Anarchy, p.32
Anarchy, page 32
I had to hold it together.
Not long ago, this would have been my worst nightmare. The outcome I’d protected myself from ever since I’d arrived here. But Crescent had changed everything. The whole dynamic of Anarchy had shifted, alliances crumbling, previous, perfectly laid plans and protection, like dust in the wind.
This outcome, perhaps it had always been inevitable, but at least it wasn't my worst nightmare any longer.
Seeing Holden with his hands on her, that was something I couldn't survive.
Holden took a step, closing some of the distance, and I lifted the gun, levelling it at him.
He stopped, eyes darting between mine, amusement in them. “They will tear you limb from limb if you do that, Sin, and you know it.”
We stared at each other, and he slowly took one more step. On pure instinct, I flipped the gun and pressed it up to my chin.
Again, he paused, cocking his head as if curious. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, a smile playing on his lips.
There was a long silence as I ran through every useless plan possible. I was fucking trapped. Before I could do anything, Holden closed the final gap between us, his huge fist closing around the gun and my neck.
I trained every fucking day in this godforsaken place, but it didn't matter. It never would matter in the face of an alpha with an aura.
My free fist caught him in the cheek before his aura burst into the air. It made him far faster than me, and in a half second flat he’d dragged me from the bed and slammed me against the wall. His foul smell of sour whiskey was everywhere as he leaned close.
“We found Grady’s body, Sin,” he said. “Shot to the stomach, and there aren’t that many guns around here, are there?”
I snarled, struggling uselessly as he adjusted his grip, re-angling the gun to my chin properly. I tensed as he moved his finger and I heard a click.
Nothing happened.
He grinned. “That’s what I thought.”
He dropped his grip on my neck, but I barely had a chance to breathe as pain split my head and I was knocked to the ground. I grunted at another burst of agony in my stomach as he kicked me.
The room spun as I blinked, adrenaline keeping me alert. My hands were planted on the stone floor, trying to steady myself, a groan slipping out as the pain worsened.
But I froze as I heard the intercom crackle above me, and a feminine, robotic voice said: “Karma Thomas. Your appeal has arrived. Proceed to the waiting room with your pack.”
I… no.
The thirty-minute timer had started… I…I didn’t even know where my pack was.
I heard Holden laugh. “There it is, Sin. Looks like it’s over for you and your pathetic pack.”
But… It was too soon. When the Leo pack wanted out, their call had been delayed too late. And now ours was the opposite and fucked us over just the same.
Despair made the world spin.
I didn't see Holden, just the shadow crossing the cracks in the floor.
“Sterling thought it was her in heat, you know, but I'm not disappointed,” Holden growled in my ear. “I've dreamed of this for so long. I'm going to break you before I use that body for the only thing it's good for.” I felt his fist around my neck as he shoved me onto my back, pinning me to the ground. “Welcome to the worst day of your life.”
I hated how weak I was in the face of an alpha’s aura.
This was wrong.
I could hear the sneer in Holden’s voice. “And you'll still be begging for me by the end of it, like the pathetic creature that you—” He cut off, head turning, clearly stalled by something.
My blood was still pounding in my ears, agony trying its best to distract me, but I'd heard what he’d heard.
No...
Fuck.
Thump!
I couldn't see them, but I knew every alpha in the room froze. I'd been in Anarchy long enough to be able to parse out different sounds. Distant howls from the nearby ones. Threats or paranoia. And the distinct difference between the fainter sounds of a rutting alpha far away, or the one in the rut box in my own cell.
We could all tell.
So I knew why they froze at the faintest thump... thump... It was irregular. Not as loud as I was used to. But it was unmistakable.
A sound coming not from far away at all, and my blood chilled as Holden's eyes snapped to the rut box.
49
CRESCENT
Sin had locked me in.
Terror and panic collided as I banged on the door with my fists. A sob caught in my chest as agony spiked in my stomach again.
He'd left me...
The pain had just begun, but it would get worse. I knew it intimately. Each stage… the cramps, and the agony were enough to drive me mad.
A small whisper tried to tell me to drag myself back to the corner and hug myself until that door opened. Deep down, I knew what was waiting on the other end. I knew what Sin had done—why he would feel he had to do it.
I could feel his fear like a beacon, confirming that. So strong that he hadn't closed the bond down.
He'd made the bet that I'd rather suffer my heat alone than with a pack that wasn't mine, and he was right. I loved my pack. I didn't want heat with any alphas but them, but if there was a pack on the other side, they'd target him because of me…
I couldn't let that happen.
Another spike of fear shot through the bond, and a broken wail escaped my chest.
Could they not hear me?
Maybe they weren't out there...
I remembered the way Vandle had crashed against the wall of the rut box in our cell.
With a gasp of pain, I managed to get to my feet. Tears were sliding down my face as I staggered a step back. Then I threw my whole body against the metal of the door.
It didn't hurt like it should. Not compared to the rising tide of agony that was on the brink of choking me.
Sin...
He needed me.
He couldn't do this because of my heat.
The third time I'd crashed into the metal door, I crumpled to the floor, the marriage of heat, pain, and bruising agony across my arm and side almost too much.
I took a breath, lungs so tight, another whine escaping.
Get up.
Not enough.
I opened the bond more, feeling for him.
My mate.
Someone who loved me so fiercely he'd do anything to protect me.
I remembered the gold pack omega I’d seen on that TV screen once, the woman with silvery brown hair, and eyes that had flashed with gold as she’d defended her alpha.
Finally, I understood.
I had someone I needed to protect like she had.
Another vicious spike of poison tore through the bond like a dagger. His fear wasn't like I expected. It was ancient, destructive self-hatred.
It was enough to freeze me in place.
It was... familiar.
I grit my teeth and staggered to my feet again, this time throwing my weight against the door harder than before.
And finally, the sound I'd been desperate to hear filled the space—the loud click of the door opening.
SIN
Holden had dragged me to my feet as Declan, another of Holden’s alphas, reached the door of the rut box.
“No!” My voice was raw with desperation as I threw all of my weight against his grip.
“Who’s in the box, Sin?” Holden asked. There was a feral spark in his eyes, he already knew what he'd find.
“You have me.”
“There's always room for another.”
“Don’t—!” My voice cut off as Holden jammed his hand over my mouth, eyes fixed on the rut box.
There was a strange second of silence as Declan paused, fist on the handle, head cocked as if curiously waiting for the sound again.
My heart pounded in my chest.
Then I heard another thump, this one louder than the others.
I hadn't ever growled like I did as Declan finally turned the handle. It was vicious, guttural, and utterly useless as the rut box opened.
Crescent's scent of roses and cocoa hit the room, beautiful, terrified, and in the full throes of heat.
She all but fell out, catching herself on Declan's shirt. She stared up at him, cheeks tracked with tears, eyes so gold they seemed to shine, each exhale tangled with a faint whine as she felt the fully fledged agony of her heat.
“It's... it's me.” Her voice shook. “Not him.”
A strange moment passed as every alpha in the room realized that whatever they'd thought they were experiencing as heat, was nothing to the true one facing them now.
Holden was staring at her, pupils fully dilated.
No, no, no.
She didn't know what she'd done—what this pack was capable of.
“I'll be whatever you want if you don't touch him.”
VANDLE
We were alive.
Somehow.
Beyond all reason. My body was all but giving out as I slumped against the bars, the corpses of the Wakefield pack bleeding out around me.
Blood made of black, glistening pools seeped outward.
Phantom was clutching a bar with his fist, chest heaving, blood smeared across his hands and face. At some point Karma had passed the knife off to him, and it glinted with stained dark liquid in the dim, flickering lights of the room.
Karma was the only one of us with life in him. A growl ripped from his throat as he threw his weight at the cage door.
I understood that fury. It was a burning monster within me, demanding I pick this stupid body up and move.
The first call had been made. Our appeal countdown had begun, and we were trapped in this cage without our omegas.
We’d survived, but it didn’t matter at all.
I felt them through the bond. Sin and Crescent.
Terror.
It flickered between them—each fighting for dominance in the bond.
My chest heaved as Karma slammed his shoulder against the bars once more, and I tried to pick myself up again.
My… omegas…
Or at least.
Omega.
Omega, and something else.
Sin was rattling like a feral beast in a cage, chained power roiling for freedom, crimson vengeance trying to drag the whole bond into its orbit.
I blinked, and my sanity flickered out.
I was back beneath the bright lights in the room where I’d died over and over. Where I’d watched them die over and over.
Alpha after alpha.
Animals to slaughter.
I had been one of them, but not anymore. Not since he’d chosen me. Dragged me out as a curiosity.
So instead of dying with them, I watched. I spoke so little, and gave him what I could see with this cursed grey-scale sight. He ran his tests on me too, at times, but he never killed me.
He was as lonely as he was cruel, and I sat day after day, listening to his ramblings, having a picture painted, slowly, of the true cruelty of the world we lived in.
His knowledge ran deep, from the most well known parts of the alpha-omega world, to the darkest secrets, the ones long buried and hidden by the power of the Institute.
In this dark cage in Anarchy, my sanity waned; the centre of my bond was besieged by an omega who was not an omega, and I remembered, at last, what the threat of the red eyes truly was.
50
Sigma
A lost designation marked by crimson eyes, sigmas were destroyed by the institute for their aversion to princess bonds—or any manufactured bonds.
Sigmas were the rarest designation. They were more independent than alphas, often never bonding, and sharing similarities with omegas, such as heats and nesting. Many were wise women or men, or community protectors, with acute instincts when it came to right and wrong.
While sigmas don’t always choose a pack, when they do they are fiercely protective. This presents with an unparalleled aura—one that takes time to control, and that comes out when confronted with extreme injustice.
This reaction is especially powerful when concerning their own pack, resulting in some societies in history banning them from bonding at all.
They are the most dangerous of all the designations for this reason.
SIN
One and a half years ago
I ran into a dead end.
The boiler room was small, and cramped, with not enough space for a brawl. Let alone one against a dozen alphas.
I’d been dropped in Anarchy a day or two ago, and somehow managed to survive by hiding. It had been enough time to work out the politics.
I knew a fresh dweller pack was supposed to claim me, that I’d been a gift for them. An offering to alphas I knew nothing of.
That I owed nothing to.
Before Anarchy, there had been white rooms and blurred memories.
They’d gathered up omegas for tests. Some were gold packs when they arrived—omegas who’d denied the injection. Others had been prevented from receiving them for the sake of tests.
So one day, a year after perfuming—after being denied the injection—I’d stared into the mirror to see my eyes hadn’t turned gold at all.
They’d gone crimson.
After that, a nightmare had followed. One in which I desperately dreamed of the experiments. Of anything that would mark me one of the normal gold packs—like Two, or Three, or the others.
Any experiments would have been better.
I’d spent forever in a dim room, going insane.
Forgotten.
Unwanted, even for the world's most cruel experiments.
I don’t know how much time had passed before they threw me down here like forgotten trash.
I was no one.
I had nothing.
But I wasn’t ready to die, and I wasn’t ready to be some pack’s slave.
Cornered to the back of the boiler room, something had happened. With twelve alphas facing me down—and a dark bond in my future… I’d lost it.
Even as the memory manifested, that part became blurry… Crimson splatter. Screams echoing… I lay panting, shivering, among a pack of bodies… Blood soaked my clothing, seeping across the floor.
I remember pushing back, breath catching in fear…
Then the door opened.
“Edward…” The voice trailed off. It was the first time I’d ever heard Holden.
I knew little of this place, but what I knew was that I was looking at the ally of the pack I’d killed.
Holden stared at me, drenched in blood amongst unidentifiable bodies.
My breathing was ragged and wounds upon my body ached, but if they were scratches, knife wounds, or gunshots… I didn’t know.
“What happened here?” he asked. I could see him calculating. “A… pack brawl?”
I… didn’t know. My eyes scanned the bodies strewn across the floor, my own memories flickering in and out. I’d been here, but I didn’t know…
How could I not know?
Was this two packs?
I thought it was just one.
But then… how had they died? And so horribly?
I was ripped from my delirious thoughts as I heard his footsteps cross the room, squelching into the blood as he stepped over bodies.
They were ripped to pieces…
How…?
But then I was being dragged up by my neck, and I was looking into the cruel eyes of another cruel alpha.
“Looks like we’re in luck,” Holden murmured. “Next in line, shall we say? We get an omega—and we aren’t even dwellers yet.”
I was weak. Barely able to focus.
He…
He was going to dark bond me.
After everything… the experiments… after being too broken for even them—this was how it ended.
I tried to draw up my rage, my fear, my strength, but at last, I was empty.
This was it.
Holden shoved me away, sending me sprawling. “Why don’t you run, omega. Make this fun.”
I knew I shouldn’t. Knew it would only give him the satisfaction.
But I did.
I launched across the room, desperately trying to dodge Wyatt, the first alpha in my way, and I knew I must look like a pathetic, feral animal, as I did.
I didn’t get far before a pain ripped through my scalp and I heard one of them cackle.
This was it.
And I had nothing left in me. I’d fought, but it hadn’t been enough.
Only, before the teeth sank into my neck, the alpha halted.
New auras burst into the room, and it was the first time in my life I’d seen Vandle, Phantom, and Karma.
SIN - PRESENT
They’d chained me to one of the beds in the Wakefield’s pack cell, and I knew they were going to force me to watch them hurt her.
I tore against the cuffs, and the sound of them clanging against the metal bars of the bed was deafening.
The world was fading around me, crimson seeping into my vision as they put their hands on my omega.
I didn’t want this designation—I wanted one that would protect her.
I was all wrong, chewed up by protective instincts with no way to follow through with them. If I was supposed to care this much, why was I an omega?
She was the whole fucking world—she had been since the moment I'd seen her come through those doors.
Not just an omega.
My omega.
I had two pillars where there had once been one.
My pack—the place I was safe. The alphas I was supposed to protect. And her—the most precious creature on the planet.
The universe narrowed around them, two focal points, spears jammed into the centre of my heart.
She was mine. And that meant no alpha should touch her—not unless I allowed it.
“Last chance, you little slut, you get to choose. Are you going to trade places with him?” The words were like poison, seeping through my veins, setting them alight with fury like I’d never felt.
She couldn't breathe through the grip Holden had on her neck, pinning her against the wall, but still, she nodded her head.
