CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Daven had left sometime between his first and second climax, but the omega let him go after experiencing two. As soon as he felt his knot start to go down, he pulled out. Sick with disgust at himself, he backed away as far from her as possible, which was about ten feet given the confines of the room.

“You might as well get my clothes and let me out because I’m not doing that again. And if you try to strap me down, people will get hurt.”

Neither of the betas said a thing as they helped the omega off the bed and back into her habit before knocking on the door. Keys rattled, and it opened. Tavish glimpsed a wide corridor, also lined with white tiles, behind an almost alpha-sized beta in a brown robe.

He took the omega’s arm tenderly and helped her from the room. One of the betas spoke up. “The alpha incarnate wishes to discuss his service.”

The big beta’s eyebrows rose as if no alpha had ever asked such a thing before. Then they looked over at Tavish. Being naked when everyone else was covered to their ankles was damn humiliating. “So it will be.”

Before he could ask what that meant, the door shut again. One of the betas indicated the wooden chair. “Sit. Rest.” They walked over to the table, poured water from a rough pottery jug into a matching handless mug and slid it toward him. They pointed at a metal bucket in the corner. “This is if you wish to relieve yourself. Water for washing will be brought after the next time.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Tavish ground out.

The beta moved to help his companion strip the bed and replace the linens with clean ones stacked beneath the bed.

Tavish sat down to wait, but his knee twitched up and down, his heel beating a rhythm on the cold tiled floor. He’d heard the door lock after the beta escorting the omega shut it, and other than threatening these betas, there wasn’t a lot he could do. Physically hurting people he had no specific argument with, even if it worked, would be a last resort. Even in his current state, violence was still an anathema, unless it was— The two betas glanced over their shoulders as a growl rose unbidden from his chest.

He tried to clench his fist, and the flash of pain he hadn’t even noticed when mating brought his attention back to his hand. At least they’d found a hand brace, that didn’t stop him from moving his first two fingers or his thumb. A fifth metacarpal fracture, otherwise known as a boxer’s fracture. Mir would laugh their head off after telling him, “I told you so.” If they ever saw each other again.

No, not if, when, because Tavish would spend the rest of his life hunting for them. The certainty of that settled him.

Even booted footsteps strode down the corridor. Three relatively light people, betas? Surely they weren’t sending him more omegas to mate? After a rattle of keys, the cell door opened. Behind him, clothing rustled as the betas slid to their knees.

Unlike the one he’d knotted, the burgundy-robed omega in the doorway didn’t wear a veil, but a large gold triskelion medallion hung on a chain around her neck. Her lined face exuded a sense of entitled calmness that Tavish had never sensed from an omega before.

She turned to Tavish, and he felt even more naked as her gaze dragged over his bare body, but he refused to be embarrassed for something that wasn’t his choice or his fault. He needed to reclaim at least a little of his dignity.

“The Almighty has indeed brought us a superior specimen. Praise be.”

“Praise be,” the betas both inside and outside the cell echoed. She raised her eyebrows in a prompt for him to join in the echo.

“And you are?” he asked.

“I am Mother Superior of this Abbey.”

“That’s your rank, not your name.” Why he was being so pedantic, he didn’t know, but maybe it had something to do with being locked up and treated like a farm animal.

“It is both. Those who serve the Lord do not need the vanity of personal possessions, including names.”

“How do you record who does what? Who has health issues? The parents of an individual?”

“That is not your concern.”

“Seeing as if I might have just sired one or more children with an omega who wouldn’t tell me her name, I think it is. Before anything else I’m a doctor and having a data history for any potential patient is vital.”

She gave him a smile that he wanted to wipe off with a punch. He was damn sure Mir would have taken the opportunity, then again, Mir had always been more alpha-like than he’d ever been.

“Well, you’d better hope this ‘superior specimen’ did the job in one go because I’m not doing it again. I’m leaving.”

She quirked an eyebrow as she glanced down his naked body again, lingering on his semi-hard cock hanging between his legs. “Like that?”

“In any damn way I can. I need to find my heavily pregnant and gunshot omega.”

A line appeared between her eyebrows. “Shot? By whom? Guns are not permitted in Malthusia.”

“One of your lot apparently.”

“Name?” The order fell from her lips naturally as her shoulders pushed back even more. Tavish felt small in her presence, even though she wasn’t taller than Mir.

“So names matter now, do they?” He bit back more sarcasm as she was actually listening to him. “Sakish. Born from my father’s—” He broke off as her eyes widened. “You know him, don’t you?”

“I do. There are very few priests who manifest as alphas, and it seems this particular son has strayed further from the fold than I thought.”

“Well, I intend to stop him straying by any means. He is involved in illegal torture and experimentation on omegas and their newborns.” Not a flicker of emotion showed on her face. She’d seemed more surprised by the gun. That didn’t necessarily mean she knew about the abuse, but the question mark hanging over her head shrank by the second.

“You know this how?” she demanded.

“My omega is one of his victims, and he’s hunting them. Or perhaps it is their babies he’s after. He’s already taken several of their babies at birth.” Her face darkened with every additional fact, but she didn’t seem phased by the use of neutral pronouns for an omega. Was it because this senior church member already knew at least a little about Mir, or was it common to accept a person’s chosen pronouns here? He dismissed the latter option. The church had always championed the three distinct genders.

“Thank you for corroborating the information from my contact.”

Rage flared through his chest, and red flooded his vision. His nostrils flared as his upper lips curled against his gritted teeth. “You knew this was happening? Is still happening?”

“My son, there are—”

“I am not your son,” he ground out. “I had a mother. She was killed by my father during childbirth.”

She closed her eyes, and her lips moved in a silent prayer, before she opened them again. “I am sorry for your loss, but all in Malthusia must play their part in the Great Experiment.”

“As my wonderful omega would say, bollocks to that.”

Her chin lifted. “Uncouth language is not necessary.”

“I’m naked, having just mated someone against my will. How more uncouth can I get?”

“You have just participated in the first stage of a religious rite that—”

“Will not be finished,” he growled, “as I am leaving, with or without my clothes. I’m not sure the church could stand the scandal of what I will be revealing when I leave, if you keep me here any longer.”

With regal grace, she circled him, watching with the wise eyes of an old person, assessing, contemplating. With a smile that sharpened the lines around her mouth, she asked, “What if I tell you where your omega’s offspring are?”

Everything stopped, including Tavish’s heart. “They’re alive? You know where they are?”

“I have a good idea, and yes, they will be alive as that was the purpose of the experiment. When I ask my contact, he will be able to confirm the details. What is her name?”

“Mir…” His mind clicked back into action as he rumbled their name with a protective growl. “But they called them Four. Where, where are they? And what experiment?”

She lifted a finger, swaying it in the air as if chiding a naughty pup. “Not so quick. When you have completed the rite, and your mind has cleared, we can speak again.”

He narrowed his eyes then opened them wide, sure he must have misheard. “You’re holding information about Mir’s pups hostage to force me to create more children when at least one parent is an unwilling participant?”

“Force is an ugly word, Mr. Grabar. I prefer…” she paused, thinking. “A mutually beneficial exchange. This Mir of yours would like to know the whereabouts of her pups, correct?”

He’d held Mir through the rages and tears for the babies they’d lost so many times. Finding out they were alive and well, perhaps even getting them back… It would mean everything to Mir. Then he remembered the word ‘experiment’. The mother superior hadn’t been the only one to mention the word. Mir had too.

“They’re alright, aren’t they? Not deformed or different?”

“Would the answer change your decision?”

He didn’t hesitate. “No. No, it wouldn’t. I’d raise them whether they have disabilities or not. Same with Mir’s current babies.”

If he hadn’t already knotted the omega, if this had been an abstract option, his answer might have been different, but the likelihood was that she’d already conceived. Then he remembered Mir’s fierce protectiveness of their babies. If the situations were reversed, he didn’t think Mir would hesitate for a moment. Besides, he probably had nine months to work on the issue of his own future offspring.

“If you are proposing full disclosure about Mir’s previous pregnancies if I willingly participate in the rite of yours, you have a deal.”

A small smile curved her lips. “Exactly the answer I expected from the personification of the alpha aspect of the Almighty.” Her dropping into a deep, graceful curtsy was the last thing he expected.

He twitched as she said, loud and clear, “Praise be.”

The betas behind him and the two in the corridor echoed, “Praise be.”

“I’ll send the omega aspect in as soon as she’s ready. I advise staying hydrated.”

She swept from the room, and the door didn’t even have time to close before the in-heat omega, now dressed in a long bathrobe rather than a habit, slipped back into the door. The heat scent hit him like a sledgehammer and his cock responded.

Without a word, she dropped the robe from her shoulders and climbed on the bed on her elbows and knees.

Every few hours, the betas got on their knees and recited prayers. Hopefully, he’d remembered correctly that the clergy prayed seven times a day, although the Grabar family only ever attended the Sevenday solar noon service. It seemed even producing the next generation of clergy stopped for prayer.

It was the only way Tav could estimate time, and even then, he wasn’t sure he caught every prayer session, as he’d fucked until he was sore and convinced his body couldn’t do it anymore. Then she came back in, and he was lost again.

In the brief interludes of near solitude, locked in the heat-stinking room with only a silent beta, he’d tried to force his brain to work. Sometimes it did, sometimes all he could think about was her coming back. In some of his more lucid moments, he remembered hating the stink of his father mating Natelle when she was in heat the first time. He’d sworn that he’d never be that gross while listening at his father’s door with Clay, hearing Daven’s assessment of his niblings in terms of their usefulness to the family. Telish had been able to conduct an intelligent conversation that night, but Tavish could barely remember his name when the omega was in the room.

He’s not better than me. Information. You’re doing this for information. He needed to think of questions to ask the Mother Superior when she came back. If she came back. It seemed like he’d been in this limbo forever.

Tavish sat in the chair as the face mask-wearing betas changed the bed yet again. When he was trying to get traumatized omegas to talk, he always started with something simple, like a name. “Since we’re stuck in here,” he said to the busy betas, hating the way he sounded like he was drunk, “what are your names?”

“We are the embodiment of the beta aspect of the Almighty, just as you are the embodiment of the alpha aspect, and she is the omega aspect. We do the Almighty’s bidding here.”

Every attempt at conversation met with variations of the same reply. After it’d been repeated dozens of times, together with the fog of his musth and her heat scent, it began to sink in and stress, other than that on his body, leached away. This wasn’t him, so he wasn’t cheating on Mir, and even if he was, he was doing it for a good reason, although what that reason was floated in and out of his mind.

Between mating sessions, a beta helped the omega from the room, and the remaining one offered him water, that might or might not be drugged, a sponge bath, and a bucket to relieve himself while the bed got changed.

He hung on to the hope that she’d have to sleep sometime. A little time with only the echo of her cloying, irresistible scent, and he’d be able to think and fathom a way to get out of here. But it seemed she didn’t need sleep, or at least she didn’t need it more than she needed him. As for himself, other than the lassitude caused by having his knot tight inside her, he didn’t sleep either.

He might be virtually out of his mind with musth, her heat scent, lack of sleep, and possibly being drugged as well, but he refused to take her face to face again. He’d spotted the ramp under the bed after their second mating, and he’d used it every time since. Stupid though it might be, not being face to face, even though she kept the veil on, made it easier to accept that she wasn’t an individual, and nor was he. A biological imperative, that’s all this is. Using the excuse he’d scoffed at while a beta was a low point, he shut it up in a corner of his mind to pull apart when his brain started working again.

The beta praying for the Almighty to quicken her while they were joined by the knot was torture the first few times, before he accepted there was nothing he could do about creating life with this unknown, nameless omega. He knew he’d still protect any resultant child, just as he would Mir’s, if he ever found out they even existed.

Intellectually, he knew this wasn’t her fault, that she’d been indoctrinated from birth, but that didn’t stop this from being wrong. Being blackmailed to create life was assault, just as much as Mir had been assaulted. At least he hadn’t been implanted with a hormone device and forced to perform endlessly for years as Mir had been. This was finite. Mir must have thought they would die there, wherever ‘there’ was.

Waiting for his knot to go down was the worst aspect. When he was fucking, his mind boiled down to the simple task of persuading her body to open for him. But afterward, when they were joined and he was simply waiting for her to either come again or release him, his mind began to clear, and he hated who he was and what he was doing even though he kept telling himself he was doing it for Mir.

Every glazed white brick in this room had become familiar, and he’d followed the lines of the red triskelion on the wall with his eyes a thousand times. The never-ending design was meant to signify how the three types of Malthusians were forever bound together. Although he hated the religious aspect of his incarceration, following the pattern was almost meditative. It certainly kept him from thinking, because thinking just sank him into the abyss of hate for his family and worry about Mir. Being with the omega was almost easier than when she was gone as his mind cleared and he watched the silent betas fussing around, getting ready for the next session. Most omegas were only in heat for three to four days when they had a mate, but this felt like so much longer.

The plain water had been changed out for apple juice after the first few sessions. His appetite was non-existent, even though fruit and light bread had been offered, but he needed glucose and fluids to keep up this level of physical activity.

The footsteps and then a key in the cell door had him closing his eyes and gritting his teeth, trying to draw up the necessary energy. The door unlocked, and he braced for another session. At least his cock didn’t react to the sound by sitting up and begging like a well-trained pooch this time.

The omega walked in. Without exchanging words or a glance, she dropped the white toweling robe from her shoulders. It appeared being naked except for the veil in here was acceptable, but not out in the corridor. He hadn’t seen anyone apart from two big mask-wearing betas standing opposite the door since the Mother Superior left, but there were occasional purposeful footsteps. The harsh electric light in the corridor hadn’t changed whenever the door had been opened, that, and the dank stillness of the air, pointed to being underground.

But at least he was noticing details like that now. It felt as if he was finally finding himself again, and he might be imagining it, but her scent didn’t seem as strong. She walked over and climbed on the bed, draping herself over the black leather ramp. Looking at her bare ass, he felt nothing but mild nausea.

“It’s over.” He felt no joy at his conclusion. Going back out into the world carrying this burden would not be easy, but it must have been a hell of a lot worse for Mir. How the hell had they survived something that had to have been a thousand times worse than this? At least he had a reason. Maybe Mir had too, as they had every time they fell pregnant. Only to lose them again and again. Apart from their current pregnancy and the other one they, no not they, Zepish and Sakish, let go to term. Telling Mir they survived, if they had, would be a highlight of his life.

Without a word, the omega got up, picked up her robe, and was out the door before Tavish realized this might be the last time he saw the mother of his prospective children. “Wait, at least tell me your—” the door slammed shut. “—name.”

The betas didn’t move. “Well, what happens now?” he asked. “Do I get kept until a pregnancy is confirmed?” The mere thought of being incarcerated for up to three weeks caused another shot of adrenaline. In that time, Mir could give birth and suffer the trauma of losing their babies again.

Energy syringed into his system. Somehow, he’d escape and find his mate. No one knew Mir like he did; no one could soothe them to the same extent. What if they need a doctor while I’m stuck here? Mir would fight until their last breath against any medical professional they didn’t trust.

“Talk to me, damn it!”

One set of footsteps, purposeful and unhurried, sounded from down the corridor, rather than the room next door where the omega disappeared to when she wasn’t with him. After a rattle of keys, the cell door opened. Behind him, he heard the betas slide to their knees.

Electric light glared, silhouetting the Mother Superior in the doorway, but she ignored him in favor of the betas. “My children, your vigil is at an end.”

The brown-robed betas bowed. “Thank you, Mother Superior.” Without another word, the betas who had witnessed the most humiliating experience of Tavish’s life stood and walked out of the room. The irony felt surreal. The most intimate moments of his life had been shared with strangers whose names he didn’t even know, not Mir. It’d take a damn long time to forgive this violation, this robbery of something that should have been a wonderful, tender experience with his mate. Exhaustion dragged at his limbs, but he couldn’t rest here. He needed Mir’s scent, their touch, had to know they was safe before he could possibly relax.

Thank you for your service, my son. Please—”

“I am not your son,” he growled, unable to help it, despite knowing this omega had the power to keep him here indefinitely. “Nor would I ever wish to be after what you’ve blackmailed me into doing.”

She waited calmly while he finished. “Son is a term used for all the alpha children of the Almighty, but no, you are not the son of my body, although you are my genetic nephew. Telish and Daven are my younger half-siblings. I was conceived in this room, although as far as I know, my sire willingly donated to the church. You may ask your questions.” Tavish blinked at his new-found aunt.

“Is there a limit?”

“No, but if this is going to be a lengthy session, I suggest we take a little time and reconvene in my office.” She looked around herself. “I have to admit to finding this room unsettling from my own time here.”

“I’m not exactly enamored with it either.”

She huffed in amusement at his dryness. “Think of the poor betas who have been standing vigil.” She leaned in and dropped her voice. “I have to admit to using it as a clandestine punishment, even though I frame being chosen to stand vigil as an honor. I remember how horrible the smell was before I manifested.”

“You let children down here?” A wave of embarrassment and disgust rolled over him. He hadn’t heard any pups in the corridor outside, but he hadn’t exactly been focused on his hearing.

“A question for our meeting. There is a room you can use to wash and dress next door.” She inclined her head. “Until later.”

After she left, one of the two robed betas standing outside checked both ways, then beckoned Tavish out. Another held open a door identical to his a few feet away.

The bare, white-tiled corridor and the concrete floor resembled the basement of the hospital, where the morgue and the pathology labs were located. The dead and the tissue samples didn’t require sunlight to lift their moods like patients did. Like the hospital basement, it was damn depressing. The corridor stretched into darkness on either side, but the betas accompanying him turned in the other direction.

I hope to God I’m wrong and they don’t keep the pups down here. He winced at the automatic plea to the cause of all this fanaticism.

The church he’d attended as a child had been bright and airy. Warmed by the overhead sun that illuminated the pulpit and altar at the moment of solar noon. Tavish’s grandfather funded the construction, but it appeared his contribution to the church hadn’t only been monetary, and neither had his father’s. Behind their masks, any of the betas he’d met could be his siblings, and he had unknown niblings around here somewhere too. They’d be edging into their early teens right now.

“There are other ways to live, other places you can go,” he told the beta next to him. There would always be space either on Freedom Farm or the Blackwells’ property for those who needed it. Guilt bubbled that he hadn’t made this offer to the omega who might be carrying his offspring. But she would have to live at the Blackwells, her, he imagined Mir would do far more than black her eye.

“We go because if Mir caught his scent on where the Almighty needs us to serve. They, in their wisdom, brought us life to serve them.” The zeal in his voice told Tavish that this beta was far beyond a logical argument. They indicated the door the other beta held open, “If you would?”

The similar-sized room to the one next door had a single bed against a wall rather than the central double bed in the mating room. To his relief, it also boasted a white tiled shower cubicle, with a sink and toilet. His clothes were neatly folded and pressed on the bed.

“The no washing facilities next door were to humiliate me?”

The beta pulled the mask from their unremarkable, scowling face. He’d only seen the bland features with a weak chin and muddy eyes once, but he’d remember them for the rest of his life, just like the scent of the omega and that damn room.

“No, sir. The conception room is traditional to reflect the history of the rite.”

“And they had advanced genetic engineering a hundred and sixty-eight years ago but not indoor plumbing?” He shook his head at the idiocy of the statement, but there was no arguing with such beliefs. Logic and faith were as unmixing as oil and water, between one breath and the next, he couldn’t bear to be in contact with any of these people. “You may leave. Actually, what day is it?”

“Five-day, sir.”

“Time?”

“Eight-thirty.”

This was like getting blood out of a stone. “Day? Night? In case you haven’t noticed, there are no windows down here.”

“Morning. Is there anything else?” The lack of a ‘sir’ this time displayed the beta’s annoyance. He imagined if a beta had forgotten the ‘sirs’ when Zepish was here, he would have gotten a punch. Tavish shook his head, and the beta left, but a key still turned in the wooden door’s lock.

Without hesitation, Tavish headed to the large shower stall that thankfully held a fat bar of unscented soap. Keeping his braced hand high and away from the shower head, he had what was probably the most satisfying, and needed, shower of his life. A sponge and a rag simply hadn’t made him feel clean, however diligently he’d used it. The heady scent of the mown grass musk had sunk under his skin, become part of him. He bet the evidence of his unwilling betrayal would stay in his memory, like that of his first cadaver dissection. Even now, two decades later, he could recall the exact, stomach heaving stench as if he’d just left the morgue.

Getting dressed wearing the hand brace wasn’t easy, but he managed despite pain shooting up his arm whenever he was forced to use the unbroken fingers of his hand. One of his first priorities would be getting an x-ray to check for displacement. There was no way he would have been taken to the hospital and x-rays while unconscious. The staff wouldn’t have let an unconscious patient be removed. Thinking about his own medical issues brought his sensible beta-self to the fore. He’d need his wits about him when locking horns with his aunt.

Feeling a little more confident, and more like himself under layers of familiar clothing, he used the toothbrush and toothpaste, then took a first look in the mirror.

Intellectually, he knew his beard must have grown, but the person staring back at him made him wince. He was definitely his father’s son, in appearance anyway. Although he’d only ever seen such shadows beneath Telish’s eyes in the period after Ma’s death and during Natelle’s first few weeks at the Grabar estate. Sympathy for his father wobbled and died as his mind replayed the blood-covered figure who had announced his mate’s death.

For Tavish, the genetic line would never come before the individual. And it was time to find out what had happened to Mir’s previous offspring, and what would happen to his own.