Ruby jabbed the needle into her spine and slowly turned the clamp, watching as it ran the correct fluids into her. “We should have done that earlier, but you were knocked out cold,” Vash said.
Wren merely gazed at them like a helpless, tormented rabbit. Hurriedly, the drugs swept through her system. Cradled in a warm blanket of pure acceptance, Wren gazed at the ceiling, directly into the bright lamps, watching as her vision gave way to the color of darkness. She didn’t feel even the catch of the knife as it brushed her open.
The next thing she heard was the sound of new life tearing with beautiful sorrow, reaching out for the one who could care for them. Wren opened her eyes and nearly fainted when she saw the three babes, covered in sinewy fluids and thin cuts of embryonic sack. They lay still, crying and coughing against the air, the sound of delicate fragility.
It was the most beautiful sound Wren had ever heard.
Ruby carried the first two babies to her. They were two husky boys with chocolate hair, nearly identical to one another, except for a mole on the one’s neck. Then came the next child, a sandy-haired brunette…
As if God were the one required to answer, Wren asked, “An omega?”
She gazed at the babe with wounded eyes. The boys were crying, but her? She was silently staring with curiosity. “Oh, child,” she whispered. “This world doesn’t deserve you.”
Ruby stitched Wren up and quietly threw her gloves into a waist bin. After washing her hands, Wren watched Ruby turn and peek a glance at the alphas. They were gathered around Wren in quiet awe. They were a tribe, but Ruby was very much on the outside.
Clearing her throat, she stepped closer to the door of the room. “I’ll give you time to decompress.”
“Ruby,” Wren said, voice cracking.
Ruby paused with her hand around the doorknob. Noticing her hands twitching, Wren felt terrible for her. Ruby let them fall to her side. “Yes?”
“Thank you. For bringing us together… for making sure I was cared for. It’s the first time I’ve felt… normal,” she said.
Ruby forced a thin smile. “Yes. Well, then.”
Vash started after her, but Killian took his arm. “Don’t,” he said.
Vash looked at his children and noticeably shook. “I’ve got a bad feeling about being here,” he said. “What’s her deal?”
Killian didn’t feel great about the situation either, but they had exhausted their energy levels. The west had succumbed to the east. A new world was being born, and as a soldier himself, he knew the importance of the optics. For now, he would support the new regime, until he felt infringed upon.
“She’s a soldier,” Killian said.
“Soldier or not, she’s suspect,” Lucas said.
As the men sat and argued, Wren couldn’t stop staring at her babies. The joy she felt was akin to being reborn. “We will follow her,” she said.
Vash kneeled against her hospital bed. “Precious—”
Wren sat with a resolute look. “I don’t want to hear your protests. Not from any one of you. We have three children to think about, and this is what I need from you now,” she said.
Strangely enough, the alphas all kneeled to her request. Gathering around the newly born, they observed and loved in silence. After what had happened sank in, they each spoke about what they went through. Killian and Lucas relayed what they saw in the city, and Wren confirmed the power of the bombs. She remembered Cassian dragging her to his boat as bullets ricocheted over their shoulders. She remembered Vash coming to her rescue.
Vash met his mother, a woman turned inside out from the wrongs of men. Each of them had mended a broken piece of themselves, but, in turn, found more cracks in the structure. The world’s power structures were finally shifting—a cause they predicted, but didn’t necessarily believe in.
The carnage of the world had been put on hold. For now, they had each other, and that mattered more than anything else.
“We love you, omega. We will do anything you ask,” Vash said, bowing his head.
Killian and Lucas echoed the sentiments by kissing the top of Wren’s feet. “Anything.”
Satisfied, Wren smiled and snuggled with her children. Years of suffering had led to her feeling whole. As she closed her eyes, one thing comforted her the most. She would never wake up in a facility bed again, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to be controlled.
Epilogue
Ruby felt the weight of Wren’s eyes as she left the room. She walked through the hallway adored by kneeling men in leather, into her office to sit down and think.
“With the captive in possession, the gap can now be filled,” a voice said. “She is the perfect queen, the most beautiful figurehead for a brand new era of dominance. Do you not agree?”