Tree from which I bloomed.
Wren opened her eyes to darkness. One quick lift from the floor, and she was pulled into the warm and binding arms of Lucas. His tattoos coiled around her throat like an anaconda.
“Sh, sh, sh,” he whispered. “Heard something.”
Wren felt her gut lurch from the sudden realization of danger, vomit pouring from her mouth onto Lucas’s palm. The thick liquid ran through his fingers, collapsing onto his knuckles and rolled onto her concrete bed. More than anything, she wished for her pills. If she could, she would have taken them all to drown in a sea of inflated love—the only love she knew.
As she got used to the darkness, she listened to the sound of light footsteps coming from below the flat. Somewhere in the hallway below, people were moving and checking. She could hear the intruders comb through the building.
No matter where she went, she was a target. Without a true guardian, she was up for grabs. Not even a marking made a difference. She was merely the final frontier of their disturbing and horrid sagas.
The sounds faded into silence. The pack waited approximately two seconds before the feeling in the room turned into hesitant urgency. Killian peered through the open door.
Suddenly, he waved everyone forward. Wren was silent against Lucas, skin and parts still exposed to the roughness of his tactical clothing. Slowly reaching upward, he pulled a set of goggles down over his eyes. The other hand loosely gripped a pistol, elbow jerking in Wren’s sternum.
“Don’t worry. I can see. Stay near me,” he whispered. “They won’t kill a prized omega.”
“What do they want?” Wren whispered.
Hushed tones against her eardrum, whispering words only Wren could hear, Lucas said, “To bring you back.”
Home.
It was somewhere familiar. It was a place with a room. There were other omegas, too, but their delusional nature didn’t make for the best housemates. Not to mention, she would be transferred to a new facility, a highly guarded prison, somewhere on the opposite ends of the earth. That meant new doctors, new omegas, and a whole round of preparing her big fertility celebration. She was the right age.
Why did her cunt have to be the source of so much pain? If she could carve her womb out from the core of her body, she would. She’d curl into a ball of flesh and bite a path inward.
“We go,” Lucas whispered, nudging her forward.
Pistol shaking, Lucas followed Killian and Vash.
Vash bent and placed a key into the lock of the window. The bars released with a light clicking noise. He pushed the glass panes forward until the salt and gasoline air wheezed into their lungs.
The first two alphas took a leap of faith into the night sky, falling onto the set of ropes that acted as a ceiling for the merchant-filled alleyways. Lucas lifted Wren’s tender body onto the windowsill, but she shuffled back against him.
“I can’t,” she said.
Lucas grinned and knocked her ankle with the side of his hand. Wren’s feet gave way, and the hand of gravity swung against her, tipping into the unknown. The stars above spun around her into a cobweb of broken dreams. Soon, her back hit the soft knots of the rope. Lucas dropped in after her, landing square on his feet.
Killian ran forward and clutched the front of Vash’s shirt. “How the fuck did they find us?”
Peering up at the balcony, Wren saw the flash of lights shining on the wall. A sharp frequency resonated throughout the flat before filtering back into a low rumble. A moment passed before the complex burst into flames and exploding concrete.
“It’s not them,” Vash whispered. “It’s another militia group.”
It was in this moment when the elephant in the room presented itself. She was the most important woman, the most fertile pussy in the world, and the alphas needed to knot and nest her quick.
“Who the fuck?” Killian asked.
Lucas bit his lip and shrugged. “Lots of people on our tail now. Could be bounty hunters looking for a quick buck.”
Killian shook his head and suddenly stared at Wren with all the malice in the world. “No. They were soldiers. I saw them before you woke. They looked… fearless.”
Vash pulled out a blade and tore at the netting. “It doesn’t matter. My fucking kits are ruined. I’ll have to start all over again.”
Killian kicked the blade from Vash’s hand and stooped down with his own twisted razor stretched out flat. “Stop worrying about the kits and start telling me how we were found,”
“As if I know.”