Prologue I
The alpha filled the doorway with his broad shoulders, his stench of damp and rotting wood snaking through the breeding center’s bleach and disinfectant like a creeping fog.
Sidian Vey pressed his back into the corner of the room, never taking his eyes off of the predator who stalked into what little space he considered his own. If he smashed himself hard enough into the walls, maybe they would split along the seams and swallow him into the waiting blackness. If it meant falling into shadows accompanied by the desperate need clenching his gut and the echo of his heartbeat in his clit, he would choose it without a second thought. If it meant being choked by silence, he would answer the call of the void. At that point, he was certain he could sustain himself even in the face of utter madness with nothing more than the handful of positive memories he’d clawed free from a life of utter misery and pain.
Anything was better than the alpha who sauntered toward him, stinking of the water damage back in the trailer that Sidian grew up in. Better than the half dozen alphas who spilled intothe room behind their pack lead like pus gushing from a lanced, infected wound, each one more nauseating than the last. It took what little strength Sidian still possessed to avoid gagging on the spot.
But he would show no weakness. Not in the faces of those men who had come to take what little he had left.
The leader studied him with crimson eyes that burned beneath the shock of his coiffed white hair. “The good doctor told us you were beautiful. I must confess that I thought he told us what we wanted to hear, little omega.”
Sidian’s lips twisted back from his teeth in a silent snarl as he weighed his options, pressing his palms flat to the walls on either side of him. He could make a run for the door and pray that none of the towering, powerful alphas chased him down and caught him. If they did, he wasn’t certain they would have the decency to bring him back to his room. They might rip down the thin white cotton pants he wore and break him then and there, uncaring of whoever might walk by.
It wouldn’t be the first time someone entertained themselves with his violation.
“Not a talker?” The alpha’s bloodstained eyes raked over his body like hands forcing unwanted caresses. “That’s fine with me. We’ll have days to unearth every beautiful sound I think that pretty little mouth can make. What do you think, boys?”
Leering, lecherous gazes and greasy smiles answered the words, along with low, rumbling laughs that made Sidian’s stomach ache. If the alphas themselves didn’t catch him, the staff would, and he knew about what they might inject him with to keep him docile during his heat. Would that be better or worse? Would he feel more or less broken if he fought back and lost, or if he was forced to lay back and accept whatever abuse they would visit upon him?
He didn’t know, given he’d always fought back. He didn’t want to find out.
“Do you know who I am?” The alpha’s low, purring voice caught a sharp edge, nails dragging along Sidian’s spine.
The hair on the nape of his neck prickled, and he swallowed back a mouthful of bile before he found his voice. “No.”
“That’s interesting.” The smile melted from the alpha’s face as he stepped closer. Positioned in front of the dim lamp on the bedside table, he cast a dark shadow across the floor that edged ever closer to Sidian’s socked feet. “I’ve always been told I look so much like my father. Does the name Dax Kincaid ring a bell at all?”
Daxdidn’t; being from the wrong side of a small town meant that Sidian barely knew the handful of alphas he attended high school with, much less someone visibly older than him. ButKincaidrang a bell, though he couldn't remember where he heard the name before or what significance it held. He wished he knew why a Kincaid would be present in the breeding center, slowly advancing on him, taking in the sweat dampening his hairline and the pants clinging to his thighs as slick wet the fabric with an expression of pure hunger.
His voice came in a faint, husky croak. “If you touch me, I'm going to fuckingkillyou.”
The calm shattered in an instant. Dax Kincaid lunged, and Sidian dodged past his grasping hands, darting for the doorway and whatever freedom might lie on the other side of it. Maybe the alphas wouldn’t catch him. Maybe he would slip through the staff’s hands. Maybe he could hit the treeline and disappear into the woods, die of exposure while panting like the bitch in heat he was. That would be a better fate than whatever this pack had in store for him.
A boot slammed into his shin so hard it surprised him something didn’t crack in response. His legs flew out from underhim at the exact moment someone seized him by the back of the shirt, the grip keeping his flailing body in the air as he snarled and swore.
Dax Kincaid swept a hand through his tousled hair as he approached. Without a word, he drove one powerful fist into Sidian’s gut, and Sidian crumpled with a choked gasp.
The pain from the impact entangled itself with the pain from his heat; the pitiful whimper that slipped from his lips drew noises of interest from the rest of the pack. The sickly, musky scents of their arousal gagged him like a noose, ripping what little clean air was still in the room from his lungs.
“I’m not above putting a bitch in his place when the need arises,” Dax informed him, his gaze cold despite the blazing intensity. “Just like they're going to euthanize that mutt of yours for that little display he put on for the whole town to gossip over. I wanted to stay behind and watch it happen, maybe take a little recording to show you, but it would have been such a waste of your heat to show up late.”
Roman.Sidian squeezed his eyes shut at the news—because of course, ofcourseRoman wouldn’t survive—before he jerked his head back and spit in Dax’s face.
Fuck him. Fuck him and the men who'd come to take him away, and fuck every single alpha who thought they owned the body of any omega they set their eyes on. The pack would hurt him, would make him wish for death, but Sidian refused to bend for them, to break for them. They could kill him, fuck him to literal death if they wanted to, but he would make them do it. He would make them do it before he lost a single shred of what made him who he was.
And for dishonoring Roman’s memory, he’d make them pay for it.
Dax stared at him for a beat before wiping away the spit on his cheek. “Set him down, Axel.”
The alpha suspending him from the floor dropped Sidian abruptly, the impact jarring him slightly as he cast a glance toward the door.Run.It didn’t matter how far he got or what humiliation he faced for running. If he made it, then he made it. And if not—
“Kneel.”
Sidian’s knees crumpled beneath him, thudding onto the cold tile of the floor while several of the alphas surrounding him cackled with glee. The command laced itself through his mind like razor wire, cutting through his own thoughts until the weight of it sank into his very bones. Only when a finger curled beneath his chin and tilted his head back did he realize just how fucked he was.
An omega could not ignore an alpha command, after all.
“The good doctor was right about you after all. Obedient little bitch, even when you don’t want to be. I think we’ll use that over the next few days.” A thumb rubbed itself over Sidian’s bottom lip, pulling his mouth apart for just a moment. “Starting with this mouth of yours.Open.”
