There’s no time to think about family reunions. Cassian is charging toward him with a rifle, and they’re way too fucking near the opening portal.
Cassian fires once, and the bullet hits his chest. He’s knocked back a foot, but catches his breath. It hits his heavy armor, stopping just an inch away from his heart.
This setback doesn’t stop Cassian. He dives toward him.
A gunshot rings out from above, and a bullet catches Cassian’s ankle. Blood sprays across Lucas’s face, and Cassian loses his footing. He falls toward him.
“No!” Rae screams. “You can’t kill him. He has the extinction gene.”
Right before Cassian can reach him, Lucas turns and grabs the omega, pulling her out of the way.
Cassian stumbles into Lucas, wrestling him against the particle accelerator’s opening portal. “You will not ruin my progress,“Cassian growls.
Lucas twists his heel over the ledge. He balances and pushes forward against Cassian’s gun, but feels gravity’s weight pulling like a magnet.
He’s going to slip.
He falls, and his life flashes before his eyes. Suddenly, he’s a young alpha again. Flames surround him. His village is being invaded. Swarms of First Republic soldiers attack. Omegas are stolen as families panic.
He blinks his eyes, and he’s fighting in the future wars. He’s repeating the same mistakes as the alphas before him.
All his life he has valued his ingenuity and ability to be pragmatic. He was tough, but someone who could reach across the aisle. At the end of the day, he mostly made mistakes.
He can’t die like a coward. He hasn’t shown Rae everything he can be.
In the midst of falling, he reaches forward and catches the edge of Cassian’s armor. Pulling against Cassian’s weight, he balances on the ledge.
Cassian’s eyes change. His anger shifts to fear. In the matter of seconds, the truth hits him. Lucas is going to destroy all of his progress. All of his hard work will be for nothing.
Lucas jumps onto the ledge. Sweating, he pushes him into the particle accelerator. Cassian falls to his doom.
Lucas sees Cassian’s hand reach for the ledge as his writhing screams turn more obscure and horrifying.
Running toward the opening, Lucas looks inside. Cassian’s skin bubbles and pops. His eyes pop out of their sockets. A green ooze slides down his body. His head grows larger and larger. Within seconds, his body disassembles. His scream fades into the abstract of life.
A puff of smoke remains all but for a second.
“He’s gone,” Lucas pants.
His genes. Everything he was is gone.
Lucas knows he can’t make it up to the alphas. They’ll never trust him again for what he did. It was an act of betrayal, but Cassian tricked him. He showed him a replica of the one he loved, and he believed she was dead. That’s on him, forever.
He seeks forgiveness, despite deserving of such.
An alpha stands at the top of the Iron Eye, wielding a long-barreled sniper rifle. He waves. It’s Aden.
“Dad!” the omega yells.
“Sit tight. Let’s figure out how to turn this thing off,” Aden replies.
Lucas grabs the energy neutralizer that he saw Cassian use to get inside. He twists the top and powers it on. A flash emanates. The machine stops spinning.
Aden walks the set of steps to join them. In his hand are lock cutters. “Thought you might need a hand or two,” he says, waving them like a chew toy.
He eyes Lucas.
Lucas stutters. “Look, I--”
“You left me high and dry,” he says. “And where I come from, that comes with a heavy price.”
Lucas reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a bag of cash chips. “I know I left you back there,” he says. “But if I didn’t leave, Cassian would have killed us both. I had faith you could make it without me.”
Aden nods, pushing away the chips. “You also saved my daughter. I think that makes things even,” he says. “Go make right by your pack. It’s time to rebuild.”
Lucas smiles. Their journey has ended. It was one unlike the others. Full of doubt, he questioned whether his mate was still alive. He didn’t think he could be a father. But his emotions only drove him further and further away from those that he loved the most.
His family. His pack. The split from the Ouroboros into a new way of living. It was an experiment worth fighting for, and still is.
He stands before his pack, not just as an alpha, but as someone who can admit when they are at their worst.
Maybe they’ll be in a forgiving mood.
“Fuck you,” Vash says.
Or… maybe not.
Lucas doesn’t run from this. He needs them to know that he’s on their side. “I don’t know how I can earn your trust again. Hell, just a day ago, I didn’t know how I could be a father,” he says, sighing. “I’ve made mistakes. A lot of them. Ran from the truth out of stubbornness. I broke the sacred oath of alpha.”
“You’re damn right,” Killian growls.
Lucas sharpens. “And I know you hate me. You deserve to hate me and all I’ve done. None of this was supposed to happen to us. We saved Rae. Over and over, we sacrificed because of one thing: love. We felt it. Maybe not all the time. Maybe not when a detonation takes out the entire city of Dagon. But when we were with her, together, we felt something real. That doesn’t just die. It doesn’t just go away.”
He walks over to Rae. He has been searching for her his entire life. “Our knots entwined to bind you to our souls. The rich, milky seed your slick pussy took in orgasm and heat was an act and holy ritual. I know I’m crude. But I just can’t get enough of you. If the entire pack hates me, they can. But I won’t let you go, Rae. I will not walk away from this.”
Rae takes his hand. She lowers her forehead against his. They breathe in silence for a moment. It’s calming, like being inside of the womb. She is home.
“I love you,” he says, cock throbbing.
“I need you, Lucas. You’re not going anywhere,” she says, kissing him. “All of you, stand by my side.”
She tastes sweet like sugar. He pulls away, but his cock is hard against his clothing, dripping pre-seed in anticipation.
Rae turns to the other alphas. “Did you hear me? Lucas is staying. All of us will raise the children,” she says.
Both Vash and Killian mumble.
“What was that?” Rae asks.
“Yes, sweetheart,” Killian says.
“Of course, we will.” Vash feigns a smile.
With some time, the alphas will get over their feud. When life resumes, everything will be so much easier.
While the pack discusses their plans, Lucas notices Ruby checking her wound. It’s green. Infected.
“You guys,” Lucas says, silencing them. “I think we need to get Ruby help.”
Ruby exhales. “Rae, there’s something I need you to do.”
Rae stares.
“This is serious,” Ruby says, breathless. “What do you know about synthesis?”
Rae
“You’re not dying. The strongest woman in the planet can’t die,” Rae says.
She falls to her knees and takes Ruby’s hands, pressing them against her cheeks. She’s ice cold.
Ruby is pallid and nearly immobile. Her eyes waver open and closed. “Sister,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
Rae is breathless. Throat aching, every muscle tenses. “For what?”
“For dying on you,” she says. “I really thought this time would be different.”
Rae stands, but her ankles buckle. Vash swoops under her, catching her fall.
Rae coughs and chokes on her breath until she dry heaves. She was never close to her sister. Before this, they were mortal enemies, destined to tear each other apart.
People change. The stakes of the world shift. The sister that clings to life in front of her is not the same torturous woman she met those years ago.
“You can’t die,” Rae says. “You’re
the toughest clone I know.”
“I’m the only clone you know,” Ruby says, smile hanging.
Killian kneels to her level. He slides a few strands of hair from her eyes. “She made it this far,” he says, taking her hand and squeezing. “All the way to her twin sister.”
But he seems to ponder an unanswerable question. She knows that look. Ruby’s really dying, and she’s going to have to face that fact. Synthesis is the only way forward if she wants to live another life.
Gritting her teeth, she lets out a strong cry. “Don’t you treat me like I’m some child. I know what I have to do.”
Vash starts for her, but something stops him in his tracks. “Rae...”
They just stare at each other, feeling the weight of history. There’s confusion, trauma, and love. All at once, their feelings coalesce around a sadness they solely rely on.
Their melancholic connection. That’s what brought them together, and that’s what tore them apart. He was to her detriment from the very beginning, and he seems to know it, now more than ever.
The relationship has been hard because, well, love is fucking hard. Change is hard. If it wasn’t, nobody would fight with so much tenacity for it.
Love is rare. It breaks the strong and demands nourishment. But for every fault that Vash has shown her, he has proven to be the opposite of his outward venomousness with acts of kindness, courage, and redemption.
Vash isn’t perfect. Rae knows that much. In the end, she never wanted him to be perfect. Still, he seems to take the reality harder than the rest.
He breaks down, a ruined alpha.
“I’m sorry for leaving you,” Rae explains. It’s not the time to explain or apologize, but they have both seen the end without the other. Twice. There is no place worth living without the alphas.
She continues, eyeing the others in the peripheral. “You must understand. I couldn’t stay. I was in a state of shock. I thought the world couldn’t get better with me in it. I blamed myself for what happened. And… I was lied to, as well. I was told I was born with the extinction gene.”
Vash hangs his head. “There’s no need to explain. Save your sister.”
Rae finds the courage in herself to do the one last task she never thought would happen. With her last ounce of strength, she carries Ruby into the place she arrived. She heads back into the throne of the fragile devil.
***
Ruby clings to Rae’s shoulders loosely as they navigate one last time through the upper network of caves. The tank baby lost some liquid, but it sleeps peacefully.
She finds the altar and hooks the tank to the valve. It glows. For a moment, Rae watches her sleep.
The baby was never her. She was Ruby.
“I shouldn’t have hurt you,” Ruby says. “I wanted everything you had. I wanted to be just like you, your sister… but I was born broken.”
Rae carries her to the other synthesis tank. She smells her scent one last time. She can’t stop kissing her cheek, her nose, her forehead. “We both were. They tore us away from each other. We never had a fair chance,” she says.
“We were expendables in an experiment that turned into an industry,” Ruby whispers. “I’ll give myself credit. I got this far.”
“You’re going to come back even stronger. All of your essence will go into that baby. Do you hear me? You’re not dying.”
Ruby grabs Rae’s face. “Sister, I’m dying. And there’s nothing you can do about it. This is it.”
They reach the synthesis tank. The pale glow terrifies her, reminds her of the experience of drowning.
Rae gasps and holds Ruby, praying for an alternative. “Ruby, I need you.”
“You have the pack,” she whispers with a smile.
“I need my sister.”
Ruby’s eyes lose color. “I need to tell you something.”
“Tell me,” Rae whispers.
“I was gone no matter what. Before this… I lost control of my legs. I fainted. I knew I was degenerating. Had known for some time. I played the waiting game for a while, but I knew I needed to tell you I was dying. Synthesis was my only hope.”
“Ruby,” Rae whispers.
“Listen,” Ruby snaps. “I made a deal with the commander of Carabaro, Prynthas,” she says.
Rae frowns. “What kind of a deal?”
“I told him I would marry him,” she says.
“You said what--”
Ruby speaks quickly. “Only if I lived,” she says. “Now that I’m dying, the deed will go to the alphas. It’ll be yours to keep. I made sure of it.”
“Deed?”
“There’s a village in the North, 100 miles from Dagon called Esternbrock. It’s yours. You don’t need to rule over anyone. You don’t need to work. All you have to do is raise your children with those alphas,” she says.
Rae swallows. She doesn’t know what to say. All of this has happened so tragically fast. Her heart is empty. How can she even think about life after this?
“You can’t die…”
Ruby clutches her sister. “I’m dying, Rae. But you’ll live. You’ll be given a home where you and your family can live in peace. You’ll get the life you deserve,” she says. “It’s the one thing I did to make things right. Please. Take the opportunity.”
Rae lets go. She feels the frigid air envelop her shoulders. She wonders what life could have been like if the world didn’t fall to war and conquest. Maybe they could have gotten to know each other and developed their connection.
“I’ll raise you,” she says to her twin.
“I won’t remember you,” Ruby said. “All of this will be erased from my consciousness.”
Rae swallows. “You’ll get a second shot. Like you wanted. We’ll raise you with love and care. You won’t go through the same torment ever again.”
Ruby grips the edge of the open tank in front of her. The liquid’s inner glow shines across her face. She curls her palm around the valve. “That sounds nice,” she says.
Rae takes shallow breaths.
Ruby does the same. “Does it hurt? Drowning?”
Rae feels faint. She doesn’t want to lie to her sister. “It’s terrifying,” she says.
Ruby closes her eyes. “I want to be hooked up now,” Ruby says. “I’m ready.”
Rae nods, opening the tank. She helps her sister inside.
“I’ll tell her about you,” Rae says to gain more time.
“We were born in tragedy,” Ruby says, shaking but strong.
“As we are born, so we die,” Rae says, stepping back.
“Tell her the good parts.” Ruby sinks into the tank. “Teach her to love.”
Her head submerges, and the tank closes. Bio-mechanical tubes coil around her body, sliding into her throat. Panic fills her eyes.
“No!” Rae screams and latches onto the glass.
She freezes, body going into a state of stasis. It ends.
A look of calm falls on Ruby’s face. Her red hair waves in the golden water, peaceful. She stops fighting.
It’s over. She has fallen into stasis. In a moment, she will die.
Rae cries. She drops to the floor and holds onto the bottom edge of the tank, too weak to do anything except weep with sorrow.
When the stasis is complete, she drains the tank and opens it up. Rae’s chest pounds and swells with a deep pain. A pain that won’t go away. Her throat is tight. She can’t bear to speak to the alphas, not like this.
She stares at the synthesis tank. At her sister, dead. Floating like a lost soul. This feeling won’t go away. This will linger and eat at her every single day.
She holds her dead sister in her arms and makes the march back to the tank baby.
This life has been a pilgrimage. This is the last ascent.
She is almost there...
The tank’s glow is so bright it hurts. Rae unlatches the valve and takes the tank in her free hand. She squints her eyes, eventually forced to look away.
The tank illuminates the networ
k of pathways. A loud hum vibrates the caves.
And then it stops. The glow from the tank subsides.
Rae’s first instinct is to panic, but when she stops and looks at the baby, she knows it’s her sister. She’s ready to come out.
She unlatches the side valve and opens. The water spills out, and the baby coughs before a shrill cry rips out of her.
She holds the small baby against her breast. “There, there. It’s hard being reborn, isn’t it?” she asks.
Her sister stops crying.
“Do you remember me?” Rae asks.
A knowing look glows in her eyes.
Time passes. She holds the baby on her stomach as she lies on the ground. “When you’re born,” she whispers, “I’ll tell you your story.”
Rae blows across her face. The baby kicks against her stomach.
“The good, the bad. Everything.”
She holds her sister’s body. Her old body. The one she knew.
Heavy, stiff, and lifeless, she rests against her shoulder as she walks toward the edge of the particle accelerator. Lowering her into the center, she whispers, “This isn’t the end. Not by a long shot.”
The power is fired up. The machine is spinning. Everything is ready to go.
She lets go of her body.
And she fades like a fallen leaf. Her person distorts until she disappears. A distant memory, wiped to dust.
No detonation. No final extinction. Just the wind.
Rae falls back with tears. None of this came easy. None of it.
She did what she had to do. That’s life.
“Hard part’s over,” she mutters.
Rae climbs down faces the pack. Aden and his daughter stand by, solemn and respectful.
Rae turns her back to the past and begins an ascent to the future.
It’s over.
She holds the baby near her heart and walks away from the accelerator. Closing her eyes, she listens to the sounds of her sister’s breathing. Maybe she’ll never be the same, but she’s still there.
“Life does not grow from happiness, nor from sorrow. It grows from impact,” she says. “My sister is dead, but she sure as hell made an impact.”
The baby fusses.
Omegas like her sister aren’t just born. They are made from blood, sweat, and seed. And she will never die.
Broken Angel: The Complete Collection: A Dark Omegaverse Romance Page 45
