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“No fuckin’ way.”
“Why don’t we bond her?”
“No!” Victor and Slayer tee shout together. Victor says, “We’ll leave that shit to the Dark City Berserker. He’ll give us a fat reward for her.”
“If we bonded her,” Slayer tee continues, “Berserker Dragnovic would challenge us for her and I’m not tryna die over some worthless Omega. Just wanna sample one.”
“She could have strong powers. We could use ‘em.”
“We won’t know until we bond her and give her a command. You willin’ to risk it?”
The Alphas argue for another bated breath and the air sizzles with their aggression. They turn from me to face off against each other and I’m confused…I thought Omegas were supposed torespondto displays of dominance with submission, but I don’t. Right now, I still just want to run, and this is likely the only chance I’ll get.
I reach back for my faithful companions, Pain and Fear, but my hands find fur instead.My day just gets better and better, doesn’t it?I think as I glance up at the creature while his massive shadow falls over my body. The smell of wet fur and metal radiates from him now and heat flares off of his enormity. The wet ground squishes around his massive paws as he prowls up beside me, gaze focused on the Alphas in the river. His head hangs low and his jowls drip silver venom.
He lets out a low growl and I look up to see the young Alphas staring at the Berserker in complete stunned silence. And horror. “Ber…Ber…Berserker Dragnovic. I mean…uhmm…we didn’t know you’d claimed this Omega already…” says one of the idiots.
“We were just going to bring her to you,” Victor tries.
Smiley tee is one step ahead. “Run!”
The Berserker above me attacks without warning and has already bitten through the head of Slayer tee before he’s got one foot off the ground. Slayer tee’s friends seemingly realize that they don’t stand a chance running on their own and, as Slayer tee’s body disappears down the river in a flurry of hungry waves, one of them screams, “We have to fight!” He’s not wrong, but it’s a bravery from this group that I didn’t expect.
In the middle of the river, with water raging around them, the young Alphas roar out battle anthems of their own and launch themselves at the Berserker, jumping onto his back and clawing at his fur. One of them produces a knife from somewhere and drives it down through the Berserker’s right shoulder close to where I stabbed him.
The Berserker flings the Alpha on his back onto the opposite riverbank and pounces, landing one paw in the center of the Alpha’s chest and tearing meat and flesh and bone out when he retracts it. At the sight of the carnage, I remember that I have feet and hands that still work andmove.
I edge up the bank another half a foot, still crawling backwards, when the first flare of gunfire bursts through my eardrums. I jolt and cover my head with my arms, only daring a peek. The river is alight with spray from bullets as the Alphas take hit after hit delivered by a new enemy approaching from behind me.
More gunfire explodes as whoever it is draws closer, boxing me in between the gun-toting lunatics and the river, leaving me nowhere to go. I clap my hand over my ears as I take in the sight of smallish people dressed in rags holding guns…Betas.They’re freaking Betas and they’readvancingon the fucking Alphas. Betas areattackingAlphas! What the fuck are they thinking? What is happening!
I’m too panicked and freaked the fuck out to do anything but sit there for the next beat…long enough for another spray of bullet fire to hail down on the river…and for one of those bullets to tag me.
I gasp, the breath knocked out of my lungs when my left arm shatters like porcelain dipped in glass. I’m hit. I’m fucking hit! A roar shakes the foundations of the earth and a shadow moves over me while my thoughts move in and out of this plane of existence into one much nicer.Big fluffy pillows. Warm, dry sheets. Rain hitting glass windows. A fire crackling softly in the hearth. A bed of flowers surrounding me…
Reality jerks against my consciousness and I feel the warm press of a body on top of mine as I’m cocooned by fur and smushed further into the cold, wet ground below. The smells are inundating, nauseating and arousing all at the same time. Blood. So, so much blood. And venom that smells like mint and cinnamon. Water that smells like a storm. Fur that smells like the animals of the forest I’ve hunted before.
Bullets continue to spray and spray and spray. I can hear the sounds they make leaving their weapons and I can hear the sounds they make as they meet flesh and I can feel every time the Berserker above me jolts in pain when he’s hit again and again and again. His weight sinks even further onto me. He’s dying.Thank the god of small mercies.And then the bullets stop and he collapses on top of me entirely.
His weight is smothering and I cough and choke. I kick my heels into the wet soil and grit my teeth and use every muscle in my body to try to push myself out from under him. He rumbles, releases steam from his nostrils and lifts up on one shaking right leg…just enough for me to be able to maneuver out from beneath his weight.
I kick back onto the bank and lie there, staring up at the sky, trying to breathe while my good friend Pain does her best to skin me alive. Through the agony of so many competing wounds, I hear the plod of soft footsteps followed by a much louder voice.
“Shit, Echo. What the hell happened to you?” I know that voice and try to open my eyes. It’s hard work when each eyelid weighs a respective ton. “You look like you need some medical assistance.” A tuft of blonde hair flops down over dark goggles.
I just grunt, surprised to see her…but not that surprised. If any Beta has the stones to hunt Alphas in Paradise Hole, it’s this one.
She pulls down her black mask and, when another burst of gunshots flare and the Berserker emits another pained grunt, she looks back over her shoulder and snaps, “Hold your fire. Are you blind? This is a fucking Berserker!”
“I thought they wanted all the bodies, especially Berserkers…” someone answers from further away, confusing the shit out of me. Someone wants Berserkerbodies?
“Yeah, no shit, but use your head for two seconds, Erwin, we’ve got anOmegahere.”
I don’t know what the fuck she’s talking about, but the dead-not-yet-dead Berserker seems to and growls.
“Easy, Berserker.” Merlin swings her gun around, presumably at him, though I can’t see him from this angle without lifting my head, and if my eyelids are too heavy to move then my head is a nonstarter. I need medicine. And I can’t pay. Anybody else might have taken pity on me, but not Merlin. Not a Beta who hunts Alphas.
“Merlin,” I croak.
