Page 35 of The Hive

Chapter Thirty-Three

Alexi

A shout penetrated the rage-filled haze clouding my vision.

“Commander! Saphyra needs you now. Get yourself together!” The beta doctor used his most commanding voice. I didn’t think he had it in him, but somehow his words sank down to the innermost sanctuary of my beastly nature and, like a switch, conscious thought crept back in.

My fists slowed mid swing and instead of the haymaker I had intended, I pushed Valyx and Ax off me with everything I had, sending them flying across the small cell.

They both impacted the walls and went sprawling.

“Calm yourselves! Fucking idiots.” It was no secret I was also being an idiot, but my clarity started to return. “The doctor is right. The princess needs us.”

Valyx snarled but remained crouched on the floor, seething with ill-restrained anger. Axion was panting, sprawled on his back, looking up at the ceiling. Brushing myself off, I got to my feet and stared them down. Neither would challenge me in a normal situation, but we were covered in the slick of an omega entering heat and we were all raging with the frustration of denying ourselves completion. We couldn’t get to her and it went against our nature, causing us to lash out, our instincts driving us to violence as if it were the other alphas’ fault.

If an agreement couldn’t be reached, alphas were known to fight to the death over an omega in heat. Those negotiations were often spoken with fists and settlements made when their knots sank into willing, slick-covered pussy. We could smell her, but we couldn’t reach her, and it was driving us far beyond the normal level of the crazy one would reasonably expect.

“Calm the fuck down. We need to figure out how to get out of here,” I said as I tried to even out my breathing.

Axion dragged himself up from the ground. “There is no fucking way out. These are the locks used on the maintenance doors and we don’t have clearance.”

We all turned to Greylan, who’d been sitting on his cot watching us rage like the fools we were accused of being.

Valyx spoke up first, but it was what we were all thinking. “Try your barcode.”

Surely they’d have removed the doctor’s access by now, but what if they hadn’t? What if it had been overlooked? The glimmer of hope was dashed when he swiped the code on the back of his hand under the lock and it remained red.

“That would have been too easy,” I said, grumbling as I lowered myself to the cot to think.

Valyx paced the length of the small cell. The thud of his heavy boots against the metal floor spoke to how angry he was. I couldn’t think straight with the steady pounding, and I could feel my temper rising. Axion must have felt the same way because he got up and walked into Valyx’s path. The volatile alpha shoved him, but Ax held his ground. They growled at each other, and the low rolling sound wasn’t helping anything.

My concentration was shot, I was on edge, and if they didn’t get the fuck ahold of themselves, this whole thing was going to blow up like a powder keg. Again.

“Both of you, stand down. The bars are keeping us from what we want. Not each other,” I said, hoping to deescalate the situation so we could find a way to free ourselves.

“Oh? Not each other? You say that as if you’d be willing to share your betrothed? Like you would honestly let us touch her after you’ve had her?” Valyx asked. The gravel in his voice made him sound more like an animal than a man.

“I…” I gripped my hair in a fist, tugging in frustration. “I don’t fucking know. Yesterday, I would have said absolutely not. Now… now, I don’t know. I want to give her what she wants, whatever she wants.” My eyes softened as I looked at my lover and my best friend. Would it really be so bad sharing her with them?

From the cell beside ours, the doctor scoffed. “This is a stupid argument. You’ve already wasted time fighting with one another. What you’re forgetting is that none of you will be sharing anything if 6667 gets ahold of her. The last omega they gave him to breed ended up with two broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a concussion. And she was willing. If Saphyra fights him, and we know she will, it will be worse for her. We have to get out of here before it’s too late. If it’s not already.”

That was a sobering thought.

Axion mumbled a string of curses and wrapped his hands around the bars until his knuckles were white.

It wasn’t my imagination that the other alphas suddenly looked more pale than they had a moment ago. “What do you suggest, doctor? There’s no fucking way out.”

While we had been fighting like rabid animals, I hoped he’d been considering our options. I certainly hadn’t been able to think about anything other than irrationally murdering my friends to get to my omega, who would still have been out of reach, regardless of the outcome.

“There’s a control panel at the guard station on the raised platform in the center of the room. It’s supposed to be manned at all times, but 3187 seems to have overlooked that bit of protocol, along with several others. From there, we’ll have mainframe access to all the security features on the Hive. We just have to get to it. And there is one more thing. We’ll need a code to unlock it.”

I looked up from my seated position on the cot. “How the fuck are we going to do that?”

“That’s not really my area of expertise, Commander.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Alexi

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