Fury blazed through Sidian’s veins as bile burned up his throat, his eyes squeezing shut to dam the tears that threatened to fall. His mind split open, refusing to cloak the memories any longer. Memories of Pack Kincaid laughing and joking as they visited brutality onto his body the likes of which he’d never known before. Breaking him down until the facade cracked open, and he begged and sobbed and wept for it to end.
Days of heat-induced lust, alpha pheromones keeping him slick and wanting even as he cringed away from every touch and sensation.
Hoarse shouts and screams as Pack Kincaid seemed determined to see just how much he couldfituntil he tore.
Barnes was quiet. Sidian could feel the doctor’s eyes boring into him, watching him shudder and quake on the bed as he fought to regain control of himself. It was fine. Almost twenty weeks. He had so much more time left before they could plan for his next heat, so much more time before Pack Kincaid returned.And he’d be ready next time. Next time, he’d have what it took to fight back. To run.
Finally, Barnes spoke. “I trust we won’t have any more tantrums today, Mr. Vey. Get some rest.”
The door slammed shut behind him as he left, and Sidian swallowed back another pointless omega whine as he slumped against the mattress.
Roe, where are you?
The common room of the Bell Breeding Center hosted a variety of plush couches, loveseats, and chairs, the upholstery stiff and scratchy against Sidian’s skin. Still, he dragged a chair over to the barred window on the farthest side of the room as he did every single day and sank into it, willing his stiff muscles to relax and his tired body to rest. Was pregnancy supposed to take so much out of him? He didn’t know. The only pregnancies he’d ever endured were within Bell’s walls, and they weren’t the conditions an omega was supposed to be pregnant in.
He should have a nest, big and soft and cozy, with all the blankets and pillows he could ask for. Somewhere dark and safe and secure, where the rest of the world was kept at bay and someone stood between him and all possible danger. An alpha, strong and fierce and beautiful, willing to do anything to keep him safe no matter what the risks were.
For one brief, shining moment, he’d had one. The fractured pieces of his life snapped together into a stunning reality of what the future might hold for him. Wrapped in blood-soaked arms, sticky hands cradling his face, he knew peace for once in his miserable existence.
Now, all of that was gone. And he’d never get it back.
His hand dropped to his stomach for the thousandth time today, fingers tracing over the bump that signaled to the world that his last heat was, by the center’s standards, a “success.” The occasional shifts beneath his skin and kicks against his hand, private and precious, confirmed for him once again that his baby was healthy and more than big enough to make their presence known to him.
It was something he had to himself just the same, though. Something to ground himself with. The center wanted nothing more than to rip him apart until he was docile, submissive, and sweet, but Pack Kincaid might want to keep him then, and he couldn’t risk that.
He would never let the spineless, cold-hearted bastards who ran the center take more from him than they already had.
His safety, his innocence, his freedom, his autonomy… Nothing more. Not his soul, black as it may be.
“We’ll get out of here,” he whispered to his belly, to his baby, though he did not know how to make good on the promise. Even at the peak of his physical health, he’d been able to do nothing more than languish within those walls.
Classical music issued from the television mounted on the wall, its screen depicting a bookstore while rain pattered down on the streets surrounding it. Restless, Sidian turned his attention to the outdoors, to the trees jutting straight up into the sky, the gray clouds overhead promising a thunderstorm on the horizon. Only the true sound of rain brought him any real comfort or rest.
He hadn’t been sleeping well for the past few days. Soon there would be talks of sedating him before bed to ensure he received the proper amount of rest for the baby’s development. He’d been so agitated during his third trimester last year they’d kept himdoped up for weeks on end, ensuring he could do little more than eat and sleep.
He didn’t want to go through that again. Never again.
A soft kick against the palm of his hand tightened his throat, his eyes stinging with tears as he stared out at the trees. This wasn’t right. The staff knew it, and he knew it. He should be in anactualhome, reclining on a mountain of pillows, maybe tucked up into the side of—
Crimson bleeds from his eyes until their original color returns. Pale silver splotched with deep, vibrant green like moss growing heavy on the bark of birch trees, framed by the longest black lashes he’d ever seen.
When a tear trailed down from the corner of his eye, he batted it away without a second thought.
It should be his alpha’s pup inside of him if anyone’s, but he would never see Roman Kane again. The odds of him even surviving that night were slim to none, the gorgeous alpha with blood dripping from his teeth and a wild, hungry look in his gaze. A gaze that slipped back to humanity from a feral state, but only for Sidian.
His best friend. His fated mate.
Bitterness surged in his chest as he slumped in his chair, propping one socked foot up on the edge of the windowsill. The center had taken everything from him moments after he discovered he had something worth taking. Years of his life spent cowering and pathetic, months spent cold and numb, and mere moments of warmth and acceptance and tenderness ripped away so violently the edges of the wound were still raw and bloody.
He’d never get that back. Never getRomanback. At the center, he was doomed to be nothing but a set of holes for Pack Kincaid to use until they either turned him into their permanent fuck doll or kill him. At least death would deliver him from that, butthe thought of slipping out of the world without ever ensuring the safety of his children left him cold all the way to his core.
No way out. No way to get to her, to get to the one they’d already ripped from his weak and trembling arms.
He took a deep breath and pressed down on the frustration until it sunk into his core, tangling itself with the resentment, the rage, the desire for spilled blood and torn flesh and splintered bone.
He would get out of there, and he would get his daughter back from those psychopaths no matter what it cost him.
As long as his children were safe, he didn’t even care if it cost him his life.
