Killian chuckles. “I’ve seen a lot lately that doesn’t jive with what I was taught. Explain yourself. I can learn to follow.”
Ruby smiles and nods. “I am from the same facility, born in the same artificial womb as my sister. But I was born barren. He sold me to a group of rebels in the South as payment for a feud,” Ruby said. “And then I was picked up by someone high up in the Republic. Understand?”
“Sure do,” Killian says. “Doesn’t make it any less shocking.”
“What if we don’t buy your sob story?” Lucas asks.
She ignores the question. “A man and a priest raised me. They could have taken me at any moment, yet they chose me to lead instead. Why is that?” she asks.
“Easy,” Killian replies. “They’re using you.”
Ruby’s face twitches. “I am here to take the city of Dagon,” she says, full of pride and conviction.
“And now you’re trying to save Rae,” Lucas says.
Her expression drops. “I don’t hold allegiance to her. We were born opposites.”
“You can’t kill her. She’s pregnant,” Lucas growls.
“Yes,” she says, gaze wandering to the floor. “She is.”
Ruby releases the rifle from her shoulder and hands it to Killian. “I believe this is yours.”
Lucas stares. “Aren’t you going to give me mine?”
Ruby snaps her fingers, and an alpha comes with the second rifle. Lucas takes it, eyeing the mysterious omega. “How did you get them to behave so foolishly?”
She does not smile. “Because they are my equals, and I provide them with everything they need.”
“They are on their knees,” Lucas says.
“Power comes to those who obsess over the cracks in the foundation,” she says. “I will reward the men who serve me with adoration. They will be well fed and groomed to my liking. And once the issue of fertility is solved, they will be satisfied with mates. Isn’t that what alphas want?”
Killian steps forward and reaches his arm out to touch her, smell her. He looks at her with longing, thirsty eyes. The tough, rising mass of flesh rises against his wear.
“I bet I could take you, right here,” Killian grumbles.
“Supposing my men wouldn’t brand elaborate designs into your scrotum first, I think I’d say you’re welcome to try.”
A spoiled smile forms on her face.
Lucas checks the rifle to see if it’s loaded. When he sees that it is, Ruby motions for them to follow her to the door.
Grabbing a headset, she places a glass piece over her eyelid. She gives a groan when it secures. “We will provide the added gear. The headset will register the heat movements of an individual area. Body armor. You name it. It’s yours.”
Confusion hangs in the air, but they put on the gifted gear with no words against it.
As they finish gearing up, Ruby explains to them the plan. There are known facilities all over the continent.
Ruby points toward a thick tablet with a map on the screen. “The one we have targeted is here,” she says.
“In the middle of the sea?” Lucas asks. “Listen, if Cassian had a facility in the sea, we’d know about it.”
Rae turns the tablet screen off and continues through the door. “We load out in an hour.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rae stands on the edge of the deck, leaning against the cold metal bars. She gazes at the metal facility that towers above the waters.
A rich plume of smoke rises from the roof. The facility is on fire. Far behind them, a series of bombs shatter the city’s tallest buildings, and Rae’s heart drops like a stone.
Cassian’s eyes flash with abrupt terror. He slides the throttle up and increases the boat’s speed. “Bastard,” he cries.
Vash must be inside that building.
Although Rae is in Cassian’s hands again, she can’t help but feel a tremendous level of pride. If she hadn’t let him take her away, they would be killed in the war zone back in the city.
Instead, they are in the middle of the sea, looking back on his burning empire. It has all come undone.
Cue the fireworks.
The boat rolls into the dock where a slow elevator brings the boat up into a pool. With haste, Cassian anchors the small vessel and carries Rae by the leash he has applied around her brittle neck.
Pulling, they move into the burning facility.
As the alarm systems blare, Rae cups her hands over her ears and lurches in pain. Water floods the stretching hallway, but Cassian keeps bringing her forward.
Her eyes roll past an empty room with medical equipment, the shiver-inducing sight of IV drips and needles.
At the end of a long hallway, Cassian hits his body against a door, checking his shoulder against the impossible lock. “Mother,” he screams.
Struggling, Rae watches as her captor faces his limitations. She can’t help but feel the urge to laugh. To cry. To reach out and pry his eyeballs out with her thumbs.
As the water falls over her hair, she remembers and internalizes every moment she has gone through to get here.
He doesn’t know power. She does. And she is going to show him how it’s done.
“Move,” she says.
Cassian turns his wretched head and edges his teeth together in manic motions. She pushes forward, despite the threat of his beating fists.
Hands clutching around her belly, she presses her cheek against the cold metal door and says, “Vash. I’m here.”
“Vash…” Cassian grunts, low and quiet.
On the other side of the door, Vash opens his eyes amidst the flood of water that has risen into the room. His mother lay in bed, a soaking and shivering, thin body. He looks at the copies floating near him in the water.
Gasping in horror, he ducks under the surface.
He hears Rae. “Vash!”
And then Vash feels the slight, reverberating knock of a pounding fist against the iron door.
He comes to the surface and takes another breath. But before he lowers his head into the water again, he sees the focused smile on his mother’s face.
Is she still alive?
Swimming downward, he pries and calls out with subdued bubbles of oxygen. He pushes his feet against the door and struggle back, losing steam once again.
“Vash!”
He rises back to the surface and swims toward his trembling mother. “She’s here,” he gasps. “She came for you.”
Her eyes open and swivel in his direction. “Rae,” she whispers.
“Yes, Mother. Rae is here.” Vash inhales.
Like a child, his mother shows her teeth. With glee, she whispers, “Another friend to play with?”
“Yes, a friend,” Vash cries out. “Now, open the door.”
His mother’s expression drops. She closes her eyes. “I can’t do that, Vash.”
Vash clasps his fingers around the golden frame of his mother’s bed. Slowly, he pulls himself above her and reaches into her complex wiring systems.
“You can kill me, but I won’t let you kill my children,” he shouts.
“Vash…” she whispers.
With tears flowing through his strained ducts, he kneads his hands deeper and cries out with emotional anguish. Clasping them together, he flexes his bicep and tears upward, plucking the cables out of her lower half.
She lets out an electrified shout, mouth twisting in disbelief.
“Drain the water, Mother,” Vash cries.
Her tongue extends, wagging like a defensive eel. Once more, he digs down and tears out her insides, splitting her apart for the very last time. The stench of pulverized flesh and electrical fire fills his lungs.
His mother chokes on blood, and the cables spill milky fluids into the surrounding water.
“Drain the water, Mother,” he says, again.
His mother shakes before her body gives way to death. The alarm systems turn off, and the doors unlock. The release of pressure sends the water shooting out into the hall
way.
Both Rae and Cassian fly against the wall, cracking down against the floor.
Rae yelps in pain, throwing her arms around her belly with sudden worry.
She is fine. But when she turns, she sees a reflection of light glare from Cassian’s blade. Without pause or acknowledgment, he sinks it into Rae’s shoulder.
In desperate shock, she falls to the floor, spreading black maroon fluid into the flowing water.
Rae’s eyes roll as she struggles to turn her body. “Why?” she asks.
Cassian pulls the blade and briefly eyes the level of blood vacating her body. A crooked smile forms on his face. “You were never that special.”
Leaving to run into the primary room of the facility, he sees the drowned copies strung across the floor like leaves painted on canvas. Kneeling in the center of the room, Vash watches his so-called brother walk toward him with the blade.
“What have you done?” Cassian asks, running toward his mother. “You’ve killed her. You’ve murdered all of them.”
“I did,” Vash says. “Brother.”
Cassian turns his head, shaking with vindictive fury. He stands and holds his sword steady. “I’ll dig my blade’s edge through your esophagus,” he snarls. “I’ll remove your colon and use it as my cock puppet. I’ll use you, take your code, and kill you repeatedly throughout eternity.”
Vash shoots forward like a hunting predator. Tackling Cassian to the floor, Vash twists the wrist that holds the blade. It shakes in his brother’s hand, but falls to the splashing water.
Cassian lived because other alphas bled. But this time, he stinks of fear.
Vash throws his elbow against Cassian’s nose, deviating his septum. Clenching his fingers around the neck of the fool, he wastes no time choking the air out of him.
As each millisecond passes, Vash forces down harder until he feels the cracking of his windpipe. Cassian chokes, unable to breathe.
But he has one last trick left in him.
Roaring, Cassian writhes his fingers around Vash’s eye sockets. But Vash whips his head from side to side, stretching his neck back.
“You were never my brother,” Vash mutters. “You were a bastard, stolen from his real home.”
Choking on his last breath and tears, Cassian jerks his blade upward against Vash’s gut. Vash tries to fight back, wrapping his claws around the jagged edge, pulling with all his strength.
But he is too late.
Closing his eyes, he falls back with the blade propped inside his belly.
Cassian collapses with his jaw unhinged, air flowing against his upper palate. “Mother, I have done bad.”
He chokes on his tears, losing the last of his oxygen.
Vash’s eyes focus on the bed. Her torn cables… The awful rotting color spreading from her cheeks…
“Oh, God…” he whispers. “I’m dying.”
Breathing deep, Cassian slides against the floor, writhing in pain. He stares at Vash, tears flowing from his eyes like two rivers.
They are both dying.
As if sensing the single and unavoidable conclusion to all this, Vash lowers his hands before Cassian can speak. Bleeding and stumbling, he tears away the bed sheets and smashes out the rest of the cables with two hands that come away bleeding and glistening with electricity.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out the flare gun and jammed it into her core. He pulled the trigger and feels the hot flame escape and explode him back.
Stunned, Vash turns to face the dead body on the bed and waits until the moment of equilibrium is reached. Cassian’s final breath fades from his gawking lips.
He can hear Rae’s whimpers echo from the hallway, but he can’t keep his eyes steady.
Their pasts resolve into a tonic of darkness and the final absence of all motion.
“Rae,” he says.
Vash slides toward her image, a bloodied mess. An abomination.
As soon as he sees her wound, he manages to stand. Using the last of his energy, he scoops her hurt body into his arms and ushers her into the room with the medical equipment.
He places her on the table and turns to find the tools. “I’m sorry,” she whispers with strain.
Vash feels his heart twist into a knot.
Holding pressure against her wound, he runs his palm across her cheeks. He forgot how radiant she looked.
Trying not to tear up, he says, “Don’t you ever say you’re sorry to me.”
Rae puckers her lips to breathe, shivering through the cold. She pulls on the threads of his damp shirt until his face moves closer to hers. Her lips trembled above his, and he can smell the sweet nectar scent coming from her wet hair.
“I was so scared,” she whispers.
“You did it,” he says. “You proved us all wrong. You were the one Rae. The one to bring this all down. You’re a hero.”
Crushing their lips together with obsessive passion, Vash glides his tongue against hers and brings her taste back to him.
He twists his fingers through her hair and pulls, breathing in her last scent. “This pack can’t lose you,” he whispers.
Tears trickle from Rae’s glowing eyes. Swallowing, she takes another anxious breath. “I was never meant to live in this world,” she says.
Vash lets go. There are no medical tools to help them in this room besides the spare needles and pain meds in the corner.
He takes her face into his hands, shaking her awake as her eyes close. “You’re not going to die, dammit. Wake up.”
A light smile wrapped in a bluish hue forms on her face. “It’s okay, Vash,” she whispers. “It’s okay to let go.”
Vash watches as her breathing slows. He tears his shirt off, wrapping the tattered cloth against her shoulder, tightening a knot to keep the blood from leaving her body.
Glancing at the open door to the outside, he takes a giant breath and starts for the exit.
“I will save you,” he says.
Outside, the night is a coppery shade of smoky death. The city, what is left of it, has been decimated by warfare.
“My God,” he whispers, stepping toward the edge of the deck.
He can hear the quick snap of bullets winding into concrete every few seconds.
Using the last of his strength, Vash takes the flare gun and aims at the night sky above. He watches the furrowing phoenix of a cartridge rise into the air and detonate into shimmering tendrils of red.
Then, he collapses and watches the light burn out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Wake up, Precious.”
Still a bit sore, Rae yawns. “Where am I?”
She opens her eyes and gasps. A woman stands above her bed, holding a syringe in her hands, but it isn’t the hospital tool that scares her. It’s the fact that the woman looks just like her.
“Help,” she cries out, turning to see Vash in a bed next to her.
He grabs her by the wrist to calm her. “Rae, they found us. It’s going to be all right,” he says.
She adjusts her eyes, but an abrupt pain causes her vision to blur again. “Who is she?”
“She won’t settle down,” the woman says. “Someone help.”
Killian holds Rae’s arms against the hospital bed. Reaching back toward the twin, he claws his hands open. “Give me some zip-ties.”
“No,” Rae shouts, thrashing so wildly, the force sends Killian to the floor.
With quiet haste, the twin takes a prepared syringe and arched it toward her arm. Mouth open and dry, Rae feels her belly shift again. Feeling the pain swell like electrical currents, she gives up fighting.
A tear slides down her swollen cheek when she looks at the twin again. “Who are you?”
The twin doesn’t smile as she retracts the needle. “Introductions are unnecessary.”
Rae lurches forward, easing her back against the fragile hospital bed. Her clammy hands slide down the thin metal bars, and a cry mimicking the world’s sorrow scrapes its way from her stinging vocal cords.
>
Every feature on the omega’s body is identical to hers. “How is this possible?”
Pressure. Undeniable pressure.
It hits against Rae’s stomach, threatening to end her. Ruby drops forward and takes her arms. “Lift her legs,” she says to Killian.
When she’s steady on the bed, the twin slaps on a pair of gloves and spread Rae’s thighs open. “Three quarters dilation. Not crowning yet, but soon,” she says, voice analytic and sterile.
She’s giving birth? “Fuck,” Rae screams.
Rae pushes her pelvis back and cries as the pressure mounts her worse than the alphas did when they first met. Her skin stretches to its utmost capacity, and she closes her eyes to weather through the pain.
Every tender nerve starts to rip before she feels her skin stretch like a rubber band.
The children inside her aren’t positioned right. They are too big to pass. She can feel it.
“Shit,” the twin whispers.
“You can’t do this alone, dammit,” Lucas says.
The twin’s eyes widen, but she focuses. “We’re going to have to do a c-section,” she whispers. “Stay the fuck away, alpha. Do not interrupt this procedure.”
Lucas grinds his teeth.
Rae scoots back, covering her hands over the now elongated hole. She can feel the blocked passageway, feel the wriggling appendages preparing their daring escape.
Her strength, driven mostly by adrenaline, washes into a sudden enervation. Weeping, Rae slides her legs closed and tries to give up like a child.
“Please, Rae,” the woman urges. “You can’t die. You have more to do.”
Rae pillages her tears into her chest. The stinging ache that ruts into the top of her chest leaves her hopeless with fear. “Why can’t I die? What else could this world possibly need from me?” she asks.
The twin does something unexpected. Leaning forward, lips near to Rae’s hearing, she whispers, “You’re the key to everything. You just don’t know it yet.”
Rapid tears of sorrow drain onto her lips, catching against the edging saliva. “Everyone says the same thing. That I’m special. But I’m not. I’m just someone to use.”
Broken Angel: The Complete Collection: A Dark Omegaverse Romance Page 18
