Comfort and entertainment—a set of customs and beliefs that belonged to everyone. Those were a few areas that Cassian failed to implement. He couldn’t understand the needs of his people. He never set boundaries, and he couldn’t fathom implementing any real type of government. For him, nihilism was the only system of philosophy worth falling back on. The rest was false promises. A hope bathed in falsehoods.
But Ruby knew better, and she was all the more powerful because of it.
Rae’s face turned light purple. Glancing down, she saw the complex set of scars that graced her stomach. She remembered every day of her pregnancy, how she cut into her skin to mark the days that passed when she was going through her nesting period. She’d survived when she thought she would fail, and now they were… she didn’t even know where they were. She’d failed them, and the gut wrenching pain tore at her every waking second, leaving her feeling erased.
“A mother goes through hell to bear her children. Yet, she is kind. A mother is—”
“Weaker than the father. Is that what you wish to prove? That, to reach completion, man must fill you to the brim with viscous seed, flesh, and knotting cock. How pathetic…”
“I will be complete when my alphas fuck me over your dead body,” she muttered.
Severin stood with a triumphant smile. Turning, he threw his arms into the air. She was only proving his point, but she didn’t care. “And, so, you see the true wish of the omega. The feminine energy can only be destruction and chaos.”
“I said no such thing!” she cried.
The ruthless man couldn’t be stopped now. He was too close to his main point. In fact, this was precisely why he was the minister of propaganda. Lacking meaning in the modern world, young alphas and betas alike would open their ears to any answers they could get regarding the fall of the modern world. Severin would give them a definition to the vast chaos all men feared was born out of a woman’s womb. Sorrow, it seemed, was her fault. The more one gave birth, the worse the world was made.
And now, standing before his audience, he appeared as more proud of his hypothesis than ever. The only thing he had left to do was let the story unfold.
“The closer we move toward hate, the more we end up hurting each other,” Rae said. “Love is the only answer.”
Severin turned the valve once more. This time, he took a step back to enjoy the show. “Enough talking. People came for the entertainment.”
The water rose and froze her skin, the cutting pain like thinly shaved daggers. In this moment of hurt, Rae relied purely on instinct. Her limbs bent back, and her fingers shrank into a paralyzed fury. Her jaw latched forward, biting the warmer air for dear life, hanging on to the last inches of freedom.
The more she moved, the more she sank. The rising liquid would not
take orders. It didn’t give a fuck about Rae’s purest wishes. She was going to drown.
She prepared for the obvious death the men yearned to see and experience. There were only inches separating her lips from the fluid, but Severin turned the valve with haste when only a thin opening remained. He kept the level stationary to see just how long her body would hang onto the soft threads of life.
Rae whimpered, “Will you… kill… me?”
The question was pressing, but it did not need to be answered. For as soon as she allowed the pathetic query from her mouth, she understood that she meant absolutely nothing.
“Death is but a door,” he said, suddenly hanging his head in solemnity.
The water rose over her lips, nostrils, and eyes. She frantically swam forward, to crash her forehead into the glass, but it was too strong. No matter how many attempts she made, it would not break. Her mouth opened, dispelling her last bubbles of oxygen. With haste, her eyes searched for any source of comfort or point of safety.
The cameras stared blankly at her in the same way the men did. Cold and lifeless, the footage was taken in and sent to a center where they would cut and edit the perfect video. When she realized no one would come to her aid, her lungs felt as if they were about to collapse. The pressure inside her built until the sweet relief of drowning filled her air pathways.
She was losing oxygen fast. They were actually letting her drown, merely staring and laughing at her plight. Was this what death was supposed to be like? She didn’t even try to answer that question, for as she floated within that cold, blue water, she felt like a fetus. Strangely, the pain shifted into pure bliss.
As the red-and-black splotches danced in her vision, she wondered if she was closer to death than they were aware. Amidst their laughter, Rae decided to let herself go. She wasn’t scared anymore, only accepting. She opened her mouth and let out a series of thick carbon dioxide bubbles until there was nothing to do but take it all in again.
Severin hammered the butt of his fist into a metal controller attached to the wall. Red lights flashed all around them, illuminating the men’s faces, one by one. Metal claws came down from the rafters in the ceiling, clamping against the top of the spherical glass tub. They opened the latched, grabbed her body and pulled her above the waterline.
Her nerve endings were shot—she couldn’t feel a thing. But she kept her eyes open and stared into the eyes of her captor. Alpha men yearned for a weak omega, but she was as strong as the rumors portrayed her of being. The men below stood and clapped as she coughed violently.
“And now, her rebirth!” Severin announced, slyly leaning back against the wall of the rusted auditorium.
The water drained, and she sucked in the closest breath of air she could find. She kept her eyes open only to see Severin’s black spheres peering idly into her soul. In a way, they had similar tenacity. But who would hold out the longest?
The alphas appeared amazed by how quick her body and mind adapted to each new situation. Her memory fell apart like shards of glass, but she had been reawakened. Pain only rekindled that brazen energy that was her spirit. Now, she’d never forgot the most important aspects of her life.
Her children, Vash, Lucas, and Killian… Her whole family was everything to her. She would never forget their importance.
“Love will remain untainted,” she assured herself.