by Sara Fields
Damiyen watched her and cocked his head to the side.
“It’s a very important job, Ellie. It’s critical that the wild alphas attack in concert with us. If not, we could lose the war entirely,” he replied, his voice just the slightest bit wary. His hazel eyes studied her, analyzing her for signs of weakness.
“I know. You can count on me,” she said firmly. Her small chin lifted just a bit and she brought her shoulders back. She may be an omega, but she wasn’t one to be trifled with. Not anymore.
“I know I can,” Damiyen replied, allowing his lips to curve up in the smallest of smiles. “We’ll work on putting together a written message for you. You’ll leave tonight,” he commanded, and Ellie grinned in excitement.
“Thank you,” she replied. I could see her confidence grow by the second. She was stronger than I realized, and I loved her for it.
“I trust you. You’ll be instrumental in helping us achieve victory,” I replied, my grin growing wider when her warm confident gaze met mine.
Damiyen’s eyes moved to Ehsan.
“You keep her safe, no matter the cost,” Damiyen growled and Ehsan nodded.
“I will. Even if it means my life,” he answered, pounding his fist on his chest, just over his heart.
“Good. Let’s get to work then,” Ethan added.
* * *
Several days later, all preparations were in place. Ellie and Ehsan had left with detailed plans, some written on paper and others by word of mouth. It was decided that the battle would occur on the next day free from work for the omegas, just before dawn. The first rays of the rising sun would signify it was time for war.
The mood was grim. The night before the battle was to take place, it became very clear that some people would survive the next day and some would not. Many omegas spent their time with their friends and those they considered family. Some drank and some ate their favorite foods, while others partied the night away in the underground. Some practiced fighting with a sword and knife; others practiced shooting blanks in the training cavern some ways away.
No one spent any time aboveground in the omega sanctuary. None of us wanted to see the guards who had made our lives miserable for so long. We didn’t want to spend our last nights holed up in shoddy apartments or bent over sewing machines in the textile factories. We’d had enough.
None of us wanted to see that prison ever again. We were fighting to break free from our shackles and the stigma associated with being an omega in the city of Tharia. We wanted our freedom from it all.
I spent my last night with my men. I craved every last moment of their touch, knowing it might be our last. All four of them used me with such savagery that I knew I’d be sore for days. Again and again they fucked me, filling my holes with alpha seed until I was sure I couldn’t take any more. Then Damiyen took me viciously, filling my mouth and then my ass with his own cum until I was sure I would burst. Before the night was through, I had bitten and claimed all of them as my own, completing the bond and cementing it in place between us.
I was an omega with four mates. Unique in that one of those four was a beta. The five of us were connected on all levels and it made it more powerful than I could have ever even remotely realized.
Alpha. Beta. Omega. United as one, together for the rest of our lives.
The bond pulsed in my chest. Powerful. Consuming. Like wildfire.
That morning I escaped into my office for a moment alone in order to prepare myself for battle. Our connection beat heavy in my chest, with me constantly as I pulled on each piece of my leather armor. First was a pair of dark red leather pants, thicker than my usual black pair for protection but thin enough for maneuverability. Next I pulled on a blood-red leather vest that conformed to my torso and supported my breasts, almost like a corset, but far more flexible. It covered my shoulders and had a high neck that would protect my throat but left my arms bare so that I would be able to fight in battle with ease.
Next I put on my boots and a pair of matching gloves. Lastly, I clasped a thick red leather belt around my waist, pulling it just tight enough so that it would sit just above my hips. It had several hip guards made of thick leather, as well as holsters for guns, knives, and even a sword along its length.
The entire outfit was an exquisite piece of art, carved with intricate tribal designs that signified my roles as both a leader and an omega. Damiyen and my alphas had it specially commissioned for me so that I’d be both visible and powerful to my Omegaborn army on the battlefield. It would make me an icon, at least that’s what they told me anyway. When I gazed at myself in the mirror, I saw that they were right.
When I was ready, I emerged from my office to meet them. My men led me into the central underground, where I could hear large numbers of people talking. I walked down the gangway and stopped, standing at the top of the pit. Then I looked down to see the entirety of the Omegaborn lingering below.
They were waiting for me. For their leader. The expressions on their faces were tense. They looked afraid of what was to come. The battle was going to be hard. It was going to be dangerous. Not everyone was going to survive, and they knew it. I knew it. I took a deep breath and lifted my gaze to look out over them all.
I cleared my throat. It was time for me to lead.
“My fellow omegas, my soldiers at arms. Women of the Omegaborn,” I began, and the room fell silent, all faces upturned toward me.
“Long have we suffered under beta rule. Tharia and its leaders have kept us imprisoned here in the sanctuary, forced us into slavery and ignored us even when we were sick and dying. At every turn, they’ve used us simply for what we were born as. Hurt us because we were smaller than they were, weaker than they are, but no longer. We’re going to change that.”
The Omegaborn rose up in a cheer. I paused until they quieted once more.
“Today, we rise up as one. Today, we fight for our freedom, for the freedom to be who we were born to be and for the freedom of those that have yet to come into this world.”
They remained silent then, hanging onto my every word.
“My Omegaborn! In this moment, I see fear in your eyes, but I also see courage. I see the will of an omega burning strong. In all of you, I see the will to fight for what’s right. I see the will to fight for your own life, for the lives of your comrades and for everything the Omegaborn stands for,” I continued, and the crowd roared once more.
“Today, my omegas, we stand together and fight,” I said, my voice raising even louder. “Today we take back our freedom and today, we take back the rest of our lives!”
For a moment, I paused.
“Will you stand with me, omegas? Will you fight by my side?” I asked.
All around me, the room roared with approval. Boots stomped on the ground. Women applauded and the looks of fear I had seen initially on their face disappeared entirely. They were ready to fight, and I was ready to fight with them.
A single whistle blared over the rarely used comm system and all my soldiers went rigid. They were ready. It was time to move out. My four men and I took the lead, while the rest of the Omegaborn followed. We made our way through the tunnels, breaking off at designated points to spread out our forces in a spear point formation.
It was the middle of the night and pure, raw adrenaline powered my every movement.
As soon as we emerged from underground, we moved as stealthily as we could, but it soon became clear the city was focused elsewhere. They weren’t guarding the streets. Instead, the guards on top of the city walls looked outward. They were focused on the wilds and not us. Even glancing back at the omega sanctuary, I could see that most of the guards, if not all of them had been called away and likely posted along Tharia’s walls instead.
I could feel the tension in the air. Even the dirt beneath me trembled.
Then I heard the city alarm begin to blare loudly. The beta army was being called forth.
My men and I made our way up onto a mostly abandoned section of the wall. I lo
oked out of the dome and then I understood why the city felt the way it did.
The alpha horde was waiting outside the walls. I stared out, quickly realizing that there were more than just alphas. There were tens of thousands of people, a number big enough to at least stand a chance against the beta army. They were standing outside the walls quietly, in complete formation. They stood, line after line of men fully prepared to storm the city of Tharia. The sheer number that joined together with the alphas must mean that betas and omegas were fighting in their ranks too, but that wasn’t all.
A large pack of men rode in on horses to the right. The animals were ready, clearly hardened in the light of battle and ready to ride forth at any cost. The men whooped and hollered, waving pairs of curved swords in the direction of the city walls. They looked more than fierce. They looked dangerous.
Above in the sky were giant white and black birds. I recognized them only from my studies of texts from the wilds. They were albatrosses. Men rode on their backs, with bows and arrows in their fists ready to fight. The screams of the giant birds were chilling.
But there was more.
Red glows hummed in the trees, indications of giant beasts I’d yet to ever lay eyes upon, let alone read about. They breathed fire into the air from amongst the trees and the very ground beneath my feet rumbled with their ire. I froze for a long moment, trying to see what it was and the only clue I could observe was a single pair of red glowing eyes watching me from the edges of the trees. Then when I focused even closer on that single point, the large beast flared briefly with fire and then altogether disappeared. Giant horns like a bull remained emblazoned in my mind and I shivered with fear.
Drums sounded from somewhere deep within the trees, calling forth the troops. One beat after the next drove forth one group of men and then another. Some rode in on horses. Others on wild dogs and wild cats as large as cows. The sounds of their anger echoed all around me. The effect of their feral nature was terrifying.
Another drumbeat sounded and yet another group of men emerged from the forest. It was no wonder the city had gone silent. They hadn’t seen anything like this in hundreds of years. They weren’t ready for something like this.
I turned back toward the city, watching as beta men and women lined the streets, gathering in formation. Trained soldiers in massive numbers fumbled back and forth, preparing to fight against the savage people of the wilds. The beta army was more structured, more defined but despite their numbers and extensive training, they looked like they were afraid. My eyes scanned over them all, assessing my enemy for weak points and then I turned toward their forces along the wall.
I watched carefully and then I saw him. Philip Savile. Tharia’s city leader. My upper lip rolled and I growled quietly in his direction.
It had been a long time since I had laid eyes upon him, but he still looked the same. He had wiry brown hair that lay in thick curls. His face was young, stern even but aged with the power of his own hatred. He was tall, thin, and carried the typical body type of a beta male. I glared in his direction, narrowing my eyes as I observed him.
I wanted to shoot him then and there, but it wasn’t the right time yet. The omegas still had to get into position and wait for the alpha horde to signal and enact the first phase of our plan. I had to wait for the opportune moment.
With reluctance, I turned away from him, looking for the waves of the small blue flags my Omegaborn would signal with once they were in position. After a few long and very tense minutes, I saw one and then another until I saw all four waving in the windows of abandoned buildings near our position. Steam powered up all around us, indicating that the beta army was preparing some of their own weaponry, but we were ready. Damiyen had been prepared and had questioned many of his allies. He knew what resources the city had at their disposal.
But the beta army didn’t attack the alpha horde. Not yet anyway. They were protected by the massive walls and the dome. Maybe they thought that we didn’t have any way to break into the city, that they’d wait out the alpha horde in a siege of a sort, except we knew better. Tharia was self-contained. There wasn’t a single resource that we couldn’t grow or create within the city walls. In the case of a siege, Tharia would always win. No matter what enemy had set up outside the city walls, Tharia could withstand them, even us. The invading army would ultimately run out of resources first, but the alpha horde and we, the Omegaborn didn’t intend to win that way.
We had other plans up our sleeves.
I lifted my chin, gritting my teeth as I waited. The sky overhead had just begun to lighten with the rising sun. It would be time, very soon.
The sound of a bullet cracked loudly outside the dome. A sign that our plan was coming to fruition.
I turned my head to look outside the dome. A single man in thick fire-retardant armor surged forward, running for the wall with a brightly lit torch. He ran straight for the place of weakness that both Ethan and Damiyen had decided upon, one of the larger drainage pipes that we’d previously utilized to smuggle people in and out of the city, the very one Ellie had escaped out of a few days ago. Just yesterday, Damiyen had ordered his special crates moved there by a very small, very surefooted convoy of his own hand-picked beta allies. They’d deposited the crates in one of the wider drainage pipes leading out of the city, spreading them out in a specific pattern in order to incite the most damage.
He’d told me what they were then.
Every single crate was jammed full of liquid fire, a dangerous explosive that was produced in the times of old. Damiyen had enough of his own connections to not only research the long-forgotten recipe, but to start manufacturing enough of it to give us a chance in winning the battle against Tharia and defeating both the beta army and Philip Savile.
The man raced forward, almost in slow motion and I could feel a collective sense of panic take over those also watching from the beta forces. There was no time for the city gates to open and attack the solitary man. No way to open the dome and shoot him down. There was nothing they could do but watch as he ran for the walls.
I cocked my head to the side, studying the man as he carried the torch. He appeared strong, but somewhat frail. His eyes were red and slightly sickly. My eyes raced from him to the wall and back again, but then a strange feeling washed over me.
This man was going to sacrifice himself for the sake of us all.
He ran forward, each foot pounding into the dirt and then he dove straight into the drainage pipe. For a long moment, everything was silent.
Then the ground came alive beneath our boots. The walls shook, swaying back and forth enough to throw me off balance and then a massive explosion of fire tore through the wall not far from where we stood. The blazing heat smacked into my face first, followed by the shaking of the crumbling wall at our feet. My men quickly gathered me and forced me down the stairs and back to the streets, all while the crates under the walls continued to explode.
Above my head, a massive cracking sound echoed, and I looked up, watching as a significant portion of the dome started to disintegrate above us.
“The omegas are in position,” I shouted over the sounds of the crates detonating nearby. “It’s time.”
“Wait. Not yet,” Damiyen yelled over the noise.
Rocks flew from the wall, bouncing off nearby buildings and off the pavement of the streets. Then all at once the wall imploded on itself, collapsing in a plume of dust and debris, exposing the once-protected city of Tharia to the air of the wilds. After a long moment, the air began to settle and in the wake of the blast, I could see a single wide exit point for us to escape into the wilds and an entry point for the alpha horde to invade the city.
From above, the dome began to crumble. Quickly, Ethan pushed me inside a nearby factory building then, just before large pieces of the dome began to fall to the ground, crashing into the pavement and shattering like glass. Again and again it collapsed and broke into pieces, and I covered my ears with a cry.
The sounds were d
eafening.
For several long moments, the groans of the collapsing dome and the crumbling wall echoed around us, but when it all settled, the air held a decidedly different tone.
We’d broken through. Now we had a chance.
Now we had to fight.
I took a deep breath. Outside the walls, the alpha horde roared with victory but even I knew the battle had only just begun. Now that the walls had opened for us, the drumbeats were louder. The hoof beats of impatient horses pounded against the dirt and the roars of wild dogs and cats tore through the air, louder than ever.
We were ready for war.
Ethan lifted the whistle around his neck and blew it once. Then he did it again, indicating the directive for the Omegaborn to rush toward the gate. Our plan was immediate escape, to fight our way out into the protection of the alpha army, but we had to move. Even now, I could hear the sounds of beta forces rushing toward our position, toward the hole we created in Tharia’s defenses.
Before I rushed forward myself, my eyes stole upward to Philip’s position on the wall. He looked shaken, even scared and I grinned to myself. He was roaring orders at other men nearby and looked veritably ticked off.
Good. Bastard. Served him right.
In that moment, he turned and stared directly at me. He gritted his teeth and roared something in my direction, but it didn’t matter. Alaric gripped my arm and forced me toward the wall, toward the freedom it promised and toward victory.
The sound of bullets peppering the ground behind our heels echoed loudly and it made me run even faster. I didn’t dare look back for fear of tripping over my own two feet. Ethan, Alaric, Viktor, and Damiyen surrounded me, guarding me on all sides. I would have argued against it, but with the bullet fire not far behind us, it didn’t seem like the right time.
I sprinted forward, running as fast as I could, leaping off of rocks and rubble toward the break in the wall, but then a legion of beta soldiers slid into position right in front of us and I skidded to a halt.
