To ruin an Omega

Chapter 239: Blood Memories

FIA

My eyes opened to darkness.

This was not the comfortable darkness of a bedroom at night, or the gentle dimness of curtains drawn against afternoon sun. This was something else entirely.

For starters; it was cold and damp.

Stone walls pressed in from all sides, which explained the kind of cold that seeped into your bones and made a home there. Torches flickered somewhere beyond my field of vision, throwing dancing shadows across rough-hewn rock that looked ancient as it was forgotten.

I tried to sit up but my body wouldn’t move.

Panic flared hot in my chest. I pulled again, harder this time, and pain exploded across my wrists. Metal bit into skin. The sharp edges of iron cuffs dug deep enough that I felt something warm trickle down toward my elbows.

Blood. That was blood.

I craned my neck, fighting against the restraint across my forehead that I hadn’t even noticed until now. My hands were stretched above my head, chained to a table. A metal table. The surface was freezing against my bare back, and I realized with growing horror that my clothes were gone. What I had now just a thin red paper sheet on top of me that did nothing to protect me from the cold.

My legs were spread wide and clamped in place with more iron shackles at my ankles. The position was humiliating. Vulnerable in a way that made my stomach turn.

I jerked my right hand. The chain rattled but held firm. The cuff scraped skin, burning like fire. I tried the left. It was the same result. My breathing came faster now, shallow and quick.

“Where am I?”

My voice echoed back at me. The room had to be massive. Or maybe it was just empty. It semed to be just me, this table, these chains and all this horrible space around us.

I yanked harder at the restraints. The metal didn’t budge. It didn’t even shift. Someone had bolted these into the table itself. Someone had planned this. Prepared for me to wake up. Prepared for me to struggle.

“Where am I?” I shouted it this time. “Help! Somebody help me!”

The echo came back louder. More desperate. The sound of my own fear bouncing off stone that had probably heard these screams before.

I could see streaks of rust looking crust on the table and the stone walls.

A door opened somewhere to my left. The hinges creaking was what set me off first and then I heard footsteps approach with measured calm, the sound of someone who wasn’t in any rush. Someone who knew I wasn’t going anywhere.

A man stepped into view. He was tall, lean and he was wearing surgical scrubs and a mask that covered everything from his nose down. His eyes were dark. They swept over me like I was a specimen on a slide.

“How are you doing, Athena?”

The name hit me like a slap. I squinted up at him, trying to make sense of his features through the dim light and my own rising terror.

Athena? I knew that name. It was what stepmother’s mother had called me..

“That’s not my name.” My voice came out hoarse. “My name is Fia. Where am I? What is this place?”

He tilted his head slightly. The movement was almost gentle. “You’re fine, Athena. It’s better that you’re even here than dead.”

Dead. The word stuck in my throat. “What do you mean?”

He moved closer, his hands clasped behind his back like a professor giving a lecture. “Do you know a lot of werewolves have healer genes in them? After the great sin, before the Goddess eradicated the healers from the age of legends because of the abuse of power…”

I stared at him. My heart hammered so hard I could hear it in my ears.

“Alphas and Lunas and Betas and Gammas…” He continued, his voice taking on that same educational tone. “They had stronger dominant natures. So the chances that those dormant genes, especially watered down through generations of selective breeding, would ever shine? Almost impossible.”

He paused and he looked down at me with something that might have been fascination.

“But Omegas. Your immune system, weak as it is, makes it possible for the long-exterminated gift to shine. It shows in small ways. Some of you are talented with herbs. Some know poison. But that’s nothing like what you are about to be made by me.”

He reached for something on a nearby table. The scrape of metal on metal made my teeth hurt. When he turned back, he held a syringe. The liquid inside glowed faintly blue in the torchlight.

“No.” I pulled at the chains again. Harder. Hard enough that I felt skin tear. “No, please. Please.”

He moved toward me with slow, deliberate steps.

“I did nothing wrong!” The words burst out of me in a rush. “I was just an Omega. Was I supposed to refuse my Alpha? Disrespect him and get killed for it?”

My vision blurred. Tears spilled hot down my temples, pooling in my ears. I shook my head as much as the restraint would allow, which wasn’t much at all.

It didn’t feel like me talking. But at the same time it felt like it was me. I wasn’t sure how to describe it. But it was like reliving a painful memory.

“I just wanted to live. I just want to live.”

The needle pierced my skin. I felt the cold rush of whatever poison he’d made spreading through my veins like ice water. He depressed the plunger slowly, carefully, like he was savoring it. Like this was something precious that couldn’t be wasted.

When the syringe was empty, he walked around to stand near my head. His footsteps were steady and unhurried. He reached up and pulled the surgical mask down.

I didn’t recognize his face.He was quite young with unremarkable features. The kind of man you’d pass on the street and forget immediately. Except for his eyes. Those stayed with you. They held the kind of fervor that belonged to zealots and madmen. A deep cornflower blue.

“It’s alright, Athena.” His voice was soft now, almost kind even. “You will live. Something that wasn’t promised in the Nocturne pack. I’m a scientist. Not a murderer.”

“No.” I shook my head again. The movement made the world tilt. “You’re one of those warlocks. Who think themselves a god. You want to use my flesh to make hellish craft. Fleshcraft is a sin, you know.”

He sighed. The sound was disappointed, like I’d failed to understand something simple.

“But who will know?”

My vision started to swim. The torches blurred into streaks of orange and gold. The stone ceiling rippled like water. Whatever he’d injected was working fast, pulling me under into something dark and thick.

He reached for something else. Another tool. This one made a sound when he activated it. A high-pitched mechanical whine that built and built until it became a roar. Was that a chainsaw? Was he holding a chainsaw? The blade spun so fast it looked like a solid disk of silver death.

“No. No, no, no, no.”

I thrashed against the restraints. The chains rattled. The cuffs bit deeper. Fresh blood ran warm across my skin. None of it mattered. The blade was descending. Coming closer. The sound filled everything, drowned out my screams, drowned out my thoughts. There was only that terrible mechanical howl and the glint of spinning metal and the man’s calm, clinical expression as he brought it toward my exposed stomach.

The blade touched skin.

And I screamed madly in response.

***

I woke up screaming.

“No!”

The sound ripped from my throat raw and ragged. My hands flew up to protect myself from a blade that wasn’t there. My body jerked hard enough that I nearly fell.

But there was no table. No chains. No man with dead eyes and a chainsaw.

There however was soft sheets twisted around my legs. A familiar ceiling. The faint smell of antiseptic and herbs that meant the infirmary.

I was still screaming. I couldn’t seem to stop. The sound just kept coming, pouring out of me in waves until my throat felt like it was tearing.

Hands grabbed my shoulders. Gentle but firm. “Luna Fia! Luna Fia, you’re safe. You’re home.”

Maren’s face swam into focus above me. Her dark eyes were wide with concern. Behind her, Thorne appeared, his weathered features creased with worry.

“You’re safe,” Maren said again. “It was just a dream. You’re in the infirmary. You’re safe.”

Just a dream?

But it had felt so real. I could still feel the cold metal against my back. The bite of the cuffs around my wrists. That terrible mechanical whine of the chainsaw growing louder and louder until—

I looked down at my wrists. There was no blood or torn skin. Just faint red marks from where I must have been gripping the sheets too hard.

My breathing came in sharp, painful gasps. I couldn’t seem to get enough air. The room spun and tilted. Everything felt wrong and disconnected. Like I was still partially trapped in that dungeon, waiting for the blade to fall.

“Breathe with me.” Maren’s voice cut through the panic. “In through your nose. Out through your mouth. That’s it. You’re doing great.”

I tried to follow her instructions. Tried to pull air into lungs that felt too small. Too tight. The room slowly stopped spinning. The edges of my vision cleared.

Yeah. It was just a dream. It was just a horrible, vivid dream.

But why did it still feel like I could hear that chainsaw whining in the distance?

Why did the name Athena echo in my head like something I should remember?

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