Summary

“The year is 5035, and in this new world, Omega’s reign supreme…” Cassius Deus Jude is a Pure. A dominate Omega, heir to an enterprise and from a long bloodline of prized Omega’s. The Jude name comes with connections to all the major Port City Omega bloodlines within the Tellus Rerum. His alluring omega looks and bloodline make him one of the most sought-after omegas on this side of the galaxy. He could obtain anything he desired with just a snap of his fingers, but he has no interest in the path his family has set out for him. The only thing he really wants is to be free of his responsibilities, to choose for himself what he wants. Only never extending his bloodline is not an option. With the ever growing pressure of his birthing Omega’s strict expectations and all his responsibilities pressing down on him, Cassius does something unheard of in the Tellus Rerum. He chooses an alpha, not from the many certified breeder facilities as is customary, but a Vers alpha. A mutt with a muddy ancestry, full of fighters and killers, created and left to live only for entertainment in the gladiator pits of Port Ira. They expected him to buy and use an alpha like it was an animal? Only useful for killing and procreation? Well, Cassius would choose the most feral creature in the Tellus Rerum.

0

The year is 5035 Post Earth (P.E).

The human race successfully destroyed their home planet and have dispersed into the stars like cockroaches from the light. They live upon man made port city’s dotting what was once called the Milky Way Galaxy.

Due to the excessive amounts of radiation exposure over the course of decades in space, human men and women are no longer able to conceive normally and a new secondary gender not specific to male or female has developed in order to ensure offspring.

Omega and alpha.

In this new caste of humans, Omegas reign supreme. The ultimate prize of the human race, the only way to ensure a pure and long bloodline. But while Omega’s are next to godliness, alphas are regarded as nothing more than beasts, feral animals locked in cages until breeding age where they are then either sold into the fighting pits or to the highest Omega bidder.

Looking back, I knew the day I was drawn to Soren in the gladiator pits of Port Ira that nothing would ever be the same. When he stepped out of the shadows and into my life, I sensed he was more than a mere possession—he was a force of chaos, a catalyst that would unravel the carefully constructed cage of my existence. His presence forced me to question everything I had been taught: the rigid hierarchies that dictated the worth of others, the cold, distant cruelty of my own family, and the illusions I had clung to about what it meant to be an Omega. What lay ahead was a journey that would challenge every belief I had ever held and force me to confront the dark truths of our world—and of myself.

I

The marble floor stretched before me like a frozen river, cold and unyielding beneath my measured steps. This was the heart of her domain—a gleaming fortress of power where every surface reflected a ruthless perfection. Towering holograms whispered the sterile gospel of Jude Energies, their light slicing through the heavy scent of artificial blooms that clung to the air like a lie. Here, beneath these cold ceilings, warmth was an illusion. And with every deliberate stride, I claimed the silence — and the attention — as mine.

Something I usually repelled doing, but was necessary in the moment.

I completely bypassed the flustered-looking female lesser gender manning the reception desk, her wide eyes following my every move. My presence alone would be enough to unsettle her, and I had no time for her timid attempts to sideline another meeting with my Namesake Omega, Hera Deus Jude.

The geo lift ride up was long and awkward, the enclosed space amplifying the tension that coiled within me like a spring. I fought to keep my hands steady, my breaths even, and my expression neutral.

Hera could smell weakness a mile away, and if I wanted to get my way, I had to look composed and not like an easy meal for her to pick apart. She was one of the most formidable Namesake Omegas in the galaxy, a business tycoon with an empire spanning multiple star systems. Her reputation for ruthlessness was legendary, and I knew that any sign of hesitation or fear would be my undoing.

As the geo lift finally came to a stop with a soft chime, the doors slid open to reveal Hera’s private office suite. The opulence was overwhelming, from the rare old world wood furniture to the priceless artworks, not holo’s, but real artwork adorning the walls. But none of it compared to the imposing figure seated behind the massive obsidian stone desk.

Before me sat an entirely different echelon of wealth.

Hera’s presence was almost palpable, her piercing blue eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that sent a shiver down my spine. Her platinum blonde hair was pulled back into a severe bun, accentuating the sharp angles of her face. She wore a tailored suit that highlighted her powerful physique, every inch of her radiating dominance and control. You would never think her capable of birthing five omega offspring- though only two, myself included were Dominus, to her dismay-she had none of the characteristics the old world lesser genders would have called maternal.

Before me sat about a dozen or so Omegas along a long metal table, each dressed to the nines in different variations of darkly colored business attire. The Tera currency seemed to dance above their heads; looming over me in a way only generational wealth could. Anticipation filled me as I approached what I knew could be my only chance at being free of the responsibly that came with being Cardinal Domius of the Jude offspring.

And all eyes were on me, perfect. I hated the attention, but I would need it.

A palpable tension hung in the air, and it seemed like I had disrupted the table in the midst of an important discussion. Upon my arrival, the table fell into a heavy silence, proving me right, but I opted not to care.

“You interrupt, Cardinal Jude” she said, her voice as cold and sharp as a blade.

In all my life I don’t think she has ever referred to me by anything, but my title. It would not surprise me if she did not know my name or any of her children’s name at that.

“I apologize, Namesake Mother Jude,” I replied, keeping my voice steady and my gaze unwavering as I bowed my head. “I was hoping to have a word, if you would so permit.”

I had played a dangerous card deferring to her, as it was frown upon in the Tellus Rerum not the publicly show favoritism to your Cardinal Dominus. Of all her offspring I was the only one she had to show even a semblance of emotion for. At least while others were watching.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, and for a moment, I thought she might challenge the trap I had set for her. But then she simply nodded and gestured for me take my place at her right. A spot fitting for a Cardinal Dominus. She does not dismiss her subordinates in the room and I do not expect her to, it is a thing of pride as a Namesake Omega. If she sent the men out it would seem as though I had the upper hand, and she cannot have that.

I take my seat, forcing myself to relax into the stiff cushion. This is my only chance and I know I can’t afford to blow it. I had come here with a purpose, and no matter how intimidating Hera might be, I had to see it through.

“Do not squander my time young Cardinal Jude.” Hera warned, her tone now deceptively casual.

Taking a deep breath, I met her gaze head-on. “I have a request of you Namesake Mother. But first, let me start by saying that I’m not here to waste your time. I understand the stakes, and I know what you expect from your Cardinal Dominus.”

Hera leaned back in her chair, a faint smile playing at the corners of her lips. “Interesting. You’ve piqued my curiosity. Go on.”

“Respectfully, Namesake Mother, I wish to step down as Cardinal Dominus. I recommend Second Dominus Omega Alba Deus Jude to take my place as Cardinal. Though I am the youngest of your offspring, I realize I have presented as the most dominate, but where Second Alba falls short as dominus he makes up for in being one of your first offspring. There is also the fact of his many successes in managing and growing Jude Energies throughout the Tellus Rerum. While I was suckling at the breast of my wet nurse Second Alba was already well verse in helping you grow an empire.”

He also had experience being a Cardinal Dominus, as it had been his namesake for almost 20 years, before I was born and took it from him, but it would not do for me to remind Namesake Mother Jude of her most prized offsprings shortcomings.

Hera’s face remains impassive for a drawn out moment, which shouldn’t surprise me as much as it does. I had expected something at the very least, whether it be rage which seemed most likely. Of course I had hoped for agreement with my request, but the longer I sat in wait the less I felt that her dismissing me from my position was going to happen.

“You wish to give away your title as Cardinal Dominus?” She finally asks me, though I know she does not need clarification, only testing my will against her own. The room is silent, and if I hadn’t seen the Omegas still at the table upon my entrance I would not believe there were anyone else here at all. Her tone is icy as she regards me.

“Yes, Namesake Mother Jude.” I say, fighting to keep the nervousness from showing through.

“No. I do not want Alba.” She waves her hand at me dismissively, turning back to the paperwork before her. “You are my Cardinal, the only one of my offspring permitted to continue my line. Next week is your namesake day, the alpha you pick is sure to be lethal and efficient in all its savagery as it is what calls to us Dominus most. If you do not wish to keep the beast after the fact simply put it down or send it away.”

She has no respect for my oldest sibling, who I had thought of as her favorite. I see this clearly now in the way she fails to use titles even in the presence of lesser Omega’s.

My pretty words were never going to work. Hera only operates by one truth. Who is most dominate. And while I know my own Omega presence rivals her’s, I feel powerless to this frigid woman as I rise from my seat and bow.

“I take my leave Namesake Mother Jude.” I say as I turn to leave.

“Young Cardinal?” Hera’s voice dripped with a saccharine sweetness that felt more like poison than honey. It was the kind of tone that could lull a person into a false sense of security, only to crush them with its hidden barbs. My steps faltered, but I forced myself to turn back and face her, masking my unease with a practiced smile.

“Yes, Namesake Mother Jude?” I replied, my tone as neutral as I could manage.

Her smile widened, revealing perfect teeth. “Do not ever mention relinquishing your title to me again, or you will find yourself a plaything to a cesspit of alpha beasts, raped and torn apart in a pit so dark and deep you will think yourself in hell.” The sweetness in her voice evaporated, replaced by a cold, venomous edge that sent a shiver down my spine. She held my gaze for a moment longer, ensuring her words were fully absorbed, before waving her hand dismissively again.

“Yes, Namesake Mother Jude,” I responded almost hollowly, feeling the weight of her decree settle over me like a vice around my fate.

The title ‘Namesake Mother’ felt like sand in my mouth a testament to our twisted familial bond. The honorific ‘Jude’ was an ancient term, one that harkened back to a time of religious and political power struggles, fitting for someone like Hera who thrived on control and manipulation.

As I walked out of her office, the gravity of my situation pressed down on me. Hera was not just any Namesake; she was the one who had the power to shape my destiny from the very beginning. Her empire was built on the backs of those she controlled, and I was no exception. As her ‘Cardinal Dominus,’ I was expected to uphold the family’s honor, to succeed where others failed, and to never show weakness.

The title I had mentioned relinquishing was more than just a name; it was a symbol of the Jude’s place within the Tellus Rerum meticulously crafted hierarchy. To give it up would be to challenge her authority, to show weakness to the other Namesake Houses, and that was something Hera could not and would not tolerate. I was a fool to think Second Dominus Alba would be enough to sate her greed.

Once back inside the geo lift, I leaned against the cool metallic wall, closing my eyes for a brief moment. The ride down was mercifully swift, and as I stepped out into the lobby I forced myself to shake away any signs of distress or weakness. The large space was just as pristine and imposing as before, but now it felt more like a gilded cage than a place of business. The flustered receptionist glanced at me with a mixture of pity and fear- news traveled fast it seemed -quickly averting her gaze as I approached.

I had come to Hera hoping she might glimpse reason in my words. But Hera was a storm capable of swallowing worlds—fierce, relentless, and unyielding. Nothing would change her mind.

As I navigated my way to where a lesser gender held my personal PortScud, my mind raced with possibilities. There had to be a way to find even a bit of freedom and happiness in this life before I was forced to completely submit to Hera’s will. If I was never going to be free of my title I wanted to at least say I tasted a tiny bit of a normal life before the weight of my responsibilities to my family locked me in this hell for the rest of my life.

One thing was clear: I could not allow myself to be cowed by her threats. Hera may have been the architect of my fate, but I would be the one to shape it.

The answer to all my strategizing came to me late into the endless night, as I lay in my moon capsule alone in my off-port zero-gravity penthouse.

Hera wanted to threaten me—with beasts, with rape, with death? Fine. I would find the most muddy-blooded Vers Alpha I could and keep it at my side to protect me from her, and there would be nothing she could do about it. No law denied me the right to claim the alpha I wanted.

Vers Alphas were infamous for their raw, savage power—bred more for sport than for breeding, more beast than even the average alpha by nature. They stood in stark contrast to the meticulously bred and disciplined Pureblood beasts Hera valued above all else. Finding one whose owner was willing to sell shouldn’t be too difficult—but a prized Vers, especially one owed by someone reckless enough to ruffle Hera’s pristine feathers, would come at a steep price.

It would bruise her pride every time she saw it, and I would bring it everywhere with me, under the guise of a bodyguard, to keep me safe from her ruthless Keepers. Or a special pet if I could get away with it, thought that was likely going to far. Anything less than pure pedigree was a stain in her eyes. But I had no intention of giving her the satisfaction of watching me cower or comply to her expectations of me. If she wanted to play her twisted games, I’d show her exactly how well I could play.

With renewed determination, I set to planning my next moves. Every step had to fall before my Namesake Day—twenty-four hours wrapped in ritual and secrecy. During that time, there would be no chance to secure a Vers, and any alpha offered would be handpicked and scrutinized by Hera herself.

After I came into my Namesake, I would have no autonomy. Any freedom I had now—which was already minimal—would vanish. I would become a pretty little bird in a golden cage, locked away to serve only as a vessel for breeding, preserving the Dominus genes for Jude Energies.

I knew Hera had no plans for me beyond that. I had overheard her discussing it with her closest advisors at an Omega gathering just the day before. She intended to keep Alba in charge of Jude Energies under the guise that I was too young to run the dynasty myself. To her, I was soft, useless—a tool to be kept alive solely for my essence.

That was why I thought that if I stepped down from my position, she might not bat an eye. I could remove myself from the family registry and disappear into the Tellus, finally free to be—or do—whatever I wanted, whatever that might be.

I needed to move quickly and quietly to bond with a Vers before my Namesake Day; otherwise, Hera would simply take it from me, and all my plans would be for nothing. Even a name as powerful as hers could not sever a bond once an Omega chose its alpha. With my new alpha by my side, I would finally have protection—no one could hurt me any longer, and her complete control over my life would end. And maybe, just maybe I would finally gain a little bit of that freedom I craved so badly.

The countdown had begun, each second precious. Failure was not an option—I would not let her control my life any longer.

The underground circuits of Port Ira would be my first steps to freedom.

II

Early in the never ending night even before the waking hours, when the silence of the penthouse was interrupted only by the distant hum of the pulse generator, I began my preparations to leave my off port penthouse. Throwing on loose fit dark blue silk trousers and a matching shirt the likes of which cost enough to cover a lesser genders living expenses for several months.

My thick, blonde curls—always a source of displeasure for my keepers—were wild from sleep, a far cry from the flawless, gelled-back style I was expected to wear. Their texture wasn’t inherited from my Namesake Mother but from the nameless pedigree alpha she’d bought and then put down, simply because she didn’t want it anymore—and refused to let anyone else have it either.

My eyes were the Jude standard shade of blue, pale to the point they almost looked white, but to me they were nothing particularly extraordinary and nowhere near as icy cold as Hera’s.

Yet as my eyes met their reflection in the mirror, an unsettling chill settled in my gut. Memories of a sleepless night from my youth surged forward—the roar of violent radiation storms shaking the very core of my off-world penthouse. A gift from Second Dominus Alba on my second birth year, it had become my personal prison, even twenty-three years later—though whether that was his intent, I still couldn’t say.

The sound of the storm outside now was the only thing that could drown out the turmoil within me—years of Hera’s hand-picked abusers, designed to keep me compliant and under lock and key at all times: Keepers, teachers, wet nurses. Every mistake, every misstep was met with beatings, starvation, or solitude sanctioned by the woman who was supposed to be my mother. Though I hated them for what they had done, I hated them even more for their freedom—something I would never have. The long, lonely nights stretched endlessly here, so quiet that even my own breath felt unbearably loud.

I gripped the cold metal sink as the barely contained, lethal intensity in that unsatisfied gaze from the mirror dredged up memories I had no desire to face. It left a bitter taste in my mouth, twisting the corner of my practiced smile downward—something I quickly corrected. One must always smile. The icy grip of my first handler still lingered, clutching tight even now.

My PortScud was designed only for quick skims—short trips between my penthouse and the few places within Port Gelu I was allowed to visit. Not many, since all my education and every necessity- minus my desire- were provided within these walls. If I wanted to reach Port Ira, I’d need to find something bigger—something fast and less traceable.

Off-Port Skiffs or OPS weren’t impossible for Omega’s to acquire normally, but my every move was always monitored in this family, and it seemed unlikely anyone would believe I just felt like going to Ira when I had never shown any desire to go before. I would need a convincing cover story and the right timing to pull off this escape. Hera’s watchful eyes were everywhere, and any misstep would result in severe consequences.

The corridor from my quarters to the geo lift at the entrance of my penthouse was lined with shimmering, translucent walls that allowed glimpses of the bustling port far below my gilded cage. My every move was always predictable and monitored. To at least delay detection, I needed to leave at an unusual hour, under the cover of the early morning shift change when my Elder Keeper’s vigilance was at its lowest. I waited until I heard the tinkering sounds of a Keeper clearing the seating place adjacent to the geo lift in preparation for their relief.

There was usually about a thirty to forty-five minute window, in the early hours of never ending night, before the Keeper assigned to me during my waking hours would show up. And if I adhered to my typical schedule I wouldn’t be up and about in my penthouse until late into the waking hours. So it wouldn’t seem weird if all was quiet for a few more hours. At the sound of the grav lift doors I knew it was my time, but despite my anxieties, I waited a good ten to fifteen minutes, before I let myself open my door into the penthouse hallway.

My throat was tight as I glided through my now silent, Keeperless penthouse, and into the geo lift that would take me down to the airdoc where my PortScud was kept. I felt as if any moment I would be stopped as I strapped in and placed my index finger along the metal exterior of the Scud, successfully syncing it to the data chip surgically placed just behind my left eye. The quiet hum of the machine barely masked the nervous rhythm of my heartbeat as I took off down toward Port Gelu.

Arriving at the hangar, I slowed my PortScud with only a thought, attempting to look like I wasn’t out of place as I mentally requested the port restricted vehicle to come to a stop and power down next to a long line of unassuming spacecraft. The vast expanse of the port hangar stretched out before me, filled with various Skiffs, PortScuds, Outer Galaxy Flier’s and Pleasure Cruise Gliders. My eyes locked onto the sleek, silver silhouette of an Off-Port Skiff, its aerodynamic design promising the speed and stealth needed to easily hop Ports.

Not even a moment after transfering from my scud onto my own two feet did a deep voice resonate through the skiff hanger with an air of authority. There was a brooding undercurrent beneath their tone that had my heart drop into my stomach. Had Hera already figured out my plan? Surely by now my Keeper would have gotten the ping that my data chip had been synched with my Scud, but realistically I should have at least twenty to thirty minutes before any of my Keepers could get here. By then I hoped to be well away from Port Gelu’s boundary line and therefore out of range of any force syncing from nearby data chips.

Concealing my evident discomfort, I mustered a mischievous and carefree smile as I turned to face the nameless Keeper that had caught me sniffing around a hanger I definitely had no business being in.

“Greetings’ Elder Keeper, I am Cardinal Omega Cassius Deus Jude, I mean no harm, I only wish to acquire an Off-Port Skiff.”

The Keepers face shifted into a mask of unimpressed boredom, as if he had anticipated more from the young Cardinal of the Jude Namesake House, and now that I hadn’t met those expectations, he couldn’t be bothered. This thought alone sent a jolt of annoyance coursing through the me like lightning in a field. I truly had no interest in meeting anyone’s expectations, of this plan wasn’t proof enough of that, yet it never seemed to stop hurting when I failed to perform.

“You are not currently permitted for off port travel, Cardinal Dominus Jude. I will contact Second Dominus to confirm a data sync request or a keeper escort back to your residence.” The elder Keeper droned in a monotone voice, his large bald head lowered in deference.

Somehow, I could tell I was anything but respected in that moment. Gritting my teeth, I forced my face into an innocent smile. “Oh, that’s not necessary. It’s a bit of a secret between me and Brother Second, you see—a Namesake Day gift. He saw no reason for data sync requests or escorts on a silly little off-port trip that wouldn’t even last a full day.” I waved my hand nonchalantly, trying—and failing—to make the whole thing seem unimportant enough to bother anyone in House Jude.

I moved to step away from the Elder Keeper, eager to dismiss his attention and find an OPS quickly—fast enough to slip off port before any more questions came.

But a firm grip seized my elbow, stopping me cold. Glancing over my shoulder, I found myself face to face with a new presence—someone I hadn’t noticed before, distracted as I was by the menacing keeper whose only plan seemed to be to shove me back into my gilded cage.

The newcomer carried that familiar, simmering hostility—a thick blanket of barely contained rage I could usually sense long before he stepped into a room. It was none other than my Third Regress Brother, Atticus: a rough-edged Omega eleven years my senior, his haughty face marked by a fresh scar slicing across it. Somehow, the cut didn’t mar his looks—it only sharpened them. I had no doubt he took quiet pride in that fact.

The scruffy voice of my only male Regress sibling cut through the air.

“And just where do you think you’re running off to, oh sacred Cardinal Dominus?”

Any snarky retort I’d planned vanished the moment I spotted the Acro rifle strapped to Atticus’s hip and leg.

“Port Ira, Third Regress Brother. Brother Second said I could—as a treat for my Namesake Day.”

“Port Ira? And why would you want to go there Little Cardinal?”

“I wish to see the fights, before my namesake day when it would no longer be appropriate for me to travel to such a place.” I say softly, trying and failing to hide the disappointment in my voice. Any future plans will no longer work now, all data syncing to my chip will be denied-even to my PortScud after what I have done tonight.

“I see.” Atticus’s only reply before he released my elbow and turned away.

“Let us go then, Brother Cardinal.” A teasing sneer twisted his scarred smile when he caught the flicker of relief on my face.

Without a word of protest from me, Atticus, his personal keeper, one I had not noticed, and I swiftly turned, leaving the Elder Keeper of the hangar behind. I was guided deeper into the facility, toward Atticus’s personal OPS. Atticus’ keeper’s grip on my bicep was like iron—tight enough to snap me like a toothpick—and despite my best efforts to stay calm, a wave of fear rolled through me.

Judging by the smug smirk, the expensive suit, and his typical attitude, tailor-made to taunt. Atticus didn’t care in the slightest what I was up to in these early hours. All he knew was that whatever it was would piss off our Namesake Mother, and he planned to enjoy every second of it.

I had half a mind to tell Atticus to fuck off. Partly because, while he’d never been outright hateful to me like some of the others, he had a knack for making all our lives harder. He was the outlier—the problem, a thorn in our Namesake Mother’s side—but still useful enough as a bruiser for her and Jude Energies to keep around. A necessary nuisance for the Jude name.

Summoning a deep breath, I pulled sharply, wrenching my arm free from the Keeper’s grip while shooting him a pointed glare—silent, but unmistakable: Who are you, a lesser, to touch me, a Cardinal? The mere feel of a Keeper’s skin against my own stirred awful memories, sending my nerves rattling, but I could not afford to break down now. If anything, it strengthened my resolve to find my Vers. With him, no Keeper would ever lay a hand on me again. No one would hurt me. He would protect me—and in turn, I would care for him to the best of my abilities.

I would be a kind owner, I vowed. My Vers would want for nothing.

Then, forcing every ounce of control over my emotions, I rearranged my features into a wide, dazzling—and most importantly, utterly fake—smile and took a step forward.

“I’m so glad you’re willing to take me, Brother Atticus,” I said, the lie slipping out fluidly. “I was worried Brother Second would be upset with me for wanting to see the fights before my Namesake Day.”

My tone was carefully stripped of the tension that still pulsed through my body moments before. I twisted my fingers innocently and tucked my ears into my shoulders, trying to look smaller—though by most Omega standards, I was already fairly short. I glanced at my brother.

“I shouldn’t have tried to sneak out using Brother Seconds name. I apologize for my dishonesty.”

I said it more for the Keeper’s benefit than anything else—though the apology was nothing but empty words.

A shiver ran down my spine as Atticus’s unnervingly pale eyes locked onto me with sharp focus. My posture stiffened under his intense gaze. Normally, with any other Omega, I could flash a sugary smile—reminding them I was just the naive young Cardinal they didn’t need to worry about. A Pure, a tool meant only to carry on the Jude line.

But seeing it from that perspective, I struggled to separate myself from the thousands of alphas locked in cages. And the reality of that burned quietly beneath the surface.

But Atticus wasn’t your typical Omega—numbed by the high-society lull of Port Gelu. He was sharp. Calculating. If I didn’t sense the regress in him, I might’ve mistaken him for a Cardinal himself. Yet something about that regress was twisted, broken even, laced with a bitterness that made it taste wrong to my senses. Still, despite it all, I’d never felt truly afraid of my Third Regress Brother. Distant, yes. But never fearful.

It was barely more than a concept—a feeling, like an itch at the back of my mind. Something Second Dominus Alba had called the Omega Intuit. He often counseled me to practice it, insisting that learning to fully harness one’s essence was a crucial step toward becoming a respected Omega. I had tried occasionally, but my essence was difficult to restrain for long periods let alone wield it, and I always lost focus before I could truly discern it. It was said that every Cardinal possessed this ability, though I would not receive formal training until after my Namesake Day.

It was no surprise that I struggled with it. More often than not, I felt that my very existence as a Cardinal was a mistake, a flaw in a system that demanded perfection.

The keeper guided us past a row of unmarked doors within the OPS before finally opening one I assumed led to Atticus’s personal quarters. Without sparing me a glance, Atticus sank back into a plush lounge couch—a sleek setup with a low table and two stiff-looking chairs facing him.

“Something for the table, Keeper,” Atticus said casually, snapping his fingers with a flippant air. The Keeper remained reserved, inscrutable as ever, while that same nonchalant smirk curled on Atticus’s lips—dripping with deliberate mockery.

Whether that scorn was aimed at the Keeper or me, I couldn’t say. Maybe he saw the whole world as a joke, with no one spared from his contempt. That felt more likely—and my intuit agreed.

The keeper left, and I couldn’t hide my discomfort as the man disappeared. He’d been the only buffer between me and Atticus—a lesser, yes, but still something. Now it was just the two of us in Atticus’s quarters, and only then did he finally speak. Always on his terms. Ever the cold, twisted Omega. .

“So, you’re a perjurer now, little Cassius? Oh, how heartbroken our Second Dominus will be when he learns his innocent, precious little Cardinal has soiled his Pure Omega name with lies.”

Atticus chuckled softly, as if congratulating himself on his sharp little jab at my status.

I blinked rapidly, tilting my head with genuine puzzlement. Brother Second? Heartbroken over me? The thought was almost laughable.

Internally, I snorted dryly, but outwardly, my placating smile never wavered. Atticus must be delusional—bitter, old, and every inch the hateful Omega.

Alba had never offered me a flicker of emotional warmth—no tenderness, no heartbreak. If I weren’t so grounded in science, I might have believed he had no heart at all. Yet, in my mind, he stood as the faintest shadow of a paternal figure, the only one I had.

To say Alba lacked a heart was to confess I had grown up a lonely, isolated child, starved of both nurture and growth, body and soul stunted by neglect.

But it was the truth I could not escape.

Hera—and most of my siblings, save for Atticus, who was at least a yearly nuisance—had been absent during those fragile years, never there to soften the harsh edges of my solitude or fill the aching hollow within. I had never spoken out about the abuse to Alba or Atticus, partly for fear of Hera’s retribution, but more so because I suspected they already knew and simply did not care enough to stop it. And confirming that would be to much for me to bare.

I had yet to really meet any of my Regress sisters—the one closest in age to Alba remained a stranger, and the second I’d only seen once. Hera kept them busy, or so I was told. I stopped caring a long time ago.

There had never been any fondness or affection between my siblings in me—Alba was just cold responsibility, the duty of a Second Dominus tending to the Namesake Cardinal, as custom demanded. I couldn’t say for certain I’d even be alive if not for Alba’s sense of duty, but there was no love in it.

“What would make you say that, brother? Brother Second cares little for me or what I do. A silly little fib wouldn’t even register on his radar…”

But sneaking away from my Keepers? That would.

Atticus watched me for a long moment, the silence heavy with unspoken truths. Then he returned one of my own fake smiles—only his was venomous, while mine tasted sickly sweet. Maybe I learned the craft from him. I don’t know.

“You fail to see much my little Cassius, but that is alright.” He sits up excitedly then, waving me toward him. “Come. Sit. Enjoy yourself!” He all but howls in false joviality.

Then he drove the nail into my proverbial coffin—at least, as the old-world ancestors in my textbooks used to say. Tellus Rerum has no place to bury its dead, so the idea of a coffin is foreign. For families too poor to afford the stoves, the dead are packed up and jettisoned light-years away, to the outer edges of Tellus Rerum. There, in a mass offload just beyond Port Pestis, your empty husk is fired into the cold, endless grave of space.

I can see my future mass offload clearly now—a lifeless, frozen bulbous thing that was once my body, drifting away in my mind’s eye as my twisted regress of a brother taunts me.

“I find myself bubbling with excitement to show you the beastly little toys I’ve crafted for my own pleasure,” he sneers. “Feral, mindless things—my alphas—but so delicious to watch as they savage each other, all for the chance to scent me.”

III

Atticus had always carried an air of trouble, a scent of mischief laced with something sharper, darker, that clung to him no matter the years. Where Alba felt like a father—or at least a mentor—someone I never wished to disappoint, Atticus was the reckless blood kin who would happily drag me into his nonsense. Only with Atticus, nonsense had a way of turning dangerous before you realized you were in over your head. And now, as ever, he was doing just that. For a young, peculiar little Cardinal like myself, entangling with someone who had a talent for infuriating our eldest brother was less a risk and more a recipe for disaster—one I suspected I was already halfway through tasting.

“I can’t wait, Brother! Are they truly dreadful? Will they hurt me?” I ask, feigning nervousness while doing my best to appear as though I’m barely containing my excitement. I couldn’t seem too outwardly pleased about seeing the fights—after all, my reputation was carefully cultivated. In every social circle, I was known as a Cardinal untouched by violence, someone docile, emotionless, and above reproach. To be seen doing—or even witnessing—anything untoward would crack the façade I was expected to maintain.

I purposely chose not to comment on the more unusual thread in Atticus’ palpable excitement—his alpha toys. How laughable. How could a living, breathing creature with emotions and a voice be reduced to something as hollow as a toy? The lesser genders might be beneath us, yes—but a toy? Something about that felt wrong, though how would I know? I had never been allowed within arm’s reach of an Alpha in my entire life. Still, I couldn’t help but think my brother’s arrogance was shameful, certain it would one day be his undoing. Not that I intended to point this out now; such an insult might sour my chances of securing one of those so called ‘toys’ on Port Ira.

And besides, my brothers—and probably my sisters, though I couldn’t say for certain—rarely took kindly to the word no. Perhaps it was simply the nature of being born into a Namesake family, where even the lowest-ranking Omega was treated like royalty while port-side.

“Only if they get a hold of you, little Cardinal,” Atticus replied in a singsong voice that was anything but reassuring. His scarred lips curled into a smirk before stretching into a slow, deliberate smile—baring every tooth as if testing their bite. His pale eyes locked onto mine, holding me there, weighing me, like an old world panther from my studies, wondering how long it could toy with its food before the kill.

He thought he was in control. That I was harmless. That I would squirm under the scrutiny and let him drink in my discomfort. And I did—at least enough for him to taste it. Let him think he was winning. Let him underestimate me, as they all did. The best place to hide a blade was in plain sight, and my brother was far too distracted by his own cleverness to notice the one I kept hidden.

For the most part, the long waking hours of endless night had passed without incident, though our conversation remained stilted and awkward as we ate. I dreaded this off-port excursion, but the thought of returning to Port Gelu with Atticus—empty handed, without my Vers to protect me, was terrifying.

We had begun dining some time ago, enduring the constant, droning corrections from Atticus’s Keeper on what was considered proper for a Cardinal to eat. It was a lecture I had suffered through every waking moment of my life, each word as rehearsed as a liturgy. Atticus, for what it was worth, seemed to loathe it even more than I did—though I had never once allowed my own distaste to show.

Most of what my brother favored for dinner was considered far too heavy for any Cardinal. Red meat, grains, and spice were all strictly forbidden, or so the Keeper insisted, swiping the plate Atticus had piled for me before I could even reach it. I was well aware of the rules dictating what I could and could not eat, yet I had foolishly hoped that a Keeper assigned to a Regress Omega wouldn’t be privy to the exact workings of a Cardinal’s diet. Could it really hurt to eat something taboo one time in my life?

There was also the matter of bread—something I had long wondered about. Years ago, I had overheard the Keepers speak of fresh loaves from the thermo-ovens of the port granaries: flaky, buttery, so soft they nearly melted in your mouth. Since then, it had become the subject of countless daydreams. So, when I saw the spread laid out before me—so unlike the austere meals I was allowed at home—the large, unassuming loaf set off to the side of the table drew my attention completely. I could think of little else.

Atticus noticed my focus almost immediately, much to my embarrassment. I had always taken pride in being less transparent, more controlled in the presence of others. Yet that loaf—simple, unassuming, forbidden—called to me with a pull unlike anything I had ever felt.

An almost-smile tugged at the scar of Atticus’ face in that moment. Without a word, he cut me a slice of the loaf and slathered it thickly with a soft, creamy spread—what the lower genders apparently called butter—only for it to be snatched from my grasp by his Keeper before I could take a bite.

My brother had always been a handful, a truth I learned early and understood even more with age. I rarely saw him working or attending social gatherings—Hera would never allow it—but on off-days, for no apparent reason, he might request a meal with me, where we exchanged maybe two words. Or he’d invade my penthouse for half an hour to interrogate me about my studies. Something I didn’t exactly enjoy but never refused because he didn’t seem actually want to be there. I assumed it was an obligation set on him by Alba and never questioned it.

Still he could be disgruntled, short-tempered, even spiteful, though rarely it felt directed toward me or anyone outside our Namesake Omega. He seldom raised his voice, and I had never, ever seen him release his Omega essence. Even in anger, his presence remained almost imperceptible.

But the way he had banished the Keeper from his quarters made me start in surprise. His regress attribute tinged the air like smoke from the off-port cigars he so enjoyed—soured now with rage. My Dominus instincts prickled at the challenge, and I wrinkled my nose involuntarily, caught between caution and fascination.

A low, involuntary rumble left my throat at his posturing, though I knew it wasn’t meant for me. Cardinals rarely tolerated the release of another Omega’s essence in their presence—a primal need for the Dominus to remain in control, I assumed. The urge had seldom presented itself to me, even amid Omegas at social gatherings and their constant bickering for Hera’s favor. It was rare for my instincts to correct anyone, yet now, I felt that subtle pull stir.

Atticus seemed to be just as shocked by my warning as I had. Reining in his essence almost as quickly as he had released it. The Keeper visibly deflated at the clashing essence’s that now filled the small space. He quickly placed the slice of bread back in front of me and excused himself politely, first to me and then to my brother, before making a hasty exit.

Atticus simply sat back, his icy white eyes fixed on me as he barely touched his meal, instead drawing a thick cigar from his pocket and taking a long, deliberate puff. With his imposing bald Keeper absent, I seized the opportunity, snatching the bread from my plate and devouring it as if it might be snatched away again. The taste surpassed everything I had imagined—flaky, buttery, almost melting on my tongue. The Cardinal-appropriate meals I had endured all my life now tasted like ash in comparison.

Atticus scoffed loudly at my gluttony, which made the tips of my ears warm, before cutting me another slice and warning me to chew properly—a warning that felt more like a threat than advice. I indulged in three more slices, each expertly lathered with butter by his hand. I could have finished the entire loaf, but forced myself to stop, wary that the Keepers would notice and punish me later.

I hadn’t dared touch the red meat or most of the other dishes on the table; they looked strange and bloody, and while I wouldn’t call them unappetizing, I didn’t feel brave enough to break any more rules than I already had today.

“You’re rather lucky I was on my way off-port, little brother. I don’t think your fib would have gotten you far, had I not happened upon you and that Keeper,” Atticus said, exhaling a plume of smoke.

The bitterness of the cigar stung my eyes and pricked at my Dominus instincts, but I held my tongue, wary of provoking his spite.

“I humbly thank you for the meal and your hospitality, Third Regress Brother. I am in your debt,” I replied, deferring only the socially acceptable amount, tilting my chin in measured thanks.

Atticus was a glutton; give him a crumb, and he would take the entire loaf. And take he did, his crooked smile nearly predatory as he pressed his advantage.

“Oh, how fun!” he exclaimed mockingly. “I can’t wait to make use of this new debt, little brother. Any ideas on what exactly you could do for me?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something, brother,” I said, my false smile tight and uncomfortable. Atticus laughed from his belly, a rich, gleeful sound that almost sounded genuine.

The rest of our conversation unfolded much like all my interactions with my elder brothers—strained, layered with unspoken tensions and hidden agendas. I had to monitor nearly every word, every gesture.

My reasoning for wanting to see the Vers alpha fights lacked depth, childish at best. I hoped that superficiality fit well enough with the image I maintained on-port, so no one would suspect. But Atticus—with his cold, calculating gaze—had a way of making me feel as though he could see through every half-truth and lie, leaving me a mere pawn in a game I didn’t fully understand. Much like Hera, though I suspected he’d be loath to hear the comparison.

His same disgruntled tirades never changed, though the barbs were rarely aimed squarely at me. Instead, they targeted the social and political climate of Gelu, Hera and her schemes, or anything else he could rant about.

“They’re dull,” he would say. “No substance—just brainless pawns in Hera’s webs.” He liked to call her a black widow, because she killed everything she fucked and poisoned the rest.

But beneath his disgruntled facade, I sensed a flicker of something else—perhaps concern, perhaps frustration. It was buried so deep beneath layers of calculated non compliance that I could never be certain.

Still, I let him drone through his usual nonsensical grumblings, words that felt as though they passed over my head and would have spilled out whether I was there or not, all while he drank and puffed on his cigars. The never-ending night stretched on, each moment more vexing as I navigated the waking hours under my brother’s piercing gaze.

Port Ira, one of the farthest ports from Gelu, consumed nearly half the wakeful hours, even aboard a high-end OPS. Every second felt excruciating, a constant reminder of how precarious my situation truly was.

Atticus’s Keepers—slowly filtering back in over time, save for the one sent away earlier—hovered like a living shield, their silent presence amplifying the tension. Finally, clearly growing bored with our one-sided conversation, Atticus led me on a tour of the skiff’s inner workings.

I found it impossible to hide my fascination when our tour paused at the engine room—a bleak, sweltering space filled to the brim with machinery that could maim or kill, and a prethla of lesser genders who looked dirtied and semi defeated. Yet something about the room captivated me: the fluidity of its operations, the way everything had a place, every movement precise, every worker knowing exactly when and what to do. It was contained chaos, unlike anything I had ever witnessed. I fired a whirlwind of questions at Atticus, mainly because I did not think it beneath me to ask, though I think my brother didn’t agree and he was very short in his answers. And it wasn’t long before the Keepers nudged us along to the next area.

Their silent scrutiny pressed down on me like a physical weight, as if they could see straight through my carefully constructed facade. Every moment in their presence was a test of resolve—a battle to maintain composure to never slip from behind my Cardinal mask.

Things were looking bleak, to say the least.

By the time we finally reached Port Ira, deep into the waking hours, my heart still raced, adrenaline from the day’s tension thrumming through me. Relief at being away from Atticus and his Keepers was palpable—but it was tempered by a strange, hollow sadness as I stepped into the small, bare room that would serve as my temporary haven.

The space was utilitarian, a harsh contrast to the lonely opulence of my Gelu penthouse. The Moon Capsule, while serviceable, lacked the plushness I was accustomed to; the walls were painted a dull, uninspiring gray. A small console displayed the local time and temperature—a cold contrast to me usual setup.

Atticus had made it abundantly clear that a port like Ira—with its lower-status populace of lesser genders—was beneath him. We would sleep on the skiff and descend to Ira in the early waking hours of the following endless night. The disdain in his voice had been unmistakable, and I couldn’t help but feel a pang of something—pity? regret?—that I couldn’t quite name.

Why must the lesser genders be scorned so? Would my brother look at me with the same distaste I had heard in his voice this endless night if I had been born as one of them? Alba? Was I being foolish for wanting more, when from the outside it seemed I already had everything?

I should have felt elated. I had successfully pulled the wool over my Namesake family’s eyes, at least for now. The oppressive weight of being Cardinal Dominus seemed to lift, if only slightly, at the thought of this temporary escape. My Vers would be the protection I need and then maybe being Cardinal wouldn’t be so bad.

Yet as I lay on the narrow skiff capsule, a well-deserved sleep creeping over me, a nagging unease settled in my chest. The room was quiet, save for the hum of the OPS thrusters and the faint, artificial sound of waves—a simulation designed to soothe passengers on long cross-galaxy trips, a pale echo of the ancient oceans I would never know.

With a drawn-out yawn, I rolled over, burying my face in the thin, scratchy pillow, desperate to quiet the tumult of my thoughts. The day had been long, a careful dance of tension and subtle maneuvering, yet instead of relief, a hollow emptiness pressed down on me. Reaching Port Ira had stripped away a layer of illusion, leaving me raw and exposed.

As I finally drifted into an uneasy sleep, the day’s memories twisted into distorted dreams. My Namesake mother’s icy gaze bore into me, a chilling reminder of the oppression I fought to escape. Even the artificial waves, once soothing, now crashed ominously against the shores of my consciousness. And through it all, questions gnawed at me, relentless: Would this Vers truly protect me from her? Would a bond be enough to keep him at my side? Or was this all for nothing?

That question haunted me through the endless night.

IV

If Port Gelu was modeled after the thousand-foot metropolises of Old Earth, Port Ira was a living echo of the ancient tales men once called the Roman Empire.

Where Gelu gleamed—its towers of glass and alloy vanishing into artificial clouds, its streets replaced by manicured gardens and strolling paths where the wealthy could pretend to walk in some idealized past, and where silent Port Scuds and shimmering ZGrav rails hovered between clustered skyscrapers—Ira sprawled.

Gelu’s zero-gravity marvels were a novelty, a status symbol—proof of its monopoly on artificial gravity, one of many prizes clutched by Jude Energies. Ira, by contrast, clung to the weight of the real. Its buildings were grounded, its people earthbound, the press of their presence as tangible as the uneven cobbles beneath my feet.

Jude Energies had no stranglehold here—or, perhaps more unsettlingly, they simply didn’t care to.

Port Ira was a relic in motion, its grandeur measured not in height but in breadth. Wide stone plazas stretched between crumbling facades, some genuine survivors of a bygone era, others meticulously crafted imitations. Great archways rose over narrow streets, their worn reliefs whispering of long-forgotten victories.

The city pulsed with life: vendors shouting over the din, hawkers weaving through crowds, and citizens moving with practiced ease through a labyrinth of cobblestone lanes and shaded alleys. The air was rich with the scent of spice, frying food, and leather, and the market’s constant clamor rolled through the streets like an unbroken tide.

The contrast between the two ports was jarring. Where Port Gelu was a marvel of technological advancement, Port Ira embraced a rough, historical charm. The old-world design of Port Ira was accentuated by the heavy presence of wrought iron railings, age-worn statues, and grand arches that seemed to echo the footsteps of ancient emperors.

As the PortScud descended toward Port Ira, the sleek hum of new-age technology felt almost alien against the sprawling canvas of old-world streets below. We skimmed above the heads of the lower genders, gliding over narrow stone lanes teeming with foot traffic—a city where life still moved on the ground while we passed overhead. The ancient port’s charm was undeniable, but it was also clear that the gritty reality of daily life here was far removed from the effortless luxury of Port Gelu.

It was here, in this starkly ancient environment, that I found myself—escorted by my brother Atticus and his keeper off the Scud and into the heart of a city that seemed to defy the passage of time. As Atticus navigated us through the labyrinth of streets and alleys, I felt the weight of centuries pressing down on me, mingling with the tension of my escape. Perhaps it was only the subtle difference in gravity between Gelu and Ira—two percent heavier on Ira which mimicked closer to Earth’s gravity—but the effect was undeniable.

The ancient port thrummed with a rhythm of its own—a pulse reminiscent of Gelu’s high-society energy, yet entirely different. Amid the chaos of lower-gender existence, my discomfort at their treatment—and the sadness of their lives—felt almost laughable, as though my concerns were misplaced. Why should their lives be considered less than my own simply because they lacked modern cities, electricity, zero gravity, penthouses, and the frivolous gatherings of wealthy Omegas flaunting their status? These lesser genders’ lives were not beneath mine—just different.

To Omegas, Alphas were little more than breeding instruments, chosen and discarded at will, like flipping through a catalog of fleeting options to be replaced when novelty faded. They were not seen as individuals, certainly not as equals, but as tools. This dehumanization did not stop with Alphas. Most Omegas regarded any being outside their status as lesser, creatures beneath them in the natural order.

Raised on this objectifying ideal, I struggled to see lower genders in any other light—even when I felt it was wrong. Yet in moments like these, when flashes of their humanity broke through, I could not deny the injustice of it all.

That notion sits heavy with me on many lonely nights, as I consider that the basis of my essence at birth is the only thing keeping me from the black. I often wonder if the ways we live in the Tellus Rerum are wrong, yet nothing seems out of place to those around me. Except for myself—I am an anomaly, a discordant note in a composition meant to be perfectly in tune. I am not the right temperament, too small for an Omega, to young and to inexperienced no matter how much I study. I fall short of the essence I should never have possessed, a mantle I wear without merit, ill-suited to me in every way.

Few realize that Omegas can produce offspring beyond their own kind, though it is necessary; without this, all genders but Omega would cease to exist. Yet an Omega does not publicly announce their pregnancy. With a term four months shorter than that of ancient Earth females, a Namesake Omega carrying a child—marked only by slight weight gain and a subtle shift in essence—withdraws from society, accompanied solely by a single Keeper. Once the child is born, if deemed undesirable, it is quietly removed from the household.

While it is unlawful to terminate any child born within the Tellus Rerum, lesser-born children are sent to the Copiis to be trained for the working class or adopted by lesser-gendered couples of sufficient wealth, though unable to bear children themselves. Alpha newborns, however, face rigorous testing from birth: the less temperamental are sold to breeding facilities, while the unfortunate—the Vers—are condemned to the pits.

Some Namesake Mothers, obsessed with preserving the purity of their bloodline, grant their undesirable offspring no chance at all. To them, diluting their lineage with anything less than perfection is a fate worse than obscurity. With sufficient wealth, an Omega can discreetly slip away from the confines of the Tellus Rerum. There, adrift in the vast black of endless night, should their child be anything other than Omega, it simply vanishes into the abyss—erased as if it had never existed.

My heart hammered louder with each step, clouded by conflicting thoughts. Would Atticus find it strange if I voiced an interest in purchasing a gladiator after watching the matches? Omegas often bought and sold more docile Vers for amusement—or for protection—but I was not simply any Omega. I was the Cardinal of Jude Energies. Hera had made it clear no Alpha would reside in her home and many of the Omegas on Port Gelu had followed her lead to get in her good graces. To own a Vers outright as her offspring might draw dangerous attention. Her tastes were infamous: Vers were fleeting diversions, never kept past a single night.

This situation was delicate. If I asked Atticus to gift me a Vers for my upcoming Namesake Day, it would hardly raise suspicion. A sibling providing such a thing for his Cardinal would be seen as nothing more than expected generosity. Yet another favor would only deepen the debt I already owed him, and I had no intention of giving Atticus more leverage than he already held.

Worse still, waiting until my Namesake Day might be too late. Even if he agreed, I wouldn’t receive the Vers until after the celebrations—and then bonding would be impossible. That was if I was even lucky enough to keep it. No—if I wanted any protection from Hera, I had to secure one now.

It had to happen now, and it had to be done decisively. If I hesitated, Hera would find a way to manipulate the situation, strip me of any advantage, and maintain control over my life. I needed a Vers—someone bound to me, loyal only to me, capable of shielding me from her reach and the countless others who had tormented me. This was no subtle move; it had to be undeniable, a safeguard against her power that would ensure I could never be forced to obey her will again.

Servants of the Hippodrome greeted us at the entrance, their stiff formality doing little to ease the knot tightening in my stomach. I trailed behind in silence, my eyes wide, my thoughts a tangled snarl, as they guided us into our private viewing room. The chamber was steeped in luxury, its gilded drapery and carved stone a jarring counterpoint to the grim reality that waited just beyond its walls. Most Omega families kept rooms reserved for such spectacles, yet I could not recall anyone aside from Atticus ever setting foot in a place like this.

The air was thick with blood, sweat, and fear—a suffocating haze that clung to the back of my throat. My stomach churned, though I forced myself into stillness. To betray even the faintest unease before Atticus and the Keepers would be weakness, and weakness was something I could not afford. Yet beneath my composure, doubt gnawed at me. What was I doing here, in this pit of violence and degradation? And more damning still—how much was I truly willing to risk just spite Hera?

The arena stretched out before us, a colossal bowl of stone and shadow, roaring with voices that shook the very walls. The crowd’s fervor was intoxicating, their chants rising like a tide, demanding spectacle, demanding blood. From where I sat in our gilded box, it should have inspired awe, perhaps even pride in the wealth and privilege that set me apart from the masses.

Instead, I felt small. Exposed. My carefully measured calm seemed paper-thin beneath the weight of it all—the violence promised on the sands below, the eyes of my brother beside me, the inevitability of what I had come here to do.

An old friend of Atticus was already lounging in our booth when we arrived—Regress Omega Leopold Vis Blackwood. He slouched in a threadbare burgundy suit, as though the seat itself had been molded to his frame and he had no intention of ever rising from it. His arms draped loosely across the backrest, a cigarette dangling from his lips, the smoke curling lazily toward the ceiling. The marble table before him bore the proof of his indulgence: an ashtray spilling over with a dozen crushed butts, the residue of a long, uninterrupted vigil.

I couldn’t help but wonder how many packs he burned through in a day, and how soon it would catch up to him. Hopefully sooner rather than later, if fate had any regard for my distaste. Leopold was the epitome of Omega filth—a leech clinging to the lowest rung of our hierarchy. His very presence left a bitter taste in my mouth, a reminder that even in our carefully ordered world, refuse still found a way to linger.

It was utterly unfair, considering how handsome and wealthy he remained. Smokers were supposed to have sallow skin, thinning hair, yellowed teeth. Had the doctors and their endless warnings lied? Or was Leopold Vis Blackwood simply some infuriating exception to the rules of biology?

A wave of agitation, laced with fear, surged through me at the thought of approaching that table. Half of me wanted to turn on my heel and flee Port Ira altogether, Namesake Day be damned. But the thought barely had time to take root before the older Omega’s gaze found us lingering in the doorway.

Atticus, visibly pleased at seeing his slimy friend, wasted no time pulling me along, his excitement radiating off him. Blackwood’s grimy gaze met mine the instant entered the room. Despite my carefully maintained composure, it felt as though he could see right through me, reading the reluctance and dread simmering beneath the surface. He knew I wasn’t nearly as eager for this meeting as Atticus.

And just like that, I was caught. There would be no turning back.

False greetings and hollow pleasantries were exchanged, but my attention drifted almost immediately. I perched nervously on the edge of the booth, staying close to the holo-shield without feeling the heat from its generators. From this vantage, the arena below stretched before me—yet, to my mounting frustration, the next match had not begun. At least then I had an excuse not to pay attention to my disagreeable company.

More pressingly, how would I choose? How could I find a moment alone with a Vers with Keepers constantly milling about, their eyes unyielding? And even if I did, how would I begin the bonding process—something never taught, never spoken of? The logistics pressed down on me, and suddenly my plan seemed less like a plan and more like a fragile, foolish hope that things would somehow just work out.

My mind raced with schemes and contingencies, so consumed that I barely registered Atticus’s voice—or his presence—until a light shove jolted me back. Reluctantly, I refocused on the conversation unfolding between the two older Omegas.

“Brother, please, do leave that fluffy head of yours,” Atticus drawled, tugging one of my errant curls with a thick, scarred finger, with a casual familiarity that irritated me. He was clearly amused by my distraction. “Leo was asking after your studies.”

Blackwood’s smile—a slow, coy curve of his lips—sent a shiver of discomfort through me as he gestured for me to come closer. The gesture bordered on rude, considering our family’s higher station and my position as Cardinal. Still, tradition demanded respect for elder Omegas, no matter how thinly veiled their intentions. To refuse a more Senior Omega—even one like Blackwood—would invite whispers, and I could ill afford any more attention than I already had with my plans.

So I complied, though every fiber of my being bristled at the gesture.

It wasn’t uncommon for Omegas to sleep together, form alliances, or even marry—despite the obvious fact that such unions never produced children. But Blackwood had no interest in genuine connection; that much was clear. His curiosity about me had little to do with my “studies” and everything to do with asserting dominance. He thrived on it, particularly over those who made him feel inferior. As a Cardinal and so much younger than him, I must have made him feel half a man. Though only a Fifth Regress Omega, his long-standing bloodline had instilled an arrogance that made him believe he could take anything—or anyone—that caught his eye. And whenever Atticus brought him around, I became his most promising—and unwilling—conquest.

His gaze lingered far too long, and though I maintained the polite facade expected of a Cardinal, there was no mistaking the unease bubbling just beneath my skin. Every instinct screamed to run, to hide in Atticus’s Port Scud until Blackwood finally slithered away—but that wasn’t an option. If I wanted my Vers today, the window to act would be painfully narrow.

This booth had already claimed its place as my least favorite spot in all of Port Ira—perhaps even the entire Tellus Rerum.

“What would you like to know, Fifth Regress Blackwood?” I asked, my words hesitant, measured. I kept my eyes on the table rather than his expectant gaze. It was beneath me to avert my eyes like this—I was a Cardinal, after all—but some instinct warned that any display of defiance or interest would only fuel Blackwood’s sick amusement. If I appeared sufficiently submissive, perhaps I could bore him into moving on.

I dared a glance toward the far side of the room. My only hope was that once Blackwood and my brother were sufficiently distracted—smoking, drinking, and throwing money at whichever Vers caught their fancy—I could slip away unnoticed and find my own. What exactly I planned to do once I did, I wasn’t entirely sure. Everything about this plan felt half-cocked, irrational, and unlikely to succeed.

As the thought crossed my mind, my gaze instinctively flickered to the pair of steel-eyed figures at the entrance. The Keepers. They followed my every movement, their rigid posture making it clear I would not escape their sight—not even for a moment.

Keepers. Neither fully Omega nor fully human. Genetically engineered, carefully cultivated—feeling less, speaking little, tiring never. Ultimate servants—or so the Nexus Authority, council leaders of the Tellus Rerum, claimed. And yet, as I stood beneath their unwavering scrutiny, a thought gnawed at me: did they exist to serve us—or merely to control us? Or was that cruelty reserved solely for Hera?

“Come sit with me; I’d love your company,” Blackwood drawled, a predatory smirk spreading across his face. The unspoken meaning was clear: he intended to parade a Cardinal on his arm for all to see.

Fortunately, my brother Atticus, though hardly concerned with my comfort, had his own aversion to anything that might tarnish the esteemed Jude name.

“I think my little Cardinal would much rather meet some of the fighters before the matches than cuddle up to your stench, Leo,” Atticus replied. His barely concealed disapproval cut through the room like a bell. Sharp, controlled, it carried an unmistakable edge of protectiveness—a reminder that even in this den of iniquity, he would not allow Blackwood to overstep too far.

Blackwood’s smirk flickered, if only for a heartbeat. The air thickened with tension as his gaze returned to me, yet I kept my eyes down, concentrating on projecting an enthusiastic façade. I moved closer to my brother, fingers lightly brushing his arm in my excitement.

“Could I really? It wouldn’t be too much trouble?” My voice dripped with eagerness, concealing the unease simmering beneath. The fear of meeting a Vers was minor compared to the dread of lingering near Leo Blackwood—an emotion far easier to read on my face than I likely wanted it to. Staying close to him felt infinitely more daunting, and, conveniently, it played perfectly into my plan to seek out a Vers myself.

When my mother had threatened me with that very fate, terror had rooted me in place. Now, strangely, the thought seemed almost appealing—anything to leave this room. Atticus nodded lazily, taking a long draw from his cigar.

“I’ll leave you and Omega Blackwood to your festivities then, brother. I won’t be long,” I declared, forcing my voice to carry more confidence than I felt.

“Don’t be silly, Cassius. I can’t very well let you go alone,” Atticus replied, his tone protective, concerned more for my safety than my scheming. Still, my heart hammered so loudly in my chest that I couldn’t shake the suspicion: had he already caught wind of my plan?

His use of my name felt oddly familial, perhaps even too intimate, yet in light of his support, it was a discomfort I could accept. After all, he had helped me more than he would ever know.

“I will take a Keeper with me, brother. You need not worry,” I reassured him, forcing a smile to soften my words and conceal the eagerness rising beneath my composure.

Atticus’s gaze—eerily reminiscent of our Namesake Mother’s—scanned my features, searching for unspoken truths. After what felt like an eternity, he finally nodded. It was a small victory, yet one that would not have been necessary had I been born first.

The younger of the two Keepers gestured toward the door, a silent signal, and I nodded once in deference to the older Omegas before excusing myself. The decision of which Keeper would accompany me had clearly been made without my input—a bitter reminder of my place and what they could do to me if I did not comply—but this was not the battle to fight, not here, not now and soon it would not longer matter. My chosen Vers would never let another one of those Keepers near me again if I so wished. I swallowed the discomfort and followed, out of that suffocating room and deeper into the bowels of the hippodrome.

Each step carried us farther from the civility of the upper levels, into air thick with sweat, blood, and damp earth. The walls seemed to press in as darkness swallowed the space, the faint echoes of grunts, shouts, and the clang of metal carrying through the air from above us. The next match must have finally started. My skin prickled as the distant roar of the crowd reminded me that the violence here was not just spectacle for the Vers—it was survival.

The Keeper ahead moved with the usual, emotionless precision of their kind, unfazed by the stench and gloom. For me, though, it was unsettling—dark, foul, and in its own primal way, terrifying. I caught glimpses of darkened passageways spider webbing out around us as we passed: rough-hewn stone walls streaked with water, moss, and gore.

It was darker than I had anticipated. Dim, flickering lights cast long, restless shadows that seemed to move with me. The Keeper ahead appeared as nothing more than a featureless silhouette in the gloom. With every step, the air grew heavier, the passageways more oppressive, and the echo of my own movements sounded almost accusatory, as if the very walls were aware of our presence.

In any other circumstance, the darkness would terrify me—an unknown in a place brimming with danger. But now, in this moment, it worked to my advantage. The Keeper’s indifferent pace and the obscuring shadows created the perfect opportunity. He had not bothered to look back at me once since descending below the pit. If I timed it right, I could slip away unnoticed.

I worked up my courage and moved quickly, veering off down a passage that split five ways as my Keeper continued down the dimly lit stone steps in the direction we had been headed. For a heartbeat, disorientation hit, and panic flared as I realized he could notice my absence any second. My pulse roared in my ears, threatening to betray me.

I forced slow, deliberate breath, just as I had taught myself for moments like this when things felt to much, to overwhelming. Inhale. Exhale. Focus on the rhythm. Gradually, the sharpness of my fear dulled, replaced by clarity. My thoughts quieted, and with a final exhale, I slipped further into the darkness.

Deeper into the stone passageways, iron bars began to line the walls. The cells were tiny, little more than cages, and the sounds that leaked from them—snarls, moans, guttural growls—cemented why Vers were regarded as little more than beasts. Each noise reinforced their perceived place in society: stripped of dignity, reduced to raw, primal instincts.

Small clusters of Alphas sat along the walls, chained in the flickering torchlight, muscles taut beneath their armor, eyes burning with feral anticipation.

I had never actually seen an Alpha before. They were undeniably large, aggressive—snarling, straining against their restraints—but strangely, they also seemed… human. Dirty, angry, but human. The stories I had been told—the monstrous beasts, the uncontrollable killers—seemed almost a lie. Yet, despite their familiarity to my own self, a low hum of dread settled in my chest. Every twitch of muscle, every sharp glance whispered of power just barely contained, of fury that could erupt in a heartbeat.

I wasn’t missing something. I was seeing it—the danger, the violence, the raw, untamed strength—but it was nothing like the legends suggested. Real. Immediate. And far more terrifying for it. A thrill ran through me at the thought: with one of these creatures at my side, no one would ever hurt me again. Hera wouldn’t be able to control me. I would be safe. I could be free.

The darkness sharpened my senses, yet the path ahead offered no clarity. Still, I refused to let it stop me. I lingered just long enough to pass the majority of the cages, glancing inside with growing dissatisfaction. My intuit told me none of these Vers would work, and it became clear that aimless wandering was wasting precious time.

Then, like a light flickering on, I knew exactly what to do. Alba had always told me that a Cardinal’s intuition was unmatched. It was more than status—essence never led you astray. No doubt, no hesitation. I exhaled, releasing my Cardinal essence. Thought fell away; I moved instinctively, guided by the pulse of my own being, just as Alba had instructed. My essence was more than a marker of birthright—it was a compass, a bridge to the world around me, and, most importantly, a way to sense when another’s presence resonated with my own.

I trusted it fully, denying the questions creeping into my mind. There would be time for doubt later. For now, I moved with purpose, letting the natural flow of my essence leading the way.

I hadn’t walked far in the dark before my essence stopped me dead in my tracks. My feet felt cemented to the cold stone, as if I’d collided with an invisible wall. Breath caught in my chest, pulse stuttering with a sharp, undeniable recognition. My eyes widened; my heart pounded faster than I could control.

Whatever composure I had painstakingly gathered here in the dark dissolved instantly. My essence—kept deliberately restrained so just enough would leak out to be useful without revealing my location—spilled from me like water through cupped hands, ripped away against my will. It flooded the space around me, tangling with the air, which now felt thick, charged with something primal, dark, dangerous, wrapping around me like an unseen predator.

I could feel it—the overwhelming presence pressing back against my essence. Alive. Breathing. Waiting. Too late, I realized this was no longer some silly half-formed scheme. This was survival. I needed a Vers—one strong enough to protect me from my family, from Hera, from anyone who would try to bend me to their will. My plan had led me here, to the creature who could be my shield, my safeguard against a life of control and fear. Everything depended on securing him, forging a bond Hera could never break. Nothing else mattered.

A loud gasp escapes me before I can hold it back—raw and unbidden, echoing in the suffocating darkness as I found myself moving toward metal bars of his cell. At the farthest edge of the shadows, he waits. An Alpha unlike any I have ever encountered. Though my experience is very limited, there is something about him—a presence darker, richer, more potent than anything I could have imagined. His very being presses against my essence with an untamed, primal force, making my knees weak, pulling me closer as if bound by something far greater than the chains that hold him.

It is suffocating, overwhelming, yet it calls to me all the same, beckoning in ways I cannot, will not, dare not explain.

Then I saw him—or rather, felt him—even though my eyes could barely pierce the dim light, and in that instant, everything else—the fear, the plans, the doubts—fell away.

He is bound, chained to the wall like a beast: a thick muzzle covering his mouth, a blindfold hiding his eyes. His massive form is still, but the coiled tension in his muscles radiates even to where I stand. I should run. I should flee from the gravity of what I feel, from the overwhelming pull threatening to drag me into depths I cannot escape. But I stand frozen, breath shallow, body betraying me in the presence of something I know could destroy everything.

And then I know. This is the one—my Vers. My ruin. My savior.

V

Upon the release of my breath, a low, almost guttural sound rumbles from the man’s throat, primal and unsettling. It was as if my very presence is too much for him to bear. A fiendish growl escapes his lips, sending a shudder through the thick air as he jerks violently against his restraints, the chains groaning under the strain. My hearts pounding so fiercely I am certain he can hear it, feel it. My gaze, despite my better judgment, drifts lower, where the heavy chains seemed to pull his muscles taut. His well-endowed chest and biceps bulged against the metal, every ripple of his body a testament to the raw power beneath the surface.

The creature—no, the Vers—was kneeling, arms spread wide, yanked so far apart that his shoulders looked as though they might dislocate at any moment. His position, restrained and yet brimming with barely contained violence, should have repulsed me. Instead, it captivated me in a way that left my skin burning and my thoughts a confused blur.

I felt my head spinning, consumed by too many thoughts at once—none of them productive. The longer I let my mind chase itself in circles, the greater the risk of being discovered before I accomplished what I came for. My body moved before I could second-guess myself, driven by something more primal than logic. Despite the overwhelming fear, I stepped forward, into his cell.

Surprisingly, the door was unlocked. Though it seemed laughable to think an Alpha like this—chained so completely—could ever break free from such restraints, the open door still struck me as a dangerous invitation.

And yet, I couldn’t stop myself.

As I crossed the threshold into his domain, I felt his eyes on me. It didn’t matter that he wore a blindfold; somehow, he knew where I was, tracking my every step with a terrifying accuracy. The weight of that awareness caused my insides to twist with nervous energy. I hated it—the feeling of being under his silent scrutiny.

But somewhere deep inside, buried beneath the layers of fear and uncertainty, there was something that relished it. Something that loved the dark intensity of his presence and the undeniable magnetism drawing me closer.

When I finally force myself to kneel before him, the oppressive air of the cell seems to thicken, wrapping around us like a heavy shroud. My eyes, now adjusting to the dim light, take in the full extent of his condition. He is completely exposed, utterly filthy, his skin marked by the brutal evidence of neglect and cruelty. Thick, heavy sores mar his wrists, where the chains have rubbed his flesh raw, and calluses form hard ridges along the edges of the wounds.

A cold metal collar sits ominously around his neck, heavy and unforgiving, weighing him down further, while the muzzle strapped to his face is sharp and jagged, more a tool of torment than a simple restraint. Each subtle movement he makes—every jerk, every twitch—causes the metal to press into his skin, slicing and pinching, as if the thing was meant to remind him of his captivity with every breath.

His eyes are hidden from me beneath a thick, black band, obscuring his gaze and adding another layer of distance between us. Yet, despite the blindfold, there’s no mistaking that he knows I’m here. He doesn’t need his sight to feel my presence, my attribute is thick in the air all around us.

The proximity to his raw, exposed form is both terrifying and electrifying. His body—though buried under layers of filth and grime—calls to something deep inside me. The sores, the scars, the open wounds tell stories of suffering and brutality, yet even in his degraded state, the power that radiates from him is undeniable. It makes my skin prickle, a mix of revulsion and desire warring within me.

Every thick, corded muscle seems to shudder as my hand hesitantly reaches toward him. The chains groan where they’re anchored into the stone, as though they might give way under the strain of his raw power. The tension in the air is palpable, electric, and I can feel my pulse thrumming through my fingertips.

“I need something from you, Vers.” My voice comes out in a low, almost shaky tone, the words not quite as commanding as I’d intended. My hand hovers near the edges of the muzzle, uncertainty seeping into my actions despite my attempts at control. “You will not hurt me if I remove this?” The demand I meant to make instead sounds more like a question, weak and unsure.

Of course, there’s no reply. He remains still, though the air between us seems charged, alive with something I can’t fully grasp. My breath catches in my throat, and for a moment, I just wait—wait for any sign that he might lash out, that my proximity has pushed him beyond the fragile boundary of restraint.

But he does nothing. He simply breathes, his chest heaving beneath the strain of the chains, every inhale deep and ragged, as if he’s been denied this closeness for far too long. My essence weighs heavily in the air, thick and potent, but instead of crushing him beneath its force as it does with most lesser genders—especially those of less dominate Omega presence—his own presence, his Vers, twines with mine. It’s not submission. It’s not a fight for dominance. It’s something else entirely, something I can’t put into words but can feel with every fiber of my being.

I hesitate again, torn between the overwhelming urge to free him from the cruel muzzle and the deep-seated fear that he’ll turn on me the moment it’s gone. The primal part of me, the part that responds to him with an almost instinctual pull, is at odds with my rational mind, which screams at me to stay far away from this monster, this beast.

But I can’t walk away now. I’ve come too far and I need him.

Steeling myself, I reach for the edge of the muzzle, my fingers brushing against the cold, unforgiving metal. I still can’t bring myself to remove it completely, not yet, but the contact is enough to send a shock through me. The air between us thickens even more, and I realize in that moment that I am playing a dangerous game. One that will cost me everything.

I fumble with the clasp of the muzzle, my fingers trembling slightly as I tug at the thick, heavy metal. It takes more effort than I expect, and when I finally manage to break it free, the release feels anticlimactic. The Vers doesn’t react—not the way I’d anticipated. He barely seems to breathe, remaining eerily still, his immense body quivering only in response to my jerking motions as I remove the device.

I murmur weak apologies, guilt twisting in my chest as his head snaps back uncomfortably, but even then, he doesn’t lash out. His silence feels suffocating, but not in the same way that it had before. Now, it’s unsettling. As if he’s waiting for something. As if he’s more patient, more calculated, than I’d imagined for a creature trapped and tortured the way he is.

Once the muzzle is off, I set my sights on the blindfold. This, too, is fastened with cruel efficiency, and when I finally peel it away, the sight beneath makes my breath catch. His face is marred with deep scars, jagged and harsh, the worst of them cutting across his right eye. The damage is clear—the eye itself is clouded, milky and dull, the lid twisted and half-closed due to the thick scar tissue that drags across his brow and cheek. It’s obvious this injury is old, and yet it looks as though it still causes him pain.

I can’t help myself; my gaze is drawn to the other eye—the left one, sharp and dark as pitch. The contrast between the two is striking. That left eye is alive, simmering with intensity, tracking every movement I make, while the right remains cold, empty. I shiver beneath that unrelenting gaze, unable to shake the feeling that, despite his injury, he sees me in a way no one else ever has.

My eyes drift lower, unbidden, tracing the contours of his body. His chest is a broad plane of muscle, thickly defined and dusted with dark hair. It matches the unruly tangles atop his head and the beard framing his jaw, both wild and unkempt. He looks almost feral—like some creature that had once known civilization but had long since been abandoned to its primal instincts.

That same dusting of hair follows a straight line down to his naval and onward tapering into a dark patch of thick curls over his sex. And directly below it, standing partially erect, and seated delicately above a large full set of hairless balls, was the Vers manhood. His cock was thick, long, and veiny, a rod of steel under blush-hued skin. The tip jutted out toward me and slightly to the left, bulbous in shape, and leaking slightly. A part of me thought that if I reached out to touch it the skin would be soft and warm under my fingers. Large sturdy thighs framed it all in on both sides and now, at my slow assessment, they part slightly.

A sharp, jerky breath escapes me as my gaze shoots back to his face. My heart skips a beat when I see the expression that greets me—or rather, the lack of one. His face remains passive, unmoved, a warrior’s face, but that dark, gleaming eye—the one that can still see—dances with something far more sinister. It’s almost… smug.

It’s as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking. Exactly what I’m feeling.

He knows I like what I see, and he’s reveling in that fact. The silence between us stretches on, and I feel the heat rising to my cheeks, my pulse hammering against my throat in betrayal. He doesn’t need words to convey what he’s thinking. The self-satisfaction, the amusement—it’s all there in that gaze, wrapping around me like chains of its own.

He’s trapped, and yet somehow, it feels like I’m the one caught.

The realization sends a tremor through me, my resolve wavering under the weight of his stare. This was supposed to be my decision, my plan—yet standing before him now, it’s clear that control is slipping away from me, bit by bit, with every passing second.

And the worst part?

He knows it.

The chains and his crouched position make any kind of coitus nearly impossible—an act I am now almost certain is the only way to seal a bond. My essence thrums with the rightness of it, even as my mind screams that this is madness—unspeakable, the very thing I came here to protect myself from. Every nerve in my body tells me to stop, to retreat, to flee from the predator beneath me. And yet, the pull is irresistible, a force older and deeper than fear or reason. If I am not willing to give myself entirely, to stake everything on this bond, do I even deserve to ask this creature to protect me? Every heartbeat, every shiver of anticipation, whispers that there is no turning back, that my bodily autonomy, my sanity, and my freedom—depends on this. On us.

The smugness in him goads me, and before I can talk myself out of it, I slide my thin silk slacks down my thighs and perch over the beast’s lap, heart hammering with both fear and defiance.

The moment I slide down over him, the weight of my actions hits me like a Z-grav train. My breath catches in my throat as I straddle him, my slacks bunching awkwardly between us. The beast is unmoving, silent—but the chains groan in protest at even the smallest shift in his posture, a clear reminder of the force barely contained before me.

And then, with a sudden, sharp snap, his jaws lunge toward my face.

A guttural grunt escapes him, almost primal, but mainly pain filled and my heart leaps into my throat, terror shooting through my veins like ice.

I yelp, instinctively pulling back, but I can’t go far—not in this position or I’ll fall from his thighs. Once again, my first thought is to run, to scramble off his lap and flee from the cell, to leave this entire reckless idea behind. But then… something anchors me.

The firm press of his body beneath me, his hot length against me flushed skin, solid and unyielding, strangely grounds me in a way I can’t quite explain. The feel of him pressing against my thighs, the raw, palpable energy radiating off him—it feels dangerous, yes, but intoxicating all the same.

My words leave my lips in a guttural growl, harsher than I’d intended. “You will not bite,” I snarl, the warning clear. This time, it’s not a question or a plea—it’s a demand. Something primal stirs inside me, deep and untethered, as if claiming control in this moment.

Still, the Vers remains silent, but his reaction speaks louder than any words could. His muscles coil beneath me, tense and ready, but not in preparation for an attack. His dark, feral eye gleams with barley contained agony, and I wonder if I hurt him, but in a way, it seems as though he’s soaking me in, waiting to see how far I’ll go. The chains groan again with the weight of his restrained power, but there’s no sign that he intends to lash out, no hint of the violence I’d initially feared.

The low grunt he makes in replay to me vibrates through my entire body, settling deep in my bones. The air between us thickens, charged with something dangerous, intoxicating.

My fingers twitch on his shoulders, the rough skin of his scars hot under my palms, grounding me in the chaos. I can’t help but feel the shift—the tenuous balance between us where one wrong move could shatter everything or ignite something I may not be ready for. His compliance, his silence, and the raw tension between us—it’s like a dance neither of us knows the steps to.

And still, I don’t move. Despite the danger, or maybe because of it, I hold my ground.

The chain at his wrist creaks under the strain of his restrained strength, but all he does is lean forward slightly, testing the limits of his bonds.

“You won’t bite,” I repeat, quieter this time but no less commanding, the rawness in my voice betraying the thin thread of control I’m holding on to.

I plant my feet on either side of him and shift my weight, dropping one of my hands down to grip his length in my hand and align his body with mine. He is too thick to fully wrap my fingers around, which worries me mildly.

My touch is on him for all but a moment before a deep pained breath leaves his clenched jaws and liquid heat splashes up against the backs of my bare thighs and ass. I gasp slightly confused, and a bit overwhelmed by the damp heat of his sudden release on my skin.

A flicker of uncertainty washed over me as I knelt there before him, my pulse erratic and my breath shallow. Was this… normal? I knew so little of Alphas, and even less about this—the raw, animalistic hunger that seemed to roll off him in waves. The way his body strained against the chains, the intensity of his every movement—it all felt far beyond anything I had ever been prepared for. Hera’s gloating, the things they taught us about the uncontrollable sexual nature of Alphas, felt woefully inadequate in the face of this reality.

Was this how it was supposed to be? How I was supposed to feel? Would it change anything?

I didn’t know.

“Nice and easy.” I found myself whispering, my voice barely audible over the pounding of my heart.

My fingers traced the rough edges of his collar, the metal digging into his skin in a way that made me wince on his behalf. It looked so painful, so brutal. And yet, he endured it—he didn’t even flinch when I touched him there, as though he had long since grown numb to the pain. It steeled my resolve and once again I gripped his length. And with a pinched exhale attempt to impale myself upon his sex.

The pain is fierce and almost unbearable as his head presses past the ring of tightly coiled muscle at my entrance. The warning growl cuts through the haze of my thoughts, low and dangerous, vibrating through the thick, oppressive air. It should have yanked me back to the present with brutal force, should have made me freeze. But I barely registered it, too busy reminding myself that my body was built for this—that I could endure it, that I could take it. Despite my encouragement to myself, tears beginning welling up in my eyes, uncontained, unbidden and blurring my vision. I blinked rapidly, trying to fight them back, but the weight of everything is too much—too unfamiliar, too overwhelming.

The Vers jerks against his chains sharply as I grit my teeth and push past the pain, fully seating myself upon him till our thighs are flush together once again. I felt small, so unbearably small, in the shadow of his chained figure. His body radiated raw power, barely restrained by the thick iron that bound him, and yet here I was—stupidly, foolishly—trying to command it.

The breath that escaped me was broken, closer to a sob than anything controlled, and I hated the sound of it. It echoed between us, a tangible display of my weakness, my fragility. But even as the sob slipped out, something primal stirred deep within me—an instinct older than reason, one I couldn’t deny even if I wanted to.

My body, treacherous as it was, wasted little time in responding and reshaping to the intrusion within me. It was as if every fiber of my being knew what was happening, despite the panic and confusion roaring in my mind. My essence shifted, deepening and reshaping itself as though it had been waiting for this moment, bending and yielding to all my Vers would give me.

I move upon him with a broken rhythm, my breaths harsh as they mix with his, the sounds of our flesh meeting obscene in the quiet. I know I should have been embarrassed, but it does nothing to stem the desire now coursing through me.

The stone around us groans as the Vers jerks and snarls, straining to get closer to me. I’m determined to keep us at arm’s length for fear of being bitten, my grip on his shoulders bordering on painful as I take my pleasure from him at my own pace. Even in his chains, bound and restrained, I could feel the shift in his energy, the way his body seemed to tense in response to mine, as though he was waiting for something. The growl that had been threatening to break free from him earlier grew quieter, though no less dangerous, his chest heaving with the weight of it.

I knew, deep down, that I was walking a razor-thin line between submission and destruction. But my body refused to care. It was operating on something beyond reason, beyond even my fear now. There was only instinct, raw and unrefined, guiding me to what I had come here for. A bond.

His deep guttural snarls and growls are warnings I’m unwilling to heed. His one good eye is on me, dark and unreadable, but there is a hunger there, something wild and untamed that called to every hidden part of me. And my body—traitorous once again—responded.

I throw my head back with a low moan baring my throat to the sky in ecstasy.

The sound that follows my own was deafening, a metallic screech as the chains snapped away from the walls like they were nothing but thread. My breath catches in my throat, and for a moment, time seemed to freeze. I stared, transfixed, as his massive arms flexed again, every muscle in his body tensing with raw, untamed power.

The chains fall to the floor with a thunderous clang, reverberating through the small, dark space like the toll of a death knell. He was free—what had I done?

The reality of what was happening struck me in the chest like a physical blow, but I couldn’t move. I felt glued in place, and my heart pounded so fiercely in my chest it was painful. The Vers seemed to loomed above me in that moment , his breath harsh, wild, and ragged, as though the effort to break free had cost him something vital.

For a moment, I dared to believe that I could control the situation—after all, it was my essence that had drawn me to him, my will that had brought him to this point. But the way his eye gleamed in the dim light, that dark, feral hunger burning within it, told me something different.

He was in control now.

I had wanted this. I had come here for this. I needed this.

But now that I had it, I wasn’t sure I could survive it.

In the next breath he is throwing me onto my back, pressing me deep into the gritty stone floor as he bares his fangs and all but roars into my face.

A strangled sound leaves me, to stunned and afraid to conjure the scream I feel building in my chest and I flip to my stomach in an attempt to scramble away from his clawed grasp. The large hands that grip my hips and pull, finally draw that fear filled noise from my throat and I scream so loud I’m sure it echos down the corridors in every direction.

I dig my fingers into the dirty rough stone beneath me, scrambling to make purchase to no avail as the Vers lines our bodies up once again and slams into me to the hilt. The scream that leaves me then is more subdued and morphs into a strange kind of keening moan. The prick of his claws biting into my skin and drawing blood does nothing to numb the rough slam of his hips as he drives me into the floor.

His second release is sudden and fierce, his hips almost painful as they dig into my soft flesh, but I am swept away in the raw primal energy of it all, the noises leaving my mouth unintelligible and I accept everything he gives me, despite the pain.

Yet the feel of his breath at the back of my neck has that same primal part of me snarling and fighting anew, my own fangs dropping, the likes of which I didn’t even know was possible and my jaws snap loudly as I buck against the beast above me. I kick out and fight to get away, but the weight of him atop me feels like an immovable force.

My struggling does little to stop him and the sharp painful throb of his fangs sinking deep into my neck is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.

Suddenly the room seems to quiet, and a shiver travels up my spine, prompted by the languid touch of claws along my flushed skin. The heat of my Vers touch reverberate through me, rendering an involuntary nose from my raw throat. The soft pop of his mouth releasing my nape sends a tingle bone deep.

“Did you mean to run?” The beast growls into my ear and my eyes roll back into my head as he lifts my limp body from the floor and drives into me anew. ” Too slow, little Omega.”

I don’t know how much time has passed.

The stone beneath me feels cold and unyielding, but everything else is a blur of heat and sensation. There is no sense of time, no logic, no thought. Only the weight of him pressing into me, the undeniable strength behind every movement, every thrust. I had lost myself long before now—long before the moment when the Keepers, mere shadows at the periphery of this place, found us.

But no one enters.

I hear them, just barely. The clink of their lightweight armor, the shuffle of their footsteps, the murmurs of hesitation at the cell door. They know. They all know. Stepping into the cell now is a death sentence. To encroach on a Vers’ territory in the throes of their pleasure is to tempt fate itself. And a Vers like this? A creature of raw power, primal and untamed? He would rip them apart without thought, without hesitation. Even I am not truly safe.

No one ever is when a Vers claims what they believe to be theirs.

There is a raw, animalistic violence in his motions, a possessiveness that leaves me gasping for breath, trembling under the weight of him. His knot holds me, locks me to him, and no matter how much I might want to move, to push him away, I cannot. He keeps me, biting again and again deep into my flesh—our bond—searing into my skin, a brand of our entwined essence that I can feel burning into the very core of my being.

They say Vers can accidentally kill their Omegas in the midst of claiming. That is why they are no often used by Omegas for breeding, but for fighting instead. I hadn’t believed it before, but now…now I understand. He is fierce and unrelenting, and every instinct I have tells me that I am prey. His prey.

It isn’t until he finally slackens against me, his body spent for the moment, that I even dare to breathe again. The heat of his breath against my neck softens, his muscles loosening their brutal grip on me. The knot holding us together deflates slightly as he pulls away from me, but the intensity of his claiming ebbs like the tide. I feel it in my bones, in the ache of my muscles, the lingering sting of his bite.

And then, like vultures descending after the lion’s feast, the Keepers rush into the cell.

Their sudden presence fills the air, breaking through the primal haze that has shrouded my senses. Hands reach for me, lifting me from the stone, careful and yet urgent. I hear them speaking in low voices, murmurs of concern, but their eyes are on the Vers—the beast they had dared not approach until now. He stirs behind me, and they all stiffen, fearful that he may awaken again in a frenzy.

But he doesn’t. Not yet.

I am too weak to protest, too dazed to resist as they pull me away, but my gaze lingers on him—the creature now bonded to me. My Vers. My Alpha.

Somewhere along the way any thoughts of wanting to escape, of being afraid, of the pain, had morphed into pulling my Vers closer, grinding into him harder, biting and scratching and begging as fierce overpowering need had me reveling in the feel of him releasing into me over and over.

Even as they drag me from him, his scent clings to me, overwhelming and intoxicating, and I know, with a sinking certainty, that I am truly bound to him now. Bound in ways I had never imagined when this all started.

The Keepers may have pulled me free, but in truth, I was never going to be free of him. But wasn’t this what I had wanted? My head felt to jumbled to tell.

The sharp, burning zap of electricity jolts me from the fog of my haze, snapping me back to reality with a scream—not from my own pain, but his.

I can’t think straight. My body is battered, my clothes torn and clinging indecently to my frame, barely more than rags now. Dirt, sweat and cum mix into a grime that covers every inch of me, and my curls fall in a tangled mess around my face, sticking to the sweat and blood on my skin. But none of that matters. None of it compares to the terror that grips me, deep and visceral. Terror not for myself—but for him.

For my Vers.

They’re forcing us apart. I hear the crackle of the shocks as they strike him again and again, each snap of electricity designed to subdue, to break him.

“You can’t do this! We are bonded!” I scream, my voice raw and ragged, desperate. But it only seems to fuel his frenzy. Every cry I release makes his snarls louder, more feral. He’s fighting them, fighting through the pain, struggling to reach me.

But the Keepers are relentless. They close in around him like a pack of wolves, muzzling him, chaining him down with brutal efficiency.

It takes five of them—five grown healthy guards, armored and trained, to force him into submission. And even then, it’s a struggle. His massive body bucks against the weight of them, muscles straining and corded with the effort, but the chains clink tighter around his limbs, pulling him down, down, until they manage to pin him face-first to the cold stone floor.

And yet, I can see it—the raw power that still pulses through him. It’s in the tension of his body, in the low, guttural growls that continue to rumble from deep within his chest. They’ve muzzled him again, shackled him, and forced him to the ground, but I can feel it in my bones—he is only barely contained. Any moment, any lapse in their concentration, and he will tear through them all just to reach me.

A thick, rough sack is thrown over his head, hiding his face from view, but it does nothing to quiet him. His growls are muffled but no less dangerous, no less threatening, as they echo through the cell. He is warning them. Warning them all.

They keep shocking him, over and over, but the only time he falters—truly falters—is when he hears my scream again, raw and hoarse as it leaves my throat. I see his body tense, his blind, desperate attempt to turn towards the sound of my voice, but the chains hold him down.

“Stop it! Please! You’re hurting him!” My voice cracks, but the guards don’t listen. I can barely move, weakened and trembling as I am, but I try force my way toward him, to close the distance between us. I can’t bear it. The sight of him like this is unbearable.

But the Keepers are faster. Rough hands seize me, dragging me back, away from him, and the farther I’m pulled, the more frenzied he becomes. His body strains against the chains, claws scraping against the stone floor, and for a moment, I swear he might break free.

Yet the bag remains over his head, his furious snarls filling the space around us.

Before I can even gather my thoughts or voice another protest, the heavy stone door at the end of the passage slams shut with a thunderous boom. They have stolen my Alpha from me.

I struggle with every ounce of strength my sore body can muster as the twin Keepers drag me down the passageway in the opposite direction,finally thrusting me into a brightly lit chamber still deep beneath the hippodrome.

I don’t even have time to blink against the brightness before Atticus is on me. His hand connects with my cheek, sharp and unyielding, sending a shock of pain rippling through my skull. The crack of it echoes off the stone walls, reverberating long after the sting. Stunned, raw, I can only cling to one thought: they took him. They took my alpha.

The first blow knocks the breath from my lungs, and though I’m no stranger to being hit, this is the first time Atticus has ever laid a hand on me like this. I can feel the sting of the second blow a moment later, hot and sharp, and I grit my teeth against it. My head rings, a dull throb that melds with the chaos around us, but I can hear the terror clearly in my brother’s voice as he rages at me.

“You fool! Do you know what you’ve done? Mother will kill you! Kill me!” His angry essence fills the air like a storm, a sour, smoke-tinged attribute that dampens the already heavy atmosphere. I’m not scared of it, though. Or maybe the blow to my head has stunned me out of caring. It’s as if I’m floating, unreachable no matter how many times I’m struck.

“I’m sorry, brother.” The words leave me flat, lifeless, the same hollow tone I used to parrot after Hera’s episodes—when her rage left me bruised and dazed for weeks. The ease with which I fall back into it unsettles me, this old mask of compliance I thought I had long since shed. Yet here it is again, slipping over me like a second skin.

“Sorry? Sorry? Cassius, this is beyond any silly little apology! Do you even realize what you have done?“Atticus snarls, his face a mask of rage and worry. I brace for another hit, but instead, a cold quiet settles over him, and his tone turns ominous. “That thing is dead—and us along with it.”

Those words ignite a fire within me, boiling my blood as I surge forward, the weight of my emotions clawing at my insides. My attribute flares to life, bursting forth like a wildfire, filling the room like smoke and I snarl into Atticus’s face.

“Don’t you touch him!” I yank hard against the Keeper’s grip on my bicep as they pull me away from my brother’s pinched face. “He’s mine!”

“Get him out of my sight.” My brother snaps with a deep sign before he turns his back to me, his posture radiating a mix of anger and resignation as he makes for the door.

My heart pounds, and the feral instinct within me flares up. ”He’s mine!” I roar again, a primal desperation lacing my voice as the Keepers restrain me.

“Atticus!” I scream, panic rising in my throat, but there’s nothing I can do as they place a needle against my arm, and my world grows hazy and dark.

VI

I paced the narrow length of my room—my prison—stone walls closing in with every turn. Restlessness clawed through me, sharp and relentless, leaving my nerves raw and buzzing. My thumb was already shredded, chewed down to blood, but the sting barely registered. It was nothing against the turmoil burning inside me.

They wouldn’t let me see him.

My Alpha—restrained, brutalized—while I was dragged away as if it meant nothing. The memory of his dark, feral eye, the heat of his body under my trembling hands, seared itself into me, replaying with every step, every breath, every restless lap around the room. My skin buzzed with an undeniable ache, a need so deep it hollowed me out. It whispered with every heartbeat: go to him. Now. He was suffering somewhere just beyond my reach, and every fiber of me screamed to bridge that distance.

The bond.

I never thought it would be this strong. And I never thought I would be this trapped.

Whenever someone entered my room, my composure unraveled further. At first I tried to be reasonable, asking—pleading—for news. To see him. To speak with Atticus. Anything. Any thread of assurance that he was alive, that he hadn’t been broken beyond repair. But as the hours bled into days, my patience frayed, worn thin like the raw skin on my thumb.

By then, I was begging. My voice grew hoarse with frustration and fear, cracking against the silence. I hurled desperate bargains, threats, promises—anything that might make them listen, anything to close the chasm yawning inside me.

No one would tell me a thing. The silence itself became its own cruelty, gnawing at me worse than chains.

Food arrived regularly, trays laden with dishes I used to tolerate, perhaps even enjoy. But now? Every bite felt like sand in my mouth, gritty and tasteless, repugnant in its inadequacy. The Keepers grew impatient with my refusals, my blatant disinterest, and began forcing small portions down my throat, but my body rejected it violently. I gagged, retched, my stomach twisting as if even my insides knew this was not what I craved.

They couldn’t understand. How could they? My need was beyond simple hunger, beyond any base instinct they could measure. The emptiness inside me throbbed with every heartbeat, aching, gnawing, unrelenting. My hands trembled when I reached for anything, sweat slicked my skin though I was always cold, and nausea churned in my gut until it hollowed me out.

At times, my legs gave way beneath me, weakness rippling through my limbs as though I’d been drained of blood. My chest seized with tightness, making each breath a shallow, rattling effort. No matter what they tried to force into me, the craving only grew sharper, hungrier, until the bond itself felt like a parasite burrowing deeper, demanding I obey its call.

And still, they brought me food. As though this hunger could be filled with anything but him.

I paced faster, fists clenching and unclenching, blood pounding in my ears until it was all I could hear. My skin prickled with fever heat one moment, shivered with icy chills the next. Every breath came ragged, my chest too tight, as if the very air conspired to suffocate me. I felt like an animal caged, frantic and desperate, every nerve screaming, my thoughts spiraling as I fought the invisible chains of my confinement. My body and mind waged a brutal war, leaving me hollow and raw, a fire that only he could quell.

And as the walls seemed to close in around me, suffocating and merciless, all I could think—all I could feel—was that I needed him. That beast. My Alpha.

I woke in a room I did not recognize, draped in pale, scratchy sheets that clung unpleasantly to my skin. My body ached with the lingering aftershocks of whatever drug they had used to render me unconscious. The sting at the injection site throbbed faintly, a dull ache that pulsed in time with the stale bitterness coating my tongue. Dust hung thick in the air, dry and oppressive, each breath a reminder that I was somewhere unfamiliar.

The realization came slowly, crawling through the fog in my mind as I forced myself to orient: this was not the hippodrome. Nor was it Atticus’s OPS. No—everything about the silence, the stillness, told me we were still on Ira.

It was the gravity that gave it away. Subtle, but unmistakable. I’d been on and off enough ships to know the difference between Port and Off-Port gravity. A Scud or Flier always carried the faint hum of its engines through the floors and walls, a restless vibration threading through every breath, every step. Here, the silence was absolute. The pull on my body seamless, grounded, as though the world itself held me in place. Even a lower-tier Port like Ira could boast gravity tech far superior to anything Off-Port.

And underneath the disorientation, beneath the chemical haze, was something far worse—the gnawing ache of absence. The hollow where he should be, where he wasn’t. My Alpha. The bond pulled at me like a wound torn open, bleeding me out into the emptiness of this room.

But it wasn’t just the gravity. I could feel time slipping past me, a slow bleed I couldn’t stop. Meals came and went, tasteless markers of days I couldn’t count. My pacing carved invisible grooves into the floor, restless loops that blurred one into the next until at least a week had passed—maybe longer. I hadn’t left this room. I hadn’t seen anything beyond these walls since they dragged me here.

Only the Keepers interrupted the monotony—stoic, indifferent shadows who entered without acknowledgment, setting down trays or checking on me with all the warmth of automatons. Their eyes never lingered, their movements never faltered, as though I were little more than another object in the room to be accounted for.

And all the while, the silence pressed heavier, thicker, more suffocating than the drugs ever had.

And my brother? Not a single word. Not a glimpse of him. No reprimands, no gloating over the spectacle I had made of myself, nothing. The silence gnawed at me more viciously than his anger ever could. I knew Atticus—knew the sharp edge his temper could take, the constant calculation lurking in his eyes. He thrived on belittling the foolish Omegas of nobility, on reminding them of their place below him in intelligence. But to leave me here, abandoned in this sterile cage, without even the satisfaction of his scorn?

That wasn’t like him. And that difference, that absence, pressed down on me harder than any Keeper’s hand, a growing unease I couldn’t shake.

I was a fool. A fucking idiot.

What had I been thinking? That Hera would ever allow this? That I could just do what I wanted and walk away untouched? Atticus had been right. She would kill us before she let this stain her empire—before she let me smear filth across the perfect image she bled herself to maintain.

My mind spiraled back to the newborns, unlucky not to be born Omegas, sent into the never-ending night—cast into the black simply for what they were. Was that now my fate, having defied Hera? Would she, as cold and relentless as ever, let this slight go—or would she snatch back control, dragging me into the same void she’d reserved for all those deemed expendable? How had I not seen the most likely possibility before this?

I had been blinded of course. The thought of being powerless for any longer, of having no one to shield me, had made my chest so tight it felt like a vice. My essence, my only leverage in this sad life, had felt suddenly fragile. If I didn’t secure a Vers—someone strong enough to stand between me and her—I would be lost. But I had gotten my Vers hadn’t I? My Alpha, my shield, my chance at survival—it had not been enough.

My usefulness as a docile and compliant Cardinal had been my only tether, but now severed, would I fall into the abyss Hera had always wanted for me?

Would my Namesake siblings care if I vanished, or would they carry on, indifferent to my absence, while I became just another shadow swallowed whole by her darkness? The answer didn’t matter. Or really I knew the answer and it hurt to much to acknowledge.

I tried to push the negative thoughts aside, forcing myself to continue my endless pacing of the walls, tracing every crack and crevice in the cold stone. Yet the unease wouldn’t leave me; it coiled tighter with every passing day, a silent, gnawing dread pressing on my chest, whispering that something far worse than just confinement was coming.

Then, without warning, the monotony shifted—no food, no indifferent glances, just the cold, mechanical efficiency of the Keepers tossing a fresh set of clothes onto the bed and supervised access to the waterless sanitation pod. Their blank stares offered no answers, no comfort, nothing but emptiness.

I demanded to know what was happening, where they were taking me, what their intentions were. My voice, hoarse from constant pleading, cracked under the weight of desperation. But as always, I was met with their unyielding, silent indifference.

When the Keepers finally escorted me from the room, my heart pounded violently in my chest. The corridors blurred as I stumbled along in their grip, their hold ironclad, unrelenting. Relief warred with terror—relief that something was finally happening, terror at what might wait for me beyond the confines of my prison. And then, without ceremony or explanation, they shoved me into a sleek luxury Port Scud I didn’t recognize.

The door slammed shut behind me, the sound ricocheting through the cramped space. I scrambled backward, pressing myself against the farthest edge of the passenger compartment, my fingers clawing at the smooth metal of the door as if I could pry it open and flee. My breaths came shallow, uneven. Through the small viewport, I caught a glimpse of the older Keeper speaking briefly with someone just out of view, his gestures clipped and efficient. Whatever passed between them was quick, secretive, and when the Keeper turned and vanished into the cockpit, unease curdled in my gut.

The same hatch I entered through hissed open again. I flinched hard, every muscle locking, bracing for some new cruelty. Instead, Atticus stepped inside, calm as ever, his movements deliberate, precise. He lowered himself onto the seat across from me with a predator’s grace, his eyes cool and appraising. The cabin seemed to shrink around us, the air thickening until it felt like I was breathing tension itself.

The tension between my brother and me wrapped around my throat like an iron collar, every breath strained, shallow. Silence pressed in on the cabin until it felt like the air itself wanted to crush me. The faint hum of the engines stretched each second into hours, every sway of the Scud dragging the journey out longer than it should, though I knew it wasn’t only the trip that felt endless. It was the anticipation—the knowledge that wherever Atticus was taking me, I might not return from it. Not whole. Perhaps not at all.

I risked a glance at him. Seated across from me, calm, composed, his face betrayed nothing. But his fingers tapped against the polished armrest in a rhythm that felt too sharp, too deliberate. I clenched my hands around my curled knees, nails biting into my palms to keep from trembling. Heat climbed into my cheeks, shame and anger twisting together, as though my own body mocked my efforts to remain composed.

Gone was the poised, quiet Cardinal years of training had beaten into me. In his place sat a ragged, foolish boy—curled in the corner of a seat too fine for his secondhand clothes and tangled hair. Atticus looked more a Cardinal now than I ever had, his composure a cruel mirror of what I’d always failed to be.

I tore my gaze away, fixing it instead on the tinted windows that separated us from the Keeper in the cockpit. The dark glass wasn’t just a partition; it was a seal, shutting me inside this suffocating box with my brother and his cold, unrelenting judgment. My back pressed hard into the farthest edge of the seat, as though distance alone could shield me from the weight of him. It couldn’t.

My mind spun in circles, replaying everything that had led to this moment—every decision, every failure. My fists clenched tighter as I tried, desperately, to imagine a version of myself that wasn’t such a disgrace. One where I hadn’t ended up here, cornered like a sniveling child in an ever-tightening noose. But no matter how I twisted the past, every path led back to this. To him. To this silence. To the inescapable truth that I had never been the Cardinal they had wanted me to be.

The weight of my despair pressed harder with every breath. Even as fear clawed at me, I tried to tell myself it hadn’t all been in vain. I had something, at least—something real, something mine. Those fleeting moments with my Alpha, when his dark eyes burned into me as though I were worth the world… no one could take those from me. Not Atticus. Not Mother. Not even death. If today was the day I ceased to exist, at least I could vanish knowing I had fought for a scrap of meaning, however pitiful.

But the fragile resolve I clung to wavered the instant the scud hissed to a stop. The sound was sharp, final, like the snap of a neck. A hand brushed my shoulder—warm, steady—and my heart stuttered. I looked up, confusion souring quickly into dread as my gaze landed on the sight before me.

An Outer Galaxy Flier loomed in the distance, sleek and immense, its engines humming faintly in the background. A shiver ran down my spine. Outer Galaxy? You didn’t need a ship like that to return to Port Gelu. My chest tightened as questions clawed at the edges of my mind, but before I could hold onto any of them, Atticus’s voice sliced through the static.

“Collect the boy, Keeper. We’re leaving.” His tone was sharp, impassive—so different from the fleeting softness of the touch he’d laid on me just moments before. I should have known better than to think it meant anything. It was foolish, pathetic, to imagine even for an instant that he might see me as something more than a burden to be carted around.

The side of the scud slid open, and without sparing me a single glance, Atticus stepped out, leaving me frozen in place with my rising fear and shame pressing down like weights on my chest.

“Alright, young Cardinal,” one of the Keepers grunted, his massive form blocking out the light from the open hatch. “Time to get moving.”

I barely registered the sound of his boots squeaking against the cold stone floor of the flight bay. His gloved hand reached for me, no doubt assuming I would meekly comply, but panic surged through me like wildfire. Instinct took over before thought, and I shrank back, pressing myself as far into the plush corner of the scud as the cramped space allowed. My breaths came in sharp, shallow gasps as I shook my head violently, clutching at the seat beneath me like it might somehow anchor me here.

“Where are we going?” I choked out, my voice trembling with fear and desperation. My throat tightened, and tears burned hot at the corners of my eyes. “Please, I don’t want to go. Don’t make me go without him.”

Pathetic. The word rang in my head even as I spoke, bitter and scalding. Cardinals weren’t supposed to beg. Cardinals weren’t supposed to fall apart. Yet here I was—reduced to a cowering child, sniveling before a Keeper who likely thought me no better than the beasts he caged and chained.

The Keeper hesitated, clearly not expecting resistance, but my pleading fell on deaf ears. His expression was unreadable beneath his helmet, his posture unyielding as he leaned closer, prepared to drag me out by force.

A bitter laugh bubbled up in my mind, though I didn’t voice it. Of course Atticus wasn’t going to stop this. He had always been Mother’s loyal soldier, her perfect little heir. If she told him to slit my throat, would he even hesitate? Would I really die because I chose an Alpha she hadn’t sanctioned, because I dared to want something for myself outside her suffocating control? The absurdity of it all struck me like a blow, but it did nothing to dull the terror.

I pressed myself harder against the seat, feeling the cold edge of the scud door digging into my back. My thoughts spun uselessly, clawing at half-formed plans, desperate fantasies of escape, but there was nothing. No way out. All I could do was shake my head and whisper brokenly, “Don’t make me go…”

The sound of my own pleading made me flinch. Pathetic. I sounded pathetic. Begging like a child, and to who? To Keepers who couldn’t care less, who weren’t even built to care. Their silence was answer enough: no pity, no remorse—just cold efficiency as they carried out whatever plan Atticus had devised.

One of the elder Keepers outside the scud gave a simple nod, a silent command. The less experienced one, who had hesitated only moments before, lunged again. His hand clamped around my ankle like a vice, iron and unyielding, and this time my frantic kicks did nothing to shake him off.

“Let go of me!” I shrieked, thrashing wildly. “I don’t want to go! Atticus, don’t! Atticus, please! Where’s my Alpha, Atticus? Atticus!” My voice cracked, raw with panic, as they yanked me from the scud and hurled me unceremoniously onto the hard ground of the flight bay. The sting of the impact jarred through my bones, but still I fought, my body moving on instinct alone.

Two more Keepers seized my arms in an iron grip. “Stop it! Let me go!” I screamed, kicking and flailing, my heels scraping uselessly against the floor as they dragged me toward the looming Outer Galaxy Flier. My voice grew even more hoarse, hysteria bubbling to the surface with every plea. “Please! Atticus, you can’t do this! Where is he? Where is my Alpha?!” My cries echoed in the vast hangar, sharp and unrelenting, but no one answered. No one even turned their head.

The dread surged through me like a roaring river, cold and unyielding, threatening to drag me under. The harder I struggled, the tighter they held me. Tears of rage and desperation blurred my vision as my fists pounded against armored backs, useless blows swallowed by metal. “Let me go!” I screamed again, my voice cracking into a sob.

And in that sob, I truly heard it—the pathetic, broken sound of myself. A Cardinal reduced to nothing more than a wailing child, dragged like refuse across the floor. I hated the sound, hated the way I must look in their eyes: not noble, not poised, but weak, frantic, begging. It made me sick. And yet, I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.

“Quiet down,” Atticus’s grumbled voice finally cut through the chaos, sharp with irritation as he rubbed at his temple. He sounded more annoyed than concerned, as though my terror and cries were nothing more than an inconvenience. “So full of life,” he muttered under his breath, almost mockingly, before turning calmly toward the Flier.

His indifference burned like a hot knife twisting in my chest. I wanted to scream at him, to claw at him, to make him care. But all I could do was watch my brother—a stranger—turn his back on me and leave me to my fate. My cries, my panic, my begging—they meant nothing. A part of me knew they always had.

The crushing weight of that realization hollowed me out. The fight drained from my limbs, leaving me limp, breathless, humiliated as the Keepers dragged me up the ramp. I must have looked pitiful, slumped and streaked with tears, a Cardinal in name only. Nothing noble, nothing poised—just weak. No wonder he didn’t care.

The cold, sterile interior of the Flier mocked me further, all sharp angles and humming machinery, a far cry from the luxury of the scud. They shoved me into a metal chair near the aft of the cabin, strapping me in tight. The restraints bit into my arms, pinning me like an animal. My body trembled with the remnants of adrenaline, but my mind felt blank, too overwhelmed by the enormity of it.

This wasn’t a nightmare I could wake from. This was real. And no one was coming to save me.

VII

I trudged along the artificial, shrubbery-lined pathway, moving deliberately slowly despite the Keeper behind me, nudging me forward with impatient insistence. Each reluctant step felt like a march toward inevitable doom, my stomach twisting itself into tighter knots. I kept my head high, but only to hide the shame curling in my chest, a shame that seemed to grow heavier with every immaculate stone beneath my feet. It had taken about two days on the Outer Galaxy Flier to reach this place, most of which I had spent sleeping—not by choice, but due to the constant injections meant to keep me docile. The grandeur of the estate loomed ahead, polished and perfect, a stark mirror to the chaos within. Even the pathway mocked me—pristine, orderly, untouchable—while I, a fallen Dominus, stumbled like a disobedient child.

Alba’s private quarters rose ahead like a monument to authority, the artificial sky gleaming in the muted light of the endless night. Memories of my first and last visit, years ago, clawed at my mind. I had been just a boy then, reverent and wide-eyed. Now, I was lost, broken, and tired. This was no sanctuary. This was a temple of power, and nothing but judgment, penance, and humiliation awaited me behind those doors.

The sight of the grand staircase made my steps falter, and the Keeper at my side snapped a sharp command to move. I straightened, unwilling to show my hesitation, and ascended with as much dignity as I could muster, though my feet dragged ever so slightly. The massive glass doors yawned open, their polished surfaces reflecting my pale, strained face.

Inside, the interior took my breath away—just as it had all those years ago. A warm glow seemed to radiate from the walls themselves, adorned with intricate patterns of gold and mother-of-pearl. Soft light spilled from hidden fixtures, bathing the room in an almost divine radiance. The air carried hints of jasmine and honey, a heady perfume that clung to my senses. The effortless opulence mocked me, a reminder of the life I had been born into—and the unbearable life I now stood to lose.

I loathed how it still affected me—how my chest tightened with awe despite everything. I wanted to feel nothing, to steel myself against this floating fortress and all it represented. Yet no matter how hard I tried, its magnificence seeped into my bones, filling me with a bitter nostalgia I could not shake.

The Keeper’s hand on my shoulder yanked me back to the present. “Move,” he barked, sharper this time. A flicker of indignation rose, but I forced my expression calm, lifting my chin as I stumbled forward. My feet sank into the plush rug that ran the length of the grand hall, muffling each step, as my eyes drifted upward to the gilded staircase.

At the top, Alba waited.

A surge of nausea rolled through me, sharp and unrelenting. I had felt this way for days—whether from the injections, the bond, or my lack of sleep and sustenance, it no longer mattered. It was a gnawing sickness that refused to fade, a relentless reminder of the mess I had made. I could try to blame Atticus, the Keepers, even Hera, but I knew the truth. This was my doing—my ignorance, my arrogance, my refusal to bow to the expectations laid upon me. And now, I would pay.

I squared my shoulders, forcing myself to stand tall despite the coil of unease in my gut. I would not give Alba—or anyone—the satisfaction of seeing me falter. The time for pleading was over. If this was my reckoning, I would face it as a Cardinal should: head high, pride intact, even if I was crumbling inside.

I couldn’t summon even the faintest flicker of awe at the suffocatingly expansive view of space stretching endlessly beyond the massive windows. The stars shimmered, the void yawning black and infinite—it had sometimes filled me with wonder, as if the universe itself lay at my feet. Other times, it had felt like the end of everything: my death, my final undoing. A child’s nightmare made real. That is exactly how it felt now. The abyss pressed in, oppressive and unyielding, as if waiting to swallow me whole.

My steps up the polished staircase were slow, deliberate—the only semblance of control I could cling to. My heart thumped violently against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat of protest, while my damp hands buried themselves deep in the pockets of the light cream slacks I’d been given. The matching cloak brushed against my cheeks as the hood shifted with every hunched step, meant to make me look presentable, respectable, while hiding my identity. Instead, it made me feel fragile and shamed.

For the briefest moment, a thought flickered: what if I ran? If I turned on my heel and bolted, Keepers be damned. Could I make it halfway down the corridor? Likely not. They’d catch me before the first turn. Still, the ember of rebellion smoldered faintly in my mind, stubborn and defiant, even as the fear gnawed at me.

But I knew better. Running would only delay the inevitable. The weight of that inevitability pressed down on me as I neared the top of the steps, where Alba waited in all his cold, imperious glory. My pace faltered, feet dragging as if the very air had thickened, resisting every movement.

I felt like a lamb climbing the altar—not with grace, but with reluctant, trembling steps, fully aware of the unseen blade poised above my neck.

At the top, Alba pivoted sharply and strode ahead, disappearing into the massive stone doors at the end of the hallway. Their sheer size and coldness mirrored the essence of his presence. My breath hitched, dread coiling tighter in my chest with every step toward him.

The room we entered was one I knew well. A singular memory of my younger self was etched into my mind—an afternoon spent at Alba’s feet, playing with blocks and reading an old-world nursery rhyme while he worked. It had been one of my fondest memories, the rare warmth in an otherwise cold world. I could still feel the gentle press of his hand atop my curls, the quiet contentment of being seen and safe—if only for that fleeting moment.

Now it was just a room, radiating a dark authority, the very air heavy with power, as if the walls themselves could suffocate me. In the center, Alba sat, a sharp silhouette against the dim light, his back toward me as he spoke quietly into a receiver. His voice, low and controlled, carried a weight that demanded attention without effort. I felt it in my bones—the unnerving stillness of his presence, the almost tangible control he exerted over everything in the room.

I fought to steady my breath, jaw clenched in feigned determination. Yet my hands betrayed me, trembling in my pockets as the terror inside me threatened to spill over. My essence quivered beneath the surface, thick and restless, like a leaf caught in a storm. I willed myself to remain still, to hold the fear in check, but every instinct screamed that I was utterly exposed.

For long, unbearable moments, Alba ignored me. Not a glance, not a flicker of acknowledgment, as though I were nothing more than an afterthought—a blip in his meticulously controlled world. His chair creaked as he finally turned, facing the floor-to-ceiling windows that stretched before him. Outside, the infinite expanse of space was black, cold, impersonal—a perfect reflection of the man I now faced.

Then, with a fluidity almost inhuman, Alba rose from his chair. The movement was so graceful, so effortless, it stole the breath from my lungs. There was no hesitation, no uncertainty—he was the embodiment of power itself, a Dominus without peer, his presence filling the room, vibrating through the air. Every motion, every step, exuded dominance, and it made my own sense of self feel even more fragile, almost laughably insignificant. How that was possible I did not know.

A pang of doubt gnawed at me, whispering like a cruel taunt: how had they ever said I was the more dominant Omega? In his presence, I couldn’t convince myself I held even an ounce of authority. Alba radiated power; I—well, I had always felt like a shadow trailing in his wake.

As he walked around his desk, every step thickened the air, charged it with a tension that was almost physical. The weight of his gaze pressed down on me, suffocating, undeniable. Even someone oblivious to nuance would have felt it—the absolute dominance he commanded. And I, standing there, clinging to what little composure I had, fought to keep from crumbling beneath it. But it was a losing battle. And I was just so tired.

Fear radiated from me despite my best efforts to bury it. My legs threatened to give out beneath me, my heart hammering frantically as I failed to mask the terror crawling beneath my skin. Without a word or even a glance, Alba dismissed the Keepers with a simple wave of his hand. The room fell into a suffocating silence.

His fingers closed around my arm, cold and unyielding, pulling me deeper into the room. Each step drew me closer to whatever fate awaited me, and the fear inside me felt alive, writhing, rattling my bones, twisting my insides. His grip sent me spiraling back to memories I had long tried to bury: the frightened child I had once been, before I learned to hide my emotions, before I became the perfect doll everyone could handle. A hollow shell who lived only to please and obey.

The echoes of Mother’s Keepers—their cruel beatings, their cold indifference—rushed back, suffocating in their weight. I couldn’t go back there. I couldn’t.

I struggled against Alba’s hold, dragging my feet, shaking my head, desperate to pull free. But his grip was iron, unyielding, a physical reminder that resistance was useless.

“What, you’re not happy to see me, Cassius?” Alba’s voice dripped with venom, barely concealed. “I should be a better sight than Hera, though? Don’t you think, Atticus?”

The words struck me like a blow, twisting my stomach. My heart stuttered in my chest, the weight of his insinuation pressing down like a physical force.

I barely registered the venom in his voice. All I could feel was the fear, the panic clawing up from somewhere deep in my gut, the dread of Hera—the very reason for all of this—filling my mind with images I couldn’t bear to imagine.

“Please… don’t call her,” I whispered, voice trembling, each syllable shaking with desperation. My chest heaved as I tried to force the words out, but my mind raced ahead, conjuring a hundred horrifying possibilities, each one darker than the last. The thought of her wrath, of the ruin she could wreak—it was unbearable.

Atticus’ voice cut through the tension, grumbling from behind us. “I would think any sight would be better than Mother at this moment.”

The words should have been comforting, but instead they made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I flinched involuntarily, my head turning toward him, and the unexpected bitterness in his tone sank into me like a dagger. His presence, his words, everything about him was unsettling.

Alba’s icy gaze flicked over my shoulder, eyes locking on Atticus with a sharp, silent warning. “As if this isn’t mainly your fault,” he sneered. Cold and laced with venom, his words seemed to coat the air with ice. “Parading a naive young Cardinal around those slums as if someone of his breed has any business even being there.”

The sting cut deeper than I wanted to admit. I flinched again, my body tensing as the weight of his condemnation pressed down on me. Of his breed. The reminder of my place, of who I was supposed to be, was relentless. It felt like a vice around my chest, suffocating me. Still, still, still it suffocated me.

“I thought him too scared to do something of this caliber,” Atticus muttered under his breath, voice dark, bitter, almost speaking to himself as much as to Alba. The threat of his—and my own—death hung like a shadow over us, tangible, oppressive, impossible to ignore.

Alba’s expression darkened further. “Yes, well, Hera doesn’t employ you to think now, does she, Brother?” The venom in his voice was sharp, palpable, as he finally turned his full attention to me. His stormy blue eyes locked on mine like a predator zeroing in on its prey.

The moment his gaze fell on me, the blood drained from my face. My throat tightened around a lump of humiliation, my cheeks burning with the heat of shame. Every word, so controlled, so deliberate, felt like a verdict passed over me. I was nothing but a pawn in his meticulously ordered world—a tool to be assessed, judged, and discarded. Yet beneath the icy exterior, a barely contained anger simmered, and that terrified me more than the reprimand itself.

Alba rarely showed more than his customary calm. He was the perfect son, the perfect Dominus, a master at keeping the family’s delicate balance. I had only seen him lose his temper once, years ago, in a fleeting lapse of youthful recklessness. But now, the air in the room crackled with something far more potent. If Alba was riled to this degree, then whatever lay ahead was far worse than I had imagined.

I wanted to speak, to say something—anything—to defend myself, to make sense of it all. But my throat constricted, my words tangled and lost. I could only stand there, trembling beneath the weight of my brother’s wrath, as the room seemed to shrink around me. For the first time, I truly realized how far gone everything had become.

“Now, since we know our brother does not do well thinking… do you care to tell me what it was you were thinking, Cassius?” Alba’s stormy blue eyes blazed, pinning me where I stood.

“I—I wanted… I wasn’t… I don’t know,” I stammered, my voice foreign to my own ears, as though I were watching myself from outside my body.

Alba’s expression darkened further, that same rage still simmering just beneath the surface, cold enough to freeze me to my core.

“You don’t know?” he hissed. “You’ve ruined yourself, ruined our family name, and you don’t know? Perhaps I should let Mother’s Keepers have you now. Drag you back to that cesspit and feed you to those beasts.”

Petrified, I caved entirely. “Please, Alba. Please… don’t let her hurt me anymore.”

Suddenly, his grip on my arm loosened for a fraction of a second, only to be replaced by a firm hold on my jaw. He lifted my face toward his, forcing me to meet his eyes. Time seemed to stretch as his gaze drilled into my soul, searching for something—anything. And when he found it, the anger that had radiated from him almost seemed to tremble, a subtle shiver escaping beneath his control.

“You bonded?” Alba snapped, then pivoted sharply to Atticus. “You allowed him unsupervised with that fucking beast—and to top it off, they are bonded? Do you understand what this means?” He shook my jaw hard, and I winced, frozen.

“Well? Do you?” His gaze returned to me, cold and piercing.

All I could do was squirm, his grip on my jaw far too tight to reply.

“How long have they been apart?”

“Little over a week… maybe more,” Atticus muttered.

“And he’s still able to stand? Still able to hold a conversation?” Alba trailed off, his eyes narrowing, sharp and calculating. His head tilted slightly, expression unreadable, as if he were studying some elusive pattern beyond my comprehension. “…Remarkable,” he murmured, almost to himself, the word hanging in the recycled, sterile air.

The silence that followed was suffocating, oppressive, until Alba stirred, finally snapping from his contemplative haze. “Let’s go,” he said, voice low but heavy with authority. The unexpected softness—the almost tender tone—made my skin crawl. It was so wrong, so out of place, that it sent a chill crawling down my spine.

I froze for a heartbeat, unsure how to react. Conflicting emotions surged through me—fear, confusion, anger, and a strange, unwelcome thrill that I tried to push down. And then, instinctively, defiance took over. Before I even realized what I was doing, my hands shot up, shoving Alba’s hand off my shoulder with more force than I thought I could muster.

“Don’t touch me,” I snapped, my voice trembling yet sharp, laced with a venom I rarely dared to summon. My heart hammered in my chest as I glared daggers at my eldest brother, breathing ragged but unyielding. For the first time in what felt like forever, I met his gaze head-on, refusing to back down.

Alba’s expression didn’t waver, though his hand moved with that unnerving, deliberate calm as he reached for me again. I jerked back, frantic and clumsy, like a cornered animal fighting against its inevitable fate. My breath hitched, but I didn’t care. If I was going to die here—or if the Keepers intended to beat the life out of me—I wasn’t going to merely grit my teeth and comply. There was no need to play the perfect doll anymore. I had failed at that long before now. And I had nothing left to lose, even if my entire body trembled with terror.

The room seemed to shrink around us. The sprawling view of the endless void of space through the floor-to-ceiling windows faded into irrelevance. The glow of distant stars and the faint hum of the station’s engines became nothing but a backdrop to the suffocating tension between us.

Alba’s eyes never left mine. For a heartbeat, I thought I glimpsed something flicker there—amusement, maybe, or irritation. It didn’t matter. I had crossed a line, and there was no stepping back now.

Alba’s movements were deliberate, measured, closing the short distance I had put between us with unnerving calm.

“Brave,” he muttered, almost to himself, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. Then his eyes darkened, his voice slicing through the air like a blade. “But foolish.”

I planted my feet, though my knees threatened to buckle under the weight of fear. Dread wrapped around me like iron, pressing against my chest, but deep within, a spark—long buried—flickered to life. Defiance. Hot, wild, reckless. It demanded I fight back, even if it meant losing everything. After all, that same recklessness had brought me here.

And yet… in the end, it didn’t matter.

While my focus remained locked on Alba, his icy blue eyes dissecting me like prey, I made the fatal mistake of forgetting about Atticus. I never heard him move, never sensed the shadow falling over me. My body froze too late.

Pain exploded at the back of my head—sharp, merciless—a lightning bolt shattering my skull. The world lurched violently; edges of the room smeared into dark, indistinct streaks. My thoughts scattered like ash on the wind, and my legs gave way beneath me. I slumped forward, helpless, before Alba’s arms caught me.

The last thing I registered before the darkness claimed me was his cold, unyielding embrace. Steady. Cruel. A stark contrast to the chaos unraveling in my mind. Then… nothing. Only black, empty nothingness, where neither fear nor defiance could follow.

VIII

I woke with a jolt, lungs dragging in air that felt too still, too silent. It wasn’t the sterile hum of a port station, nor the familiar buzz of artificial air circulating through narrow corridors. This silence was heavy, unnatural. Wrong.

My eyes struggled against the dimness as shapes bled into focus. The room was unfamiliar—alien, even. The floor beneath me wasn’t cold metal, nor polished stone. It was wood. Real wood. It creaked beneath me as I shifted, groaning like something old and weary, as though the room itself resented my presence. The faint scent of resin and dust lingered in the air, grounding me in the uncomfortable truth: I was nowhere I’d ever known before.

I hissed as my fingers brushed the tender bump at the back of my skull, the sharp throb pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat. The skin was intact—no blood, no tearing—but the ache lingered.

The room was blurred around the edges at first glance, but not swallowed in darkness. Shapes began to emerge as my eyes adjusted: heavy furniture, crooked silhouettes, objects draped in dust as though they belonged to another age. A world not just distant but forgotten.

Instinct tugged me forward, toward the faint spill of light seeping from a wall across the room. Each step echoed softly, wood sighing beneath my weight, the sound unnervingly alive in the silence. My hand found the fabric cloaking the window—thick, dusty, suffocating—and with a shaky pull, I dragged it aside.

Light slammed into me. Blinding. Scalding. The warmth struck like a physical blow, and I staggered back, eyes watering, hand rising instinctively to shield against the brilliance.

And then, as my sight adjusted, I saw them.

Not towers. Not metal. Not circuitry.

Trees.

Real, living trees.

And they weren’t just standing still. They moved. Their branches swayed, leaves whispering against one another in a rhythm I couldn’t understand. I pressed closer to the window, breath shallow, fogging the glass with every frantic exhale.

Beyond the trees stretched a vision out of myth: rolling fields of vivid green, fern-like plants unfurling like delicate fingers, and jagged black stone cliffs and dark sand scattered along the edge of a vast, shimmering expanse.

Water.

The word jolted through me, choking my throat.

I had seen it in illustrations, heard it in half-forgotten lessons, but standing before it now—the glinting, endless surface shifting with some unseen current—I could not reconcile it. Was it an ocean? A lake? The difference slipped away from me, useless.

All I knew was that it was alive. Real. Natural in a way that felt utterly foreign.

And I could only stand there, gaping, as if the entire world had just ripped itself open to swallow me whole.

My mind scrambled for answers, clawing for logic, but everything slipped through my grasp. I knew of terraformed planets—small, scattered worlds clinging to the fringes of the Tellus Reram—but those were never meant for us. Omegas were forbidden from setting foot there. They were beneath us, the Keepers said. Wild, dangerous wastelands of hostile flora and untamed beasts, places unworthy of acknowledgment.

And yet—here I stood.

The echo of my elder Keeper’s voice pierced through my skull, sharp and absolute: Omegas do not look back. The past is beneath you. You do not dwell there.

But the glass told me otherwise. The world beyond it was no fabrication, no sterile construct. It was alive, ancient, and unyielding.

A relic of the Old World.

And it was staring right back at me.

I felt like a child again, a rush of excitement flooding my veins as I searched the dimly lit room for a door. I wanted—no, I needed—to feel the sun on my skin, to breathe air that hadn’t been cycled through endless filters and machines. The thought consumed me, wild and urgent, eclipsing everything else.

But my fingers trailed along the unfamiliar walls, and the thrill bled out of me. This place was strange.

No cold gray metal.

No auto-lock doors waiting for a data chip to grant me passage.

No gravity generators humming beneath my feet, no sterile logos of Jude Industries stamped across every surface, reminding me who owned the air I breathed.

No cleaning bots to scrub away the dust before it could settle.

No scent regulators keeping the air sharp and sterile.

And most of all—

No Keepers. No Omegas.

My chest tightened. My mind scrambled to catch up. Where were Atticus and Alba? What had happened after I blacked out? Why had Atticus hit me?

Had he sent me here?

The room was a strange contrast—small yet open, with a staircase curling up to a balcony loft where the faint outline of a bed rested in shadow. Efficient. Almost comfortable. And yet wrong in its emptiness.

It needed cleaning. The thought startled me—dust and grime were things I’d only read about, not seen. But here it was, clinging to the shelves, floating in the air, settling into corners as if no one had disturbed this place in years. Abandoned. Forgotten.

And then the silence cracked.

A sound rumbled low through the room. A breath—slow. Steady. Not mine.

I didn’t even have time to scream. Something slammed into me like a force of nature, driving the air from my lungs. My body hit the floor with a brutal thud, pain sparking white-hot as my elbow cracked against the wood. A sharp cry tore from my throat before I could swallow it back.

But my attacker didn’t care. He didn’t hesitate. His weight pinned me to the ground, and in an instant, I felt the searing press of his focus on my exposed throat.

My instincts took over before thought could. I flailed, desperate, my chin dropping to shield my throat, arms clawing for space. Anything to keep him back.

It only enraged him.

A hand—massive, unrelenting—snared my wrists and slammed them above my head. The weight of him crushed down, terrifying in its certainty. My breath hitched, panic clawing up my throat, until finally—finally—I saw his face.

That lopsided gaze burned into mine.

The right eye was blind, ruined, the same jagged scar I had once unveiled when I dared strip away his blindfold. A brutal map of survival etched into flesh. But the left—gods, the left—still as dark as the endless night that haunted my dreams. And within it, something unreadable.

He snarled. Low. Bone-deep. The sound vibrated straight through me, a warning older than language itself.

Even with the scars, he was beautiful—wild and dangerous in a way I had no words for.

My essence flared in response, an instinctual reaction that nearly sent me reeling—not that I could move with his crushing weight pinning me down. It wasn’t submission, nor was it defiance. It was a challenge. A warning of my own. Not violent, but loud and demanding all the same.

If he wanted me, things wouldn’t be as they had been last time—desperate, terrifying, and entirely on his terms.

I needed more than this suffocating silence. More than bared teeth and forceful hands. I needed him to speak.

Damn it, I didn’t even know his name!

Calling him a beast felt wrong now, after all the time I’d spent clawing my way out of my own societal prison just to get to him—yet here I was, mentally locking him into his own.

It was unjust, the treatment forced upon him simply because he had been born a Vers. But even knowing that, the conditioning drilled into me since birth was impossible to silence completely. A quiet, insidious voice whispered in the back of my mind, telling me this was not truly a man before me, but something other. Something foreign, just like the trees and sand beyond the window of this strange, untamed world.

He did not need a name.

He did not need emotions or feelings.

He was without thought, without a soul, without reason.

That was what they had taught me. What the Keepers, my family, and the entire system had drilled into me since birth. Alphas were meant to be used, controlled, nothing more than creatures of instinct. I could do with him as I pleased.

But I didn’t want that.

I didn’t want to be like them.

I had spent my entire life clawing for something more—more than the gilded cage I had been born into, more than the role of a symbol, a product of my family’s “strong breeding.”

And if I wanted that for myself, how could I deny him the same?

“What is your name?”

Beast wanted to slip from my tongue, familiar and easy, but I swallowed it down, forcing myself to push past the instinct. I steadied my breath, forcing my essence to settle, willing my pulse to slow even as he loomed over me, his own ragged breaths filling the too-quiet space.

The weight of him was suffocating, his presence overwhelming, but I refused to look away. I had spent too long being something fragile, something meant to be controlled. If I was going to be here—wherever here was—I would not cower.

Not anymore.

“Want,” he rasped, deep and guttural between sharp fangs. “Give…”

It almost sounded like a plea, yet it still carried the weight of a demand.

Give what, exactly?

My neck? My submission?

I refused to let him tear me apart again so freely. The memory of our first meeting was still carved into my skin, a lingering ache beneath the surface. Even with the advanced tech used for regeneration, the bruises had lasted for days, and I knew some of the deeper marks would remain. Scars—small, permanent reminders of what he had taken but also what I had given.

I swallowed, flexing my fingers against his unrelenting grip.

“You have to give me more than that,” I murmured, forcing my voice steady despite the way my pulse hammered in my throat. “Answer my question. Now.”

His grip on my wrists tightened for a fraction of a second before he tilted his head, considering me.

“Name, little Omega?” he asked, voice low and rasping.

I almost let out a chuckle—whether from nerves or endearment, I wasn’t sure.

“I didn’t mean for you to ask me mine,” I clarified, my lips curling slightly despite myself. “I meant for you to give me yours. But I see you wish to trade, so I shall offer mine first. I am Cassius Deus Jude Cardinal Dominus of the Jude Omegas. Or, well… I was.” I hesitated, the truth settling heavily on my tongue. “I am not so sure anymore.”

His expression barely shifted, yet something flickered in the depths of his dark eye.

“Name,” he repeated, slower this time, as if rolling the word across his tongue, tasting it—unfamiliar with the weight of identity.

I searched his face, those sharp, feral features that had haunted my dreams since the day I first saw him. The wild, untamed edges of him that no amount of conditioning could smooth away. He was raw, primal—something that should not have survived in the rigid world of the Tellus Reram.

And yet, he had.

“You do have one, don’t you?” I asked softly, a genuine question now.

For a moment, there was only silence. The space between us stretched thin, charged with something I couldn’t quite name.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, he rumbled out a single word—his voice rough, almost uncertain. “Soren.”

“Soren. Very good. I like it, it fits you well this name.” I say, in reply.

“This… thing? Name?” His brow furrowed slightly, as though struggling to grasp the concept. Then his lips curled in something almost like disdain. “Soren cares not, Cardinal Omega. Titles mean little. Give now…”

His gaze darkened, locking onto mine with an intensity that sent a shiver through me.

“I want…” he rasped, voice trailing off into something deep and unreadable.

“I suppose titles mean little in our current predicament,” I mused, tilting my head as I met his gaze. “But Soren, I still don’t know what it is you want from me. Be a dear and use your words.” My lips curled in the ghost of a smirk. “And I would prefer Cassius to Omega, thank you.”

I was toying with him now, playing with fire in a way that was bound to get me burned. And yet, I couldn’t help myself. Something about this—about him—set me alight in a way I had never felt before.

I was alone with my Vers. The one I had thought lost. The one I had mourned, raged, and wept for while locked in that tiny, hateful room, awaiting my death. And yet—somehow—I had survived. Somehow, I had woken far from the Tellus Rerum, far from duty and expectation. What had my brothers done?

And I was with him. My Vers.

The one I had craved in the dark of night, burning with need as the marks of his fangs throbbed and pulsed in time with my racing heart—night after night after night.

And something had shifted in me. I felt it.

My essence was no longer what it had been. No longer light, no longer tempered with soft melancholy. It had deepened, darkened, grown richer—less like the Cardinal I had been and more like him.

More like Soren.

The thought satisfied me in ways I could hardly comprehend, stirring something deep within me—something primal, something hungry. The very idea of his essence mixing with mine sent a shiver down my spine.

Though, could an Alpha’s presence even be considered an essence?

I wasn’t sure.

Alphas were rarely given the freedom to express themselves in any way. Even during bonding—even during child-making—they were chained, half-sedated, stripped of autonomy, and taken from the Omega the moment the deed was done.

A necessary precaution, they claimed.

For the safety of the Omega. For the sanctity of the bloodline.

A lie, I had always thought.

And now, staring up at him, unchained, untamed, his essence a storm colliding with mine—

I knew it was.

Yes, he had been a tad violent, but had he truly known another way?

The world had never been kind to Alphas—it had shaped them into creatures of instinct, of survival, of raw need buried beneath chains and sedation. He had been denied everything: freedom, choice, even the dignity of a name he claimed as his own.

Could I fault him for meeting the world with bared teeth and sharpened claws when that was all it had ever asked of him?

No.

And yet, I would not yield so easily.

If we were to stand on even ground, he would have to learn restraint, just as I had learned to wield my emotions like a shield.

Because this time, if he wanted something from me—he would ask.

And ask he did. ”Cassius…” He drawled low and dark and rich just like his Vers presence. ’Give… Give this…” He leaned back on his haunches, the hand he had placed firmly on the ground moving to trail slowly down my chest to my abdomen, and with lighter touches than I thought possible, traveled past my manhood down to that warm, slightly damp, and sensitive spot between my legs.

I sucked in a sharp breath, my body betraying me before my mind could catch up. The heat of his touch seared through the thin fabric that separated us, a stark contrast to the dusty damp of the cabin. My essence flared in response, unbidden, answering his call with a whisper of longing I hadn’t meant to give.

But I would not be ruled by instinct alone.

My hand shot out, grasping his wrist before he could go any further. “Soren,” I warned, my voice steady despite the wildfire racing through my veins. “If you want something, you ask properly.”

His gaze snapped to mine, that single dark eye burning with something wild, something untamed. His lips curled back slightly, a hint of sharp canines flashing as he let out a frustrated growl. But he did not force. He did not take.

Instead, he loomed over me, his scent thick in the air between us, and tried again.

“Cassius,” he rumbled, his voice slow and deliberate as it wrapped around my name. “I know not what this is, but I want. Please… please give…”

The words hit me like a cold bucket of water, dousing the heat that had been steadily building between us. Was he…? Had I been his first, just as he had been mine? The thought struck me with a sharp twist in my gut. Was he even aware of what this was, what it meant? Earthly Gods was I? The abruptness of his release suddenly made more sense — a rushed, instinctive need that hadn’t had the chance to form into understanding.

But then… as the truth began to settle in, so did the doubt. Had I unknowingly forced myself on someone who didn’t even understand what he was asking for?

No. That didn’t feel right. He was asking now, truly begging, his desperation raw and vulnerable. Even if the start had been rough, even if it had been driven by primal instincts, there was something more beneath the surface now. Something deeper. He wanted it. He wanted me.

The weight of his words hit me in a way I hadn’t anticipated, a crack in the tension between us, a shift I couldn’t ignore. It wasn’t just his presence that was overwhelming, it was the vulnerability, the rawness of it. My thoughts swirled in a chaotic mess—guilt, desire, confusion—and I was left paralyzed by the stark realization: I wasn’t just dealing with a beast, an Alpha bred to take and conquer. This was something else.

Soren was not simply the creature of hunger and instinct I had assumed. He was… lost, in his own way. Torn between what he wanted, what he had been conditioned to crave, and what he was allowed to express.

His hands fell to his sides, the tension draining from his posture, but what replaced it was heavier, suffocating. I mirrored him, pressing my palms to my temples in frustration, in helplessness. No answers. Only uncertainty crashing over me in relentless waves. And under it, buried deep, something softer stirred—something protective, unwanted, undeniable.

“I know what you’re asking for,” I murmured, the words catching at the edge of my breath. “But I—”

I stopped myself before they tumbled free. Drew a slow, steady inhale. “But I can’t just give it to you. Not like this.”

He blinked, confusion flashing across the jagged ruin of his features, his dark eye burning with something I couldn’t name. It rooted me in place, that look, even as uncertainty gnawed me hollow.

“Why?” His voice broke raw with desperation, but in the same breath it shifted, cracked into something darker, feral. “You won’t give? Then I take!”

The words struck like a whip, but beneath the threat I heard it—the ache, the plea twisted into violence. The bond thrummed between us, wild and frantic, pulling tight against my will, demanding. He wasn’t just asking. He was begging, but with teeth.

It wasn’t about my own desire. It was about him. It was about us, and what this could be if we found a way to meet in the middle.

“You can’t just take it, that’s wrong, Soren,” I replied softly, my pulse still hammering in my ears, but my mind was clearer than it had been before. “What I did before was wrong. I should have never taken sex from you like that. I was backed in a corner and I well… It doesn’t really matter that much right now. But this time… this time could be different. Better.”

Soren didn’t move. He sat there, just staring at me, his blank expression unreadable as if my words were foreign to him. I had been taught that Alphas didn’t ask, that they took what they wanted, and no one dared question it which was why they were treated like beasts. But there was so much about Soren that contradicted that notion—so many lies I had been told.

“Better?” he repeated softly, almost as if the word was unfamiliar, testing it on his tongue, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure if he was asking for me or for himself.

I nodded slowly, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Yes. Better.”

Soren’s one eye gaze never wavered, but something in his posture shifted, a subtle change, almost imperceptible. I saw it—barely—but it was there. His body language softened, though the wildness remained just beneath the surface, something untamed and unpredictable that neither of us could quite control. His chest heaved slightly with every breath, a low growl rumbling in his chest, but it wasn’t one of anger. This one was… almost a sigh, a hesitant surrender.

“Give..better?” His voice was quieter now, rough, as though the weight of his words were dragging something out of him.

I looked at him, trying to read the depths of his dark gaze, searching for something—anything—that would give me an answer to my own questions. Something more than the emotionless beast I had once been lead to believe he was, led to fear.

“Yes” I whispered, though the words didn’t come easily.

Something about Soren, despite his rough exterior and his primal instincts, felt… real. Raw. A deep, unspoken understanding seemed to pass between us, something unsaid, but undeniable.

His hands twitched by his sides, and it was clear he was trying to hold back, to process the weight of what was unfolding. But as much as he wanted to fight it, there was a part of him that, for the first time, seemed to acknowledge what I had been trying to tell him—what we both wanted. Something different. Something… better.

I dared to sit up from the floor then, closing the distance between us, my heart hammering in my chest as I reached up, my hand brushing lightly against the side of his scared face. His skin was warm beneath my touch, his breath hitching at the gesture, his fangs baring almost menacingly as he held himself back.

“It’s okay Soren,” I murmured, my voice barely above a whisper. “Gentle.”

I knew this moment was crucial. I was offering him something different, something neither of us could take for granted.

And I wouldn’t, as his fangs sank slowly into the muscle of my neck, igniting a fire that roared through my body, impossible to ignore. It wasn’t just pain. It wasn’t just pleasure. It was both, and more—it was surrender and defiance tangled into one, a claim and a confession all at once.

The bond flared to life, raw and searing, and I felt it thread through me like lightning in my veins, pulling me deeper into him, into us. My breath stuttered, my hands tightening against his shoulders as though to anchor myself, though in truth, I wasn’t sure who was anchoring whom.

For the first time in days—weeks, maybe—I didn’t feel hollow. I didn’t feel lost. I felt his.

IX

Despite all that I had said, despite my best intentions, things quickly spiraled into something fast, brutal, and unrelenting—a hunger I had never known before in my life. It swallowed me whole, left me breathless and reeling, and yet I could not bring myself to fight against the tide.

Many times, did I beg for a break, for him to slow down, to let me have but a moment for a breath. Occasionally he would comply, but more times than not his need to drive into me over and over and over won out and I found myself whimpering and moaning and enjoying what he gave me despite my pleas.

I had vowed that things would not be on his terms—but that had failed, much like my grand plan to use him for my own benefit. A laughable notion now, in hindsight. Still, if we were to look at the facts, I had succeeded in one thing: I was no longer helpless to Hera’s will, no longer bound by her relentless control over my life.

I had sought out a Vers to shield me from her, and though it had not gone according to plan, the outcome was more than I could have hoped for. For the first time, I was untethered from her will—free in a way I had never dared to imagine. If this was exile, it was one I could embrace, a banishment that felt more like liberation. One thing was certain: I was no longer within the Tellus Rerum, and I doubted I ever would be again.

I couldn’t find it within myself to be too sad about that fact. I hated my life on Port — hated the weight of my responsibilities, the ever-watchful eyes of the Keepers, the data chips tracking my every breath. Hated everything that came with being a Jude. With being a Cardinal. With being an Omega.

But this… this was different.

The thought of starting over on a real, true terraformed planet should have terrified me — and it did. The kind of terror that sank deep into my bones, sharp and cold. But beneath that fear was something else, something electric.

Excitement for what could be.

Right now though, all thoughts of exploring the outside world — experiencing a real planet and finding answers to the questions that had gnawed at me since childhood — seemed utterly forgotten. The dusty realness of this place, the sandy dunes, rocky cliffs and splashing water beyond them—they were nothing now. Insignificant. Lost. All that remained was him. The vastness of him. His hands, rough and unyielding, traced the fragile lines of my body, drowning out the shape of me with his overwhelming presence. He eclipsed me entirely. He was the storm sent to shatter me.

I had wanted to take things slow. Truly, I had. But there was nothing slow about this.

His breath was hot and ragged against my skin, each exhale burning like fire, and I realized with a start that I was shaking—trembling not from fear but from something far more dangerous. Something that clawed at my chest and unfurled in my stomach in wild, desperate waves. It terrified me, this feeling. It terrified me because I wanted it.

I was meant to be better than this. More composed. More refined. My entire life, I had been taught, forced, to carry myself with grace and poise, to wear the weight of my family’s expectations like a second skin. I was Cassius Deus Jude Cardinal Dominus of the Jude Omegas. A name steeped in wealth, in power, in duty. A name so heavy that at times I could hardly breathe beneath it.

And yet here I was, gasping for breath beneath him, beneath an Alpha instead.

He made a sound low in his throat, something raw and guttural that sent a shiver down my spine. His hands moved with purpose now, sliding over my waist, my hips—gripping, pulling, taking as though I were something he could hold on to.

As though I could possibly be his.

Would that be such a terrible thing?

The thought slithered its way into my mind, unwelcome and unbidden. I tried to push it down, to bury it beneath the weight of my own pride. This was simply not done. Alphas were beneath Omegas in every way — I knew that, didn’t I? It was what I had been taught my entire life. We took what we wanted from them, owned them, possessed them… not the other way around.

And yet, had I ever been what anyone has wanted. Done what was expected of me? No, it was too late for all of that. The seed had been planted, and with every passing second, it took root.

I shifted slightly on the dusty wooden floor, wincing as the grit bit against my palms. The air, true, real air, was thick, damp with the weight of the jungle heat pressing in through the warped shutters. The cabin smelled of disuse — of old wood left to rot, the sour tang of humidity settling deep into the walls. Somewhere nearby, the slow drip of water echoed faintly, a reminder of how long this place had been left to the elements.

Sweat slicked the back of my neck, curling damp tendrils of hair against my skin. I could feel the wood floor beneath me, solid and real, but foreign in a way that made my chest tighten. This was no marble floor polished to a perfect shine. No plush rug imported from the far corners of the system. A place where civilization had long since given way to nature’s slow, inevitable creep. This was raw. Rough.

It was him.

“Soren…”

His name slipped from my lips before I could stop it, a breathless whisper trembling on the edge of something raw. I hadn’t meant to say it — hadn’t meant to give it voice at all — but there it was, breaking through the last frayed threads of my composure. Not that I had much left.

The sound of it hung heavy in the air, tangled with the ragged pull of my breath. My release still shuddered through me, hot and overwhelming, and his name… his name trembled on my tongue like a confession, or a plea. Over and over and over.

He stilled for a moment, his breath heavy against my neck. There was something in the way he held me then, something almost reverent, as though he was caught between the desire to possess, destroy and the need to protect all at once. As though I were something precious. The clarity that came with my subsiding pleasure weighed heavy on me then.

No one had ever made me feel precious before.

My family had no love in it—only duty. We were just beings with similar DNA, occupying the same Port system, and sometimes not even that. My mother was no mother at all. I hadn’t truly met either of my sisters, and my brothers were little more than passing figures in my life, shadows that scarcely acknowledged me. I doubted any of them had even noticed my absence.

As for what role Atticus and Alba had played in placing me here with my Alpha, I wasn’t sure I would ever know. We were ships passing in the void, connected by nothing more than blood—a bond that felt less like family and more like a curse.

And for a moment… I almost hated myself more than usual for how I had used Soren as a means to gain my freedom. It made me to much like them.

Almost.

But then my pride and vanity took over.

I had saved him.

He was destined to die in those fighting pits, or worse — to rot away forgotten in the dark, weighted down by the chains and muzzle I had removed from him. He would have been another nameless Alpha crushed beneath the heel of a system that saw him as nothing more than a beast. Less than a beast, even. Something to be broken. Something to be owned.

And now he was before me, free because of me. And I because of him.

Did that not make me the hero of this story?

The thought was a bitter, twisting thing. I wanted to believe it — wanted to cling to it with both hands, to make it true. But the weight of my own hypocrisy pressed down on my chest. I had not freed him out of kindness. I had not even freed him out of mercy.

I had freed him because I had needed him.

And now? Now he looked at me as though I were something to be cherished, something worthy… and I had no idea what to do with that.

The cabin creaked softly as Soren shifted above me, the floorboards groaning beneath his weight. His alpha presence was thick in the air — dark and earthy and raw — wrapping around me in ways that made my pulse skitter faster than I cared to admit.

I curled my fingers against his scar covered chest, feeling the thunder of his heartbeat beneath my palm. It was wild, untamed, so unlike my own rapidly fluttering pulse. Even now, it was as though my body was trying to maintain the illusion of control, despite the fact that I was falling apart at the seams.

“I am a fool for this,” I whispered, the words slipping out before I could stop them, carried on the breath of my own shortcomings. I hated the way they sounded — soft, uncertain. As if I cared. As if I felt guilty.

I wasn’t supposed to feel guilt. Or sorrow. Omegas didn’t make mistakes — we didn’t regret, and we damn sure didn’t look back. How many times had I been beaten for that philosophy alone? The Keepers were nothing if not thorough. Cruel in their teachings, harsher still in their punishments.

To doubt is beneath you. To hesitate is beneath you. To show weakness is beneath you. Not becoming of a Cardinal.

It chanted in my head, over and over. Beneath you. Beneath you. Beneath you. Like a drumbeat. Like a pulse. Like a sickness.

I had swallowed it down with every breath until it coated my tongue, until it clung to my skin. Until it was instinct, because I could not afford to do otherwise.

But here I was, with sweat and cum slowly drying along the dip between my ribs, Soren’s heavy weight pressing me down and his half soft spent cock still lazily gliding in and out of me, like he had nothing left to give but found he quite enjoyed the feeling of our joined bodies and couldn’t bring himself to stop… and I was doubting.

I was hesitating. I felt weak. And I hated myself for it. This shouldn’t have surprised me—this gnawing uncertainty, this desperate clawing at the edges of control, had been a constant companion for as long as I could remember. Years of duty, of molding myself into a perfect Omega, had trained me to bury any flicker of doubt, any slip of desire. And yet here I was, trembling beneath him, caught between the instincts I was taught to suppress and the raw, unyielding pull that demanded I give in. It was a shameful, intoxicating weakness—and I hated every heartbeat that betrayed it.

Soren’s gaze found mine then, one dark and searching, the other pale and scarred — a reminder of the violence that had shaped him. There was confusion in his expression, yes, but something else too. Something that flickered like a dying flame, fragile and fleeting.

Something I desperately wanted to hold on to.

“Fool?” he asked, his voice rough and low, a growl tucked beneath the syllable.

I should have been disgusted by the sound of it. It was the voice of a creature bred for violence, not conversation. It was guttural, raw.

But instead, it made my pulse race.

“Yes, a fool,” I snapped, my voice sharper than I intended. My pride rose to the surface like a shield, too stubborn to let him see the parts of me that ached. “This is not how it is supposed to be.”

He leaned back on his haunches, his soft cock finally falling free from me with a subtle pop, and settled between my still trembling thighs, his broad frame towering over me. The warmth of him lingered on me where his hands had been, but now there was distance — enough to make me feel exposed.

His brow furrowed slightly, head tilting as if he were reading me, peeling back the layers I barely kept in place.

“Supposed to be?” he asked.

Soft. Quiet. But it hit harder than a shout.

Gods, how could he not understand? It was infuriating — the way he looked at me, as though I were something worth understanding at all. My stomach twisted in on itself, something dark and full of self-loathing curling in my chest.

I lifted my chin. “This… thing we are doing,” I said, gesturing between us with a flick of my wrist, as though it were something trivial. “It isn’t right. It isn’t… proper.”

The words tasted bitter in my mouth. Proper. What an ugly, hollow thing. A word my family had wielded against me my entire life — a reminder that my worth was measured by how well I played the role I had been assigned.

Proper Omegas did not do this.

Proper Omegas did not lay with Alphas out of anything but duty. We did not tangle ourselves in the heat of a body built for nothing but breeding and fighting. To feel pleasure from an Alpha was akin to lying with a pet, morbid and wrong. We did not crave, or hunger, or want. We did not desire, for it was beneath us.

They were vessels. Tools. Pawns in a game played by Omegas with titles similar to my own.

And yet here I was — far from the cold metal halls of my family’s estate, or the empty cold rooms of my private apartments with a creature who should have been nothing more than a means to an end- wanting him.

Craving him.

Soren’s gaze darkened slightly, the confusion bleeding into something heavier as he recognized the look on my face — the thickening of my essence in the room around us, as if my very being was unraveling under his gaze.

There was a beat of silence. Then another. The only sounds were the creaking of old wood beneath our weight, the soft rustle of the damp, heavy air in this forgotten cabin.

It should have felt uncomfortable.

I should have felt uncomfortable.

All I could feel was him.

For a moment, I thought he might ignore my rambling — might grow tired of this conversation and give in to the primal instincts that had driven him before. That would have been easier. Would have likely proven a tiny evil part of my mind right.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he leaned closer, pressing his forehead to mine. His breath was warm against my lips, his touch softer now, though no less desperate. The tension that coiled in his muscles was still there, but it had shifted — something raw and aching taking its place.

There was that something again, in the way he held me, something I couldn’t quite name but felt down to my very bones. A weight. A gravity.

“I do not care for this… proper thing you speak,” he admitted finally, his voice a low rumble. There was a vulnerability to it — raw and jagged around the edges, like a wound that had never properly healed. “Why not… better… instead.”

I stared at him, the words crashing over me. My own words parroted back at me.

I could not help the desperate, almost tearful laugh that left me then. It bubbled up without my permission, breaking the tension in the smallest, most painful way.

“I do not care much for it either, I suppose,” I said, my voice trembling just enough to betray me.

And there it was again — the truth I didn’t want to admit to. I was not supposed to be like this. Not supposed to feel like this. Not with him.

But I did.

Whatever I thought I wanted. Whatever I thought I should do. It was too late. The lines between us had blurred, and there was no going back.

Soren exhaled slowly, the heat of it fanning over my cheek. He brushed his nose against mine, his breath uneven now, heavier.

He gave me that look again — the same dark, unrelenting gaze I had seen when he ripped heavy steel chains from the wall, muscles straining, breath ragged, and told me I could not escape him.

He wanted more of me. More than I probably meant to give. More than I even thought I had.

My breath caught, sharp and sudden. My chest arched, stomach twisting and tingling as he drove deep into me once again — slow, deliberate, like he meant to drag every last ounce of pleasure from me. From both of us.

I gasped, nails digging into whatever I could reach, desperate for something to hold on to. But there was nothing steady, nothing solid but him and the floor.

I closed my eyes. I had no true answer for him — not one I could get myself to say, anyway. The words tangled on my tongue, heavy and thick, choking me as I clung tighter to his broad shoulders.

Maybe if I held on hard enough, I wouldn’t have to speak. Maybe he wouldn’t keep looking at me in that way. Maybe he’d just understand without me saying a damn thing.

I was a coward. I knew it. But I didn’t care. I had wanted to keep him beneath me — to own him, to wield him like a weapon. To control him as I was taught Omegas should. It was easier that way. Simpler. If I could keep him beneath me at least in my mind, I wouldn’t have to face the terrible truth rising inside me.

But now…

Now, I wasn’t sure who had the power anymore.

And I wasn’t sure I cared if it wasn’t me.

That gaze of his—dark, unrelenting—held me there, pinning me down far more surely than his hands ever could. Every sharp inhale, every subtle shift of his weight pressed the truth into me: I was no longer completely in control of myself. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t care.

There was something terrifying and exhilarating in the surrender. The walls I had built so carefully over decades—the perfect Omega, the Cardinal, the dutiful son—crumbled beneath the gravity of him. He wasn’t just a storm; he was the kind of force that made the ground beneath you feel alive, that made you question every rule you had ever known.

And yet, despite everything—the fear, the uncertainty, the wildness—I felt tethered to him in a way I had never thought possible. Anchored. Seen. Desired.

The question lingered in the heavy, humid air between us: would this tether break, or could it hold? I didn’t know. And somehow… I didn’t want to know.

I only knew that I would not look away. Not now. Not ever.

X

Epilogue

(5038 P.E.)

The sand was stark and coarse, a mix of fine grains and jagged fragments, clinging stubbornly to every inch of my skin, burrowing into the folds of my clothes, leaving its mark wherever it could. Its texture was relentless, biting at me with each step, yet somehow, in its persistence, it became part of me—just like the gray, windswept cliffs, the dark, churning waves, and the life I had carved out here.

The sound of the ocean was mesmerizing, the rhythmic crash of waves against the shore echoing deep in my chest. No AI-generated clip from Port, no matter how precise, could mimic it. They were hollow imitations, empty echoes of something real. The true ocean—its deep, guttural roar—was primal, speaking to the core of me. It wrapped around me, wild and unpredictable, yet somehow soothing.

Much like my Alpha, this place had a raw, untamed presence. Here, in this old-world paradise, sitting on a windswept beach with sand clinging to my skin and salt sharp on the chilly morning air, I felt alive in a way I had never known before.

Time had lost its edges here, blurred into years measured only by the rise and fall of the sun—something I had come to crave, a quiet rhythm I never took for granted. The days passed almost unnoticed, their pattern irrelevant. Water, food, supplies—always appearing in the night, as if delivered by some unseen hand—were convenient, but Soren rarely relied on them.

He preferred the hunt. With a predator’s grace, he scaled jagged cliffs for birds, plunged into the icy reefs for fish, or threaded through the dense forest in search of wild roots, berries, and small game. Each return was a ritual: his eyes bright with satisfaction, the edges of his scarred face softened by a rare, private pride.

He offered his finds to me like treasures, yet it was more than that. The brush of his fingers as he passed me a bite, the warmth of his hands lingering on mine, the faint scent of him in the air—all of it set a quiet fire inside me. I accepted his offerings with a reverent focus, yet my pulse throbbed with the memory of other moments—the heat, the weight of him, the unspoken sexual tension that never quite left the space between us.

As for cooking, that was an entirely different matter. Soren had no interest in the sterile, pre-packaged meals delivered in the anti-parish supply drops. He preferred something simpler, raw and unrefined—a meal born of effort and instinct rather than convenience. And I had to admit, the passion he poured into foraging and preparing it became far more compelling than any artificial efficiency could ever be.

And as I watched him move through this world, relentless, strong, yet so undeniably present for me, everything else fell away. The cold edges of my past, the weight of expectations, all of it dissolved until there was only him. Only the pull between us, subtle and unyielding, like the tide of the ocean at my feet, endless and impossible to ignore.

I no longer felt the need for the rigid structure and control I had once clung to. Some days were harder than others, of course, but the crushing pressures of Portlife—the expectations of June Energies that had weighed me down—were absent here. Time itself seemed irrelevant, a passing distraction against the strange, pulsing connection I now shared with him.

Still, there were nights when I would wake, disoriented and weeping, haunted by ghost pains from old memories. In those moments, the silence between us as he held me until morning—the soft rise and fall of his chest, the warmth of his skin against mine, the faint scent of salt and earth drifting in from the shore—was a comfort I could no longer see my life without.

And it was becoming easier and easier to let Soren lead, especially when the burden of life here was shared between us. Something unheard of on the Tellus—an Alpha and Omega living side by side as equals? Blasphemous. And yet, I loved it.

I loved him.

I drew my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around myself and shivering slightly in the cool morning air, when sharp, screaming giggles erupted from down the beach. Two dark, curly-headed angels—hair and eyes that same lovely chocolate shade that was all Soren’s—came sprinting toward me at full speed.

Soren said they were his gift to me, a thank-you for setting him free from the horrors of the fighting pits. And he was right of course, but they were an also a gift from my brothers—an offering to make a life something more. Something warm and full, far removed from the hollow coldness of the Jude family. They were love and happiness, everything my brothers had never been able to give me.

Getting pregnant was the most terrifying thing to ever happen to me—but also the most unexpectedly perfect accident.

“Dada! Dada!” My two little girls—both Dominus Omegas, if my senses weren’t deceiving me—tumbled into me with all their tiny might. Their hands caught in my hair and clothes, their laughter ringing in the air as they peppered my face with relentless kisses. My chest swelled with a warmth so fierce it left me breathless.

Soren followed behind, a quiet smile softening his usually intense features, holding a sleepy bundle of pale hair in his arms. He watched us—the chaos, the love, the noise—with an ease I hadn’t known I would ever see in him.

For a moment, the world narrowed to just us. The fear that had haunted me—the fear that someone would come for them, that everything we had built could be torn apart—faded into the background. Yes, they were Omegas, and that offered a fragile shield, but more than that, they were ours. They were a living, breathing promise of the life we had fought to claim, the life we had chosen for ourselves.

And as I held them, their giggles and tiny hands anchoring me to this moment, I allowed myself to fully feel it—joy, relief, love, and something that felt dangerously close to peace. It was overwhelming, and yet, it was exactly where I belonged.

“Girls, what did I tell you about interrupting Dada’s quiet time in the morning?” Soren asked, his soft, gravelly voice light, even as he tried to scold them. Their wet, happy kisses were a chorus of “Sorry, Papa! Sorry, Dada!” and I hugged them close, laughing.

“That’s okay,” I murmured. “Dada was cold, but you two warmed me right up.”

“Warmed up! Warmed up!” they chanted, wriggling free and sprinting down the sandy shore on unsteady toddler legs.

I stood slowly, brushing sand from my bottom, then rose onto my tiptoes to plant a playful kiss on Soren’s cheek.

He smiled softly at me in that way of his—reserved, gentle, and knowing. He had likely heard me get up this morning, but he recognized that I needed my time alone.

I had dreamed of my brother Atticus again last night. He knew, of course he knew. Often, he knew me better than I knew myself. And I loved that about him.

I hugged Soren tight around his broad waist, then leaned over to place a soft kiss on our youngest’s sleeping cheek—warm and soft in that way only babies can be. Soren rumbled his contentment low in his chest for me, and I sighed softly against his warmth.

“A bad one?” he finally asks, and I can’t help but avoid his gaze, choosing instead to watch our children sprinting to beat each other in the surf, their giggles untethered, free of all the pain and sorrow that had marked their parents’ pasts.

A part of me often feels ashamed of my own struggles. I know Soren carries his own nightmares, a dark past far worse than mine, one he rarely speaks of. The hurt from that past is carved into him, leaving aches I know still linger. I often catch him fiddling with the scar on his face when he’s lost in thought, or flinching involuntarily if I close a door too loudly—though at first, I was never allowed to close any door at all. Thankfully, he has moved past that. Sometimes, he rubs at his wrists when they ache in the night.

Trauma is handled so differently by everyone, and Soren, as strong as he is, chooses to let it all go. He tells me he does not share because those hurts have no right to taint the beauty of what he has now. He calls them a blight, a force that could bring unhappiness to our home, our lives, and our children—and he will not allow that.

I wish I could do the same. I try. I do. But they speak to me in my dreams, and I was never as strong as I wanted to be.

“It was the smoke. That goddamn cigar smoke. He always smelled of it, no matter what he did, and it was like it had filled the whole house to the brim. And I woke up, and that smell was still there. And I… I wasn’t scared or angry, Soren.” My voice cracked, and I felt the words that terrified me to speak catching in my throat. “I was sitting there in the dark, smelling that same old smell, and I… I fucking missed him. How could I miss that asshole? I—well, I don’t know. I barely knew him. He wasn’t truly family. Not really. Hell, we weren’t even strangers. At least strangers don’t leave memories that ache. So how could I miss him? How could I?” My chest tightened. “There are so many unanswered questions. So many things I don’t understand. Half the time, I don’t know if I want to hit him, or cry, or just… give him a hug.”

Soren let out a soft sound and gently placed our youngest—our bubbly, happy, gentle little boy, who resembled me so closely it made my chest ache—into my arms. His massive palms cupped my cheeks, thumbs brushing away my tears with a tenderness that never failed to tug at my heart, no matter how many times he showed me such quiet, steadfast kindness over the years.

I looked down at our son—so gentle, so quiet, so soft, just like his father—and suddenly nothing else mattered. I was exactly where I needed to be, right here, right now.

“You’re right,” I said softly, letting out a quiet sigh.

A gentle, lopsided smile tugged at Soren’s lips. “Am I now? And what am I right about?”

“Don’t be a brute,” I laughed, pressing a soft kiss to his lips and hugging our son close to my chest.

Our alpha son. How he had terrified me so deeply, so viscerally, that words could never do it justice. I had just been starting to heal, to move forward—fighting my fears, finally living after so long of being free yet too afraid to truly enjoy it. And then he came, and oh, how he had scared me.

I cried for days after his birth, too afraid to even touch him for fear he would be taken from me—and that I would know a loss like nothing I had ever known before. I sank into a depression so heavy I barely spoke, barely ate. Meanwhile, Soren handled it all: two crying, confused, three-year-olds, unsure why one of their parents seemed absent, and a wailing newborn. And he had been so strong. So sure. So unwaveringly true to us.

He had given me a week before he finally had enough. He came into our room and placed that tiny boy into my arms, and I had cried, wailed, begged him to take the baby away. That I couldn’t bear it—but Soren would not listen. I had been completely lost in my past, overwhelmed by fear and grief.

Then that little bundle had giggled. Just a tiny soft content giggled to himself. And a delicate, chubby little hand—soft with newborn fat—reached for me. In that instant, I could no longer remember why I had been so afraid.

Our son was like that. Just as his father was. They had a way of making everything feel right, with little to no words.

“I am too hard on myself. That life is gone. It’s in the past. Nothing is going to change that. But we have the power to change what we do now. What life we want to live now. Don’t we, little man?” I said, pressing against my baby boys warmth, letting the comfort settle deep into my bones. “Yes, we do.”

The sun climbed higher, its light pale but steady, casting long reflections across the damp sand. Our children dashed along the edge of the surf, squealing as icy waves chased their little feet, turning the game into nothing but laughter and shrieks and running. The original point lost to their silly childish whims.

Soren’s hand found mine, steady and grounding, a quiet anchor as I watched our family move together in this simple, imperfect joy. We were still healing, still learning, still growing—but here, in this moment, the past felt like it could no longer hurt me any longer, and the life we were building felt tangible, truly ours to shape.

My gaze lifted instinctively to the sky, catching the glint of metal far above, slicing through the sunlight like a promise—or a warning. Even here, even now, shadows still lingered beyond the warmth of the sand and laughter. But with little hands tugging at mine and the sound of our children’s delight filling the air, I let myself believe that whatever came next, we would face it together.

The End.

XI

Afterward

“Evander, slow down and wait for Dada! Girls, be careful on the rocks while Papa’s fishing!” I called over the wind. The sky and ocean were at odds today, both roiling and restless, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the rain came soon. Soren had been watching the clouds since early morning and finally slipped into the water this afternoon, saying storms always brought the best fishing. How he could stand the cold was beyond me.

Isolde and Seren were at that age where they wanted to be part of everything, and Evander, now two years old, was determined to follow wherever his sisters led. Every stumble, every slippery rock set my nerves on edge, each near-miss making me want to tear my hair out. I perched uneasily on the boulders near the shore, eventually scooping Evander into my arms while trying—unsuccessfully—not to hover over the girls.

Soren was forever scolding me for it, insisting children needed to test their limits.

“Let them fall“, he would tell me, “that’s how they learn where their strength begins.” He believed it was good for them to push, to discover what they could do. I believed it was a good way to give me gray hairs.

The wind whipped my hair into my face and mouth, reminding me I was in dire need of a cut again. It had grown too long, forever falling into my eyes—something I detested, but Evander adored. All the more for him to grab and tug with those little fists.

The girls’ hair was just as wild, two windswept halos of dark curls floating around their heads as they skipped and leapt from rock to rock like little sprites, untamed and unstoppable. Watching them like that made it nearly impossible to ever tell them no.

It stirred too many unhappy memories of my own childhood—hours upon hours spent in schooling, where play was dismissed as a waste of time and beneath me. Discipline had come swift and harsh when I dared to falter, when I wanted only to act my age. I was so young then, yet every moment of my life was dictated: what I ate, what I studied, who I spoke to, where I went. There were no toys, only tomes of history, law, and business. No freedom to play, no space to discover who I was. Rare moments of joy existed, but they were fleeting, too scarce to truly bring any reprieve.

It ached to see now what I had lost, yet it also filled me with joy to know my babies would never be caged by those same suffocating standards.

Suddenly, something about the sounds around me felt wrong. The rhythm of the waves, the cries of the gulls—off, somehow, like the world had skipped a beat. A chill ran up my spine, sharp and certain. My pulse quickened as I strained to listen.

Evander seemed to sense it too. He went quiet in my lap, not protesting when I scooped him up and perched him on my hip before striding quickly toward the girls.

“Seren! Isolde! Come to Dada, now!” I shouted over the wind, my voice sharper than I intended. Both their heads snapped up, curls whipping wild around their faces before they started hopping over the slick rocks toward me.

Too slow, I thought. Too slow.

My heart slammed against my ribs as my eyes swept the waves. Where was Soren? I needed my Alpha. His head broke the surface of the water just as my panic was about to swallow me whole—a fear I hadn’t felt this strongly since Evander was born. I shouted his name over the crash of the surf, my voice carried away by the wind, praying he could hear me across the distance.

For a heartbeat, I couldn’t tell if he had. The waves tossed him, blurred the lines of his face, but then his head turned toward me. Relief swept through me, thin and shaky, as his powerful strokes cut through the water and he began making his way back toward the rock face.

Just as Soren hauled himself from the frigid waters, a glint far off in the distance caught my eye. My stomach dropped. Every awful emotion I thought I’d buried over the last five and a half years came crashing back at once.

I bolted toward the girls, Evander clinging to my neck, his little whimpers swallowed by the wind—or by the roar of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. Panic sharpened my every step.

Soren saw it too—or maybe he simply felt my terror. His long strides devoured the distance, steady and sure where mine faltered, and he swept both girls up against his chest with practiced ease.

I didn’t pause, didn’t breathe. I spun on my heel, sprinting off the jagged boulders, across the sand, and up the grassy hillside. Past the cabin. Into the shelter of the trees. The only place that felt like it could hide us.

Soren reached me first, his long strides unrelenting. In one motion he set the girls safely down, dropped the line of fish I hadn’t even realized he carried, and pulled me into his arms. I clutched Evander between us, his small body trembling with quiet sobs. He was not a fussy child—rarely ever cried—but the fear in him now pierced straight through me. It ached, knowing I had frightened him. But I was just as afraid.

Because the Flier that glinted in the sky was no ghost memory of the past. It was real. Present. And I could not—would not—let it anywhere near my children.

“They’re here.” The words tore out of me, half pant, half sob, muffled against Soren’s chest. “They came for me. Why? Why now?” My curls clung damp to my face and neck, plastered by sweat and fear.

Soren’s jaw clenched, his body thrumming with defiance, ready to argue—but I didn’t let him. I couldn’t.

“You have to take the children and hide,” I forced out, my voice breaking but relentless. ”You have to take them. My love. Oh, my love.” The thought alone cracked me, but I pressed on, fierce even as the tears burned my throat. “They won’t hurt me—not any worse than they already have. But you…” My words faltered, and I swallowed hard. “They’ll kill you. And they’ll take our babies. I won’t allow that.”

My voice dropped to a whisper, but the ferocity inside me only sharpened. “Go to the place we talked about. If they take my word at face value, they won’t think to look for you. If I’m not back by tomorrow at sundown, know that I love you all—dearly. And wait. Wait at least a week. Don’t come back until you’re certain they’re truly gone.”

I gazed up into his dark expression his mismatched eyes mirroring my fear back to me, I was pleading now, my voice raw. “Please, Soren. Please do this for me, my love.”

I pulled Evander’s arms from around my neck and planted a big wet kiss on my son’s cheek before rising on my toes to press my lips to the worry line between Soren’s brows. True to himself, he said nothing—just mirrored the kiss back to me, then swung Evander up onto his shoulders and took each of the girls’ hands in his own.

They had been quiet since the start, their wide eyes glassy with unshed tears. I knelt in the soft moss beneath the oak, ash, and evergreens that made up the forest behind our home. Seren had her thumb in her mouth again. I gently pulled it free, ruffling her wild curls and kissing the little mole beneath her right eye—the same one Soren had lost long ago, fighting in the pits.

Isolde was harder to soothe. Where Seren moved and swayed like the breeze, Isolde bristled—wild through and through. She looked a breath away from a tantrum, but one sharp look from her papa held it back. The stubborn glower on her face was his exactly, and I prayed I would get to see it a million times more.

Soren had always been a man of few words, but the pinched look on his face told me that this silence was for my sake, not his own. I gave him a small nod before turning toward the edge of the tree line, while my family slipped deeper into the misty forest, toward the shelter of the mountains that rose at the island’s heart.

Then the rain began. I welcomed it wholly, as the sky split open like a yawning maw of teeth and spilled its grief. It felt as though the old world Gods were either mourning with me… or granting me their blessing. Rain also meant whoever had come would be less likely to linger.

The hum of the thrusters on the Outer Galaxy Flier was unmistakable once I recognized it for what is was. Its massive engines thrumming as the ship hovered miles offshore above the ocean. The stillness I’d noticed earlier had not been peace at all—it was absence. The birds had cut their songs short, and even the small rustlings of mice, rabbits, and squirrels had gone silent, stilled by the ship’s arrival. Nature itself had sensed the danger.

The Flier’s thrusters churned the sea into chaos, sending great waves surging outward in a wide circle. The crashing wake battered the rocky shore where, only moments ago, I had been at peace with my family.

Even from here, peering through the trees, I could see a Glider’s sleek form break away from the great vessel like a shard of metal splintering off a blade. They were small circular transports, built to carry only two or three people. Their design had been modeled after old world sailboats: a partially enclosed metal tube with a single tall sail and a rudder at the aft for steering. They had been made for worlds like this—without zero-grav, generators, or controlled atmospheres. The great sail, that was not truly a sail at all, absorbed wind or sunlight, converting it into power for the rudder. Good for reconnaissance, they were used mostly for expeditions to terraformed planets—or by the military. They were more efficient than Port Scuds, able to travel farther and built to run on very little. I’d heard stories of troops and scientists reconfiguring them to draw power from water—or even waste—when wind and sunlight weren’t enough.

I should not have been so shocked to see my brothers—both of them—as the Glider came to a stop on the sand at the edge of the grassy hill I had called home these past five years. It wasn’t their arrival that startled me; I had half-expected someone from Jude Energies to come. It was seeing them in these surroundings that struck me.

Alba looked wrong here, out of place against the howling winds that lifted the sand and spun it in circles, while the knee-high grass bent beneath the storm but never broke—its roots deep, steadfast, certain. He was not delicate, but he was a man shaped for gold and gems, for polished halls and the wealth of eons of Omega prestige. Here, amid raw earth and storm, it showed.

Atticus didn’t quite fit either, but in the opposite way. Where Alba seemed too delicate for the wildness, Atticus was too untamed for the usual calm of this land. He was the embodiment of space itself—a black chasm that consumed, craved, and always hungered for more.

They looked so much like my son—like me—that for a moment all I wanted was to turn and run back toward my true family. My home. Not this empty cabin, which would always feel hollow once I was gone. Still, I resolved to meet them on that hill. They would not be permitted inside my home—not only for fear they might discover I was not alone and go searching, but because they had not earned the right to step into a place so sacred.

Once I left the treeline, the land opened into rolling plains. The hill that sloped down toward the cabin was one of the highest points above the beach, so I knew they would have no trouble spotting me. I did not rush as I made my way along the rocky trail that zigzagged back down toward the beach. Nor did I greet them when I arrived. Instead, I circled around the cabin to block the porch, standing between them and the threshold.

It was there, at the bottom of the steps where I had kissed away my children’s hurts, wept for the past and the grief that still haunted me, and been gathered close by my Alpha in sweet, quiet moments that made it all worth enduring, that I seemed to make my last stand. My brothers—alone, with no Keeper in sight—met me in silence. I could read little, if anything, from their expressions. The storm howled around us, the rain soaking me to the bone, but the true weight was in the silence between us—thick, strained, unbearable. I did not know what words I would have spoken even if I had wanted to. And some stubborn, childish part of me hoped that if I never began the conversation, perhaps they would never take me at all.

“Hello, little Cardinal.”

It was Atticus who spoke first. Fresh scars marked him now, joining the old one that had long healed across his face. His hands and neck—the only parts of him visible—were latticed with them, and I knew if he undressed his whole body would be the same.

At the sound of that title I flinched, unable to hide it. A flash of something—what, I could not name—flickered in Atticus’s blue eyes, so like my own. So like my son’s.

“Do not call me that,” I said. My voice was flat, monotone, though I had to raise it to be heard above the weather. It startled me, how detached I sounded, like an outsider watching a stranger wear my skin. It was nothing like the terror inside me, and I wondered how my truths did not show.

Alba cleared his throat, seeming half-mollified—for what it was worth, which was not much.

“Cassius.” The conversation seemed to hinge on that single word. My name. The name Alba himself had given me. Hera had never truly cared for me—not even in the beginning. I had not laid eyes on my mother until my twelfth year. “Must we do this in the rain? It is cold, and there is much to catch up on.”

I glanced behind me at the porch. The covered overhang would spare us from the downpour, but was I willing to concede that much? The truth was, I was cold. My bones ached with it. Would it do any harm? I prayed not.

“You may not enter,” I said at last—stiff, firm, absolute, or so I hoped. Then I turned on my heel and walked up the steps.

Despite the fact that I had not permitted them entry, it didn’t stop me from slipping past the solid oak door and stripping off my soaked shirt. I pulled on a coat, then wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. For a moment, I debated whether I even wanted to step back out into the impending doom of this conversation—or if I could simply lock the door and hide here for the rest of my life.

Unreasonable. I knew it.

So I drew a deep breath, cinched the blanket tighter, and opened the door again—careful to block any view inside before closing it firmly behind me.

Alba and Atticus had not moved from where I’d left them. Atticus perched half on the porch, half off, as though ready to spring away at any moment. Like prey, not predator—odd, when in my story he had always been the perpetrator.

Alba had claimed a place by the railing near him, his gaze fixed on the ocean and the downpour beyond. And when I stepped outside, it was as if I had stepped back into that room five years ago—his broad back turned to me, the wide windows framing him, his desk set before the endless black beyond.

That old anxiety gripped me tight, but still I found my voice.

“Why have you come here?”

It seemed my anger and hard-won reserve had at last triumphed over the childlike fear these men still stirred in me. I could not imagine ever loving them again, nor seeking their love in return. Even if—deep down—I was thankful that they had brought me here. Or at least, I assumed they had. I had no proof. And what proof I did have made no sense.

The realization unsettled me. For all my life, I think—even if I had not known to name it—what I felt for them was love. A brotherly love, threaded with hope and desire that they might love and care for me in return. And fear. So much fear. Fear they would hurt me. Fear they would abandon me. But most of all, fear they would never love me back.

To no longer desire that love felt, to my younger self, like choosing not to breathe—yet realizing I could, and would, go on regardless. I had never truly needed them. And they had never wanted me. That much had been made clear in our mother’s cruelty, in our sisters’ indifference, and in their own choice to leave me in the hell they once dared to call a respectable upbringing.

It struck me, suddenly, that if they wanted me to leave with them, I would. But I would not stay long. I could never return—for fear of bringing House Jude or the Nexus Authority down upon my Alpha and our precious children. But I could not live, either. To live without my heart would be no life at all. So I would end it, swiftly, to protect them. Because that was what must be done.

“I ask again—why have you come?”

“You have grown, baby brother,” Atticus is first to break the silence again. He was restless at his perch, fingers worrying at his lighter as though it were a lifeline. It is then I realize something is missing. By now he should have had one of his famous cigars between his lips. Why was he going without?

“That is what happens when one ages, yes.” My tone was flat, dead. Lifeless, like I would soon be.

“We mean you no harm, Cassius. Why must things be strained like this?” Alba’s voice was smoother, coaxing. At last, he turned from the ocean to face me.

“Do not belittle me by dancing around the truth! You would not have come if you did not want something. I am no fool, brother.” I spat that last word like acid, unwilling to let him hold any illusions about where he stood with me. We were not close. We were not family. To one another, we meant nothing.

Atticus, as always, was the easiest to spark to anger. “I told you this would be a waste, brother. He does not want us here. We should not have come.”

“He deserves answers, Atticus.” Alba snaps in reply, as if they have had this very conversation a million times already. “He deserves the truth. He needs to know why it was no longer safe for him. And the very least he should know why we have done what we’ve done.”

Had I not begged for that very thing—again and again—these past years? Had I not cried it to the sky, to the old world gods, to my Alpha, to the many versions of Alba in my memories? And yet now, faced with the chance to finally have the answers I once so desperately sought… I found I did not want them. I was afraid. And ashamed of my own cowardice.

Alba must have read something on my face. A skill of his I had always despised.

“Emotions are running high,” he said evenly. “I think it best if we sleep on this. There are more cabins on the island—we can reconvene in the morning. It will be better for you, as well as for us. We’ll send the Outer Galaxy Flier away. Of course we will want to stay for a few days, to explain things, to make them right. Sometimes these conversations are better had on a new day.”

I had no desire to agree with him. But it was already too late. Before my eyes, he spoke into the communication device on his wrist, and I watched as the Flier lifted, engines roaring, then peeled away into the storm—leaving both my brothers stranded here with me.

My temper surged. I wanted to scream at them, to order the ship back, to beg them to leave me alone. But it would do no good. An outburst would only make things worse.

Most of the cabins near ours had long since been torn apart for scrap, their wood and nails repurposed to expand and repair our own little home. I could not bring myself to warn my brothers that the few that remained were half-rotted, leaky, and barely habitable. Let them find that out for themselves.

So I turned on my heel and walked into my house without a word to them, slamming the door behind me—shutting them out. They would be tomorrow’s problem. Soren and my children were safe in the mountains, hidden where no one would find them. I had told them to stay gone for a week, and I knew my Alpha would listen. That would be more than enough time to see my brothers gone—without them ever knowing I was not alone.

…

The following morning did not feel much better. I had slept poorly without Soren’s steady warmth beside me, without the familiar weight of a child pressing in close with an elbow or knee against my ribs. The bed had felt cavernous, my thoughts too loud, and the silence around me only sharpened the ache of their absence.

I was up well before dawn and decided it would not do to wallow in bed. There were things to be done, tasks to anchor me when my heart wanted to drift back to Soren and the children.

I made the bed, smoothing the blankets one to many times, then set about washing the patchwork clothes Soren and I had stitched together from scraps—remnants of old blankets and the odd fabrics tucked into supply drops over the years. Not everything sent had been food, though we’d never complained. And rarely used it all.

I dared not hang the clothes outside, not with my brothers so near. Instead, I kept the damp garments indoors, draping them across chairs and rafters, unwilling to risk the sight of them to close to a window. The storm still lingered in a soft drizzle anyway and made the morning overcast and dark even after sunrise.

Normally, by now, the children would be up as well. The house felt hollow without them, the silence pressing in where laughter and chatter should have been. Breakfast, though usually Soren’s task, fell to me alone, and with no one else to please it did not need to be anything extravagant—just dried fish and a package of stale bread from a supply drop.

By now, the children would have been begging to go outside. I looked toward the door, feeling suddenly small and out of place in a house that seemed too large, too empty, and far too quiet. By the threshold, Soren’s and my shoes lay worn almost to nothing, long beyond repair, while the children had never known any at all. Still, as I did nearly every morning, I would have bundled my babies as best I could against the chill. Isolde, though, would never suffer anything on her feet—not even in winter. Wild thing that she was, her siblings followed her lead, and so, without ever meaning to, we had become a primarily barefoot family.

As if sensing my attention, a knock came at the door. My heart lodged itself in my throat, the sound far too loud in the silence of the house. I stared at the entryway, unprepared—unwilling—to welcome the day, knowing full well what waited on the other side.

My brothers looked worse for wear, unwashed and still in the same clothes they had worn yesterday. From the way they carried themselves, I knew they had discovered what I already knew—that the other cabins were little more than rotting shells. That thought gave me a flicker of satisfaction, though not much. Alba wasted no time on pleasantries this time, diving instead into a tangle of words that left me reeling.

“I want to preface this by saying it was never our intention to leave you without any explanation for so long. Things got… out of hand after we brought you here. You are on a terraformed planet—Caelus-9, or as some call it, Eira Nova. All of this is part of a program designed by House Jude, without Hera’s knowledge. We rescue bonded Alphas and Omega families, bringing them to isolated islands like your own to keep them hidden, to heal, and to build the lives they deserve. The project began around the time you were born. Our sisters spearheaded it, while Atticus and I remained behind the scenes—keeping the machine running, keeping funds flowing. But that isn’t what matters. Things grew dangerous when you bonded with your Vers. To keep you safe from the Nexus Authority…and from Hera, we had to move fast. No one could know you were here. And we had never relocated a Cardinal before. The red tape was… nearly impossible to cut through.”

I looked between my brothers, struggling to form a response, my thoughts a snarl of confusion. The world itself felt too loud, as though it meant to drown me. The crash of the ocean against the rocks, the restless leaves rattling in the forest, the hiss of wind dragging through the grass—all of it roared in my ears. Even the cabin betrayed me, creaking beneath Atticus’s weight as he shifted in the silence. My heartbeat thudded unevenly, my breath harsh. And then came Alba’s sigh—quiet, measured, patient. Too patient.

“I have not asked out of respect for your privacy, but where is he? Your Alpha. I am sure he is around here somewhere. And the children.”

My head snapped up, and whatever calm I may have shown outwardly shattered in a moment. “That is none of your business!” The words tore from me, guttural and sharp, fueling the explosion of essence, the likes of which I had never fully unleashed before. I let it roar through me, letting it claw, let it burn. Atticus crumpled to his knees under the weight of it, gasps sputtering from his lips as he fought to resist the pressure of my will. My body trembled—not from weakness, but from the raw surge of power and fury that had been coiled too long.

Alba seemed to shift uneasily, stepping back as far as the porch—and his pride—would allow. “We do not mean them any harm,” he said, his voice strained, every word taut with tension. “We have not come here to hurt you. Or them.”

I did not believe him. I did not want to believe him.

I was afraid. So, so afraid. I had planned to lie about Soren, but the children? Oh God, the children. How could they have known? But the real question gnawed at me even more. What would Alba not know? My brother saw everything, noticed even more. Most things could not be hidden from him. Hadn’t I always known that about him? How could I be so foolish?

How could I keep them safe now? The cogs in my brain spun frantically, turning over every possibility, every danger. Then something Alba had said lodged itself awkwardly in my thoughts.

“Our sisters?” I asked, voice sharp. “Briella and Bastienne? But I do not even know them. How could they know anything about me?”

“Because I told them,” Atticus ground out through clenched teeth. “Now could you please tone down your essence? It’s becoming hard to breathe here.”

He rose shakily to his feet—a feat I silently condemned him for, knowing that few Regress could manage such a thing with an angry Dominus so close.

“You told them…” I muttered more to myself than aloud. “You speak with them? H-have you been watching me?” I snapped, the words sharp, dangerous. Foreign even to my own ears.

Before I even realized it, I was in Atticus’s face. My essence thickened the air once again, heavy as tree sap, clogging his throat and driving him back to the ground. “You had no right. No right! They are mine. Mine!“

Alba lunged for me then, shouting something that could not—would not—reach me over the roar of my own fury. He grabbed me, yanking my face to command my attention, trying to pull me from Atticus, but the rage pounding in my ears drowned out everything else.

“You can’t have them,” I gasped. “I—I won’t let you have them. No. No. No, you can’t.“

Panic clawed through me, shutting me down from the inside. My vision tunneled, a telltale sign of a panic attack—something I hadn’t experienced since those early days here, when every shadow seemed an enemy and every night was haunted by nightmares. My breathing came in harsh, ragged gasps, my chest tightening as I felt myself collapse inward, my hand clenched against it in a desperate attempt to stay upright.

Then I felt it. That familiar, soothing ripple of essence, sliding effortlessly alongside my own. And I knew. Oh, I knew. He was here.

Why was he here? Why had he returned before the time we had agreed upon? And yet, despite the protests thrumming through my mind, a swell of happiness rose within me. He was here. His presence pressed against mine. My Alpha had come for me.

“All is well, my love,” came Soren’s gentle baritone, barely above a whisper. “Just breath. Just breath.” His large hand traced soothing lines up and down my spine, and for the first time since I had sent them away, I felt myself relax.

The tempest inside me calmed—calmed—calmed with each breath in, each breath out, until the chaos ebbed enough for me to see clearly again. I found myself on our porch steps, gathered into Soren’s lap, his strong arms a fortress around me. Warm. Secure. I buried myself in his scent, steady and familiar, and let it anchor me.

“The babies?” I whisper into his neck once I’ve composed myself, just a little. Soren had always had a way of drawing me so completely into him that the rest of the world seemed to vanish. He smells of sweat and forest and salt water, and I love him so fiercely that I cannot summon anger—not when it would serve no purpose. They already know of the children. Nothing can save us now.

“Inside, my love,” Soren hums, his large palm warm against the back of my neck, right where he loves to mark me with his teeth. Even now, I’m sure the skin there bears his scars. “Evander is napping. And the girls have eaten their breakfast—though by now, I’m certain they’ve found some mischief to get into.”

“Brother…“I flinched slightly at Alba’s voice, though it was the softest I had ever heard it in all my life. “We do not mean to disrupt your life. Only to be a part of it. I did not mean to bring you so much discomfort.”

He had been so strange through all of this—so unlike the man I once knew. Alba had always been the diplomat, but softness had never been in his nature.

Atticus remained quiet, his breathing ragged as he fought to regain composure. His fingers flicked at his lighter almost compulsively, wearing down the metal in his hands. I noticed, with some surprise, that he still hadn’t brought out a cigar, though I knew he must be itching for one by now. Had he quit in the years since I’d last laid eyes on him? But then—why carry the lighter at all?

“How can I believe what you say is your truth?” I asked softly, ashamed that I lacked the will to lift my face fully from Soren’s chest, to look the man I had once considered a brother in the eye as I spoke. “How can I trust my family with you? Why must you come at all, if not to destroy everything I hold sacred? You have been watching—so why could you not simply stay away? I do not think I wish to know you… as I have never known you. There is no reason to change now. It is too late.”

Tears burned in my eyes then—unwanted, unneeded. There should have been none left for these men, and yet they came all the same.

Soren, stronger than me as he so often is, does not hesitate. I make no protest as he lifts us both from the steps, gathering me easily into his arms. I curl against him, small and vulnerable, my face pressed into the warm hollow of his neck in a futile attempt to hide my shame.

Alba cleared his throat then—perhaps to draw my attention, perhaps Soren’s—but my Alpha says nothing, as is his way. He carries me inside and shuts the door behind us. His touch gentle as he sets me on a stool in the kitchen. I can’t help but smile faintly at the mess my daughters had left behind as he wipes the tears from my cheeks and presses a kiss to my brow. From the look in his eyes, I knew he meant to go back out and face them. I had no strength left to protest. All I wanted was to gather my children close, to see Evander’s sleeping face, and to pray my brothers would not darken this family with lies.

I did not move from my seat for a long while, only watched—withdrawn—from the window as Soren spoke with my brothers for a bit and then guided them down the porch steps and away from the cabin. His shoulders were taut with unspoken warning, and though I could not hear his words, I knew their weight if he bothered to speak any at all. At last I turned from the sight and went in search of my children.

A soft laugh escaped me when I saw them gathered around Evander’s crib. Seren curled protectively around her brother in the cradle, while Isolde, who had clearly fought sleep until the end, slumped against the crib’s side, her small arm threaded through the bars so she could protect Evander and her sister even in her dreams. The girls were old enough now to share their own space, yet more often than not I discovered them like this.

Not wishing to disturb them but needing them close, I carried them one by one into my bed and laid them down. At last I curled beside them, one arm draped over all three, and drifted into sleep.

When I woke, the room was dim, shadows lengthening across the walls, and even Evander was no longer beside me. Where my children had crept off to so quietly I could not guess, but they were not hard to find.

They were gathered in the living room, clustered around Soren as he read to them from one of his favorite books. I leaned against the doorframe, silent, watching them. A bittersweet ache settled in my chest—the kind of resignation that comes when you know moments like these could be numbered, more precious because of it. I stayed there a long moment, just breathing it in.

Then Soren’s eyes lifted and found mine, steady and knowing. At once the children noticed me too, and in a rush of bare feet and laughter, they tumbled toward me.

“I missed you so much, my lovelies,” I said, gathering them into my arms and breathing them in. After holding them close, I rise to kiss Soren hello.

He gave me that soft, quiet smile of his, the one that never failed to settle me, and I couldn’t help but smile back. How strange it seemed now, to think there was ever a time I had mistaken him for a mindless beast.

“I have decided to invite your brothers for dinner,” he said then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

I blinked at him, at a loss for words. “What? Why? Can they not fend for themselves? Better yet, let them just leave this place. I have no interest in letting them know me—or my children. They have no right to my happiness.”

Soren only gave me that look then. The quiet one. The one that said I was being unreasonable, the same look he gave when I hovered too much over the children. My lips jutted in spite of myself, and I wondered whether perhaps Isolde hadn’t inherited all her stubbornness from her Papa.

“I do not think they come bearing us ill will, my love,” he said gently, his hands bracketing my shoulders, palms gliding up and down my arms in slow, soothing strokes. “They are trying. It cannot hurt for you to try as well.”

“Maybe it’s too late to try,” I whispered, my chest tight.

“I do not think that is the case.”

And that is how I found myself sitting across the dinner table from my brothers, eyes fixed anywhere but on them, as I fed a messy Evander mashed berries and carrots. I picked meat from my grilled fish for him, careful to remove every bone that could hurt him. He laughed with each messy bite, flailing his tiny, food-smeared hands, leaving traces of his meal on himself, on me, and on the floor.

I was grateful for the distraction. I had never considered our cabin truly nice. It was small, quaint, cozy—a patchwork of years’ worth of repairs with secondhand materials, cobbled together by two people learning as they went. Well used. Well lived in. With my brothers here, though, it felt even smaller, as if their presence pressed against the walls. Much too large for this humble abode. Yet I could not find it in me to be embarrassed. This was how I lived. I would not be ashamed of that. I was happy here—happier than I had ever been in that cavernous, lonely penthouse.

Still the quiet at our worn, mismatch table was tense, my brothers eating their humble meal of fresh grilled fish, potatoes, carrots, onions, and leftover bread from the supply drops. We had been fortunate enough to regrow some of what we had received in the garden I had started out back.

Soren had found ways to provide us with garlic, onions, carrots, and year-round potatoes, harvested from buckets on the porch and inside the house. A wheat field he planned to harvest and eventually turn into bread, knowing it was something I tended to gravitate to from the drops. Wild Blackberries he had found in the forest and transplanted closer to the house—both for natural protection and for easier reach—and a young apple tree, still too small to bear fruit, that promised more in the years to come. I hoped one day we had a whole grove of fruit trees for our children to play in.

I eyed my brothers uneasily. Turning to check on Evander once more and then the girls.

If Seren and Isolde were confused by the two strangers in our home, they gave no sign of it. They went about their usual banter and play, weaving in and out of each other in a blur of movement and noise. Half the time, I could hardly tell whether they were fighting or getting along, and I suspected Soren was just as lost as I was when it came to their little language. They had a way of speaking to each other that made no sense to anyone listening in—even their own parents.

Still, I should not have been surprised to see Isolde be the first to initiate conversation. At some point, without my noticing, she had abandoned her chair and her meal, making her way around the table to tug at Alba’s suit jacket. Sometimes it terrified me just how little fear she carried in her small frame.

“You look an awful lot like Dada,” she said boldly.

Seren was not far behind her sister, nudging her gently in the side with her tiny elbow.

“Dada said not to talk to people you don’t know, Isolde,” she whispered.

“Why are they here if we don’t know them, Seren?” Isolde asked, then shifted her gaze to Alba, “Why are you here if we don’t know you?”

Alba’s eyes widened just slightly, a flicker of surprise passing over his usually composed features. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then gave a small, measured smile, carefully weighing his words before speaking. Ever the diplomat.

“Because we want to get to know you, of course,” Alba said easily, as if he were stating a fact that should be most obvious to all.

“Of course…” Isolde mirrored him, and Seren quickly followed suit. “Of course.”

“Girls,” I finally interjected, forcing my voice steady. My unease at the sight of them so near Alba made my skin prickle, but I tried—if only for Soren’s sake—not to let it sharpen into the protest that wanted to spill out. “Let us find our seats again. You have not finished your meal. If you don’t eat what you’ve been given, Papa will not read to you before bed.”

At that, the girls scrambled back to their chairs as if the world itself would end if they missed their bedtime story from their Papa.

The rest of the meal passed without incident, little to no conversation filling the silence, until Soren—ever the steady one—took the lead. He invited my brothers into the sitting room to warm themselves by the fire and poured out mugs of tea he’d brewed from wildflowers and sunlight. Their voices still sounded strange within these walls, but when Soren brushed his hand along the small of my back as he helped me clear the dishes, I found myself breathing easier. His presence always had a way of steadying me.

I wanted to cling to my anger. I meant to. But then I caught sight of Isolde slipping her small hand into Alba’s, tugging him toward her favorite spot in the room. With all the gravity of a queen bestowing a gift, she placed her favorite book in his hands—permission to read in her Papa’s place. “But only as a substitute,” she declared solemnly, “because no one could ever replace Papa.” Then she clambered into his lap as though it were the most natural thing in the world, as if they had done this every day of her life. Seren hovered close by, watching with wide eyes, but wasn’t quite brave enough to follow her sister lead.

From the blanket we often laid in the center of the room, Evander’s delighted giggles rang out as Atticus made a game of pretending to swipe at his nose with his lighter. To my surprise, Atticus was laughing too. The sound—unguarded, deep and warm, stripped of its usual sarcasm—felt almost foreign in my ears. He had never laughed like that when I was young. Was it because he had not loved me? Or because life had been too stained back then to leave room for joy? I wasn’t sure I’d ever truly know.

Did that mean my children not deserve to know a different side of my brothers? One I had never been shown myself? A better side—a better life. Hadn’t all the pain and suffering we had endured been meant to lead to this, from the very beginning?

Maybe, at last, what had been denied to me would not be denied to them. If this was the price of giving them more, then perhaps I could endure it. Perhaps the past, my past and Soren’s, could

never truly be mended—but for my children, the future could still be written differently.

Against my will, my lips twitched into the beginnings of a smile. Soren caught sight of it and returned it, which only made me want to smile more.

The cabin had never been meant for so many voices, yet somehow the walls did not buckle. The fire held steady in the hearth. Laughter—hesitant, but laughter nonetheless—mingled with the patter of rain easing on the roof.

If these kids, my beautiful lovely kids, could have a better life than their parents, then maybe… just maybe, that was enough.