you?” her voice emerges, raw and husky.

  Chapter Eleven

  Vander

  This lousy piece of shit just THREW AN OMEGA across the passageway.

  I don’t care how shocking and fucking unlucky the circumstances are—you purposefully hurt an Omega like that, and you deserve the pain I’m going to give you.

  He’s so fixated on the damage he’s done that he doesn’t even see me coming. He’s still sitting on his ass, his arms extended as I ram my shoulder into his face, tackling him to the ground. His skull cracks against the concrete flooring inside the building. I ram my knee into his throat, pinning him to the unrelenting surface. My fist connects with his temple, and it wakes his training and instincts.

  He flings his legs up, hooking his calves around my neck, ready to yank me backwards.

  I draw my knife out of its sheath and throw my weight to the side. His leg hits the doorframe, and he hisses in pain. I line my blade up to the artery on the inside of his leg—if he tries to pull me backwards, he’ll bleed out in seconds.

  “Listen, you fucktard, and listen hard,” I growl, my voice tight with dark menace.

  Our muscles lock in battle, neither of us willing to admit defeat. My ragged breathing brings me air saturated with aggression.

  “You fucking injure an Omega again and I’ll castrate you. Then I’ll fuck your ass with my knife. I’ll make you beg for death. The normal torture shit will pale in comparison. You hear me?” I demand, flexing my fingers and digging the tip of my blade into his leg.

  “She can’t come with us. She can’t be mine. She’s already destroying us,” he grinds out from compressed vocal cords.

  “No, dickhead, you’ve done that,” I spit the words at him, my anger making me see red.

  I lean more weight onto my knee, and his breathing becomes stilted.

  “Just keep her away from me,” his plea cuts deep. I don’t understand his reasoning, but a bone deep well of certain doom seeps into my soul, and I know it’s an echo of what he’s experiencing.

  Leaning back, I lessen the pressure on his throat, and study his features, trying to understand. His sharp nose and high cheekbones already show signs of swelling and bruising. His fiery eyebrows convey a sternness that can only come from unfaltering belief. His flaming red hair sticks out in all directions, mussed from activity.

  His deep green eyes hold a determination that’s fitting for such a strong Alpha. He’ll avoid her at almost any cost. I can see the anguish this will cause him, and I realize that his breath smells of her sweetest aroma.

  I can’t help it—I start full out cackling, reveling in the twisted turn of events. The irony is beautiful. No pain could surpass the torture this will put him through. This dumb bastard must have a need for misery.

  He thinks he can sacrifice his soulmate for us—just turn away from his Omega and be a martyr for our unit. Like he can deny his connection with her, to uphold our team’s integrity.

  The delusional idiot.

  Well, the mission just got a lot more interesting.

  Chapter Twelve

  Seeck

  Without allowing myself a backwards glance, I disappear into the building, leaving before any other teammates can approach me. I launch my body through a window opening, knowing that if I hesitate, I’ll turn around and snatch her up again. My instincts demand I return to her and protect her. Shelter her. Consume her. But if I do that, I’ll become weaker and fail my unit.

  Knowing that I must not dwell on her sweet flavor, I pull out the hose attached to my water sack and suck in a mouthful of the rare resource. Swishing it around in my mouth, I tell myself to spit it onto the ground, but I can’t. I greedily swallow it down, unable to lose any of her essence.

  Damn it, I can’t let my Alpha instincts ruin this mission.

  The mission. Right. Damn, that’s exactly the distraction I need.

  I take another pull from the hose, then step off toward where I was going before she distracted me. I return the water spout to its pocket, holding the water on my tongue, willing her flavor to linger.

  The further I walk from her, the stronger my urge to go back becomes.

  With sheer force of will, I put up a mental shield and focus on gathering blood samples for our mission. I pull my head covering over my face, wincing at the pain in my skull and loosen my gait. Pretending I’m just another piece of scum roaming the streets, I turn into an alley containing a shifty group of males.

  They look up together, but no one moves from their position. It’s hot and getting up for no reason is a waste of energy.

  “I’m here fer a ride,” I say, hating the way my mouth moves over their strange dialect.

  They all smirk, and all but one returns to their game of dice.

  He stands with lazy movements, not wanting to leave his perch but eager to do business.

  Without a word, he extends his hand and raises an eyebrow. I saunter over to him, and keeping alert, I pull a little bag of water out of my pocket and slosh the innards around.

  He eyes the baggie and wiggles his fingers.

  I hand it over, watching for any signs of a double cross.

  He walks to a door and inserts a key. It’s weird to see such a solid door, since there aren’t many of them in these parts.

  “Choose from any of ‘em. Or all of ‘em, I don’t give a fuck. Ya got thirty minutes,” he says, standing there with the bag of water near his face.

  I step over the threshold and hold my breath. The smell of sickness and misery is so thick it feels like there isn’t any oxygen in the room. Six females lay bound to stakes in the packed dirt flooring. Sand, dirt, bruises, and other injuries cover their naked bodies. The ground divots where they lay, like little bowls of disgust.

  None of them are more than a week from death. They each carry a myriad of diseases and are so starved they may as well be skeletons.

  My heart enters my throat and I wish I could scrub the sight away, but because of my training, I observe all information available and store it in my mental files.

  They don’t acknowledge my presence—so far gone that death would be favorable. This hellhole of abuse isn’t killing them fast enough.

  Seeing the worst treatment a female can go through after just meeting my lifemate firms my resolve.

  I can
not have an Omega—I’m too broken, too hardened to treat her properly. I have too much experience of the world to be what she needs me to be. She already hates me, and for good reason.

  I couldn’t protect her from myself. I wasn’t gentle with her—I let my instincts turn me into an uncontrollable monster. My needs superseded everything else. I forced her to give me what I wanted, even though she wasn’t a willing participant. I held her down and devoured her until she had no choice but to give me her most intimate response.

  It’s unforgivable. I’m unforgivable.

  Refusing to waste another moment inside this pit of despair, I pull my head covering off and walk to the closest female. Her dirty cheeks sink in, her skin is so dry it bleeds from cracks, and seeping blisters cover her legs. Her dull, empty eyes open and shift toward me.

  I extend my special bracelet to her shoulder and barely touch her flesh. I take her sample.

  “Peace, little one,” I croak out, never taking my eyes off her.

  Her chest expands in a weak, labored breath, but before it deflates, I insert my blade between her ribs. It severs her heart from her aorta, including the trunk of all her other veins and arteries. She’s dead within a second. Her eyes never differ; her mental faculties died long ago. Her body reflexes—two tiny twitches—as the last traces of life leave her form.

  I swallow the nausea and sorrow and move to the next female.

  Maybe she senses death approaching, or maybe she caught a mental disease, but she smiles at me. I retrieve a sample from right above her elbow—the rest of her is untouchable. She hisses out what sounds like yes, and I sink my blade between her ribs. A single tear escapes from her left eye, and her lips relax.

  Hating every moment, pushing through the experience, I gather the other four samples.

  Today I am the Grim Reaper.

  I am death.

  I am a slaughterer of innocents.

  I am evil, undeserving of love.

  Placing an explosive in the center of the room, I pull my covering back over my face and move to the door. I kick it open, funneling my rage into my actions.

  The reinforced door splinters outward, and alarmed shouts fill the air. I grin in delight.

  The man closest to the door is halfway standing by the time I reach him, but there is nothing he can do to prevent his death. I grab his neck, making sure my wrist connects with his collarbone, taking the sample. Then I smash his temple against the building. It crushes in and fragments of skull and brain splatters everywhere.

  When the massacre is over, I stand in the aftermath and observe my power of destruction. Spilled entrails mix, but the sand sucks down the gore—the crimson waterfall I created disappearing.

  One corpse is missing its head while a different form has hips facing the wrong direction. A body further down the aisle has his own chin embedded inside of his skull. An iron construction rod impales two men through their temples, but their crimson mess blends in with the rest of the lane. Three men are so gutted that their intestines fill the alley from one side to the other, their entrails unidentifiable from the others’. Another lies on the ground, his chest caved in, flattened by my rage-filled stomping.

  I now have six extra female samples and ten male, filling my quota for three days.

  Covered in blood, knowing that killing these fleas accomplished nothing towards the mission, I realize something very important.

  I can’t keep her safe.

  But I can erase her demons. I can punish her attacker. I can kill her rapist.

  The thought overtakes all rationale, and I stalk out of the alley. Before I can stop my legs, I’m running through the disgusting city.

  The explosion behind me barely registers. I was expecting it—I set the dynamite to erase all proof of my melee. Now to continue my killing streak.

  ∆∆∆

  Careful to stay out of sight, I prepare to enter the home.

  Finding this building was easy—I tracked her scent from the alley. Walking in the opposite direction of where my teammates had taken her was almost too difficult.

  But I did it.

  Seeing the fenced side yard brings my hackles up. I sense that this is where she was raped. No one is near, and the gate is open, so I enter and catalogue the surroundings. There’s empty space on the clothesline near the gate—must be the ill-fitting clothes she wore in the alley.

  A ripped, bloody, and tattered bit of fabric lies on the ground, the wind attempting to cover it with sand. Venturing further, I see a dented washbasin and a few garments scattered about the ground.

  The slim door to the kitchen isn’t closed all the way. I slowly push it open.

  Her smell is so strong in this room that I want to roar in frustration. A tiny threadbare cot lays behind the door. The scent wafting up from it makes me instantly hard, and that layer of irritation motivates my feet forward.

  I sneak through the house. The only movement is from the back bedroom, so I creep down the hallway. Voices lead me to my destination.

  ∆∆∆

  The harsh sound of water striking metal fills the room. I lift the water pump as the stream of water runs out and depress it again. The water is cold in the constant, permeating heat of this place. It turns red as it splashes off my palm.

  The jet of water trickles to a stop, and I lift the pump handle again. The contents of the bucket turn crimson, overflowing and making trails of gore seep toward the drain.

  Stooping under the spigot, I wash. With a steady, purposeful rhythm, I raise and lower the pump handle. The slippery, sticky goop that slides out of my hair is a testament to what I can do in a vile rage.

  Not wanting to linger in this hellhole for a second longer than necessary, I haven't searched for soap. Even if I spent the time looking, it wouldn't help me much. These clothes will be forever stained.

  Once I rinse the filth from my hair, I clean my face, sucking in large gulps of water to clear my palette. The temperature of the water cools my belly and soothes my raw throat. Who would have thought growling could be so violent?

  Fully clothed, I rinse everything, soaking the dense desert garb. The drain cannot keep up with the demand, and a puddle of unmentionable yuck forms.

  Never have I so thoroughly and viscerally engaged my lethal abilities. What I’ve just done was heinous. Beyond evil, disgusting and cruel.

  I lost control. Again. For the second time in one day. The first, when I tasted her delicious nectar, was pure instinct—a part that lingers inside me every moment. This, though. This was a purposeful and calculated, yet uncontrollable series of decisions that cannot be undone.

  I don't want to undo them. When I smelled her fear and pain clinging to the disgusting beta, the need to destroy him was overpowering. I wanted to do more than dismantle his body.

  His death was not quick. It was not gentle. It was not easy.

  And I forced his shrieking female along for the ride, using her to drag him deeper into the pits of hell.

  None of what I just did is forgivable. All of it was obscene, morbid, and cruel.

  I wouldn't undo a single second of it.

  Her tormentors are dead. She'll never have to live through their abuse again.

  Their disgusting, foul scent swirls through the scarlet river pouring off me. It clings to my clothes, but grows fainter as I rinse and rinse and rinse.

  Flashes of my brutalities scroll through my mind, along with the mercy killings of the females.

  I'm a machine designed for destruction and pain. These scarred, deft fingers don't deserve to be anywhere near such soft perfection as her skin. No Omega should have to deal with the touch of hands like mine. No good could come from such a union.

  I can’t be her Alpha. I won’t be her Alpha.

  As I lower the handle the last time, the kitchen door squeaks open.

  Purposefully slow and full of menace, I rise from my crouch and turn toward the vestibule.

  Two beta males, well fed and recently groomed, stand white-faced and
angry. I can tell by the shock in their eyes they've seen the bedroom.

  Time to dirty my hands. Again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Her - Unknown

  The gentle reverberations seeping out of his chest are soothing, but don’t hold quite the power as the other man’s did. They take the edge off my pain, but don’t seem to affect my ability to think.

  “I’m an Alpha,” he states.

  “Wha-” I realize I’m about to ask him what an alpha is, but the lethal knowledge lurking in his eyes makes the question dry up in my throat. His weird vibrations and colossal size make him seem like he’s from another world—one that I’ve fallen into and can never escape.

  If it weren’t for the pain, I would think I slipped down into the darkness and found an alternate universe.

  Already in motion, my mouth blurts the question that pings around inside my skull.

  “What have you done to me?”

  Another man’s face arrives in my periphery, and my fear rumbles back to life.

  The emotional unbalance threatens to sink me. I feel as though I’ve been on the worst kind of journey, with my spirit and body being flung around. It’s as if someone stretched me out, balled me up, stuffed me in a sack, and threw me across the desert.

  Oh wait, I was thrown. Across an alley. My entire body throbs in wretched pain.

  Every tortured muscle tenses in wary uncertainty, the man an unexpected arrival. His white and black hair is shocking in its contrast.

  “We’ve found you. Nothing more,” the new guy says.

  More movement comes from around the behemoth holding me, and I feel people surrounding us—killer vibes emanate from them, and more worry fills me.

  “I’m Dirk. That’s Vander. And there’s also Jumoke and Kwame here. We won’t hurt you,” the man holding me says, his purr rumbling as he speaks.

  The movement is oddly fascinating. Even with it being only a shadow of his calling, I’m finding it hard to ignore. It promises protection, warmth, and care.

  And I hurt. I hurt everywhere.