The passageway was too quiet. That kind of quiet made you feel like you were already labeled as prey. No birds. No bugs. Just wind whispering between the cliffs as if it knew something I didn’t.
Then came the boots.
Gravel crunching in a rhythm no animal would make. I gripped my rifle and held my breath.
One soldier appeared, almost as startled by my presence as I was of his, quickly followed by a whole squadron of heavily armed, unmarked soldiers.
They moved fast with precise movements. I didn’t even get my rifle raised. One blink and I was down, wrists yanked back, a gag shoved in, and then…
A hood. Darkness.
I lost track of everything. How long I was in that hood, how many hands dragged me, how many bumps in the road jarred my hips. Just static in my brain and the growing certainty that I waswell and truly fracked.
I tried to summon my O-space, careful to only reach for the submissive abilities. I sure as frack didn’t want to use my Omega Command, not while I wasn’t sure if it would work on so many at once. I needed something more subtle to calm them. Something they wouldn’t realize was affecting them until it was too late.
A purr. A flicker of perfume. Rut damn, I would've settled for a shaky little Omega whimper to flip their instincts and make them hesitate to harm me.
Nothing came.
I focused on my breathing instead, just like Shade taught me.
Eventually, they yanked the hood off, and light exploded across my retinas.
I blinked, squinted. Vision blurring until the world finally came back into focus…
I should’ve guessed.
GeneralfrackingStone.
“Omega Sparks,” he said, punctuated by a smugtsksound. “You’ve failed your mission. I’m disappointed.”
He’sdisappointed.
Right.
This is from the Alpha who blackmailed me with my brother and sister’s lives.
The same one who sent me to “train” with a squad of super-soldiers who could’ve snapped me in half before breakfast, and savaged my mating gland by lunch.
I carved myself into something unnatural at his whim, swallowed my instincts and broke parts of me that were meant to stay soft. I became an Omega capable of killing, because ofhim.
And now I’m adisappointment?
Of course I am.
Because I failed. I disobeyed orders and left my post.
I tie another knot in the frayed blanket, tugging it tight. The enduring chill within Blackgate Fortress brings me back to the present, but although the memory fades, a bitter taste lingers.
"Remind me again why you left a squad of super-soldier hotties to be here?" she asks with a coy smile and tilts her head, as though she didn’t just catch me mentally drowning.“Because when someone kidnaps your family, you do stupid shit like running head-first into chaos.”
She tightens the drawstring of her scrubs, getting ready for her shift in the medic bay. “Yeah, well, if you’re stupid, then so arewe. Jason and I came to rescue them, and ended up in General Stone’s web as well.”
It’s the not knowing that eats me alive. My Omegas could be anywhere. In a cage, in a grave, or worse, in the hands of someone who thinks Omegas are toys you wind up and break.
Dazz talks big, but he’s got this soft heart he tries to hide, and it bruises easily.
Flicker was never built for this world. She’s all soft wonder and moonlight, and some days I think we should’ve marched her back to the enchanted woodland she clearly escaped from.
