Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 114617 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114617 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
“Badr, our sun, moon, and elemental powers come from the tiny piece of Luame living in our souls. Take our souls, and you take our power.”
“And then we die!”
“Yeah,” I replied, voice dead. “We fucking die. They know that, Badr. The council knows exactly what’ll happen to every child given up to Project Destiny, but they don’t care.”
“Project Destiny.” He circled the hole, moving closer to me. “What is that? The message left by the lunch lady said that. Destiny is known. Destiny is dead.”
“That message was for the council,” I bit out. “I want them to know their secret is out, and someone is working to stop them!”
“Stop them from doing what?”
“From taking the omega babies born from every new powered clan and selling their powers to the old generation. Invisibility? One million dollars? Transmutation and the power to turn a rock into a diamond? Five million,” I cried, lips twisting. “But oh no, is that not enough for you? Want the power of the six and a dab of immortality to go with it? That’ll be twenty million dollars.
“That’s how much our children will be worth, Badr. Twenty million! And that’s only after each one of the council gets our children and their abilities for free. That’s their fucking destiny! To be rich and powerful until the end of time.”
“But they can’t do that. They can’t just—just— Sell and murder babies! All of Wolf Nation would revolt!”
“This is what I’m trying to tell you!” I burst out. “It does happen! It will happen if someone doesn’t stop it. Do you want to know what was going to happen that night after the ceremony? After we all mated before the eyes of the clans?
“The council was going to ‘surprise’ us with a bonding gift. A new home for all seven of us to live together. But that home—”
“—was going to be a prison,” he finished, face draining of color.
I nodded. “They want to breed me, Badr. Like a fucking animal. They’re going to strap me down, load me with fertility drugs, shoot me up with your, Paxton’s, Edric’s, Orion’s, and Nyx’s sperm over and over again, year after year, until they’ve gotten as many children out of me as they can.
“And then that fucking soul stealer will tear the souls out of our babies, and give them to anyone who pays.”
Badr was shaking his head, eyes huge and wild. “People would fight. We would fight! We wouldn’t let them do that to you, or our kids—”
“You’d be dead,” I dropped. “Once they’ve milked you of sperm, they won’t need you anymore. Every single one of you would’ve been killed so you can’t do exactly that. Fight to save me. And as for all of Wolf Nation rising up to save omega children? Ha!” I barked, making him laugh. “No one gives a shit about omegas, alpha. Do you know the kind of horrible things that are done to them now and no one does a thing about it?
“Do you know how many omega girls Mason raped before he ever got his hands on Nia? Do you know how many of them reported it? And do you know what punishment he faced?”
Badr gave me a long, nauseated look. “None.”
“But,” I continued, sighing, “let me be fair. Not every alpha or beta is a soulless psychopath who’d sit idly by while innocent babies were sacrificed. Especially when their own babies are on the line. As you know, an alpha can give birth to an omega, and an omega can give birth to an alpha. This is a fight that affects everyone.
“Eventually, word of Project Destiny would get out and many would join the omegas in their fight to stop it. Marches, protests, lawsuits, even violence,” I admitted. “But that’s why the shadow is so scarily smart.”
“What do you mean?”
I didn’t have to look back on history. This was the only civil conversation Badr and I ever had. And it was happening from my own grave.
“I don’t have exact dates or anything, but sometime in the near future, vampire kings are going to be murdered one by one—by a werewolf.”
His brows crumpled. “Vampire kings murdered by one of us? That’s insane. It’s one thing to mix it up with the dead leech peasants, but going after their kings means war.”
I looked him dead in the eye. “Exactly.”
Badr frowned at me... then understanding dawned. “By the gods,” he whispered. “The shadow person. They do it. They kill the kings and frame us. Causing a war.”
“An inter-dominion war,” I pressed. “One that the mundanes get dragged into in a big way. They’re not like they were before. With all their cameras and satellites and surveillance. There’s no fucking away they miss a bunch of legendary creatures attacking and slaughtering each other on their streets.
“And when they find out we’re real, and dangerous, they panic and start hunting us down and killing us, so then we start killing them!” I cried, throat burning. “Of course, when mundane blood starts spilling, the fae enter the war, and we have never been a match for the fae.