Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Zeb
The double doors ahead of us open. Esme’s arousal vanishes, replaced by fear as we slip on our helmets and shuffle forward. Inside the fake cargo vessel are rows of temporary seats that have been crudely bolted in.
We find our position, secure our harnesses, and the drop ship shoots out into space, careening through the bumpy atmosphere before plunging sharply.
The ride is rough, jarring, and brutal. Her hand grips mine the entire time. Those instincts, the alien ones that don’t quite belong, are riding me hard. I hate her fear. I want to drag her from her seat onto my lap and hold her.
It’s not remotely practical. It’s dangerous. Yet the need to protect her from not just this, but from everything and anything, is so intense and all-consuming that I can barely fucking breathe.
Do all alphas feel like this? This insanely hyper-focused, protective, possessive, destroy-the-universe-for-my-woman madness?
They must.
How the fuck do they function?
Worse, I know the hellhole we’re about to land on, and it’s not a place I want Esme on or even near.
Fracturous: a planet on the fringes, barely part of the Empire’s jurisdiction.
It’s the kind of place where people go to disappear…
or to make others disappear. The population consists of hardy miners along with thugs, deadbeats, and transient schemers who prefer to operate off the Empire’s radar.
People here don’t ask questions. There’s an oil-processing plant that barely keeps the local economy alive.
Surrounding it, a city sprawls in rust and concrete.
I went there once a few years ago and ended up in a bar brawl that cost me a month of regen after I lost an eye. But that’s another story.
We’ve found Uncorrupted operations on every major planet and system, even on Chimera, in the heart of the Empire.
But they’re predominantly found out on the fringes.
Patrolling these planets with any regularity is simply not viable when our military is already stretched thin.
In places like this, survival depends on pretending not to see, and the people who live here make it their business to look away.
But occasionally, the military passes through, and someone flagged their suspicions with command after overhearing a conversation in one of the shady dive bars.
The Uncorrupted have set up shop in a warehouse sector.
On the surface, it’s a mining supply depot squeezed between other businesses that are likewise legit enough not to attract attention, or have the rudimentary government in their pocket.
But beneath the fake facade, in the crumbling substructure left behind from the colonial expansion days, is a network of old tunnels that has been repurposed for their ‘research’.
They’re keeping dynamics down there. Experimenting on our people, locking them in cells, carving into their bodies and minds like they’re nothing but specimens to be studied.
Sick fuckers.
They are torturers dressed in lab coats, bent on data collection, attempting to reverse what the virus did to us.
To them, we’re less than human, less than animals: a dynamic is an abomination—warped biology to be dissected, tortured, and undone.
We’re test subjects, collateral in their righteous quest to eradicate what they see as a viral contamination of the species.
And me?
They’d consider me a prize. Zetas are incredibly rare. I know what I am. What can I do… And so do the Uncorrupted. They’d take me apart slowly and break me. I’m even more valuable than a singular omega because, unlike omegas, I don’t stay in any one form.
At least, not by default, although it’s rumored that some of us do, that there are more zetas than the stats suggest. That some of us, through accident or desperation, latch on to a dynamic caste and forget how to let go.
I get that. Cloning leaves residue: emotional, psychological, and somatic. It doesn’t matter how controlled the process is or how strictly I adhere to the time limits. Stay too long, and I start feeling the role and thinking in its patterns, responding as if I were born that way.
The real danger, what keeps me awake at night, is that I will forget which version of me is the original, that I’ll rewrite myself from the inside out.
I never wanted to settle on any form before, yet the omega with her hand in mine makes me question my own rules.
She makes me want things I’ve never wanted before.
We land with a bone-rattling jolt. The drop ship doors hiss open with a metallic groan, and cold, oil-tinged air floods the cabin. She pulls her hand away and fumbles with her harness release.
That pisses me right off. Yeah, it’s completely irrational. Don’t fucking care. I snap my buckle open, push her hands aside, and unclip hers too. Without missing a beat, her hand slides back into mine.
The crazy ebbs away, banked for now, as we follow the soldiers down the ramp.
Around us, a temporary operations base has been quietly set up inside an old industrial unit. Soldiers rush across the gritty concrete floor in a chaos of movement and noise. A mishmash of transports, none bearing military markings, are lined up along one wall. Ours was the last to arrive.
The base is well established, put together with military speed under the direction of one Governor Brach.
A man with a data tablet approaches. “This way, sir. I’ll take you to your team.”
We follow, her hand in mine. Not a typical controller move. They tend to settle their hands at the back of their omega’s neck. But I like this, her hand, small in mine. She’s not wearing gloves—healers rarely do—and even though I am, I like the way her hand feels in mine.
The members of my unit will be here waiting, scrambled together from various locations within the Empire. A unit built for one purpose: so that when I drop off the map mid-mission, no one raises their eyebrows, and no one mentions it.
My team leader for this op? Ethan Black.
Notorious. Infamous. Practically a myth in certain circles.
Mated to Lillian Brach. Yes, that Brach.
Daughter of Governor Victor Brach, and the very reason I’m standing on this planet.
Ethan doesn’t do undercover anymore. Those days are behind him.
Got himself a desk job now, all strategy and oversight.
Then again, his mate’s pregnant and far enough along that no one would question him keeping out of the field.
Only I will need to tell him about my little problem, the one who’s currently holding my hand.
We’re still on track. Nothing yet to compromise the mission, but I have a strong feeling she’s suspicious.
Better if I keep her off kilter until she’s safely located with the medical team.
After that, I just need to make sure I’m on the wrong side of enemy lines before Jenda Solon can make her escape.
Esme
Something is wrong. I felt it the second we stepped off the ramp. We shouldn’t be getting met. Not like this with a personal escort, tablet in hand, ready to lead us directly to our team. Drops don’t work this way.
“This way, sir. I’ll take you to your team.”
Your team…
Zeb’s hand is still in mine: solid, comforting, and possessive. I feel irrational hatred toward the combat gloves he’s wearing that prevent skin-to-skin contact.
Only the wrong feeling has me in its grip, and my belly flutters with unease.
I glance up at him out of the corner of my eye, wanting to ask what is happening.
The words stick in my throat. He looks focused, yet there’s something buried under the surface, something I can’t read with the damn gloves in the way.
Maybe that’s what’s bothering me, this sense that nothing about him is exactly what it seems. Maybe his knot has broken me… My blush is unwelcome. Now is not the time to dwell on that.
His eyes slide to meet mine as we follow our silent escort.
He winks, and his thumb brushes over the back of my hand, grounding me again.
My body responds, softening, calming. I hate how much I want his touch.
Only the primal part of me doesn’t care who he is or what he’s hiding, if only he would touch me how I need.
My rumination is curtailed as we’re shown into an area sectioned off by a tarp.
Here, I met our team. Five men, weapons loaded, helmets tucked under arms. They start to make introductions, and my eyes skip over the men present before settling on two I instantly recognize even before they get to their names.
I suck in a breath. Zeb notices, and his hand tightens over mine.
Both are famous, or more accurately, infamous. I’m a shameless stalker of gossip articles, and these two pop up occasionally despite the media blackout on stories involving them and their equally well-known mate.
Ethan Black is every bit as huge and menacing as he appears in the media. Ryker Sherwin, by contrast, is a celebrity-level handsome and radiates an easygoing charm. All of it is fake.
I take an involuntary step back, right into Zeb.
His hand comes up, settling on the back of my neck, making goosebumps spring.
What are they doing here?
I’ve met their mate, Doctor Lillian Brach, many times.
She takes care of the omegas passing through the programs seriously, especially those with unusual capabilities.
My healer mix brought me to her attention.
She has a way about her that puts you at ease, making conversations feel more like a chat between friends than a research session.
Lilly is one special omega and surprisingly grounded for a woman born into the ruling elite.
Her continued influence in the viral program after she revealed as an omega gave me hope that we could have a voice.
Maybe a role in society beyond our use in the war, or as a mate to an alpha.