Page 50 of The Omega Trials: Part One

“And who do you break for?” Ecker demands, standing over me and fucking his fist.

“You,”I say through my tears. They both growl low, displeased with my answer. My mind is nothing but bright light as my orgasm crashes into me, over me, but somehow I manage to cry, “You own me,Alphas.”

Their throaty groans fill the small cavern, and I feel hot cum fill me and splatter across my bloody chest.

I pant, dazed as I come down, my body still shaking. Titus’s bruising grip releases my hips, and I feel the cuffs on my wrists and ankles fall away. I’m barely above water when Ecker grabs my chin and his mouth comes crashing down on mine.

It’s not a kiss.

It’s a coup de grâce. The final, fatal blow to the person I was before tonight.

Like the wounded left barely breathing on the arena floor, I put up no fight.

After a few dominating moments, he pulls away, just enough to whisper against my lips, “That’s a good omega. Now that you finally know your place . . .” He bites my bottom lip, a single, sharp nip where it had been bleeding, “Don’t forget it.”

There’s nothing glorious about this.

I keep my knees drawn tight to my chest as Seventeen gently sponges my back. The bathwater isn’t hot, but it still stings where my skin is rubbed raw. I didn’t feel it at the time, but through everything, my backside ground against the rough rock altar. It looks and feels like someone took sandpaper to it. My wrists aren’t much better.

It reminds me of when I was little, learning how to ride a bike. My grandmother insisted I start with training wheels. But I was as impatient and stubborn then as I am now. So, when she went inside to make lunch, I took the wheels off, having watched how she put them on.

I walked my bike to the top of a hill down our street and set off. I lasted all of five seconds before a complete and total wipeout. She didn’t say anything when I came home all scratched and bleeding. She knew I often needed to learn my lessons the hard way. So rather than chew me out for being reckless and disobedient, she drew a bath and spent twenty minutes tenderly picking every tiny fleck of asphalt out of my road rash.

The memory makes me miss her so achingly much. Even though I know she has no way of knowing I ended up here, I still feel guilty. It would break her heart to see me now.

Still learning lessons the hard way.

Seventeen asks for my hand and carefully sets my forearm on the tub so my damaged wrists hang over the edge. She doesn’t take her eyes off her work, deftly dabbing the raw skin with a cotton ball and antiseptic. “I can get you synthetic stoneseed concentrate.” She doesn’t pose it as a question, just a softly stated fact.

“Isn’t that illegal?” Stoneseed root has been used as an herbal contraceptive for centuries but requires daily consumption for six months. A synthetic alternative hit the black market a few years ago that you only have to take once a month and it canprevent implantation from up to seven days prior. A lot of girls at the Doll House took it more religiously than a priest attends church on Sundays.

“There’s a lot of things around here that aren’t legal.” And then, for the first time, I hear her laugh. It’s light but husky and warms a part of me that the bath can’t.

I place my hand on hers where she’s wrapping my wrist with bandages. She looks up at me with heavy brown eyes and my throat constricts as tears yet again prick my eyes.

Goddamn, I’ve cried more in the last few hours than I have in the last ten years.

So desperate for kind human connection, I beg, “Please tell me your name?”

“I . . .” She stutters, and her jaw works anxiously.

“Please.I just—I need a friend.” It’s difficult to hold eye contact. I felt less vulnerable shackled on that damn altar.

The corners of her mouth twitch with a tentative smile. “I could use a friend too.” I give her hand a small squeeze of encouragement. “My mother called me Penelope.”

“Penelope,” I repeat, feeling the word soothe my aching chest, as if she’s carefully plucking out pieces of asphalt lodged in my heart.

Hate Me the Least

Bishop

When I wake up, my body is stiff and achy, but surprisingly, I’m in minimal pain. The infirmary bed isn’t comfortable, the plasticky mattress flat and hard, but I’m sure it’s better than the unupholstered chair Titus is stretched out in. He looks like he just walked off a battlefield.

The soles of his bare feet are brown with dirt where they hang off the end of the small upside-down trash bin he’s using as a footrest. The bandages around his midsection are equally dirty, covered with dark, rusty, dried blood. I can tell from the splatter pattern it’s not his.

Even fast asleep, he still looks like he’s fighting. His forehead is fretted, jaw ticking, and his shoulders occasionally jump as his muscles flex in his sleep.

Continuing to look around the room, I’m shocked when I see the date on the electric alarm clock next to me. The games were two days ago.

---