Frantic (The Omegaborn Trilogy 2)

Chapter Ten

Triss

Lothgar’s hold on the back of my neck tightened and I growled quietly.

“Let me help them,” I begged.

A large boom echoed not a block away and one of the deserted factory buildings groaned before collapsing to the ground, effectively blocking off the path of the Omegaborn women. Once it did, a group of men and women rushed forward, fully dressed in black combat gear and armed to the teeth with guns and weapons.

It was too late. The beta army had arrived.

My alphas acted quickly. Garret grasped me about the waist and picked me up off the ground. In the blink of an eye, the three of them had moved off into the nearest shadowed corner of the street we were on. Quickly, they took me and sprinted off down an alley that had yet to be taken by the beta forces.

Everything descended into chaos. I looked back and watched. The omega women were quickly surrounded and taken hostage. A few ran off in various directions, only to be picked off and taken by the alphas still arriving in droves.

The city had awoken completely. Alphas had reached full bloom and embraced their natures to the fullest. They scented the Omegaborn, taking them as they saw fit. Even Nikki had fallen to their strength.

I had thought that we could have gotten them out, that there would have been enough time to get them out into the wilds before their heats had taken hold. Maybe it was a side effect of the anti-suppressant, but it had happened so much faster than I had anticipated. While my heat had taken a day to take hold, these women had fallen to it in only a few very short hours.

Even now, the city wall was a good two miles away. All we had needed was another hour and we would have made it. The city would have fallen into chaos after we had gotten out, but somehow, everything had seemingly gone wrong.

My alphas sprinted down the alley, with Ravick in the point position. He weaved in and out of the streets, down one abandoned alley after another as if he knew what was going to be guarded and what wasn’t. Gunfire echoed behind us and I choked down my sorrow.

I hoped the women I’d come to know and love would make it out of this alive. I hoped that one day I could help to free them from the prison walls of the city. I hoped to one day see Ellie and Nikki once again, happy and safe from the terrible lives that Tharia had forced upon them.

I curled into Garret’s embrace, feeling the steady beat of his heart against mine and I sobbed into his chest.

“I’m sorry, Triss,” he murmured. “If there was anything we could have done, we would have. Even the three of us are no match for those kinds of numbers. The beta army would have taken us all and I can’t stand for that. I’ve been separated from you once, and I promise you that will never happen again.”

The bond in my chest pulsed, surging through my veins with its power. I moaned low in my throat as it thrummed through the four of us, igniting with the love and devotion my alphas felt for me.

“I wanted to save them,” I whispered forlornly and Lothgar snorted in my direction.

“A group of omega women is no army. If you want a real war, you should recruit in the wilds. My pack would tear these walls apart, stone by stone until there wasn’t a single one left in the way,” Lothgar replied.

“We may be able to do something yet, but the time has not yet come to pass. Right now, we have to get out of the city,” Garret added and despite the fury and sadness pumping through my veins, I knew he was right.

I couldn’t help the Omegaborn if I was dead.

Together, my alphas and I would come up with something. We just had to wait for the opportune moment.

Sprinting down one alleyway into the next, we made good time and I could see the walls rising up before us, not far away now. But then my alphas skidded to a halt and I sucked in a fearful breath. I lifted my head and gasped when I saw a single large man cutting off our path. He was dressed in black combat gear like the rest of the beta army, but even I knew that he was no beta. His sheer size and muscle mass left me with no doubt that he was an alpha. His hair was cropped short and his dark eyes narrowed with passionate rage.

“Ravick,” the man murmured, the challenge blatantly clear in his tone. Two other men joined him, both equally enormous as they straightened their shoulders in confrontation. The other two looked like twins, with longer brown hair. Three alphas standing in our way to freedom.

“I take it they know you then,” Lothgar scoffed in Ravick’s direction.

“Old coworkers of mine. I used to be their boss and they never liked that very much,” he answered.

Garret put me down carefully and maneuvered his body in front of mine.

“Don’t run unless we go down, omega. If you run from us now and we escape this, we will find you and you will rue the day you thought you could escape your alphas. The punishment you received before will seem like a reward compared to what we’d do to you after we captured you,” he warned. He growled, the sound low and terrifying and I cowered before him.

“I won’t go anywhere,” I promised. Honestly, it was true. The Omegaborn’s escape plan had failed and if the knowledge that I had helped them hijack the aerosolizer came forth, I was likely to be executed. My alphas were my best shot and I would do whatever I needed to do to support them.

I needed them and they needed me. We were one and I fully accepted that.

The bond pulsed between us and I knew that we were all thinking the same thing.