They are her family. Their bond is unbroken, unyielding. It’s so strong it can topple empires.
Somewhere, they’re searching, too.
Upon waking, she feels an unbearable need. She masturbates. With her back hunched, she spits on her palm and gently touches herself. Quietly, she pivots her fingers around her clit, rubbing up and down. Simple gestures that bring back her memory.
Silent breaths, remembering their cocks. The consuming filth of alpha taking every hole.
They knew what they owned. Her heart. Her pussy.
And in exchange for the wet pleasure she gave them, they offered her everything they had to give.
She can still feel them. Smell them. Taste the cum on the back of her tongue. They bred their girl right, making sure every bit of her was owned and occupied.
It felt good to please them. Beyond right–it was biology. Pregnancy was the one thing she could give them, and she did it.
Round-shouldered and horny, Rae slides her fingers inside her pussy, against her spot. She imagines the three alphas splitting her down the middle, knotting her until she bursts with seed.
Her orgasm is deep, but it’s not the same without them. In the same way that she is alive, she is not living. Not without them, her family.
She is with him now. The fragile devil. Well, not for long. She has other plans...
When the fragile devil sleeps, she listens to the sounds beneath the earthy rock. She can hear the soft hum of heavy machinery, the screeching of electricity, and the soft cries of someone.
This place isn’t just a network of caves. It’s a whole underground city, or at least another set of tunnels. Her escape is a necessity.
If there’s one thing Rae was born to do, it’s waiting for the perfect moment. She has spent a lifetime of waiting for it to arrive. She has eased through agonizing situations just to have one taste of it. Synthesis may be the last test she has to go through.
What will it feel like? Will death be less painful than living? One can only hope, but for now, she has to decide. Is she going to stay shackled like this, or is she going to find a way to real salvation?
She needs to see her family one last time.
As the fragile devil sleeps, she moves in the darkness toward the set of keys resting on a nail embedded in the rocky wall. Silently, she steps over the emaciated body, lightly balancing on the balls of her feet.
For a moment, she waits and judges his breathing to see if he has woken. He does not stir. Tonight, he makes no sounds.
When she thinks it’s safe, she carefully slides the key into the lock.
The air feels cool against her wrists. She’s free.
Now all she has to do is find the city below.
She slips around the corner and roams the underground shafts. To remember her steps, she runs her hands across the walls, counting the number of extending caves she passes. Memorizing every turn.
She soon remembers where to go, turning into the tunnel with the familiar glow of her fetal copy’s tank. The tank baby, as she likes to call it.
Stopping to catch her breath, she stares at the glowing glass orb. The orange glow is captivating, but she is fearful to go near the tank baby.
She has faced countless evil. She has overcome nearly every obstacle thrown at her. Nothing has prepared her to face herself.
She met other clones just like her. They looked just like her. But when they spoke, there was something absent in them all.
The difference with this one is in the birth. None of the other clones grew. Even her—she holds no memories of her childhood. Cassian wiped her mind clean, replaced them with deconstructed versions of his own past. She was never truly born.
Maybe the fragile devil was right. This is the chance to start over.
Rae steps forward. Closer and closer, she walks toward the glowing tank. Hypnotic and pure, it draws her in. It’s so obvious what she has to do.
She places her hand against the glass, and the baby’s eyes open. Energy rushes through the tips of her fingers. The hairs on her body rise.
There is something that connects them together. She is a replica of herself. She thought it wasn’t possible to make with such accuracy, but Cassian did it.
“Hi, little one. I’m… Rae,” she whispers.
The baby kicks the glass and issues a muffled cry.
“You want to come with me?” Rae asks.
Her umbilical cord suspends within the liquid. It connects to a tube at the edge of the glass.
Rae puts her hand around the valve clamp, turning it loose slowly. A loud sound issues as the pressure releases.
She pries the tank free. Holding the heavy glass against her chest, she whispers. “Okay, baby. Let’s find hope.”
Her decision comes fast. She will get the child to safety and find her mates. Together, they will plan for her degeneration and synthesis. The fragile devil knows this place well, but she has been memorizing her footsteps, organizing it like a map inside her mind.
She cuts back through the caves, remembering the path by feeling the wall with her palm. Instead of moving into the familiar, she breaks from the normal path.
She reaches a small room, a dead end. In the center is an opening with a ladder into the city.
She’s found the way out.
Nothing good ever came easy. Rae knows that much. It’s enough to keep her calm when she hears a set of familiar footsteps echo in the cavern directly behind her.
“Don’t go,” he says, the fragile devil. The looming scythe of death that sleeps with his eyes open. He speaks with infinite sadness, one that Rae understands with the entirety of her soul.
She doesn’t turn, but she can hear his footsteps coming closer.
Holding the tank close to her belly, she says, “This is my ending. You can’t take it from me.”
She senses him right behind her. Body tense, she braces for his touch. His fingers wrap around the base of her neck, applying pressure against the spine in a way that is completely debilitating.
“The new world depends on my oversight. You need to go back inside the synthesis tank,” he shouts.
She does not break with the baby. “Fuck the new world,” she groans and twists with agony.
Still, she does not break.
The devilish beta pushes against her. An absent look hangs in his eyes. His voice turns quiet. “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God?”
He hits her. Her kneecaps buckle, causing her to hit the floor. She keeps the tank safe by rolling on her side. Sliding backward, she kicks away from his eager hands.
Quickly, she glides her arm against the floor, searching for something to protect her. He lunges after her, but she breaks through his legs.
Finally, she sees what she’s been looking for. In the corner are a few loose stones. Nerves strained, she hurries toward the pile, grabbing the rock with the sharpest angle.
“Wait, don’t,” he screams. “You’ll ruin the process. You’ll kill the baby!”
Without hesitation, she turns and hammers it into his skull. Instantly, she drops the stone and gasps.
The fragile devil drops to the floor. A pool of blood forms at the base of his forehead.
The baby in the tank breaks the silence with bubbly laughter.
“You’re right,” Rae says. “That was an easier escape than some of the other ones,” she whispers.
She walks over to the ladder, peering down at the city below. She can’t see much. She just knows it’s somewhere different from here.
The fragile devil is dead. The only long-term threat is herself. She has to find a way out of this labyrinth before someone else tries to bring her to synthesis.
What if she explodes? Well, then she brings the last extinction known to the universe. Everything will end as if it never began.
But if she can last for a few more days, she has the chance at giving one last
goodbye.
And, if she’s lucky, one last good fuck.
Lucas
On a grassy hilltop, Lucas rests and enjoys the cool breeze. “What does a person do when they face the inevitable?” he asks, arching his head to judge Aden’s reaction.
Aden rests, drinking a strange psychotropic blue liquid out of a dark leather pouch. In between thirsty gulps, he says, “They piss themselves.”
He knew he’d answer with something stupid. “I’m serious,” Lucas says.
He chuckles until he chokes on his drink. “Look, when you bastards shot me, I did a lot more than piss myself,” he says.
Lucas laughs, but he wants something real from him. He wants answers. Answers nobody can give him. And the more they ride on their rover, the crueler his jokes feel.
He should have stayed with the pack. That’s rule one of the alpha code. You don’t break the bonds you claim are sacred. Doing so reduces the potency of one’s actions.
It was like something snapped inside him. Suddenly, he couldn’t take it anymore. The more they yearned for utopia, the worse off they became. It was time to shake things up, but trusting Aden, another trader of the Ouroboros might not have been the best decision.
“Speaking of pissing, I’m about to explode,” Aden says. “I’ll be back.”
Lucas sighs and keeps a lookout at camp. “Go on.”
At night, there is movement. Lucas surveils the alpha packs roaming the old highways. During the day, it’s relatively safe, but it’s hard to know when a fight might break out. For now, Lucas and Aden travel like nomads, tent and all.
No high-tech. No holographic maps allowed because of the rolling network disruptions, server attacks, and constant buffering. None of the good stuff.
Lucas couldn’t make this shit up if he tried.
We’re grasping at straws out here. It’s only a matter of time.
Lucas looks back. Aden is holding his cock, intently looking at his holographic bounty chip. He appears solemn. “I thought you said you were pissing,” Lucas says.
“Huh?” Aden looks away and pockets the chip. “Don’t mind me. I’m all finished.”
Aden walks back over and gruffly lowers to the tent entrance.
“Where are we headed? You still haven’t told me,” Lucas says.
There’s more highway up ahead, but they can’t take the open route anymore. Too risky. If they are seen, there is a possibility of violence. There is only two of them, and the planet is home to a billion. Lucas doesn’t like those odds one bit.
“We keep moving south, through the old border of the New Republic,” he states. “See that wall over there? Behind it is Takona, an old border town. Used to be a place of refuge for alphas like us. Home to bounty hunters, slave drivers, and traders of all kinds.”
Lucas sees the wall. Heavily fortified with an electric barrier. An impossible feat to take on. “Got to be at least fifty feet tall,” he says.
The question is, what lies on the other side?
Aden pulls out a scope and zooms in on the concrete barrier. “One hundred,” he mutters, setting the scope back down. “Give or take a few feet. That’s not taking into account the voltage barrier.”
“Shit,” Lucas hisses. “That’s enough leverage to keep us out for good.”
The last time he blew through a wall, Cassian’s thugs nearly shredded them with the counterattack. With the gunpowder they have, he could probably figure out a way inside, but taking on an entire brigade of alphas doesn’t sound too appealing.
“What’s the matter? Too tired to fight?” Aden asks.
Lucas squints his eyes. Despite the cold of snow, thick beads of sweat have formed on his forehead. “Not tired,” he says, eyeing his partner. “Concerned.”
Aden reaches for his leather drink pouch, the third refill of the night. His plan must be to drink himself to the Iron Eye. “Concerned?” he asks. “What in Alpha are you concerned about?”
Lucas stares at him as Aden spills liquid all over the front of his shirt. “Seriously?”
“Oh, come on. You’re safe with me,” he mutters and wipes the excess drink off his chin.
Taking the scope into his own hands, Lucas zooms in and focuses on the wall. An alpha tribe has taken over the city. There're groups of men stationed in every quadrant, and they don’t look too friendly.
“There’s no way in,” Lucas mutters. He desperately tries to find a weak point of entry, but the city is too well-protected.
Lucas turns and eyes the mountains to the southwest. Without a map, it would be hard to traverse across such rough terrain.
Nature was never Lucas’ thing. In fact, he detests it. He’s a bomb maker. That’s what he’s good at. Not fucking camping.
Aden shrugs. “Good luck getting through the mountains with no wearable tech. Weather’s getting colder. We’ll get snowed in come nightfall,” he says. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a plan. I will not lead you into the lion’s den without a little bait.”
Lucas sighs and dips into the grass. “Okay,” Lucas says. “So tell me. What’s the bait?”
Aden laughs and stands, stretching his arms out real wide. He’s too smug, and the drink he has downed has officially activated. If the alpha tribesmen were to see him, they could have his head on a plate in no time.
“Our plan is to walk right through the border,” he says. “The bait is me.”
And before Lucas can offer any coherent argument against his recklessness, his partner jumps onto the rover and drives down the hill, screaming at the alphas on guard.
The alarms go off. He slows when the alphas ready their weapons.
Lucas bites the side of his tongue until he tastes blood’s metallic flavor. “Fool,” he sneers.
The alphas surround Aden, but his plan seems to stall any violence for the time being. Though Lucas can’t make out the words spoken, he sees Aden point in his general direction. A few alphas catch sight of him.
Red lasers from snipers hidden outside of the city dart around his face and body.
Slowly, Lucas stands with his hands locked over his head. “Okay, okay. You got us.”
He knew partnering up with Aden was a bad idea, but the impulse to find Rae was too strong. They were caught within two days. Two days! How pathetic.
“Bring us to Calvin,” Aden demands.
A group of alpha thugs surround him. The voltage barrier’s power is momentarily suspended. They drag Lucas and Aden inside the gates, throwing them at the foot of a round clay building.
Lucas runs his hands against his back and stands. The alphas push him forward to the first step of the hut.
The door is half open, so they enter, penetrating the room’s darkness with a thick block of light. Dust clings to the brightness.
An alpha kneels in the room's corner. Locked in silent prayer, he keeps his forehead against the floor. He is shirtless, and his body is one solid tattoo of a snake.
Ex-Ouroboros. Aden must know him.
“I heard you’d be here,” Aden says. “An alpha like you with no place to go. This place is a perfect set for your end.”
The alpha takes a deep breath and rises. “You thought it wise to find me here?”
“You always had a death wish,” Aden mutters.
The alpha is still. “That voice. I recognize that voice.”
Aden pushes past Lucas. “Calvin,” he says. “It’s me.”
The alpha’s ears perk up, but his body quickly hardens with ill ease. He faces the other alphas, analyzing the situation like a feral predator. “It wasn’t enough to leave me high and dry right before the detonation?”
Aden keeps a friendly demeanor, wrapping his arm around his. “I had a bit of a hiccup with my thrusters. There wasn’t a mechanic left in the city. Forgive me.”
A cheeky smile forms on Calvin’s face. A soft chuckle breathes life back into the room. “I’m not forgiving shit. The world is on fire, and I need to collect my dues.”
Aden drops his arm to his side. “
That’s why I’m here,” he says.
Carefully reaching into his pocket, Aden pulls out a bag of cash chips. He places it into the alpha’s hands.
Calvin purrs deeply. “What else you got for me?”
“I’m afraid my offerings are limited these days,” Aden says. “No omegas. No product to sell. The clone industry left us bankrupt.”
His tongue slivers around his lips. “Omega Unlimited,” he sneers. “Your breeding industry destroyed the planet.”
“What’re you talking about?” Aden asks.
Calvin’s eyes get bigger. “The clone,” he says. “I’ve heard the rumors. If she’s alive, she’s a ticking time bomb. Cassian fucked us.”
“She’s dead,” Aden lies. “The bomb you felt was from her.”
Lucas turns inward, fighting a battle he cannot win. Rae is a ticking time bomb? He bites his cheek and listens.
“Don’t pretend extinction isn’t coming, brother because it is. And when it comes, none of this bullshit will matter anymore,” he says. “But here I am, still fighting to survive in case I’m wrong. Let’s hope you’re right about her.”
Aden opens his mouth to argue, but Lucas’ curiosity gets the best of him. “What do you know about extinction?” Lucas asks.
Calvin’s lips arch into a demonic smile. “I know what I’ve been told,” he says.
“Like what? Like, she will blow up the planet?”
“Cassian and you lot were playing with fire. Hiring cheap genetic coders to create a breeding industry bigger than the Dagon Trade Company,” he says.
“We are of the same brand,” Lucas says. “The Ouroboros.”
“No longer,” he says. “I’m far done with that.”
He turns back to kneel in his prayer corner. “We are the Alpha-Omega. Without omega, we are nothing. She is the last, and she will destroy what we’ve built for our sins,” he says.
“I will find her,” Lucas says.
Calvin leans his head against the corner of the wall, breath, filtering out of his lungs, slowly. “If you think that’s possible, turn back now. Every tribe and their daddies are looking for a fresh cunt to seed.” He turns his head and grins. “If she was alive, we’d be all over her by now.”
Broken Angel: The Complete Collection: A Dark Omegaverse Romance Page 38
