Chapter 26
Emmett
I spit out another pat of blood onto the floor, my shoulders tense and my body aching. Somewhere in my midsection, I can feel blood moistening my skin, semi-healed wounds opened up again as the other alpha’s try their hardest to subdue me. They sent two guys in here first, and I killed one, so now they sent two more, and they’re fucking pissed.
But I’m still alive, so whatever bullshit they want from me is keeping me upright, and that itself is enough right now.
If I can just keep sparring, keep pushing back long enough…
“Get up,”
one of the alphas snarls, but all I can do is laugh. His voice is high-pitched, and he doesn’t know who he is dealing with.
“Didn’t I tell you, baby? I like it rough,”
I say as I start to push myself up, but I’m met by a harsh hand that grabs me by the hair and yanks me up.
“Well, well, what do we have here?”
The voice that speaks is different and is one I haven’t heard before. I hear the soft chortles of the alphas in the cage, and whoever this asshole is, it is clear he’s pulling rank here.
Maybe he’s their commander. If he is, I may not have another shot, so I suck in a breath, and—
One hand goes to my throat, and he throttles me against the bars.
The cell they locked me in is barely big enough to fit the five of us in here. It’s cramped as all hell, there are bloodstains on the concrete from our tussle, and I know some have been here a lot longer judging by the color. The air reeks of blood, sweat, and sex, even though I know it has nothing to do with me, it’s still making my alpha alert.
The first thing I noticed when I came into this cell was the screams.
My cell isn’t close enough to the others that I can see what’s going on, but I hear everything.
I hear fucking everything these bastards are doing to the omegas in here, and it makes me want to murder every single one of them and burn this place to the ground.
“You know, when I hired you to bring five-seven-six back to me, I thought I was very clear on the terms,”
he says, his breath rank and hot as he leans into my space. My fingers dig into his skin as I try to pull him off of me, my legs kicking out to try and push him away, but it’s no use. He’s smaller than your average alpha. His scent is like dirty socks, I swear, and it makes me want to throw up.
“Yeah, well, maybe you need to re-check those terms, because I’m pretty sure—”
He snarls in my face as he snaps at the other alphas, “Bring in the omega.”
My body freezes. What?
No, they can’t mean—
The bars open, and I hear her whines before I see her. They are soft, sad, and full of pain. I glance to the right, seeing her tiny frame huddled on the floor, shaking. The scent of daisies and linen fills the air, and I watch as one of the alphas kicks her forward, and I fight the commander some more.
“Don’t you fucking touch her, you asshole!”
I say, my alpha instincts kicking in. She’s not my omega, but it’s not lost on me how much she resembles Auryn. That small frame, long, messy dark hair. She looks up at me with glassy eyes, and I see the scars along her neck, down her arms. I refrain from looking at her breasts, because it feels more than wrong. But the alphas don’t seem to care as the commander throws me onto the floor, and his other alphas descend on me. They rip at my clothes—or what’s left of them that haven’t been torn to shreds or bloodied. I fight them as hard as I can, but I’m starting to feel the exhaustion. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, how long I’ve been fighting.
My mind wanders to Auryn and my pack. Diego…
When I’d gotten inside, I followed his scream. They’d practically beaten him to within an inch of his life before they’d shot him, and all I could see was red.
I don’t remember much, save for the scent of blood and the feel of a collapsed neck beneath my hands. I vaguely remember shoving Diego out the door, making sure I had enough of the Orions’ attention that he could escape if he channeled his adrenaline. And thankfully, with our hyper-healing factor, if he got to Gage, if he got to Olly, he would have more than a fighting chance.
And that was enough for me.
He’d make it. He had to…
Otherwise, I was fucking doomed.
But even if I am only buying time until my inevitable demise, at least my sacrifice won’t have been for nothing.
The pack can stand to lose me. I’m not Gage, I don’t command the unit. I’m not Diego, who is the heart of our pack with his smooth operator voice and warmth.
And I’m certainly not Olly. I don’t think I have even a third of Olly’s smarts, clearly. He’d never go into a building half-cocked without a plan. That man would have the exits and the unforeseen tunnels figured out before he even set foot in a building armed with assholes.
If I get out of here alive, I’ll have to start looking at maybe trying to prepare a little better.
I think better on my feet than the others, but that doesn’t always come out in my favor. Like now.
I round my shoulders and push off an alpha only for another to wrap their arms in mine and hold me back. It takes two of them to do it. I try to fight them, but it’s no use. The third grabs the omega in front of me with one hand, while trying to free his cock with the other, and I growl. Loud and angry. The threat is not lost.
I note as he whips it out, it looks…fucked up. Not in a good way, either. Not that I want to be looking at another asshole’s dick, especially in these circumstances, but it’s hard not to stare at how plain and small it is. There’s no ring, either, which is weird.
Alphas are supposed to have a ring for their knot to inflate. Right?
“Put your dick away, soldier,”
the big commander says apathetically.
“But boss, I need to—”
“I said put it away,”
he growls in response, and his voice echoes in the chamber.
“Yes, Sneed,”
the alpha says, tucking his weird-looking cock back inside.
“I want to see what the omega does when presented with a viable alpha.”
Viable.
It’s the way he says the word that makes my skin crawl.
She looks up at me with teary eyes, and I struggle, because the moment the rush of daisies hits me, I panic. She settles on all fours, looking at me with interest, and I can practically smell the arousal from feet away.
No. No, no, no…
I thrash in the alphas grasp and kick out, scrambling to the corner of the cage. They descend on me, trying to pull me back, and I push. I bite, I claw at them, but it’s no use.
They hold me against the bars as she stalks up to me. The desire to purr is strong. It’s instinct.
She’s an omega, and I’m an alpha.
But she’s not my omega, and I can’t begin to fathom the idea of purring for anyone but Auryn.
Her small hand touches my chest, and she whines. I force my face away, bringing my leg up to kick her away. She cries, falling back on the floor.
“Interesting,”
Sneed says. His voice is cool. Calculating.
It reminds me of Olly’s, but in a more menacing, piece of shit way.
When Olly gets all brainiac, it’s actually kind of amusing. Not that I’d ever tell him that. I’ll take that to my fucking grave. Which might be soon, all things considered.
The alphas hold me against the wall, and she cries.
“Take her out,”
Sneed hisses. “Leave the alpha to me.”
I watch as the other alphas grab her. They yank her up by her hair, and I close my eyes when I see them grab her by the shoulders and force her out of the cell. My body slumps to the ground the minute they let go of me.
I want to get up, but my limbs feel heavy. Likely from the blood loss and whatever shit they injected me with when they threw me in here. I had tried to fight them the best I could, but they still stuck me with something.
Damned if I know what it was, but whatever it was, it didn’t kill me.
I’m starting to think as I look up at Sneed, death would have been better. He kneels before me, steepling his hands together as he looks at me.
“Yes, I think you’ll do just fine.” He grins.
“What the fuck did you do to me?”
I bite through my teeth.
“We’ve never had an alpha in our cells before. Not one like you, anyway.”
My arm is going numb. Fuck.
“Looks like the tranquilizer is finally starting to kick in,”
he says. “You have an exceptionally high metabolism…Emmett, is it?”
The fact this fucker actually knows my name isn’t good. Our pack prides ourselves on being discreet. Discreet means no one knows who we are, and it’s better that way when we have to do the hard shit.
The messy shit.
Yes, we rescue omegas and bring them back to their mates most of the time, but sometimes it’s not the omegas we’re tasked with capturing. Sometimes it’s the alphas or the betas who think they are better than the rest. Who try to assert that dominance in the worst way. Who steal, hurt, and kill.
Like this asshole.
I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out. My neck and throat are starting to tingle, and my adrenaline mixes with fear. My cock is semi-hard from the tussle with the omega, likely a response to her scent, which pisses me off. I know it’s just instinct. But fuck, I feel like just responding means I’m cheating on Auryn, which is insane.
But it feels like that, nonetheless.
Sneed grins. It’s disgusting.
I want to move my legs, but I can’t. Everything is starting to go numb, and between that and the exhaustion, I can’t fight the darkness.
This is it, I think. This is how I fucking die.
At least my going out saved Diego.
At least my omega has a pack who can protect her.
At least I got to be hers for a brief moment.
I let Auryn’s image fill my psyche as the darkness takes me, and that itself is heaven.
When I wake, it’s to the worst pain I’ve ever felt.
Guess the tranqs wore off…
I scream as I feel a sharpness below my waist. My breath comes in fast as the pain radiates through me, tears prickling my eyes as I suck in a breath.
I try to move my arms, but they are….
Chained. My wrists are buried beneath clamps, and as I move my ankles, I realize they, too, are clamped. I blink, trying to ascertain my surroundings. It looks a lot like Olly’s lab, but not as crisp and clean.
Olly’s lab is bright. It’s always sparkling and shiny because thanks to his fucking OCD, he cleans everything down the atoms.
But this place is…dark. Ominous. And the metallic scent of blood and cum reeks.
I feel that sharp pain again. A blade. Slicing through my sensitive skin. My cock throbs with an ache that has nothing to do with wanting to come and everything to do with the pain that’s radiating within.
My vision sharpens, and I look down, realizing what’s happening. The doc—an older man who looks sinister as all fucking hell—holds a bloody scalpel in his hand, and then I see it. The worst fucking sight I’ll ever see.
My cock lies there, covered in blood. The ring around my base is now nothing but a raw, angry red ring of flesh, and blood is dripping down my shaft.
No…
Oh my God, please no…
I don’t want to look, but I know I have to. My watery eyes glance to the table beside where I’m bound, naked, and bleeding.
The silver pan shimmers, blood spattered along the side, and the sight of my severed skin, my ring, makes me want to throw up.
Tears prickle my eyes, and the angry scream that rips from my throat shakes the windows.
They took my knot. They cut it out of me.
“Give him another round of tranquilizers,”
Sneed’s cool voice says, and I realize I’m shaking. The restraints rattle, and my breath is rapid, and I think I’m going to have a literal heart attack.
I probably should. In fact, I pray to whatever God hears me to take me now.
My cock throbs with pain, and the moisture coating me—my blood—is starting to chill.
I don’t fight the needle that slides into my vein. I don’t fight the gloved fingers wrapping my battered cock in gauze. I don’t even fight the darkness, because now I know there are fates worse than death.