Page 53 of Knot Your Fated M.U.S.E.

I watch his hands move over the weapon, remembering our scout mission.

The facility had loomed against the sky like some gothic monastery gone wrong, all sharp angles and hidden horrors. Even from outside, you could feel the wrongness seeping from its walls.

"The security's unlike anything we've hit before," I add, adjusting my earpiece to sit more comfortably against my good ear. "Not just guards and cameras. They've got routine exchanges happening at all hours – vans coming and going like some twisted delivery service."

Vale looks up from his laptop, his legs propped carefully in his wheelchair. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen him use it in this space, but that means he’s conserving his energy so he can run with us into this hell of a barricade.

"What kind of exchanges?"

Kieran's hands still on his weapon.

"Two kinds, from what we saw. One's basically a corpse disposal…vans full of dead omegas being shipped out to God knows where. The others..." He shakes his head. "Live transfers to other facilities. Like they're trading baseball cards but with people."

If that doesn’t sound inhuman.

Then again, these fuckers don’t give a damn. All of this is just an exchange in their books. Nothing more.

"What about the special four?" Vale's fingers hover over his keyboard. "The ones we're supposed to extract…do they get moved around?"

"Never seen it," I say, remembering the hours of surveillance. "Those four – Patients 495, 367, 892, and 444. They stay put. No transfers, no releases. Just endless tests and trials."

Kieran frowns, setting down his rifle.

"The secrecy around them is what gets me. No names, just numbers. Like they're trying to erase every trace of who these omegas were before Ravenscroft got hold of them."

"There has to be something special about them," he continues, pacing now because he can never stay still when he's working through a problem. "The way they're treated, the security around their files…it's like they've got qualities otheromegas don't. Like they've survived things that should have killed them."

Atlas, who's been quietly assembling equipment by touch alone, speaks up.

"That could be exactly it." His blindfolded face turns toward us with uncanny accuracy. "Their value isn't in who they were, but in what they've become. What they've survived."

Vale goes suddenly still – the kind of stillness that means his tactical mind has just made a connection the rest of us haven't seen yet.

"Oh shit," he whispers, fingers flying across his keyboard with renewed purpose.

"What is it?" I prompt quickly, knowing if someone doesn't draw him out, he'll disappear down the rabbit hole of research and leave us hanging. "Vale, what are you thinking?"

His face has gone pale, making the shadows under his eyes more pronounced.

"They're not just experimenting on them. They're training them. Breaking them down and rebuilding them into something specific."

"For what purpose?" Atlas asks head tilted in that bird-like way he has when he's processing new information.

"For sale," Vale says grimly. "But not to just any buyer. These omegas are being conditioned for alphas who couldn't handle normal ones. Alphas who'd..." He swallows hard. "Who'd destroy an ordinary omega within days."

The implications hit like a physical blow.

I think of the vans full of dead omegas, of the endless transfers between facilities. How many had they gone through before finding these four who could survive?

How many had died in the process of creating their perfect products?

"You're talking about feral alphas," Kieran says flatly. "The ones too dangerous to be allowed near regular omegas."

Vale nods, still typing.

"Think about it. Most countries have laws against letting certain alphas claim mates. The ones with histories of violence, the ones who've killed previous omegas, or ones whose instincts are too strong to control. They have lots of criminals stuck on fucking islands and who are the government going to send to that abandoned piece of floating land with feral Alphas in each directional compass? No one is going to volunteer as tribute. No Omega who wishes to be pampered and loved. Regardless of the circumstances, those alphas still exist. Still haveneeds. And let’s be real, we know they may be convicted fuckers trapped in their circumstances, but they have money to spend."

Fuck.

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