Her children were strangers to her. Her twin sister, Ruby, raised them instead. If she knew of pain, she hid it well enough.
Yes, Ruby took the children, unlocking a whole new world of despair for Rae.
If it wasn’t for her, she wouldn’t have made the choice to leave. Now she’s hooked up to tubes inside a narrow synthesis tank.
Rae wanted a second chance. She stepped into the unknown. Now, she only has her memories. Nothing more.
“My birth,” she thinks. “There was something with my birth.”
Not much is understandable. She remembers the learning facilities with the other clones. The room used to stink of disinfectant and lubricant gel.
She remembers when they locked her away. Cassian tried to rape and breed her.
But the alphas found her first. Vash, Killian, and Lucas. They brought her an ecstasy she never could replicate alone. And when they established trust between their bodies, they gave her freedom.
She still fantasizes about their fuck. How could she not? Their masculine drive hit her like a runaway locomotive. The tight knots that rutted through her core bound them together for an eternity.
Her body once resonated with heat. Not anymore.
She remembers every touch, bite, and flicker of pain.
Rae hangs onto these memories because in this hell, she’s forced to live through the best and worst moments of her history.
That’s it. That’s what she gets.
She rotates through those moments like a slideshow.
She waits for her three alphas to find her. To fuck her. To pin her ass against the floor and overpower her. Anything to bring her back.
But the fantasies end as soon as she opens her eyes.
Though Rae yearns for those feelings of love and lust combined, though she holds them in her heart of hearts, they are two steps out of reach. She is trapped in a container of opalescent liquid, submerged and near the point of drowning.
The only thing keeping her alive is a set of tubes that helix and sweep through her esophagus.
Her memory washes away.
When she is awake, she is a blank canvas. As she chokes on her breathing tube, panic consumes her. And then the pain overtakes her central nervous system.
The shock freezes her body. She turns frantic with fear. The only response is to pull the tubes out of her esophagus.
Jerking like a frightened fish, she slides her arms free. She bucks against the glass walls and calls out. She coils the cables into her hands, choking as each inch passes through her throat.
The dense liquid muffles her cry for help.
She’s trapped. She will die here.
Her sounds are audible from underneath the water. They aren’t a part of her imagination.
Pit. Pat. Pit. Pat.
Someone is coming.
Breath is running out.
As the figure comes forward, she can see his body, tall, demonic, and gaunt.
In a few seconds, her lungs will suck in the remaining liquid. They will fill, causing her to drown. Her organs will fail. Her last moments will be painful as her heart goes into cardiac arrest.
No one will love her. No one will even remember her name.
The figure in front of the tank lowers to her level. He taps on the glass.
Eying the glass, the monster smiles. His skin is green, teeth sharp as razor blades, eyes glowing.
“Holy of holies, I have found you, at last.”
Drooling, the monster places his palm against the glass. “Sweet dreams,” he says.
Death overtakes her.
Born Broken
Vash
A memory:
Soft hairs curl around her wet opening, cunt visible enough to drive any alpha crazy. Pleasure’s excess hangs on the precipice of her slender lips. It drips onto the earth, soaking the ground until it turns a darker shade of unrighteousness. As she kneels, in the prayer position, Vash brushes her cheek with the back of his hand. Her sins lay bare to the world, and he is the one to absolve her of that darkness.
He takes her.
First, by her sweet mouth.
He uses her soft tongue to caress his pulsating shaft. Gently, he forces down deep, intently watching as her throat expands with cock and pearly cum.
An increasing pressure builds between his legs, driving him back out. Saliva drapes down her chin, and he can’t help but reflect on the beauty he is about to ruin.
“Lay down. On your back,” he commands. “But keep that tongue out. I want to paint your face.”
She obeys him. She has learned to obey all the alphas’ demands. She has adapted to their bodies, and the ruthlessness of receiving seed. She is submissive; a good omega.
When the time comes, she rolls out her tongue. She widens her lips and closes her eyes.
She can taste him. No–she can taste all of them as the other alphas hold down her extremities and come. They take turns with her.
When they’re done, they suck in another breath and prepare to fuck her again.
A crescent moon hangs above the alpha’s heads as the night brings a cool gust of wind around their shoulder blades. Emptiness surrounds them, a vast landscape of fire and destruction. Clouds of smoke rise into the atmosphere. This is the aftermath of their actions.
The bomb designed by the New Republic went off. They thought they could stop it.
She thought they could stop it.
But they couldn’t.
Accepting the blame for what has happened is impossible for their pack. Knowing this, Vash argues with his brothers. “There’s nothing I can do to bring her back. Not me, you, or any alpha on this fucked up planet can change what has happened to her. She was the world’s goddess. They tossed her to the wolves.”
The empire Ruby built has crumbled, but there are enemies still out there, somewhere. They wait for them to make mistakes.
Their story is over. Vash refuses to fight a worthless battle for power.
A tear clings to Vash’s eyes as he faces the rubble of the towers. There, leaders made world-changing decisions. Rae faced acts of sexual atrocity in those rooms. She claimed that trauma as her own. The empire of the New Republic couldn’t hold it together. And Rae… Well, she had other plans.
Rae was their mate, once. Now she’s with the wind.
He hadn’t experienced heartbreak until she left. Before, when the New Republic arrested them, he had a quest to keep his pain occupied. Now that the journey has ended, what does he have left?
“Don’t say it,” Killian pleads.
“It’s our fault. Her death is our fault,” Vash states, dead in the eyes. “There. I said what you’re too weak to admit.”
“I’m getting tired of that language,” Lucas spits and clenches his teeth. “She isn’t dead. That tank disappeared into the ground. It took her somewhere.”
As the cold rain patters against Vash’s head, he twists his neck in agony. There is no rest for the wicked, but if he can shut out Lucas for one second, maybe he can find peace. His eyes dart and clench, squeezing tears like juice from a lemon.
Vash speaks with venom. “If we hadn’t killed Cassian, she would still be alive. Saving her ultimately ended her life.”
“You’re wrong. Cassian would have grown tired of her. Once he got what he wanted, he’d throw her out like the others,” Killian says. “Besides, Severin would have killed him. He was outnumbered.”
Vash contemplates this for a moment. Cassian was his brother. He was a true monster, but he had plans. He wouldn’t have killed her.
“As evil as Cassian was, he would have needed her to mother the children,” he says.
“His children,” Lucas hisses.
Without warning, Killian lodges his fist into Lucas’s cheekbone. A red patch develops over a thick and growing welt on Lucas’s face. Vash watches as Lucas uses it as an excuse to tackle Killian to the ground. Soon, both faces turn into a bloody mess.
“Don’t forget, we have three children of our own,” Killian growls. “They
need us now.”
“I can’t take this anymore,” Vash thinks.
In the distance is an old train platform. “They’re waiting with Ruby,” he says.
He cannot dismiss the urge to leave his pack for good. With no visible future in front of him, he turns away from the marble towers. He does his best to block out the memory of what once existed. That means forgetting the impossible.
Silently, he holds onto a wish: Rae must be somewhere else now. Perhaps not dead entirely. If true, her resurrection would be a miracle.
Miracles don’t come true on this planet. Expectations don’t hold up. An alpha does not weather through storms by holding onto childish wishes.
They all saw what happened to her. After she said goodbye, an elaborately designed submergence tank filled with a strange luminescent liquid and bio-mechanic tubes swallowed her. They watched in horror as Rae stepped inside.
Everything happened so fast. Tubes coiled around her naked body. They pried open her cavities and kept her in a cruel stasis.
And then, it was over. The tank lowered into the ground.
That’s when she disappeared.
When the floor closed, they realized there was no way out. They all bore witness to terrible beings, Ruby included. Tall and emaciated beasts clung to the dark. Their mouths were full of sharp teeth.
Who did they see down there? Were they some ancient gatekeepers? Monsters? A forgotten race of alphas? Whatever the beasts were, they led them away from Rae’s absence.
The underground shafts closed behind them. The beings disappeared.
It was an illusion.
Every time Vash thinks about it, his stomach churns. His heart flashes with grief. He can’t blame the pack for their bickering, nor for the silence on the beings they encountered. When you can’t explain an experience, it’s easier to keep your mouth shut about it.
They looked for another way in. Using the last bit of energy they had left, they tried every path. After the day turned to night, they each realized there was nothing they could do. They lost all the mystery they uncovered underneath the royal grounds.
To Vash, the underground realm they discovered was a tomb. Nothing more, nothing less. It need not be explored. It needs to be forgotten.
“Where is Ruby?” Lucas asks.
“The shores of Dagon. If all goes according to plan, she’ll be waiting with a boat,” Vash mutters. Dead set on reclaiming the only real connection she ever had, she took the alpha’s children and headed for the shoreline.
They walk. For some time, Vash listens to the wind howling in the East. Their footsteps echo across a field of ruin. Depression hits him hard again.
“I still feel her,” Lucas says.
“She was a fucking angel,” Killian says.
“Ruby’s waiting for us,” Vash replies.
Vash walks away, his body disappearing into the dark night. Head down, he watches his feet carry him to an old subway platform. Everything feels surreal, like the end of a strange hallucinatory nightmare. He wonders if he’s actually walking.
The platform is just like it used to be, except there is no sign of life. The sounds of the world are no louder than a pin drop. The calm before the storm. Soon, the strongest tribes will compete against surviving armies. A new world will begin. Just like the last time and the time before that.
Nothing ever changes. Nothing.
They walk through an abandoned subway car, collecting all the coin and weapons they can find. Anything that can help them survive, they pocket.
Guns. Blades. A packet of cigarettes. An old photograph of someone’s loved one. This planet is a sphere of memories, mere reflections that pull them into underground realms of the mind.
The past is one of those realms that’s just too hard to escape.
These alphas were the world’s most powerful slave traders. Little by little, they built an army. The Ouroboros. Its leaders were Killian, Lucas, Vash, and his brother Cassian. At their height, they believed they would be the alphas to shape the planet. Well, they did just that. Vash never expected victory to come with real gain, but he sure as hell didn’t expect to lose the person who changed him the most.
There’s no war. No omega. No glory.
Lucas runs to his side. Though Vash does not look at his old comrade, he can see a faint gleam in his eyes as tears build.
Lucas breathes in the cold air and remains relatively calm. “Is this really the end?”
Anger causes Vash’s head to throb.
“You want me to tell you the truth?” Vash asks, jaw twisting through quick contemplation.
Killian steps to his side. “Why don’t you just say what’s on your mind?”
An alpha’s pack is only worth half as much as their omega. In this world, a true omega is rarer than any diamond or piece of gold, or any of that other bullshit. That is why finding a mate is so important. They found their omega, expelled their seed repeatedly, until her body created life.
Her pregnancy was a miracle.
She was just a simple clone. Cassian created her body from spliced DNA. She was born as a synthetic, but she proved to be so much more than that.
Everyone had a theory about her, but the alphas knew her like no other.
Biologically, the alphas fulfilled their purpose. They procreated. Except, Rae’s disappearance disrupted their plans to start a family.
There are no known omegas left. The clones were all killed and subsequently burned.
It’s just them and the wind.
Vash sifts through a dead soldier’s pocket, only to find an unwrapped chocolate bar. “Hm.”
Frowning, he chomps on the treat before heading through the exit. “There is silence now, but soon, new packs will overrun the world, willing to do anything for power. They will be more brutal than any of the alphas during our reign,” he says, sighing. “I can’t say for certain if we’ve reached the end or if it’s merely the beginning. All I know is I’m not dying out here. If you disagree with my assessment, you are welcome to make headway on your own, but I shouldn’t have to remind you that our children are on the other side of that hill over there. They need to grow up prepared.”
The world isn’t an easy place.
The three alphas turn their heads and eye the horizon. It’s eerily quiet. Vash can barely make out the edge of the water, but he sure as hell can smell the rot of dead fish wafting through the air.
In his heart, he knows he has to let go of her image. If they want to survive, they need to forget how she made them feel. It’s much easier to be crude and resentful toward the wrong people than to admit how much the situation hurts.
He keeps walking.
Killian hugs his assault rifle and nods. With a resentful tone, he says, “You heard him, Lucas. He’s giving up on her.”
Killian always had a way with words.
Vash tosses a rope over the edge of the subway platform. As he tightens it to his liking, he lowers himself down. “Didn’t say that.”
Standing over the rope, Killian stares menacingly. Vash knows what he’s thinking. Killian must hate him for his stubbornness.
When his feet hit the ground, the others follow. Despite the anger they each seem to cling onto, they do not separate. They walk for hours through the New Republic’s fallen cities. Markets are now piles of wood and metal. Wild dogs fight for minuscule scraps of dead birds and molding bread. Occasionally, they walk underneath the shadow and flicker of candlelight.
When they reach the edge of the city, they have enough ammo to last them more than a few days. They reach the steps down to the Dagon shoreline. An ocean of trash and dead fish rolls against the harbor.
“It’s a miracle. We’re lucky this place is still intact,” Vash says, jogging toward the small platform near the water.
Vash stops as soon as he sees the front nose of a large vessel. Painted on the side is the symbol of the ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail. The sight surprises him, though it shouldn’t. They were once the larg
est slavers on the planet.
Staring at the rusted beauty, he breathes a heavy sigh of relief. Ruby didn’t ditch them with the children. For once, she held up her end of the bargain.
He grabs the ladder to pull himself on board. Ruby becomes visible as soon as his heels hit the deck. Standing near the other end of the ship, she appears solemn, distant, and more mysterious than ever. A harsh breeze blows through her red hair, and Vash can’t help but momentarily confuse her for Rae.
“Where are you taking us?” Killian asks Vash.
“My father’s birthplace is also the province of his death. As you know, he was the first leader of the Ouroboros, back when the wars originally started. Without Rae, I have no stake in this world. If I can find his tomb, maybe I can gain some clarity,” he says.
The alpha brutes quietly eye different directions. Now Vash’s plans are out in the open. He is going his own way with no regard to their feelings. Their pack is disbanding.
Lucas stands firmly. “I’m going to the Iron Eye,” he says.
Killian clears his throat. “It’s over 800 miles away. It will take you ages to get there by foot.”
Finally, Ruby turns around. Tears shine down her face. “The Iron Eye is a myth. You won’t find anything there.”
“I’m not giving up on her,” Lucas argues.
“You will die, and my sister’s kids won’t have the three fathers they deserve,” Ruby says.
“I will find a way inside.”
“There’s an easier entrance in Carabaro. Come with us,” she insists.
Vash can’t listen to their quibbling any longer. If he hears one more word, he’ll go insane.
Stepping toward the other side of the vessel, he grabs the rope to the anchor and pulls. “We have separate wants and needs. Alphas, you may do what your heart desires. Ruby and I are going far away from here.”
Lucas bows his head, but fiercely positions his eyes toward his. They have left each other before. Twice, now. If Lucas turns his back, this will mark the third time they are to disband as a pack.
“So… Are you trying to fuck her now?” he asks.
Vash drops the anchor on the deck. “You know me better.”
Broken Angel: The Complete Collection: A Dark Omegaverse Romance Page 35
