Lucas holds back from breaking the bastard, but only because he’s vastly outnumbered. He looks back at the door. “Just let us cross through to the Iron Eye. We don’t have any beef with your alphas, and with Aden’s debt squared away, it seems as if you’ve got none with us either,” Lucas reasons.
“It’s a fair trade,” Aden says.
Calvin laughs. “You think she’s in the underground city?”
Lucas relaxes. “I doubt anyone’s gone to look for her there.”
Calvin sits back up, concerned but curious. “You’ll die,” he says. “Everyone who has tried to pass through the Iron Eye has split apart.”
“If the option is death or extinction, I don’t really have much of a choice,” Lucas says. “I have to try.”
He nods. “Once you make your way past the city, there’s no coming back. Everyone’s gone mad. Alphas are looking for a way to remove some steam. I’m about two days away from a full on mutiny,” he says. “Stay far away from here.”
“Got it. We’ll lie low,” Lucas says.
There’s one more thing. “I’ve ordered my alphas to give you some weapons. I’ve also thrown in a GPS unit and landscape analysis bot. You’ll need them. Weather is terrible out there. Snow as far as the eye can see.”
Lucas nods. “Thanks.”
Before Lucas can step out of the room, Calvin gets one last word in. “Each time we make a genetic copy, the code deteriorates. We should have never tried.”
Lucas pauses.
“Like a picture of a picture of a picture,” Lucas whispers.
“It doesn’t matter how right you get it. You can’t replicate the first,” he says. “Not all the way.”
Lucas nods and heads out.
They walk outside of the building, dropping through the old southern crossing. “I told you I can handle this,” Aden says.
They cut through a small street that runs between some buildings and old shops that sit vacant and destroyed. Another turn leads them into an alleyway, a place that somehow feels safer than being out in the open.
“You walked in there without keeping me in the know,” Lucas says.
“I had a score to settle. You would have never come with me if I told you the truth,” he says. “Not to mention, he gave us some useful tech.”
It’s true, but that’s not what pisses Lucas off. “What’s with all this extinction talk? What the fuck is he going on about?” Lucas asks.
Aden shuts his mouth and swallows. “You can’t reason with anyone anymore. Lots of tribes are talking about the end,” he says, hesitating. “They’ve been hearing things.”
Lucas’ eyes grow intense. “What things?” Lucas asks.
Aden scratches his head. “That it’s over. That universal extinction is real, and that Cassian was the one to code it into her.”
“You believe them?” Lucas’ eyes grow with the same intensity as Calvin. “You believe that the end is coming?”
“Relax,” Aden says.
“Tell me.”
A breath of hesitation. “No,” he says, working up the courage to speak. “No, I don’t think the end is coming. I think they’re all a bunch of lunatics. Every one of them.”
“But there was that thing you said yesterday. You said you thought Rae was responsible for the detonation,” Lucas says.
“I didn’t say--”
“What did you mean?” Lucas asks.
Aden twists Lucas’ arm and lowers his voice. “I meant don’t go around talking about her in front of anyone. It’s not safe in these parts. Fuck, man. It’s not safe anywhere.”
Lucas shoves off of him. “Right. “Cause I give a damn about safety.”
They walk through a narrow, rusted hall, meandering into the vast wasteland of destruction. For now, the landscape has changed. There are no highways. No roads to drive on.
A green mist hangs in the air, illuminating the darkness.
“The fallout from the New Republic’s detonation?” Lucas asks.
Here, Lucas stands, facing the inevitable. He hasn’t pissed himself, yet. That’s something to be proud of, maybe.
It isn’t, and it’s not enough. Calvin awakened a fire in Lucas. A question he hadn’t thought of but now needs an answer to.
At the end of the industrial road, a group of alpha brutes open a large gate where their rover sits, parked.
Lucas asks his partner, “What if she’s not there?”
Aden doesn’t wait to check out the vehicle. “There better not be one mark on this thing. I just got it serviced...”
Lucas raises his voice until he’s practically shouting. “What if she’s not in the city past the Iron Eye? What if everyone’s right? What if she’s dead?”
The alphas around them start to pay attention. Aden glances over and turns the ignition. “She’s there,” he says. “Now, let’s get a move on. We don’t have long until we hit the desert. Then it’s to the Iron Eye from there.”
Lucas walks around the rover and cuts the ignition. “But how do you know?” he asks.
A small detonation goes off in the north behind them. Some birds fly from the blast. Alphas are raiding each other’s camps. They will not ease up on those operations. They have to get a move on, but Lucas demands a response.
He takes another breath and corners Aden. “Why were you following me on the shore? How did you know I’d be there?”
“I...”
Lucas paces. “We didn’t tell anyone our meetup point was the Dagon shore. Suddenly, you walk around the corner with the most desperate face in the world. You tell me you can take me to the Iron Eye, no problem? And for what? Some gold temple or some other bullshit? I can see right through you, Aden.”
Aden turns pale. He doesn’t know what to say, so Lucas has to spell it out for him.
He draws his gun, presses it to Aden’s solar plexus.
“Show me the bounty chip,” he says. “Not the one you showed me days ago. The other one I saw you looking at when you were draining your cock earlier.”
The alphas around them laugh.
Reluctantly, Aden reaches into his pocket. He tosses the puck over to Lucas.
Lucas twists it on and tosses it to the ground, illuminating the misty air with a hologram of information.
In the center is a picture of an omega. Young, just sixteen years old. Her I.D. tag is below, along with other statistical information.
Lucas takes a step back. “This bounty chip is for an omega,” he says. “But the omegas are all dead. Everyone knows that. There hasn’t been a birth since my children.”
“How does anyone know if they’re all dead?” he asks. “How do you know there aren’t families in hiding, waiting this thing out?”
“Who is she?” Lucas demands. “Another omega you can sell off to horny alphas? Another soul to own, another shiny watch to wear?”
For the last time, Aden starts the engine thrusters. His expression is cold as he looks out at the open road of apocalyptic ruin. “She was my daughter,” Aden says, gruffly.
Lucas’ anger fades. “Spawned from a clone?” Lucas asks.
“No, from my first mate. She died in one of Cassian’s surges,” he says. “My daughter fled for safety. After the detonation, I couldn’t find her. Got a feeling she got through the Iron Eye. Don’t as me how. I just feel it.”
Taken aback, Lucas quickly closes the puck. He places it in his partner’s hands. “I never knew you had a daughter,” he says.
“They took my mate because we registered her into the omega database. She died fighting them off. There are omegas that are still in hiding. But someday they won’t have to,” he says. “Now, can we get the fuck out of here?”
The fallout affected everyone. “I’m sorry,” Lucas says. “She’s out there. Somewhere.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Lucas can’t find the words to express his understanding, but it’s known. If they can’t find those that define their lives, then there is no meaning to their existence.
> It is in alpha’s nature to take, fuck, and breed. But it’s also in their nature to sacrifice. A bond forged with a mate cannot be broken. Lucas will give everything to see that bond through. Including his life.
Lucas steps into the rover, and they take off toward a set of rolling sand dunes.
A rising sun bleeds over the dunes ahead of them.
Love will not be easy to find. But he’s ready to find her, extinction and all.
Ruby
Ruby sits inside the halls of the Carabaro naval base. Surrounded by guards, she waits beside a closed door.
Like she assumed, they took her group in. She will get interrogated, and she will get everything she planned for and more.
“Almost there, sis,” she whispers.
Whenever Rae has any doubt, she sees her face. The face of a warrior. Everything Ruby wanted to achieve, Rae did it tenfold.
And that’s why she despised her. It’s why she stole her children and tortured her.
Their relationship is... complex. But Ruby knows she’s alive, and she will find her and tell her the truth about everything.
She will finally make it up to her.
Hours pass. An alpha exits a door. He waves her on her feet. “The commander would like to see you,” he grunts.
As they lead Ruby into a room with the Commander of Carabaro, she feels more at home. She spent little time as Prime Minister of the New Republic, but the interrogations and tireless negotiations after the first takeover were by far the highlights of the job.
This will be easy.
The commander slides out a chair from underneath a short, wooden table. He purses his lips as he makes a gesture with his hand. “Prime minister. You may sit,” he says.
“I’m not Prime Minister any longer,” she says.
She eases back into the chair. For this one moment, she’s a leader again. She has a spot at the negotiation table. She is in her rightful place.
But that’s what he wants her to think, and she knows it.
“What do you want from me?” she asks, knowing full well she is in a place of power again.
“I should kill you for what you did,” he growls.
She can’t help but turn to hide a faint and much too obvious smile. “You want Severin. But Severin is dead. He built the bomb that blew up half the world. Pity.”
“How did you survive?” he asks.
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me,” she says.
“Try me.”
“I’d rather not,” she mutters.
“Where is she?” he asks.
Ruby sucks in her lower lip.
“Everyone wants to know,” Ruby says, shaking her head. “Where is our lovely broken angel?”
“We have our theories. She could be dead,” he says. “But if that’s true…”
“Extinction would have occurred,” she interrupts. “I’m aware of the rumors behind the reasons we kept her. I’m also aware of the rumors about our synthesis program. Been aware for a long time.”
“And?”
“It’s all true,” she says. “Does that surprise you?”
The man leans forward. “Tell me more.”
“Clones have a degenerative quality to their essence. Our code is corrupt like a compromised file on a computer. Over time, the body can’t handle it. Most of us deteriorate after birth. Others can live long and healthy lives. Full lives, even. But Cassian… he developed a special code for Rae. A destiny woven right into her very being,” she says.
“What will happen?”
“First, her body will deteriorate. It won’t be long until death. Afterward, there’s not much time. The clone must be…”
She stops. This time, he finishes her sentence for her. “Exterminated.”
“Burned,” she says. “Wiped clean. That’s why we burned the bodies of the remaining clones. We couldn’t be sure if Cassian gave it to the others.”
“But you’re one of them, too. An extinction bomb,” he says.
She bows her head. “No. We both gave samples. Tissue, blood, hair, and saliva. My genes are normal. Only my sister holds the irregularity.”
He leans back. “How do we stop it from happening?”
Before the wars, she spent a lifetime of searching for Rae. As she traveled, she learned everything there was to know about the cloning process. She wanted to fix these problems before they became an inevitable threat. She failed.
“I tried my best to find a solution. Synthesis was regarded as a worthwhile experiment. With the right device, connecting body and mind together with a new host can yield positive results. But it’s a constant loop of maintenance; clones have to switch bodies too often, and we don’t have the technological capacity for a large scale operation. It’s painful for them to lose so many lives.”
“I don’t follow.”
“For a successful synthesis, we must achieve the process through fetal transfer. Meaning, we transfer the clone’s genes into an unborn child. If successful, the clone can be reborn in the fetus, but the memory of dying, the reality of an endless stream of lives—that feeling must haunt them. Remember, even if they can’t recall past lives, an awareness never leaves.”
“Phantom pains,” he says.
Ruby struggles to keep herself from choking up. This is her sister. Her life’s blood. They are the same.
She continues. “I believe Ouroboros scientists designed a special synthesis tank, along with a plan to force her rebirth when the time came. I think Severin gave his life to see that plan through, but they have failed in that plan. If Rae beat Cassian, he’d want her dead. That’s why he created the extinction gene. To prove he’s God.”
To prove he still has control over her.
“But if she’s alive, she can go through synthesis, and the world can go on as normal,” he says.
Ruby blows out. Her lungs feel heavier than usual. “I thought the same, but it’s not that simple. Once the body goes through the beginning stages of necrosis, I won’t be able to bring her matter back to stable levels.”
“Meaning?”
Her heart aches. “Someone needs to be there to collect the body. They need to burn her before the final stage sets in,” she says.
The room is quiet, but Ruby can’t hold back her emotions, no matter how strong she wants to appear. She doesn’t wipe the tears that fall from her eyes.
“You don’t know she’s dead,” he says.
She takes a deep breath in, exhausted. “You don’t understand. I lose her either way. I have to cope with this,” she says, faltering. “Without me there to cremate her body, the chances of planetary survival are next to nothing. It will destroy everything.”
A burn clings to the back of her throat. She has turned emotional during a negotiation. She knows better than to let her emotions drive the conversation, but Rae’s possible death hits her. Hard.
“And the alphas know nothing about this?” he asks.
She bites and grimaces like she just ate something bitter. “It’s both in mine and my sister’s interests to keep them in the dark for now,” she admits.
The man leans back. He has caught a hitch in her plans, but she is sure he has yet to exploit it. In time, he will give them their freedom back.
“Earlier, you asked me what I wanted from you,” he says. “But the real question is what you want from us? It wasn’t that long since you sent men to our shores to die.”
“I bear the shame of my actions,” she mutters with slight disdain.
He continues to look at her with smug arrogance. “Is it power that you crave? Why on Alpha did you come here?”
She chooses her words. “I want an opportunity to live in peace,” she says. “Esternbrock. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s inside your rule.”
“A small village?”
"In return for your alliance, I promise to dispose of my sister’s body. Extinction never happens. Your may continue your rule.”
“You think you have a shot at mending this wo
rld?” he asks. “Look around you. Reconstruction is impossible.”
“I don’t know if I can do it,” she mutters. “But this is the only thing I know how to do.”
He takes a moment to decide. “Your word is not enough. I need more,” he says.
Shocked, she stands. “I’ve been giving everything I’ve got.”
“Yes, but the Ouroboros alphas we’ve imprisoned… what will we do with them?” he asks.
“I need them for protection. Without them, we die.”
“And the children… they cannot be yours,” he mutters.
She stands, facing the wall. “They are my sister’s children.”
His eyes search her body as she turns to face the news. “They need a family, yes?”
With this admission, she has given him everything he needs to win the negotiation. Bowing her head, she breathes.
“You know, it’s unfortunate you aren’t an omega,” he says.
She holds her chin high, takes the hungry-eyed alpha for what he is. “Tell me about it.”
“I have an idea,” he says. “If you survive this, you and I will marry. We’ll raise the children as our own.”
Her sadness turns to hilarity. “Excuse me?”
She did this before with Severin. It ended with his dismembered head in Killian’s hands.
He announces his grand plan. “Our port will give your nation access to global trade. You’ll get the protection of our navy. You and I can rule together,” he says. “We can be the ones to solve the problem of the clones. We’ll fix the broken, mend the wrongs of our history.”
Fuck…
“I don’t want a nation. I just want a home in Esternbrock,” she repeats.
“You’ll get your home, but this is the deal,” he growls.
Her face turns hot. She didn’t expect this. “We, uh, just met,” she says.
The commander stands. “I’ll give you time to think about the arrangement,” he says, before leaving.
The door shuts. She paces the room, running her fingers through her fiery red hair.
She can’t use her sister’s children as a bargaining chip. No matter the stakes, she can’t give them over to him.
Broken Angel: The Complete Collection: A Dark Omegaverse Romance Page 39
