Chapter 14
DIANA
What…
A slow, groggy blink lets me know I’m indeed awake. My mind is utterly blank, disoriented by unfamiliar dark gray bedding. A different wing of the infirmary? Memories from the Enclave to Trinity trickle in, but they’re sand in my fingers.
Oh, I must have had a terrible dream.
Waking up is difficult, my body screaming that it’s far from pleased. I’m lying in a bed that smells divine, like the scent of home—
My eyes widen.
Home.
No, home is beyond gone.
When I sit up through the groggy haze, it’s clear that the delicious scent emits from a black shirt that I was gripping like it was a favorite pet I fell asleep with. My nose wrinkles when I realize it belongs to Judge.
Did he fuck me while—I reach down underneath my pants, pressing firm against my skin between my thighs as I feel around. Dry as my mouth. I sniff my fingers and only smell me, maybe the faintest scent of him, but it’s older.
Oh god, it really happened. I’m already scented by him. My pussy smelling like the alpha is the worst assault on my autonomy that anyone can make.
Holy shit.
This is actually my life.
Judge fucked me in my heat, drugged me, and then left me in a different place.
Apprehension makes me examine the space with more scrutiny, the cramped room containing only a single window with bars on the outside. Standing and tossing off the blanket, I’m wearing what he last put me in.
My feet are still bare; the floor is old wood.
Orienting myself to understand where I’m at feels like waking into a nightmare.
Nearing the window, all I see are a bunch of trees barely clinging to the last leaves of late fall.
Turning around, I near the only door and press my ear up against it, hand on the metal handle.
I can hear voices, probably female. There’s a scent in the air—
My eyes widen.
They’re omegas.
Even that thought comes to me like a whisper. I don’t remember the last time I could smell this many individual omega scents without suppressants.
Opening the door, my curiosity gets far ahead of caution, as if closing one’s eyes before jumping off a cliff, only to finally hit the water and realize it’s over with. I’ve been captured and am now among omegas.
And I’m alive, unbound. I’m not okay, but I am okay.
It’s clear I’m in a hallway of some sort, and it almost reminds me of the military bunkers of home, except this place has more elaborate trim work.
I seek the omega scent, approaching an open archway that leads to a spacious area full of mismatched couches, tables, and chairs.
There’s even a small kitchen in the back.
Wherever I am, there’s a lot of electricity, as I haven’t heard the hum of that many parts since my childhood.
The place I hope to never revisit.
And yet, I know we’re closer to there than I have been in over a decade. Why not deal with all the trauma at once and destroy my system in one fell swoop?
The women swivel their heads, their eyes on me like they’ve been waiting. A sudden chill prickles my skin, and I fold my arms like I’m a deer coming out of the woods to join the others, terrified that hunters are nearby.
“Where are we?” I ask, unable to let my gaze settle as I scan everything.
“Well, there’s the softskin that almost got away.”
I eye the one who spoke, her neck and sides of her face covered in an elaborate tattoo design, a hoop ring pierced between her nostrils. A wild knot of blonde hair is pulled back, barely contained.
“Where are we?” I reiterated with a hoarse voice.
Another laughs sardonically, running her fingers through her pin-straight black hair. “Well, Judge might like her ass, but he clearly drugged her like the rest,” she drawls.
The tattooed one slides her gaze over before looking back at me. “We’re in the Iron Castle. The place Dominion lives. We’re in an omega wing. Ignore Cassandra. Or well, he probably did drug you, but don’t take it personally.”
It’s a strange sensation to have no recollection of the travel here, yet I’m told I’m at the fucking Iron Castle.
I look around the place once more, neglecting the women as I slowly start a system of grabbing all the doorknobs, only for them to reveal small room after small room.
The one with the tattoos follows me. “Those are all our rooms. The rest are empty. And that one—” When I’m upon a larger door that seems it will most definitely open to an exit, my eyes widen when I see five men outside, all in leather vests, a few with shotguns in their hands.
I shut it right away, sucking in a sharp breath.
“—that’s definitely the way out, but it’s infested with them.
So, might as well treat it like a closet full of crap. ”
I turn around, my heart pounding as I stare her over more. She’s entirely clean, wearing a black dress, and smells freely of omega.
“The name’s Juno.” She extends a small, tattooed hand.
“Give me the rundown,” I state, not reaching her gesture of courtesy. “Who is everyone, how long have you been here, and what’s next? What’s going to happen to me?”
She drops her hand and thins her lips, like she’s not surprised.
“That living area has a lot of the others. We’re kind of the rejects because we don’t have a scent match, and we also aren’t exactly the most willing.
I think the longest one here is Mira. She’s mute, though, so you can’t ask her anything.
” She leans in, and I press myself up against the wall all the more.
“Although I think it’s just because she really needs to loosen up.
I’ve heard her talk to people sometimes. It’s really rare, though.”
Blank.
My mind is blank as I try to process what she just told me. “Wait, why am I even here? I didn’t get rejected. I also didn’t reject anyone myself! I didn’t even get presented,” I state, almost mad now. Judge just fucked me and left me! I’m now a reject?
“Don’t know. Judge dropped you off, and you smell like him.
” Her eyes get serious. “No one ever smells of Judge, you know that, right? I can barely smell him, but he’s there.
” She steps even closer, and I hate that she’s not respecting that space.
“You need to be really careful of Roxy. She’s obsessed with Judge.
It’s such a big deal that she got moved out of here right when you arrived.
” She raises her brows. “Although, at the same time, she could have been moved out because maybe he’s finally making moves on omegas, and maybe she got moved into his room.
” She stands straighter, rolling back on her heels as she exhales, like the mystery has been solved.
“Sorry, I don’t know how to shut up. Gotten me in trouble a lot out in the wastes.
I ended up here for safety. Come on, I’ll show you the garden. ”
My lips wordlessly move, trying to take in everything she just said. Roxy? Judge doesn’t do this often? Everyone smelled me, then? “Hold on… you have a garden?”
Where the hell am I exactly?
“We’re omegas, we’re supposed to be dainty, loving, and just so natural with caregiving,” she says while jutting her head around, then scrunches her nose as her dark eyes widen, as if saying that killed a part of her.
“Sorry, joke didn’t land. It’s to stretch our legs because we’re not, ah, allowed anywhere else unless escorted.
Still pisses me off that we don’t have a shotgun range or access to bikes.
What if I like to blow off steam that way? ”
I can’t tell if I should laugh or not, only aware she’s rather eager to get me to. “Is there another place omegas go to when they’re new here?”
She posits that. “You know, if you didn’t reject anyone, then you’re right. Why are you here?” She looks me over, frowning. “Huh.”
I allow my gaze to wander back down the hall I just came from, feeling like my options are closing in. “I want to see this garden.”
Outdoors. Escape.
She leads me to a pair of doors that fling out into raw air.
The sky is bright, almost washed out, and a big oak dominates a patch of grass, its trunk cradling a ring of fallen leaves.
The cold stabs my lungs, much colder than Trinity and even the Enclave.
The Iron Castle is said to be somewhere high up in old Vermont.
I’m from old New Hampshire… my parents flash in my mind’s eye, to that twisted feeling of betrayal by them—I scan the area more to distract myself.
There’s no visible fence, just a wall of gray bark in every direction. “We’re allowed out here?”
“Sure are. Don’t get too excited, though.
Deep in that forest is a barbed wire fence line.
It’s like triple my height. Dominion’s always crawling all around it, even when it snows.
They just use the snowmobiles then. You can walk it and see for yourself.
” Juno shivers and crosses her arms. “And yeah, to answer you, new omegas tend to go to another section of this place. It’s a lot more integrated. ”
Integrated… so I’m not being integrated, then? Any pity I had for myself is far away, replaced with something that reminds me of vengeance. “Why are we kept away?” I ask, wanting to know how every corner operates here.
“Because we tend to just piss off the alphas, which doesn’t help with their precious cohesion.”
Okay, that’s useful. So cohesion is important, just like what Judge alluded to already. Tucking that away in case I need it later. “How long do you plan to be here?”
She shivers, exhaling dramatically. “I have no idea, honestly. Mostly came here because I hate Titan, and they tried to take me. Was honestly shocked they don’t force us to mate here, so I’m rather enjoying my limbo.”
I’ve heard a lot about Titan, but I never gave him much thought. The Appalachian mountains seem to be a massive divide between Dominion and Bayou’s Maw, so he never felt like a true threat.
Guess he isn’t at all while I’m here.
The Black Mirage feels so incredibly far away now…