Page 172 of Omega's Vow


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But the only thing that flashes through his mind is a man in a mask. It’s similar to the mask all the Soldiers wear, but more refined. Less gruesome, but no less evil looking. The demon’s horns are thinner, curling high above its forehead, and its grin isn’t the wide rictus of the normal masks the Soldiers wear. The expression on the Prince’s mask is faint, but that only makes it more frightening. But that’s it. Rad has never truly seen Baphomet’s Prince without a mask, and while the voice in his head almost seems familiar, I don’t catch enough of Rad’s thoughts to make it out.

He snaps out from under the influence of my affinity and backhands me hard across the face. My head jerks to the side and I wince when I taste coppery blood in my mouth.

“You don’t know a saints-damned thing about the Prince,” I snarl.

His lips quirk in a smile that makes fury roil inside me. “I know enough. I know that if I prove myself to him, if I hand you over, collared and obedient, that I’ll get to sit at his right hand. The Prince is no mere alpha, beloved. He’s an idol. An idea that will unify armies. He’ll raze the world so it can be built again, anew. It will be my honor to break you and serve you up to him. But first, my beloved, I have such plans for you.”

I cringe away from him, but he follows me across the back seat. He hooks his fingers inside the neckline of my hoodie and tugs it so sharply it digs into my skin.

“The first thing I’ll do is burn every mating bite from your body. My father was right when he told me all omegas were worthless whores. You spread your legs for the first alphas who asked you to, letting them sully you with their bites. You’re used goods, tainted. A sorry excuse for an omega. But once I’ve burned your bites off and given you mine, I’ll teach you. I’ll show you how to be better. You’ll learn to obey me—always.”

He trails his touch down my neck, and I can’t hold back my shiver of revulsion. He digs the tips of his fingers into Ian’s bite until I cry out in pain.

Only then does he smile. “I’ll start here, with Reinhardt’s bite. Did he mate you after you came to his rescue? Did you two fuck because you were both so grateful to be alive?”

“He should have fucking killed you,” I grit out.

“He should have, but loving you has made him a coward, an emasculated alpha. Barely a man at all. Barely an alpha. I’ll show you how arealman treats an omega. Like the filth she is. All of your craven mates have earned the punishment of seeing their bites stripped from your body, the agony of having their bonds with you severed. They deserve to see you beaten, and scared, and you, beloved, deserve to watch me destroy them. I left the wrong bait for Reinhardt, though he fell into my trap willingly enough. That journalist was nothing to him. But you, you’re his mate. He’ll come if he thinks he has any chance of saving you,” he sneers. “They all will. And then I’ll do what I didn’t get to do on the Feast of Saint Jasper. I’ll kill your mates and that faggot beta, and I’ll make you watch.”

“Put me in another omega trap,” I snap, baring my teeth at him. “I fucking dare you.”

“Oh no, beloved. I have other plans for you. I know how to restrain you now. But you’ll see that soon enough.”

I jerk my head up, trying to see out the tinted windows, but all I see are trees. Miles and miles of New Brunswick pine trees. I thrash when I realize what he intends to do to me, twisting and trying to get my back to the door so I can work the lock and handle, but Rad lashes out, grabbing me around my neck and pulling me until my face is just inches away from his.

“You see now, don’t you? You see what happens to omegas who don’t obey. When I set my scribe to your mating bites to rid you of them forever, you’ll realize that the pain you suffered during your affinity test wasnothing. Today you’ll know true agony.”

I should save my strength. I should go limp in his hold until we get to the facility, because surely that’s where he’s taking me now. If I conserve my energy, I can make a run for it. I can escape him.

Blair gives me a barely perceptible shake of her head in the rear-view mirror and my heart sinks.

If I run, she’ll have no choice but to make my head explode.

That alone saps the fight from me, and fear sets in, aching and persistent like a fever scorching under my skin. My hands are bound, and my scribe is gone, and while I’ve been training and am physically stronger than ever, I’m still no match for an alpha like Rad.

When we get to the facility, Rad drags me from the car, and I struggle against him. He bands an arm around me, pinning me to his chest, trapping me with his scent in my nose, burning in my throat and making me choke.

The facility is deserted, with only the emergency lights left running. It’s been gutted of all of Radcliffe Industries’ innovative mage tech, every invention no doubt locked away in evidence storage somewhere or being picked apart by some covert governmental agency. All the computers have been confiscated and cleared away, but the furniture was left behind, overturned and abandoned.

The closer we get to the affinity testing room, the more I fight and struggle, until finally Rad fists a hand in my hair and drags me forward. I stumble behind him, my scalp burning.

The room’s metal door hangs off its hinges, the swipe panel a mess of loose wires and circuits. Inside the room, instruments are strewn across the floor, and the monitor I broke while hooked up to it has been removed, but the table Willow strapped me down to remains in the center of the room.

Rad throws me to the floor and I scramble backwards, away from the surgical table and its wicked, inescapable restraints, fear pounding through me and making my scent sharp and bitter.

“No!” I cry out.

Rad laughs, the sound thick with pleasure, and I recoil, crawling toward the door as quickly as I can with my hands bound behind my back. He kicks me hard in the gut, and I go down, sprawling across the cold concrete floor.

Tears stream from my eyes as I struggle to sit up, fighting to scoot away from the table and Rad as quickly as I can. I back myself into a corner in my terror, and Rad yanks me up from the floor. He marches me over to the table, though I fight him with every step, trying to jerk my way out of his hold, but it’s no use.

He hoists me onto the table, pinning me in place as he undoes the binding spell, holding my wrists behind my back. I lash out, hoping to claw him across the face, but he grabs my hand deftly, slams it to the table and slips the restraint around my wrist, pulling the strap tight. I flail, trying to find purchase on the table’s smooth surface, but Rad catches my fist when I try to throw a punch. He wrenches my arm back until I let out a cry of pain and sag against the table, then tightens the other restraint around my wrist. I’m almost too far gone, too lost in my fear to notice how the restraint rattles against the table.

Loose. The latch holding the restraint to the table is loose. It must have been broken during the mission or during the subsequent police search.

I struggle still, but I’m careful not to jerk my right arm too hard. He can’t know about the broken restraint until I can surprise him, until I can force him back and buy myself enough time to escape.

He straps my ankles down to the table until all I can do is bow my back as I fight against the restraints.