Page 84 of Generation Omega: Claimed (Originverse #3)

TILLIE

Instead of silence, my mind is pummeled by my pulse that bashes my eardrums and overwhelms all thought. My weather-station heart is declaring an official emergency, sending shrill alarms reverberating through my connections, as it searches for help and receives no response.

How many?

How many enemies did they send for us?

Who did they strike first?

How did they find us?

What’s going to happen?

Why now?

What did we do wrong?

The questions slam against the vile ringing in my head, but there’s one question I don’t need to ask.

Does my pack still live? They live—I know they live.

My heart knows they live, just as it now accepts that they can’t respond because they were drugged, like I was.

Like Ory was. But I’m still here, conscious in an unmoving body.

My heart transmitter is alive and well, but my bonded alphas’ receivers are down.

I don’t know how I know that, but I do. They are unconscious, while I’m aware.

Why?

Another waterfall of questions attempts to drown me, the same ones and more.

How did it come to this so quickly?

How did we get so long to bond?

Where did they pick up our trail?

How?

How?

How?

Like a shell with an ocean soundtrack always playing, my dark curiosity lines up questions regardless of the fact that there are no answers here.

To break the panicked pitch of so much unknown, I roughly spin the wheel of my experience, sending it rushing toward memories of the life I’m about to lose.

I’m sitting on the curb with Ethan outside the house that was never my home.

He can’t talk, his words stolen by grief, his hand cold in mine, but mine was warm enough to fight the chill.

I can’t remember what I promised him that day, but I know it was true.

Because he lived. I lived. We made it here.

Before I can consider Ethan’s fate—whether the toxin fatal to betas was used on him again—I grab that wheel and send it spinning, praying wherever it lands provides a clue of what I’m supposed to do.

If my mind is the only resource we still have, then all responsibility for my pack is mine.

But that’s too much to face, so I go where the memory wheel takes me.

Ethan and I are at the campsite where he listened to my silence, not demanding anything from me other than acceptance of how much I was loved. His love is his superpower—I can’t believe I never told him that. Or did I?

A dozen more spins, a dozen more memory reunions, all involving the moments in my omegaverse journey so far. Every one of them tells a story I want to believe, that we are just at the beginning, not ready to be cut down. Not ready to be caged and abused for all we were powerless to control.

We didn’t cause this—it was a call we had no choice but to answer.

Everything in me, all the noise and chaos, screeches to a halt as the one thought I’d blocked returns with a fury.

A wee bairn … a baby… a child… our future.

Suddenly, a force—primal and bloodthirsty—surges to life in me, and I’m now the most terrifying creature that’s ever lived. Killer Kazimir and my mighty mountain of a man can’t hold a candle to the rage I’m about to unleash on the omegaverse that brought us here to sacrifice.

Did you really think I’d let you kill my family?

That’s what I send toward this virus that infected us just to watch us die—like it’s been doing to packs since Ory and his omega walked the virgin land.

But we’ve already established that I’m not like other omegas—I wasn’t before meeting the old ways, and I’m certainly as fuck not now.

The omegas of the past lacked the awareness and defiance to tear themselves free, which is what I’m already preparing to do.

The only difference is my exit strategy now includes passengers—my alphas, my beta, and our baby on board.

Is that why you concealed the full prophecy? To protect your secret weakness?

A true pack shares one beating heart… mine . And my omega heart is going to fuck you up. Any last words, you sadistic plague?

There is nothing so delicious to a predator as tasting the fear of your prey. That’s a reality I never imagined I would know. But the omega legacy’s terror is so potent, I’m almost drunk on it.

No, Tillie, it’s not what you think. Instead of speaking in harmony, the legacy is stammering and marred by discordance.

Oh, really? It’s not? Fine, tell me this. Did you help Beta Dominion hunt us, find us?

I don’t allow it to answer before delivering my evidence.

See, things just aren’t adding up for me.

If they caught us leaving the yacht, they would have descended immediately to prevent us from making that announcement video.

If they knew we were at the beige mansion with its stupidly gargantuan doors, why wouldn’t they have come then?

They just happened to be hanging out at the Italian takeout place, waiting to catch us?

I don’t think so. I think you led them here to play more of your cruel games with us.

But I guess that makes sense, doesn’t it? You’ve always worked against your chosen ones, haven’t you?

As the picture clears in my head—the tapestry of death the omegaverse wove that now includes threads binding my pack to its treachery—my anger turns lethal to the true enemy of all people.

Was any of it real? The desire to help this broken world? Or did you destroy our civilization to create the perfect setting for your evil, omegaverse-themed gladiator games?

Not games. Never games. It’s righteously adamant about that.

Then tell me the truth. Did you guide them to us? Because the only person who possibly betrayed us is Sage or her team, and I don’t believe for a second that she would do that, even to save her sister.

Like a vision, I see Sage, with her latent alpha energy, as she mounts a traitor on a spit and barbecues the fuck out of them, while calmly listing all their personal failings. She’s no traitor—I know that in my bones.

Oh, fuck, I’m asking the wrong questions, aren’t I? Let’s go big, shall we? Did you create Beta Dominion? Answer now or be ripped out by your fucking roots.

Yes, we did.

Why?

Because power corrupts. We had to be certain of the worthiness of the packs before the final phase begins.

You set them up and then got them killed.

Necessary sacrifices for the greater good. And not all are dead. Some still live.

Is Sarah McGee alive?

Yes. And Kai. Others too. But they will only be freed and able to live if you claim power.

Claim power?! You got me dosed with poison—did you forget that little detail? I’m about to end up with the others, rotting in cells, cut up in a laboratory… all the things powerful, corrupt entities do to anyone who could fuel hopeful change in this sad world.

You brought my pack together, and together, we made a child, and you actually thought I would allow you to hurt my baby?

As it turns out, I’m not a lioness mother at all—I’m a velociraptor momma, and these teeth are made for chomping.

Tillie, listen, please. You don’t understand how rare you are, how rare this pregnancy is…

it’s the first. You are the first omega in the history of the world to carry a child whose life began within a pack.

This pregnancy proves you are the queen we’ve been seeking all this time, and your pack has proven its worth through sacrifice and commitment to this cause, even when we sought to dissuade them.

Dissuade them? You mean by giving them shit advice?

Yes. We tested them. We tested you all. But your pack triumphed every time, no matter how much pressure we brought to bear.

And you rewarded us by sabotaging our chances and threatening our miracle baby. Is that what you’re saying? Because that will get you ended in the time it takes for me to grasp hold and yank with all I’ve got.

This isn’t sabotage—the true trials must commence.

We must be certain. We must risk that which we’ve been seeking since the dawn of mankind.

You must understand that pregnancy isn’t the same in the omegaverse.

Intercourse itself doesn’t create children, or omegas would never not be pregnant.

Heats are about forcing connection that will create life, but still, male alphas don’t impregnate easily, because when they do—when they give their omega a child—they are depositing part of their soul into their omega.

That can only happen if the most profound trust exists between them.

Pregnancy is the truest declaration that the omega is the alpha’s home, the alpha’s heaven. You earned that trust from one of your alphas. We struggled to believe that it was even possible, but it is. You did this. You are the one.

I’m the one? No, this pack is the one , and no thanks to you.

That’s not true. None of you would be alive to even be here without us.

What does that mean?

You would have died from a carbon monoxide leak, but we woke you and guided you to Ethan.

Ethan made an enemy, a poor loser of a bout, who planned to kill him and would have except for that bus—he really should have looked both ways.

Thatcher suffered from an illness and would have died, but a fellow professor was suddenly inspired to check on him.

Gideon was meant to ride in a faulty helicopter, but had a bad feeling and decided to cancel.

Jameson’s been a full-time project for us, considering the reckless stupidity that runs rampant in him.

Mackenzie and Kazimir… life is a dangerous place, and we kept them safe.

Not one of these men you love so dearly would be alive today if not for us.

We’ve grieved for all the lost, but like your pack, every omega and alpha who was chosen would have died without us. We only selected from those saved from their destined ends. It was the only way to balance the necessary evils required to implement our plans.