Page 1 of Knot All Is Ruined: Part 1

Chapter one

They told us we’d be helping our country, that through our efforts we’d be preventing war. It was all one big fucking lie. A lie we believed—until it was too late, and our fates were sealed.

The quiet sheltered lives we Omegas had been living in the Care Centers left us woefully unprepared for what was about to come. I’d been taken to the center when I was seventeen, which was older than most. My family held a prominent place in our society and tried everything they could to keep me at home. My mother had been unwilling to hand me over to the government for them to handle my education. They somehow managed to hold them off for a year, but that ended the day a black van showed up with soldiers to escort me to the Care Center.

It was clear they didn’t give a shit about whether or not I wanted to join them. Causing my mother to collapse in the entryway of our home, unable to bear the shock of it all. My mother’s heart had never been strong, and it almost killed her to have me. She used to tell me that what kept her going was the fact she refused to leave me motherless. In fact, she called me her ray of sunshine, a reason to live and fight day after day. Seeing her like that, I tried to go to her, but the soldiers used the chaos to snatch me up and hauled me out to the van. Screaming and thrashing in their grasp, I tried to get back to my mother—but it was no use.

Once in the van, a Care Center attendant drugged me, muttering that everything would be just fine. To this day, I still have no idea if my mother is alive because once we enter the Center, we’re cut off from everything involving the outside world. For our well-being, of course—what a load of bullshit. Due to my charming attitude upon arrival, I was kept in isolation for a week as they performed their medical tests on me.

The Care Center's purpose and reason for why we were sent here was to ensure that any women born with the designation of Omega were healthy and fit to bear children for the pack they were to be matched to. Our world revolved around a person's designation, meaning you were either an Alpha, Beta, or Omega. Alphas are men and women who have a built-in sense of leadership and command of others. They’re at the top of the food chain and are those who become CEOs, world leaders, high-powered lawyers, and anything that gives them the fulfillment of leading others. Betas make the world turn. Without them being the worker bees who do the bulk of the lifting, nothing would get done. They also happen to make up the majority of our population. It’s also customary for people to gather into family units or packs, as many refer to them.

While some might choose only to have a single partner, it's much more likely to have a community mindset. Many packs are polyamorous, meaning they are in relationships with each other emotionally and physically. While other packs are formed with a group of people who find combining their lives and resources advantageous for advancement in social status or business. Things nowadays are more strategic when building a pack since Omegas have become scarcer. An Omega is a female who is the center of a pack, and a deep emotional bond can be created through them. When the Alpha members of the pack bond with the Omega, a connection is formed unlike anything you can have in a standard partnership, which makes them so desirable.

Once upon a time, there used to be a plentiful amount of Omegas. Only after a terrorist attack by a group of Betas called Equality for Betas, or EQ, a whole generation of mothers and babies were killed due to tainting a drug that helped to manipulate the chances of a baby being an Omega to a higher percentage. Compound this with the fact that an Alpha must be the mother or the father of the child if there's a chance it will be born an Omega. This is why Omegas are considered rare, and when an Omega is partnered with an Alpha, the possibility of it being an Omega offspring is far greater.

After the attack, the government overreacted and started these facilities called Care Centers. Anyone who presented as an Omega at sixteen must be surrendered to the Center. Through the Center, the Omega would be paired with a pack that met the proper qualifications needed. Those being: financially stable, a secure home, and having private security to protect their Omega. With the current economic decline, packs found it increasingly harder to meet these rigorous standards to the government's satisfaction. This was when they began the Omega Goodwill Program.

Those picked for the OGP would be sent to one of the neighboring countries in an effort to support their population crisis. Seems that in our world, Oscad—my home country, one of the three most powerful nations, has the largest population of Omegas. Four times a year, they would send at least ten Omegas to either Asturg to the west or Shearia to the East. Each time they claimed there was a random selection, but I didn’t think it was that random. There always seemed to be a particular type of Omega that just so happened to be picked for Shearia. Those who ended up being sent to Asturg weren’t desirable in looks or education. Many also had stubborn dispositions.

This is how I ended up being drugged one night and waking up to find myself on a bus crossing over the border to Asturg.

“What the fuck,” I blurted as I looked out the window watching the border guards wave the bus through the break in the massive metal wall with the Asturg flag painted on it.

In our time at the Center, a large part of our education was learning about the different countries and our own. They ensured we were well versed in things that would be common for an Omega to know in Shearia as well as Asturg. We knew there was a chance we could be sent to either of these countries if we didn’t get picked for a pack in Oscad. Over the four and a half years I was at the Center, only three Omegas were paired with local packs while the rest of us bided our time.

Now here I was, being shipped off to one of the worst war-torn countries that have ever existed. Asturg was an enormous country that was divided into two sections. North Asturg was controlled by General Rasvan, who in my personal opinion, was deemed a ruthless tyrant who didn’t care about anything but winning. Of course, that sort of talk and free thinking was not welcome in the Care Center. No, General Rasvan was a prominent leader who did what he thought was best for his people with the situation handed down to him.

As for the Southern leader, President Dragomire, there wasn’t much known about him, for sure. He was reclusive, but his military was better equipped and educated in warfare. They also had a far smaller population than the North. This meant they had to use their skill with tactics instead of throwing bodies into battle as the North did. Which is why the Northern country, as a whole, needed us Omegas to help produce more children for them to raise, train, and lose to this pointless war.

Women were looked at as nothing more than breeding stock or cannon fodder for the enemy. Betas were given a choice to either become a breeder in one of the breeding houses or become a soldier. Omegas were not given that choice since we either produced another Omega or an Alpha. Both were valuable to them in their own way, but the whole concept made me sick.

Shifting in my seat, I found Violet’s blonde head slumped against me, still knocked out from the drug. My heart broke at the thought they chose this sweet, gentle Omega to be sent here just because she was born with a cleft lip. The damn thing had been repaired as a baby, leaving her with a less traditional appearance. These bastards decided it was better to send her to a country that wouldn’t care what she looked like as long as she could pop out babies. Violet was quiet, smart, and had just turned twenty a month ago. Sending her to Asturg was a death sentence in the making.

Looking at the other seats, I realized there were more of us than usual. This bus was almost full when the last few groups sent off were of about ten women. I was betting there were at least thirty of us this time around, and this trip was earlier than it should’ve been. The last busload was sent off only two months ago to Shearia. Scanning the faces, I knew every single one of these women. Some had only arrived a few weeks ago, barely getting any of the promised education. Typically, they waited until we were at least twenty-one to send us. Then my gaze landed on Tori, the youngest girl in the Care Center at seventeen.

What the fuck was she doing here?

Carefully I maneuvered Violet so I could get up and move her over so she rested against the wall of the bus. Carefully I made my way as the bus was moving along at a relatively quick pace down a road that was apparently riddled with potholes. This made my journey challenging as it bounced and rattled trying to knock me off my feet. Finally, I made it to Tori and crouched beside her seat.

Why was I the only one awake?

Granted, this wasn’t the first time I’d been drugged into being more manageable, though it hadn’t been that many times I was getting a resistance to it…right?

“Tori,” I whispered, shaking her lightly. “Come on, Tori-bear, wake up for me.”

She groaned and lifted a hand to rub the sleep out of her eyes. “Dani?”

“Hey,” I greeted with a smile. “You okay?”

“Where are we? Oh my god, are we on a bus right now?” she gasped once her brain took in the reality of where we were. “No, no, this can’t be happening.” Tori pleaded, starting to sob.

“Shh, we don’t want to draw attention from the driver. I’m not sure what might happen,” I warned, glancing up to the front where a gate cut us off from leaving. “Do you remember anything about last night? Everything is a bit fuzzy for me.”

Tori frowned, rubbed her forehead, and then stopped and looked at me. “There was a visitor at dinner. You wouldn’t know since you got sent to your room—again. He was an older man dressed in a nice suit talking with the Head Caretaker. It almost seemed like that man was picking out girls like they do when we are paired with a local pack. When he left, four women were sent to their rooms to pack.”

“Did you hear them say anything about sending us so early? There was supposed to be another two months before we were shipped off,” I pressed.

“Dani, I’m sorry, but the girls around me were chatting away about some romance book they were reading, and Sybble kept asking me for help with her math homework. There was no formal announcement like they normally do when it's time for those picked to be relocated.” Tori looked at me helplessly, and I didn’t have the heart to press her for more information.