During her short time in the compound, she had learned more than she ever wanted to about how Omegas were treated. Even Beta women were held there and used as sexual slaves, and Beta women were not made for the rough handling an Omega could survive. She hoped to enter the place before the Seditionists could blow it up and rescue the men and women held prisoner there.
Had she had more time and an easier relationship with The Alpha, she would have clued him in. She doubted even Uncle Rand knew the specifics, as no one involved in the compound was talking, and she was the only person to escape alive that she knew of.
She and the Omegas would deal with it.
They picked their way through the mountains, and when they came to the Blackwater River, they let their horses go knowing they could forage on the spring grasses they found. Hopefully, the horses would stay in the area so they could slip out the way they came, but if not, that was okay too. This was the last stand. Eve was not naive enough to think they would all survive this battle, and there was still The Alpha to deal with. She could feel him getting closer, and she quashed the Omega part of her that longed to find him and breathe in his scent, to rub her face along his neck to mark him. Her insides turned to liquid, and she felt her slick start to build.
Claiming him had not been her brightest move, even though it seemed like an amazing idea at the time, and she fought against her instinct to run to him. Did she wonder what a complete bond would feel like? Her Omega claim on him was uncomfortable, and she wondered if the bond were complete if it would settle into something pleasant. Fulfilling even. She didn’t think she would ever find out. Doubting she’d survive it, she had no plans beyond this fight.
Using rocks and trees for cover, they skirted the edges of the river until they found the old rope bridge that allowed passage over the Great Falls, safe from the rush of the rain-fed river below. Eve had seen pictures of the place before the war. Observation decks and a large wooden bridge had once given visitors beautiful views of the water below and mountains beyond, but she preferred it the way it was now- Wild. Wonderful. Untamed. Foot by foot, they crossed the river on the rope bridge, and she thrilled in every inch of the journey.
The river rushed below them, and the white water of spray splashed their faces as they eased across. Once this area had been protected as a state park, but now much of the Seventh District’s trouble lived here, and their main compound was just ahead on a narrow, easily defensible finger of land.
Across the rope bridge, Eve waited for the others. She had chosen to go first to protect their landing point, and Lorelei had taken the rear to protect their flank. Around them, the area stilled in anticipation. After all of the Omegas were across the bridge, they climbed the hillside, making no noise whatsoever. Lukas might grasp the concept of a lightweight, lightning-fast fighting force, but he would never endorse using one. After this, he would have a few things to think about, and the thought made her smile. Maybe he was an honorable man, after all.
They dispersed and spread toward the compound, a fast-moving wildfire with no warning to those beyond. They avoided tripwires, cams, and sensors until they had the place nearly surrounded. The Alpha should be close enough that his troops could pick off any who should attempt to brave that route and try to escape from their attack.
Eve let her hair down from pigtail braids so that it caught the early afternoon sun, causing it to glint like rubies in its light. She unfurled her bright yellow banner with its bold W V on it and slammed it into the ground. It was a challenge she knew they could not resist. If she were backed by New South forces, they might blow the place sky high on principle, but being surrounded by a few helpless Omegas would make them bold.
She welcomed their miscalculation.
She climbed the tree above her banner and tossed three grenades along the fenceline. One hit an IED, and the explosion triggered two more. The ground shook for miles. Rocks fell into the river beyond, and parts of distant hillsides slipped onto the land below. Omegas readied themselves for battle as men poured through the doors of the Manor house, armed and ready to fight.
From a nearby tree, another Omega launched a barrage of arrows at the oncoming fighting dogs, and another shouldered her RPG, took aim, and fired. Arrows, bullets, and pins flew. The enemy, angered by the sight and smell of nearly one hundred Omegas, flew over IEDs and tripwires, setting the majority of them off so that the Omegas had a clear path.
Eve jumped from her tree, gave a shrill yell, extended her bo staff, and waded out to meet them.
The Alpha felt the ground shake beneath his feet before he heard the first booms. Rocks fell, and the path they walked twisted under them, knocking smaller men to their knees. Moving into a crouch, he stilled. “Report!” he yelled to his tech officer. “Get eyes in the sky!”
“It’s the Omega Force, Alpha,” Taylor said from somewhere behind him. “I should’ve known they’d hit the enclave next. God Damnit,” he yelled back, smashing the butt of his rifle onto the ground repeatedly.
“Get a hold of yourself and explain.” The Alpha turned his green eyes to the older man, his pupils dilating so that almost no green showed around them.
Taking a deep breath and letting it go, Taylor closed his eyes and started, “Eve was held in that compound. I should’ve remembered. During the incident we spoke of in the capital she was a prisoner in that place,” Taylor stopped talking, hoping The Alpha remembered their conversation so that he did not have to speak any more about it.
Lukas remembered.
He went still as more explosions sounded in the distance, and the ground continued to shake. Eve had been captured by a strong Beta who attempted to force her into estrous and a mating bond he couldn’t create or satisfy. He had raped her, and she had killed him when he couldn’t serve her after estrous hit. Lukas could not forget that. Would never forget that.
The Omegas had used speed only they possessed and beaten his troops to the enclave, and their battle was already on. He’d seen the schematics and aerial footage of the place and knew it would be hard-fought. Never before had he seen a domestic encampment as well thought out and defended as the one they faced and that the Omegas were already fighting against. His blood boiled, and he roared his anger into the mountains and clear blue skies of this wild place.
Jumping to his feet, he ran, and the others followed. He could feel her heart pounding, and the jolt of hand to hand combat rock her body, making him run harder. They were close, but in a battle such as this, it was seconds and not minutes that mattered, so he ran, pouring every bit of Alpha strength into his strides.
The smell of smoke and gunpowder filled the old road they traveled, and black smoke rolled between the ridges ahead. Explosions and rapid-fire machine-gun rounds echoed off hillsides and into the hollows below, making him wonder how one hundred girls with bows and arrows, staffs, and throwing knives could survive in the face of it. He slowed long enough to call for the fightercraft he staged in Roanoke and was assured they’d be in the air within minutes.
When finally he blew through the wall of smoke surrounding the enclave, he slid to a stop, stunned. Bodies littered the ground. Seditionist and Omega alike. Most still fought, hand to hand, with knives, or their staffs. Guns fired, and bowstrings sang. Sick, pale Omega and Beta females streamed past him. They were tattered, dirty, and smelled of more men than a woman should. They flew by the marines, blank-eyed and not stopping. Some cried and shied away from him while others dropped at his feet, but he kept going.
Never had he seen a sight so unsettling. Their clothes were torn and ragged, and bruises marred their exposed skin. Old and new ligature marks showed on their wrists, and his anger grew. These women had been prisoners, just as Eve had. She had come to him to end this, and he hadn’t listened. Hadn’t given her a chance to explain just how dire the situation was. He’d just done what he’d done and assumed he was right. As he watched the broken women flow by, his cheeks heated with shame. In the distance, an explosion rocked the house, and high
flames shot from the roof, and his heart stopped.
Eve stood on a high balcony, bo staff in hand, with nothing but flames behind her and a thirty-foot drop below her. Her red hair streamed, caught in the wind fire creates. Like a tornado of red, it twisted around her too pale face. Blood splashed her arms and legs, but she was whole.
A man charged from behind, and she dodged him expertly, bringing her staff up and countering the knife he held slash for slash. She ducked under his reach, a move The Alpha had seen her do many times, and continued to strike at her attacker as the flames grew higher behind them.
Eve pushed him toward the railing, her strikes coming hard and fast, muscles rippled down her arms, and the look on her face was calm and focused while the sound of their staffs hitting could be heard across the smoking lawn. The man had no choice but to block her, but she moved like lava, smooth and deadly around him. Beaten, the man leaned too far backward, falling over the railing, his screams ending with a loud thunk when he hit the ground below.
Eve looked across the space between them, saluted The Alpha with her left hand, placed her right hand on the railing, and with an arcing leap, followed the man over the rail.
Another explosion rocked the manor, and dust, smoke, and debris clouded the view of her fall. Racing forward, he grabbed his long knife, cutting through anyone between him and her. Only fools stepped in front of him, and many a fool died.
Fightercraft flew overhead and dropped incendiary rounds on the perimeter of the fence where a host of fleeing insurgents had gathered to die. They continued dropping bombs along the edges of the land, triggering the remaining IEDs and killing those that ran. From that moment, the battle was over.
Lukas fought debris and the dense layer of gunpowder, trying to get to where Eve should lay dead from her fall. He could feel her steady heartbeat but thought it impossible to survive that. She wasn’t even one hundred pounds. How could she? At the edge of the hole where the house once stood, he saw nothing. No Eve. No Bo staff. Nothing except the crumpled body of the man who fell before her and whose body helped break her fall.
A wall of fire raged, making searching any closer to it impossible. Looking around, he screamed his rage into the darkening sky and sank the blade of his knife into the eye of the enemy advancing through the smoke toward him.
Chapter 20
The Medihelos landed, scooped up the last of the wounded, and carried them north to the medical center in Morgantown. The Alpha sat at the edge of the battlefield, tending his burns, while Alpha Taylor and Alpha Jason waited patiently next to him. No one said a word. They had suffered heavy casualties. Thirty local fighters, twelve marines, and four of the Omega Force females lost their lives, and many more were being treated for their injuries and might not survive.
The insurgents were dead. All of them. If one or two lived beyond this battlefield, The Alpha’s forces would find them and cut them down.
It was over.
The ruins of the stately manor smoldered, and smoke still drifted from the craters left behind by many explosions.
He had not found Eve, but he felt her nearby. Why she did not show herself now that the fighting was over, he didn’t understand. His heart hurt.
Rubbing the area over his chest where he felt her the most, he sighed. “Have the drones spotted anything?”
Jason didn’t have to ask what he was referencing. “No, Sir. The smoke is still thick enough to obscure most of their view, though.
“I see,” The Alpha said, rising to his feet.
They shoveled dirt on fires and water-shuttles dumped tanks on the flames that had spread through the hillside, catching the carpet of fallen leaves on fire. Locals and marines worked side by side, sifting through debris to find bodies to bury and injured to help.
The Alpha drifted away, walking through the woods with Taylor beside him, following the faint pull of the cord in his chest. The sound of the waterfall became louder, and he came to the river. He’d never seen anything quite like it and was mesmerized by its beauty. Water tumbled far below and formed a vicious broil at the base of the falls before slowing briefly in a deep, circling pool. From there, the water caught again and formed fast-moving chutes into the whitewater beyond.
“Lukas.”
He jerked his face up and saw Eve standing with her feet spread on an outcropping of rocks above the falls. Omegas slid out from the greenery and gathered around her, their loose hair blowing in the breeze, and his breath caught in his throat. They held knives, staffs, and bows at ready but not pointed at him. Not exactly. God, she was beautiful. They all were, but she outshone them in his eyes. Like a beacon, she pulled him to her.
“Eve. God, are you okay?” he asked, his voice catching and his eyes taking a quick inventory, he noticed her weight was shifted just a bit off of her right leg, and her right arm hung at the wrong angle. “Your arm is broken,” he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous growl.
“It’s my collar bone. It will heal,” she said.
“Eve.”
“Thank you, Alpha. Thank you for taking on this fight. The New South is safer for it,” she said, turning to go.
“Wait, Eve,” his voice stopped her, and she watched as he rubbed his chest. “I would have fought for you- for all of you. All of the New South would have.”
“I didn’t want you to fight for me, Lukas. I wanted you to fight with me. I never intended to sit quietly in Greenville; surely, you know that now.” Around her, the other Omegas chuckled, a few shaking their heads at the audacity of that thought.
“Come home with me, Eve. I need you. The New South needs you.” Lukas stopped, begging her with his eyes.
“EJ, The Alpha passed a law. NS304 gives Omegas a choice, gives all of you a choice,” he said, directing his gaze to the Omegas around her. “It’s a good start toward everything you ever wanted. You helped make a change and can make an even bigger one.” Taylor clapped The Alpha on the back.
“He’ll just take it back. He won’t honor it,” she said, casting her eyes between them.
“He can’t take it back, honey, not without the signature of the Secretary of the Seventh District and two more signatures from others in district leadership.” His face softened when Eve’s eyes scanned his, looking for a lie. “It’s the truth, EJ. I swear it.”
“I’m the Secretary of the Seventh,” she whispered.
“And my mate, Eve. You claimed me. You didn’t have to, but you did. Come back with me. Honor your claim. I’ll even let you court me if you want, just come back to your nest,” he stopped, laughing, but sobered again when she didn’t smile back.
“I didn’t dishonor the contract; you did,” she reminded him. “And this is my nest, Lukas. All of it,” she finished, raising her arms with a grimace to indicate the environment around her. “I would die to protect it, just like any Omega would.
“I know. I see that now, but you don’t have to. That’s what I’m for. It’s my job, not just as your mate, but as The Alpha of the New South. You would die to protect this place, and I would die to protect you, Eve. Not because you are weak. I knew from the moment you walked into my office that there was nothing weak about you. I want to protect you because you are important. To me. To your friends. To the New South. You are important. And I know I dishonored you, Eve, but I’ve done everything I can to honor you since. The Omega Rule is real. You did that. Knowing you helped NS304 come to life. Please don’t do this. You have a choice. If not me, then someone, Eve,” he said, the hair rising on his arms and his voice breaking to a growl. It would be hard. It might kill him, but he would let her go if that’s what she wanted.
“You’re better than this. Better than death. The New South needs you. Needs you all so badly. You may be royalty in West Virginia,” he said, noting their reaction to his use of the old words, “but you are a champion to Omegas everywhere. Word of The Omega Rule has reached the New North, and there is an uprising brewing there for Omega rights. The West won’t be far behind. You are a champion,
and this is your cause. I’ll give it to you. Take it and run. If you commit suicide and don’t kid yourself that’s not what you’re doing; you won’t be a martyr. You’ll just be dead, and there’s no honor in that. You were willing to submit to me, be my mate, and bear my children, your words, Eve, not mine. Be reasonable.” Watching the thoughts roll across her face like the water below, he waited.
“Lukas, I don’t,” she started, her face softening and her body relaxing as she made up her mind.
He would never know what she meant to say. What didn’t she want to do? Die? Live? Live with him? He’d never know because at that moment, he watched her fall, blood blooming from a giant hole in her chest. The crack of a large caliber muzzleloader sounded at the same time the bullet hit. The mountains do weird things like that to physics.
She tumbled over and over, arms limp and hanging, without movement to break her fall, she splashed into the deep pool below. Her body was picked up and dragged through the chute and into the rapids beyond. Alpha Taylor jumped from his perch, following her down without a thought, and Omegas screamed and raced down the rocks like mountain goats toward their sister. The cord in his chest snapped, and just like that, he was alone.
The Alpha roared, bouncing on his toes from stone to stone, he chased the insurgent who shot his mate, seeing only red. Red, the color of Eve’s hair. Red, the color of the blood spreading across her chest as she fell.
The Omega Rule (Omegas of the New South Book 1) Page 14
