Beginning of Chapter 21

Quinn

What had she done?

Mocked death, kissed life goodbye, allowed her soul to stretch greedy fingers into the air and beg for privilege, for things she did not have. How could Quinn allow herself to speak to an Omega as if he were an equal in a world where she did not matter? Where her words did not matter, her thoughts did not matter, and her life did not matter?

Blasphemy.

Her voice had soared, stung, and bitten into their throats, had been rude, impudent and everything wrong. She'd let her guard down in Hemlock, allowed the strength to return to her. The hope that there was someone for her had poisoned her mind. For sweet moments, she'd believed that she would have a partner in this forsaken world.

Zen had been everything—hope, love, a life lost, a life regained.

And now she knew he was Euodia's tortured pet, the seventh King of their world, a famed abuser. The thought destroyed her, made breath escape her throat raw and raspy. How fucked up, how cruel. How could Quinn stand before him without shame, colouring her cheeks and memories twisting her mind? How could she look at him knowing the things he did to girls?

How could he be hers?

Zen was a tyrant to the Alphas, a King that laughed at despair, a King destined to be with his six. And he had fooled her again and again. Her eyes prickled with tears. Wet and ragged, it wheezed out of her throat—dry and rough like sandpaper. Her rant had been one of a cornered animal, hissing, biting, and desperate for them to understand. For the world to understand, for her to understand.

Zen was not hers, and he would kill her.

Quinn didn't want to go out with her head off and begging 'please'. She had seen the girls cry, dragged across the ground, kicking and screaming. Electrocuted for mistakes, tortured for nothing, at the very least the men here did not take her. But abuse had no excuse. Please, I'll do better. Please, I was only listening to your orders. Please, I'm innocent and this is all a mistake. Please don't kill me.

They were rulers that did not care for the lives of the women.

And Quinn would go down screaming her truth. With the noose around her neck, she'd speak of their torture, their lack of mercy. Their fucked up patriarchy. That they were the monsters that they hated, the people they so despised. History had repeated itself once again. And regardless of their knowledge, of their understanding, of their experience—hatred drove them to do the same.

But before that, it was time that she ran, about time when she didn't give a fuck about their rules, their needs, their wants. She'd die trying, and that would be Quinn's way to go.

In the wastelands, with the Lonely.

Why stay? She wondered, fingers catching on her frock, breathing heavy, pants escaping. The healing of her leg. The reputation of the Alphas. The dangers of the Lonely. The harsh, ever-changing weather. Zen, her soulmate. Her eyes trailed up to the sky, to the spin of thunder clouds. But it didn't matter anymore, did it? Nothing did.

So why should Quinn give a damn about the consequences? She ran.

If what Zen said was true, if he was that desperate for an Alpha, then the seven would be here. The Kings would arrive and they'd trap her in their pretty little cage—a lab rat, a little pet, an Alpha to suck dry. Quinn pursed her lips, the residual fear from Euodia already spinning through her veins. Euodia stank of it— the wobbling, crazed hatred, the rising anxiety, the pungent scent of dread.

With food, water, and washing, it would be like seeing a ghost of their past. She could lie through her teeth, spit stories of genetics. A cousin. But no one would be kind to someone that so heavily resembled their tormenter. Zen might accept her, for he'd known her with bruises painting her cheeks and blood dripping from her lips.

But six other Omegas would kill her.

Euodia knew that. For in her memories, penned down into the books and burnt into her mind, their actions were history. The blood that soaked the ground. The rust that drenched the air. The lives that were lost. The moments before they'd discovered Euodia with Zen by her side, the six had searched for the traces of her in the women of the city.

They had killed girls that resembled Euodia.

They'd combed the streets with their soldiers. The women with her hair had been murdered by Helios. The ones with her eyes were crushed by Icarus. The girls with her face were mangled and burned—tortured by Klaus. Those with her gait had their throats ripped out by Rowan. The Alphas with her voice had been shot by Elysian. Others were stabbed by Solar for holding traces of her scent.

It was madness and rage.

And when they had Euodia captured, had her limbs torn off, her body tortured. It was Zen who had crushed the rest with his powers, swept his hands and engulfed the city in death. He'd culled them like dogs, reduced the millions to mere thousands. Euodia had watched from her cell, fingers on the bars; she'd stared out at the destruction, the fire, and laughed.

They were monsters.

And that was what the book of her past had not penned. The stark, oily ache of destruction was a feeling that she could not describe. The churn of it was a pain in her guts. It was a memory that stretched across her cells. And all that together created a sure found knowledge that the seven could not be trusted.

They would kill her.

The memory of it flashed across her brain, a slap to her cheek, and she hurried even more. Perhaps as her soulmate, Zen would try. He might love her a little more, might hold her hand. But he'd never protect her from his mates. If they wanted her dead, he'd allow it, for she was everything that they hated in an Alpha.

That much was true.

Quinn collapsed against the bark of the tree, inhaling deeply, leg still fucked up and aching. Her fingers pushed into Float, searching for a vehicle to purchase. All she could afford were shoes that floated an inch above the air that she strapped to her feet. It whirred, and she rose, skating briefly with wobbling legs. The straps biting into her calves, pressed against the wood.

She'd die running.

And then she was skating across the land, through the trees. Her legs caught on brambles and twigs, then her feet on stone. The friction had her aching feet tumbling, a twist and the days of healing were gone. Blood flooded warm, trickled down her flesh from ripped stitches, the bone weakening with each step.

Behind her she heard voices, the cry of a man, piercing her veins. The wail of her name—Zen was coming. Quinn cursed. How quickly he knew, how fast he was. It must be true then that he could smell her from anywhere, taste her in the air. Zen would only grow faster on her heels. The strange desperation was deep in his eyes, in the gaunt of his bones. He was cadaverous. And under the muscles stretched thin, was a man that wilted and ache, so lacking in fat that he seemed as if he were starving.

The Omegas were weak and dying. From what? Quinn did not know. She sped ahead, one foot at a time, swallowed down strangling cries from the pain of it all. Tears wobbled down her cheeks. Her soulmate would never be hers, and in every world, she would die alone.

There was only one place where she'd find escape—a Lonely's pack, a monster's den.

Movement was a rattle of pain upon her healing feet, but she continued as petrichor flavoured the air, and thunder rumbled in cold, icy winds. The graveyard was what she searched for, the tracks of the dead, the hills of the Lonely. The fresh tracks of the monsters.

A trench of bodies, of glaring white bones with their ribs pulled apart. She arrived to land that was oily with foul liquid and putrid stench, intestines spilling the ground. The deaths were fairly new—Omega soldiers from other houses. Some of Hemlock. Quinn hissed, body swaying as her fingers conjured her weapons. The blade shone blue, singing in the air.

They were here.

The monsters in the shadows of the storm were what she searched for. The ripple of a thousand ink. The Lonely swayed, rising as they sniffed the air, tasted fresh meat, fresh Beta. If she stayed in their territory, she would escape the clutches of the Kings. And if she laid low within a valley, in a cave, deep within the heart of their den? She would survive.

The first one came, a stupid beast lacking in intelligence, dripping of rot. Her blade soared, struck between its eyes, heavy and slippery as the flesh gave way. And with an open mouth yawn, it screamed, thrashing. Its body was full of rotting gas, its lips pulled stretching so far its face gave way. And as it struggled with skin spitting yellow fumes and landing upon the ground with black blood gushing, it shrieked with an oddly working tongue.

Mate.

"QUINN! COME BACK!" She turned, head cocked, eyes to the distant winds, to the fields of billowing petals of white. Flowers that were gentle in the breeze, dancing as it twisted beneath their feet. Zen and Rowan stood watching her, breathing hard. There was terror in their eyes, and they had the right to be afraid. She would be too, standing before a wave of Lonely as far as the eye could see, like an endless void, like the never-ending sea. "PLEASE!" The break in his voice had her lingering.

She hated how she ached at the sight of them. She hated that somewhere deep within, something appreciated their beauty, the well hewn jawline, the exquisite features, the trembling lips. Those eyes that were like clandestine gem stones. Monsters that were pretty, monsters that would lie, monsters that would break her heart. Her eyes turned to the Lonely. And monsters that would not. She raised her blade, dipping low, a smile on her lips.

"NO!"

And she dived into the sea.