"No," Levi shook his head. "She'll hide her truth. That much we can be sure of."
Dante fumbled, grasping at breaking straws. The stress tingled in his limbs and rose to his beating heart. It was the first time that anxiety truly fluttered within him, and it rushed through his veins cold and beading on his forehead, dewy with sweat. "Can we capture her? We can call our forces, our army, we know where she is, where she could go. It will not be us who will catch her—"
"No," Valentino replied. "You of all people should know how an Alpha's command works. She wanted to be left alone, she wanted us to pretend nothing happened. We will not be able to do anything to her with her command. We'll find ourselves battling our army, fighting our own decisions, we will lose—"
Dante snapped then, rage rearing its ugly head in his chest. "An Alpha's command comes from the pack Alpha. It is a command that stems from respect and consent, from the knowledge that the decision will benefit the damn pack," Dante hissed. "She is not our soulmate. And her words were not for the good of the pack. It was not a fucking decision that we all subtly agreed to, that we all could have been convinced to agree to. An alpha command may hold power for that moment, but it's not fucking absolute. It shouldn't turn us into slaves, and it can't last that fucking long—"
Valentino snorted, a bubble of laughter and rolled eyes on a grim face. "You and your righteousness. It has always been like this. It's just the first time you've experienced it yourself. An Alpha's command can feel like the pack Alpha taking a big fat piss on your goddamn face."
"You all deny me all the time," Dante slammed a fist on the ground. "You told me to 'fuck off' when I told you Rue would be a bad fucking idea."
"That's because I'm almost as strong as you are."
"And Rue's just a measly Omega—"
Altair laughed. "Don't you get it? She's stronger than us."
"So, we'll jump if she wants us to?" Dante almost roared. "Sing? Kill? We'll be fucking puppets, we'll never hold control over our empires and it'll be all because of a stupid little Omega—"
Halcyon interrupted then with a low curse. "No, it doesn't work like that." He shook his head, wolf ears popping from his hair— a symbol of his connection to his beasts. "Our Alphas could deny her if she wanted something insane. It'd do anything to protect her, to keep her safe."
"This is not safe for her—"
"We simply want her Omega happy, and right now she's afraid of us, she's scared. Our Alphas want us to lay on our backs and show our bellies, getting on our knees is exactly what she needs… Can't you hear it calling us to obey, to act meek? There is no reason for us to deny her wishes when it will mean that she will accept us." Halcyon's eyes grew hard and cold. "And she will. She has to."
"But she wanted us to leave her alone."
Halcyon huffed. "She did leave us an ultimatum. One to appease our Alphas— come back to me only when you care about Omega rights and treat your mothers well." He quoted with a sigh.
Levi cursed. "That's fucking impossible, mine's dead."
"And mine…must be one of the thousands of females in our halls," Seraphim groaned. "The search will be difficult."
Valentino sighed. "My dads must have slept with millions to get me."
"Seriously?" Kieran balked.
"Eros have orgies," Valentino shrugged. "It's a country-wide event."
"And they should know—"
"The Omegas dropped me off anonymously, we have a courier service." He shrugged. "It could be anyone."
Dante cursed, thumped fingers to his thighs, trembling. The idiots were useless, already balls-deep in the idea of Rue, already too far gone to have sense and reason. "This is why," He growled. "Omegas…Aren't meant to exist in our world."
*
Rue
She hated men.
Useless, fucking men that wanted her collared and chained to the ground. Men that wanted to use her as if she meant nothing, as if her fucking existence meant nothing, as if a womb was all that she was. And it didn't matter if the stamp of her soul was burnt into their bodies, tattooed upon their skin, chained to their hearts. They wanted hundreds of kids from thousands of Omegas, they wanted a fucking harem each, they wanted armies of children.
They didn't want her.
And Rue would merely be their happy little extra. The Omega that could guide, the Omega that they had caught in their trap like a wild rabbit in the grass. But did it matter in the grand scheme of an Alpha's picket fence dreams? God fucking no. Rue would be another faceless Omega in their world, another female, another woman to break and feed to the wolves. They'd turn her into the Omegas of their worlds, turn her into a slave to their whims, to their affections. And then they'd grow bored and never come back.
It was a tale as old as time.
The thought of that was a weight in her hands, a sour tang in her throat. She was all hollowed from the argument, all broken and bruised. Because she had been starting to like them, had genuinely considered her options. And right now, stupidity was stamped all over her cheeks like a clown's. How could she have even dared to dream of genuine love between equals?
Rue was a fool.
God, it was such a fucking turn-off knowing what they felt, knowing what they accepted, what they wanted from her. Shitty goddamn dominance filled with false fucking incompetence. They'd blame it all on the systems of their country, of what was right and wrong and not what she wanted. It was a mistake letting them touch her, a mistake treading too deep, too far. And now? Disgust grew in her, spreading to her lips in an almost gag.
They were seven walking red flags.
She had long smelt It in the air, in their bodies, and had sensed the toxicity that ruined her friendship from the moment she met Valentino to the day she greeted Dante. And now she was doomed, doomed for eternity under their rule. Surely, they'd find ways, break her command, discover methods to put her down like a dog. There was nowhere else to go but to run.
And her mind swerved to home, home where her mother slaved. A wild rage of impulsiveness surged through her and so she took off and boarded a spacecraft straight to 69. Nail biting and curse flooding, she swore to pull her mother out of there, to take her and leave. The insanity grew. There were spots in the universe blackened by crime, spots where even the elite did not bother to soil the bottom of their boots.
She'd lay low there until they forgot about her and found their next Omega fling.
And before she knew it, Rue stood outside the doors to her hell hole. Business was full, Alphas rampant, smelling like wet piss and muck, and she stalked into the whore house with a flying sort of rage that had them all stepping aside, inching backwards. Her aunties shrieked, plastered smiles. Without her, the den was falling apart, no longer packaged prettily to hide its rotting interior.
The pack Alpha was pressed to the wall, and he stared at her with a slimy grin, scratching flaking flesh. "Expelled?"
"Fuck off."
A hiss, bared teeth and he was stumbling backwards, tripping on his tail, expression breaking into one of grimacing horror. The smell of urine darkened the air as he soiled his pants. She ignored him and stomped up to her mother, burning with that familiar warmth, that unyielding fire. It stayed, lashing within her soul begging for enemies to slay.
The room was bare, and disgust swirled from her throat, and bubbled in her belly. The floor was sticky, with puddles of black dirt and yellowing stains. It was almost a pig sty, with naked nails on the walls, rust and mould flecking every corner, and exposed wooden scaffolding. The cold bloomed in there, whistling through the oily glass. And the space was so different from the richness of those fucking assholes that it had her startled by what should be the familiarity of her childhood. For in here, the stretch of poverty burned.
And her mother sat at its head, body drawn close, tips of her breast waxy and peaking from her corset, a hand around the neck of a bottle. The gauntness of her mother had Rue shuddering, horror flecking through her growing rage. She was no longer the revered human of the house, the best of them all. And her scent was dripping with sickness, no pretty bubble gum and star shine dew. Her golden hair was thinning with bald spots, her lips almost blue.
"Rue," her mother greeted on the threadbare sheets of a dying mattress, a wet cough spat from her throat.
"I've come to get you," Rue murmured, eyes swaying. No customer would pay good coin for her mother, and the lizard had dared to reduce her to this state in exchange despite the coin that she'd channelled into his pockets. At the very least her mother deserved a proper bed. "We're leaving." But Mama was thin, thin and weak—too damn fucking weak. Rue's lips pulled into an angry line, pursed with balled fists. All that money for the medicine, had the lizard used it all? Taken it to gamble? her mother should have been given the best they had. She'd made sure of it before she left, with payment plans and protective measures even in a lawless zone like 69. And yet here she was dying. Rue knelt before her; eyes hard. "We're leaving."
"What do you mean"
"I'm taking you away from here."
"Another customer is waiting at the door." Her mother waved. "Go do something else, child."
"You're not well mama."
And this earned her a bitter glance, a crude look. And suddenly it seemed as if her mind was cleared, her nose turned up into the air, sniffing. Her mother looked at her as if she saw straight through her to the depths of her soul. "Why aren't you at school?"
"Mama, you need a doctor—"
A slap to her cheek and she was blinking, gasping. The smack was weak and did not jolt through her flesh as stinging, flinching pain. But it startled her and had her looking at the woman confused. Her Mama sneered; lips stretched into an ugly smile. "What did you do?"
"I—" Rue struggled, hissed, eyes shaking. But she couldn't lie to her mother, not now. Not ever. "Alphas," she whispered. "They found out about me."
A pause, and a little snort. "So?"
"They wanted me."