Ares
“Mason, stop!” she begged. “Please! Please!!” her broken sobs rang through the concrete halls, bouncing off the cinder blocks in an acoustic ricochet that threatened to break my eardrums.
Her wrists were tied together crudely, trapped in the death grip with which Mason held her. She was digging her heels into the floor, trying to slow him down, fighting as she tried to get away. Begging the entire time – sobbing – pleading for the brother she loved and trusted not to hurt her in the way she knew was coming.
“Mason, please!” she tried again. “I don’t want to do this! Please, Mason! Please don’t do this to me!!” she was screaming now. She could see the viewing room ahead and the panic had officially set in. “No!!! No, no, no!!! Mason!! Don’t do this! Please!!”
Mason’s face was hard; there was no love in his eyes to signal that this girl had ever meant anything to him. Truthfully, she probably never had - getting her to love and trust him as her ‘big brother’ was little more than a ruse to make her easily compliant and submissive to him and to anyone he told her to defer to.
Like all true born omegas, she’d grown up in this system since birth. Her mother would have been a human with genetic markers indicating she carried the omega gene, and her father was simply a semen sample carrying additional genetic indicators for both omega and alpha genes. She wasn’t raised with parents or in a loving home - she was raised by caregivers she knew as her ‘big sisters’ and ‘big brothers’ and educated through a series of different houses that worked similarly to the human equivalent of daycare and preschool, elementary school, and high school.
The omega who was currently being dragged, literally kicking and screaming down the hallway towards a room full of Hybrid and Royal Alpha’s turned 18 a month ago. I know this because I was one of about one hundred alpha’s who were invited to her debut…which was a fancy way of saying the Omega House she belonged to had completed her genetic testing and attached a monetary value to her based on those results. While her results wouldn’t be shared with any alpha until they declared they’d felt a legitimate mate bond, it was safe to say this girl was at least 75% omega or greater as those were the only omega’s offered at the price point this house was asking. Not to mention the fact that girls who tested lower than 60% weren’t offered to royals at all…and I wasn’t the only Royal in attendance.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and texted Kushiel, my mate of more than five hundred years. “This is fucking disgusting - this poor girl is screaming like she’s about to be murdered. What the fuck does this place do to these girls to incite this level of fear?!”
’Shiel responded immediately, “I don’t know, but I’ll add them to the top of the list for inspections in two months.”
My two mates, Kushiel (a werewolf hybrid) and Chaos (a vampire hybrid), made up our Royal group. Being a dragon shifter, I wasn’t considered a hybrid, despite technically being one since I carried traits from both my mates, just like they carried traits from me and each other. Together, we were in charge of all the Omega Houses in the United States, as well as being the regional governors. We visited and inspected every Omega House at least once every three months to ensure they were in compliance with the International Code of Conduct and the International Genetic Research Association’s guidelines of best practice.
Given this girl’s abject terror - this place had clearly fallen out of compliance. Not a great look considering these idiots knew who I was and that I was in attendance today.
“The only positive about this situation is that she’s so fucking scared I can already feel the bon and she’s not even in the room yet. Call our doctor and get everything set up at home, then reach out to our contacts here and get someone to accompany us home on the jet,” I texted quickly.
“Holy fuck…Okay, everything will be arranged by the time you get her to the tarmac.” Short, sweet, and to the point…that was my wolf.
Despite the fact that I could already sense this girl was our mate, her heat would still be induced, and this fact was pissing me off to the point I could see tendrils of smoke starting to curl from my mouth when I exhaled. It was standard practice at these viewings to induce the omega’s heat in order to allow the alpha’s present the best chance of sensing a bond. But a heat wasn’t necessarily required - fear could produce the same effect. However, most houses preferred a heat do to fear because it was usually less stressful for the omega’s. Again, something this house had apparently decided was irrelevant.
I’d been attending these sales for three centuries, and this was the first time I’d ever felt murderous; unsettled, disgusted, angry…sure. But I wanted to burn this room and everyone in it (save her) to the fucking ground. Chaos hates that I refer to these events as a sale, but that’s exactly what it fucking is. Compared to the overwhelming majority of Hybrids and Royals, these girls are barely more than children.
After the Supernatural and Human Peace Accord of 1778 (or the SHPA), I’d managed to persuade my parents to increase the age at which true born omegas were offered from fourteen to eighteen, but they’d stubbornly refused to go any higher. An omega with the genetic ability to bond with a Hybrid or Royal was rare and there were many pairs and groups who’d not found a mate. My parents wanted the omega’s offered up as soon as possible to strengthen the Alpha’s who held high ranking positions and to ensure as many Royal Groups were mated with an omega as was possible. In the last decade, there’d been less than a handful of groups who were able to successfully mate an omega, the bond had simply been too weak, and she’d died during the final mating ceremony, despite her heat having been induced.
My father’s and I had nearly come to blows because I argued the weak bonds were the result of brutal groups abusing little girls instead of cherishing them as they should…waiting until the omega was ready for sex and mating. They’d reminded me that my own mother had been only 12 when they’d bonded with her, and she’d been fully marked, mated, and pregnant by the time she was 14. I reminded them that that occurred nearly a millennia ago and they needed to get with the fucking century. My mother, of course, didn’t add anything to the conversation, just listening quietly, unable to voice her own opinion as her Alpha’s had forbidden her from doing so. In private, she told me she was proud of me for trying to spare the girls such a terrifying fate but also shared that I may well change my mind when we found our mate.
As my mate came into view, I had the terrifying suspicion my mother was right.
Mason dragged the terrified girl into the room, fastening her wrists to a hook above her and turning a wench until she was barely able to keep her tip toes on the ground. He walked behind her, and I heard the ripping of fabric as he tore the thin nightgown she wore from her trembling body. She was so damn small. Her omega genes gave her the body of a woman despite her age, but her mind was still that of a scared 18-year-old girl thrown - naked - into a room with a bunch of sex crazed Alpha’s whose auras were already spilling out and choking the air from her lungs.
Her pupils were blown so wide I couldn’t even tell what color her eyes were as they darted around the room in terror. She was ghostly pale, trying to curl in on herself to escape the auras that I could tell were starting to cause her physical pain. I’d known when I’d met her weeks ago that she was the purest omega I’d ever run across, and that was obvious from her reactions now. Omegas weren’t usually this sensitive to Alpha’s, not even those in the 80th percentile, and considering her reaction, it was obvious this girl was well above the 90th percentile…something I hadn’t seen in well over a century. There was a reason the house was charging tens of millions for this girl.
Lucky for us, we were filthy fucking rich.
So, here I sat. Keeping an iron grip on my aura and watching this poor girl choke on her fear. Everyone here knew I was a Dragon and a member of the Royal Family. They all knew that if I felt a bond, it would supersede any other attendee, and I knew that the moment Mason injected her, I’d claim her.
I put my cell back in my pocket, snarling to myself at having to let her heat be induced, knowing she would be helpless and in pain. I could only hope this place had a doctor on hand to knock her out as soon as I claimed her, at least then she wouldn’t have to suffer for hours.
