Broken Angel: The Complete Collection: A Dark Omegaverse Romance

by Penelope Woods

  The lights have been shut off, as if the entire place has been evacuated. Running through the hall, he checks each cell.

  His pack-brothers are nowhere to be found.

  * * *

  “I am sorry it has taken this long to find a safe place to care for you. I didn’t want anyone to see you,” Cassian says.

  Carefully folding the satin sheets over his mother’s frail body, he makes sure she is comfortable. Not too warm. Not too cold.

  The facilities are not a place to live in forever, but her secrecy is a priority to him. Vash must not know of her existence. There isn’t an alpha in this world who loves his mother as much as Cassian, and if anyone finds out, it will be another problem for him to shoulder.

  “For now, this will do,” she says, eyeing the cryogenic chambers.

  The women inside are silent with loving, blue lips and gentle eyes. Each copy is a terrible attempt at something beautiful and, perhaps, even holy.

  Mother houses her thoughts very judiciously.

  “You like them, don’t you?” Cassian asks.

  His finger traces the rough edges of her sheets.

  She acts as though she sees one of the women peek at her, but that is an impossibility. She is now in her late eighties, and every thought has to be dealt with caution. The one thing she can be certain of these days is her hatred of them.

  Although the copies are a magnificent first step of ending the alpha-omega dilemma, they are lackluster in the details.

  “I don’t like seeing their faces,” she protests.

  Cassian smiles and pats her sheets down one last time. “This arrangement is short-term. We just need to wait out the rest of the war. Then, I will move you to somewhere much safer. Somewhere removed. In fact, I know just the place.”

  “Into a new body…”

  His mother can barely get the words out, but once she does, they give her youthful energy.

  Cassian stands back. “I hope to give you more than that, Mother.”

  Mother gazes down at the prosthetic limbs protruding through the silk sheets. A mess of wiring and cables can be seen underneath the clear silicon abdomen, serving as a reminder she doesn’t have much time left.

  She relies on the central networks of the machines inside of this new facility. In so many ways, she is just as helpless as the rest of the whores.

  “Have you found your brother?” she asks with strange dynamism.

  Cassian circles around her, hesitant to acknowledge the creases that engrave her face like old river trails. His father is the rightful ruler of the seven continents, but the fucker is dead. His mother is everything to him. She is the one who taught him the value of life.

  “There was a minor setback,” Cassian admits before clearing his throat and running to his own defense.

  He is constantly being reminded of his shortcomings, but this time, his brother’s escape isn’t his fault. Rebel forces had opened fire above the prison cells. There were more important matters to attend to.

  His brother will die with or without his forced imprisonment. “We will find his corpse when the parasite consumes him,” Cassian says.

  She raises an eyebrow, but she does not lend a smile. Her eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep. “You have done what I asked of you?”

  Had she been standing, Cassian would have knelt and bowed his head like a good child. During times of weakness, she made him feel strong. Vash, on the other hand, never received the same treatment. Always on the outside, he was forced to cope with his conscience. It echoed Cassian’s weakness and made him shake with a violent drive.

  “I have done it, Mother. I have killed my own brother,” he whispers.

  Abruptly, the realization sinks into his fat gut. He has killed so many people during his lifetime of war that he never stopped to consider how it might feel to kill a family member. Despite the ease of the action, he didn’t expect the level of depression he might feel after.

  “Oh, honey,” she whispers. “Surely, you will learn to move past this.”

  He nods and swallows the last of his saliva. A breath of icy air allows him to relax and set his eyes on the clones.

  “You’re right. We are so close. Soon, the world will be ours.”

  His mother looks off into the negative space above her bed. “Yours,” she corrects him.

  He doesn’t say a word back. It isn’t like his mother to be jealous.

  Eventually, a fresh smile creeps against her cheeks. Compromise. It defines solidarity.

  But Cassian can no longer compromise his goals. His thoughts are of the whore omega. She ought to have been his bride had no one interfered. Now he has to wait.

  “I should have made sure he was dead,” he whispers.

  He disgusted even himself.

  “Your brother was not born a warrior,” she says.

  Cassian nods and waits for her to keep speaking. “When she wakes from her torturous slumber, she will adore you.”

  But as much as Cassian wants to believe her lies, he is knee deep in worry. Despite Vash’s parasitic weakness, he is concerned that all of his actions will add up to nothing. Like the tyrants of power before him, he is afraid all of this is a pillar of rock to be turned to sand.

  “Remember…” he whispers. “There are two.”

  Two.

  “We won’t discuss such matters,” she says. “For now, you will do as I say. You will rest. Then, you will wake her.”

  They will find her first.

  His thoughts bounce inside his head, but he knows his mother has a plan, too.

  He is the destroyer. She is the saving grace.

  Together, they will rule as a Hegelian force.

  Cassian forces his body into a bow. “Yes, Mother. I will wait for your instructions.”

  * * *

  Vash throws a punch at the door, crumpling to the floor once the pain hits his frazzled nerves. Harsh tears fall from his eyes, and all he wants to do is give up.

  With nothing left to lose, he collects himself before leaving the prisons and running upstairs.

  Positioning himself against the door of the stairwell, he listens to the rapid firing of soldiers outside. Their brash cries of courage are met with the obvious indifference of death and rising suffering.

  As soon as he opens the door, the smell hits him. In the distance, mounds of burning bodies pollutes the horizon. Grabbing a loose rifle, Vash closes his eyes and centered himself.

  The sound of gunfire calms him. For the last ten years of his life, he has gone to bed in the barracks listening to the cold noise of machinery. Other soldiers told him stories about alpha coexisting with nature. There was equality to life before alpha made machine. Apparently.

  Vash never believed the stories. Couldn’t be possible. Alpha was born to weave a story, and every story has a cruel cast of characters. Parity and fairness are bullshit. The two constants this world has to offer is sex and violence.

  Shouldering his rifle, he runs through the wrecked prisons as vibratory explosions ripple through the earth. The walls come crashing over him, but he rolls into a small clearing of rubble and waving trash. Unmarked civilians with guns of their own fire through the walls, but Vash has trained himself to be the quicker aim. He shoot into the dense crowd of people, watching as they twitch like insects.

  As Vash sucks in the adulterated air, he sees his escape. Amidst the burning wreckage of war vehicles and compact farm buildings stands a transport carrier, resting in the outside lot.

  He stumbles toward the vehicle, fighting the urge to look at the soldiers shooting in his direction. When his hand hits the green carrier, he jams the detonation device onto the hood of the vehicle. He makes sure the alpha driving sees his flashing grin.

  The front of the carrier explodes into flames, and the soldiers working the vehicle spill out like sour milk. Every single alpha is begging to be hit with his malice.

  Now more than ever, Vash wants to destroy Cassian’s armies, and with his brother’s eyes elsewher
e, it won’t be difficult.

  When the dead are silent, Vash steps inside the driver’s seat and pushes the sunken bodies aside to look through the cage to the holding area. Drooling alphas stare back at him, but Killian is the one who comes to the front first.

  “Vash,” he screams. Across his face is a fresh cut, deep, open, and running with red. “Bastards cut me up…”

  Vash takes the driver’s keys and jogs to the hold. When he opens the door, the prisoners run, but Killian pauses. “Where’s Lucas?”

  “You’re asking me?” Vash asks. “I thought he was with you.”

  “Shit,“ Killian hisses. “The bastard split us up. There are multiple transports.”

  Vash eyes the barracks again. Half of it is an exhibition of demolition and pain. It isn’t the least bit safe. But just as he turns around, a flimsy hand appears from the rubble, followed by a thin body caked in dust. Vash recognizes the body immediately.

  “Lucas.”

  Lucas wipes the dirt from his paramilitary-style pants and clenches his teeth around his metal toothpick. “You ready to go or what?”

  Killian nearly drops his gun onto the spoiled soil. “What the…?”

  Grinning, Lucas takes a rifle from one of many dead soldiers’ wrists. Taking aim at the prisons, he fires a few rounds blindly. “They never tell you about the smell of the killing fields,” he says.

  Killian eyes the smoky horizon. The sounds of gunfire cease momentarily. “Feces.”

  Both of the men laugh deeply.

  At the moment, Vash is a million miles away, inside his own head. Riddled with anxiety, he can’t stop twitching his eye to face each corner of the dense socket. There is a noticeable dull sting to those movements, not that it hurts. It just feels different.

  As Vash closes his eyes and feels the current of energy run through him, he senses the cold feminine touch glide against his shoulders. Nostalgia. For a brief moment, the feeling leaves him ruined.

  Raising his shoulders fiercely, he grunts through clenched teeth. “Mother…”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Killian asks.

  But Vash can’t concentrate. Suddenly, the voice inside his head grows stronger. “My baby…”

  Her age soaks through every word.

  Turning, the fields disappear. The blood and soiled earth morph into a brightly lit room. He knows the place almost instantly, except he can’t put his finger on the exact location.

  He can see Cassian roaming through the rows of sleeping omegas, locked away in their cryo chambers.

  Clones. All of them.

  Do the clones dream? Not even Cassian can answer that question.

  They can sure as hell fuck.

  Vash rolls his head, groaning. “My own brother,” he grunts.

  “Vash, we have to keep moving if we want to find the omega,” Lucas says, grabbing the lumped tuft of fabric near his shoulder.

  After a few blinks, Vash recalibrates himself. Though he can not understand the visions his mind plays behind his sore eyes, he knows there is something more to all of this. Something Cassian wouldn’t dare tell the sugary bitch, let alone Vash’s pack.

  Still, they don’t have the hours of planning to spare. In less than two weeks’ time, the parasite will worm through his socket. If he doesn’t find a doctor, he will die.

  “Cassian forced a scrounger in my fucking socket,” Vash groans. “It’s messing with my head. I need a specialist.”

  “Fuck.” Killian clenches his fist.

  Vash knows it’s not going to be easy to find a doctor who can help him. Seeing a specialist requires the patient to undergo a series of complex check-in instructions. A fingerprint identification check, saliva registration, and computerized questionnaire.

  It will be impossible to slip through the cracks.

  “I know of a guy,” Lucas mutters.

  “Speak,” Vash says.

  “He’s in the city of Dagon, but he does his dealings in the pipes for extra security,” he continues.

  Vash squirms when he thinks of the pipes. The smell practically wafts into the center of his nose.

  The underground sewage drains of the cities are some of the worst places in the world. Covered in excrement, dying alphas, and black-market sellers, it is regarded as Hell.

  “He’ll be there?” Vash asks.

  Lucas gulps, and the look on his face seems to suggest he can taste the sour aroma already. Nodding, he covers his mouth. “Parasites are easy to kill. He’ll just need a genetic kit from you and the woman.”

  Vash grinds his teeth against the inside of his cheek. Suddenly, it becomes quite clear how far they are from completing their journey. Without even thinking about the consequences, the alpha men have set out on the most arduous tasks in the world.

  “You think the girl will squirm?” Killian asks.

  Stepping forward into the red vapor of the waning day, Vash holds his rifle with as much pride as he can muster. They’ll find the girl. Breed her, too. And once they succeed in knotting her good, they’ll force Cassian’s hand.

  They’ll take his throne.

  “She’s a born captive,” Vash says. “She’ll be easier to train than a bitch in heat.”

  Born Captive: Book One

  O Rose thou art sick.

  The invisible worm,

  That flies in the night

  In the howling storm

  Has found out thy bed

  Of crimson joy

  And his dark secret love

  Does thy life destroy.

  -William Blake

  Prologue

  Planet Alpha.

  After the First Fall.

  Location:

  Third Facility

  (The Road of Excess)

  My name’s Rae…

  Running, running, running. Breath glides across Rae’s neck.

  Arches of cartilage form huffing nostrils that trace the curves of her tantalizing flesh and youthful frame.

  His fingers writhe like scurrying roaches, leaving a trail of viscosity, his pre-cum dripping from his fingertips.

  “Consume you,” he whispers.

  Him. The most horrible alpha on this godforsaken planet…

  He’s killed so many omegas before her, taken them and broken them into a million pieces. This is not the alpha she wants.

  Run. Just fucking run.

  It should be easy, right? It’s just one foot in front of the other. A few quick movements, and the body should do the rest of the work.

  Only, it’s so much harder. It feels like she is sinking in quicksand. The air is thick with humidity, so damp she can’t even breathe.

  She wakes inside a cocoon of concentrated webbing. Pictures flash against her eyes, and something forces her to watch as he towers above her frail body. She still feels his fingers, searching every orifice.

  Emotionless. Inhabited. Inhuman.

  Now, she remembers the horrors of what he did. He made her, turned her into a real omega. He took her blank memories and filled them with his own. He is her tormenter, the man who longed to destroy the world.

  Cassian.

  As he chases her, a feral dog barks, even comes to her rescue. But she knows what happens next. She doesn’t need to hear the cartilage break. Although, when it does, it’s not surprising. The neck snaps. The sound is so horrendously debilitating, and that’s when he takes her with no apologies.

  There is no redeeming an alpha like him.

  He is too far gone.

  Deep down, she knows there are better catches out there; alphas who adore their women, despite their need for dominance. She waits for them, night after night, even visualizes how they might look, smell, and feel. There is nothing she wants more than to be taken by a pack so wild even Cassian would tremble.

  So, despite his clutching hands and tasting lips, she waits for the real alphas to find her.

  They never come.

  His tongue lowers like a wicked drawbridge of saliva and red meat. Foam fizz
es against his ruined lips, fangs flashing like daggers. She is his, taken and controlled, systematically mistrusted.

  His cock extracts from the dark hooded mass of foreskin. Wet, slimy lubricant glows from the light’s reflection.

  Where is she? Why can’t she move?

  Is this all a dream?

  “Slide open for me, darling,” he growls.

  The twisting of his tongue against the curve of her neck causes her jaw to drop with revulsion. In an attempt to force him away, she twists her head to bite him. She gasps for air, but his musky, fatherly scent seems to be everywhere, funneling through her lungs.

  “No,” she whispers.

  He laughs. “Mm…tight hole. Ripe for stretching.”

  Wrists bound, body paralyzed with fear. His cock parts her lips, teasing her open with gentle thrusts and proddings.

  “I will go easy on you,” he grunts.

  “No…” Tears drench her face.

  The wretched beast pauses to sniff the arch of her neck. “Virgin slut,” he moans, stepping back.

  Hot tears flows from her strained eyes. She doesn’t understand any of this. How she got here is a mystery.

  “W-W-Who are you?” she whispers through chattering teeth.

  She’s never getting out of this.

  “I’m the devil,” he sneers.

  “And me?” she dare asks.

  “You’re my precious little girl.”

  Chapter One

  “When Cassian knots into your ovaries, let’s hope he breeds you. It can be quite painful for an omega, and we want to get it right. Lately, it’s been hard to get right,” the specialist says.

  “What do you mean?” Rae asks, so naïve it causes the specialist to smirk.

  “There are more betas than alphas and omegas combined. Too many of us have developed a chromosome deficiency,” the specialist says.

  Deficiency…

  “Omegas are special, but alphas are the planters of seed. Dear, I know it may be difficult to process all that has happened to you, but you are the cornerstone to true change. Someday, everyone will have children again,” the alpha rejoices.