Page 91 of Unhinged Alphas

"Go ahead, little omega. Make it count."

The first touch of the blade sends electricity down my spine. I grit my teeth, forcing myself to remain still as she begins to cut.

"Fuck," I hiss, taking another gulp of vodka.

"Sorry," she murmurs, her breath warm against my skin.

"Do not apologize. Just get it done." She thinks I'm suffering. Good. Better than her knowing the truth of how she affects me, even—no, especially—when she has a knife in my skin.

She works in silence for a moment, then asks, "What were you saying earlier? About you and Wraith…. about you sharing an origin."

I tense, memories flooding back. Memories I've spent years trying to drown in blood and vodka. But perhaps talking will keep my mind off the pain. Keep me from lashing out. Or, more troublingly, turned on.

“I was bred in Vrissia to be a super soldier,” I start, my accent thicker than usual as memories flood back. "Selected by hand and experimented on since birth."

"How did you escape?" Ivy asks, her knife still probing.

I chuckle darkly. "On my sweet sixteenth birthday. Lab blew up. I ran like hell."

The memory of flames and screams fills my mind. I push it away, focusing on the present.

"I have wondered how many other escapees there are," I continue. "It is unlikely, but it may be the only explanation for Wraith's insane strength and the way he looks. Whatever happened to him… it was clearly unnatural.”

Ivy's hands still for a moment. "What do you mean?"

I remember the flash of scarred ruin I once saw on a mission when Wraith's mask was briefly dislodged. How he immediately attacked me over it, sharp teeth gnashing.

"He reminds me of another experiment," I say, the words spilling out before I can stop them. "The one in the cell across from me."

Ivy resumes her work, her movements more careful now. "Another experiment?"

I nod slightly, wincing at the pain. "He did not look or seem human. Not in any way. Much more aggressive than Wraith. Hulking scarred beast known only as 3686." I pause, taking another drink. "They called him the Knight."

Vivid memories of the Knight fill my mind. Taller and larger than any scientist, even though he couldn't have been older than I was at the time. Muscles rippling beneath scarred skin, a grotesque tapestry of surgical precision and self-inflicted injuries. Shaggy white hair framing an iron mask with glowing blue eye slits. His right arm a monstrous creation of blackened iron and cruel engineering.

The sound of clanking and chains whenever he moved, which was not much. He would stand like a statue for hours, staring into my cell from across the hall, the chains on his thick neck and every limb securing him to the reinforced back wall.

I shake my head, dispelling the memory. "When the lab blew up, the Knight escaped in the carnage. Last thing I saw was him ripping scientists apart, destroying walls and doors. Roaring in the flames like an iron devil from hell.”

Ivy's knife hits something hard and I hiss in pain. "That’s awful," she murmurs.

“For the Knight or the scientists?” I ask, amused and already knowing the answer.

“The Knight, obviously.”

I blow a puff of air through my nose. Her endless compassion for beasts and monsters—like me—will never fail to surprise or enchant me. “Be careful,” I mutter, feeling the point of the knife prodding and scraping something that could very well be my spinal column.

“I think I found the chip…”

"Good," I grunt, relieved enough to feel slightly lightheaded. "Now cut around it. Carefully."

As she works, Ivy presses on. “Why did you become a serial killer?” she asks quietly. “Did you hurt… omegas?”

The question catches me off guard. I laugh, a harsh, bitter sound. "No. I do not hurt omegas. Or girls. Not innocents. In this world, they are innocents automatically no matter what they do. The deeds they commit are only to help them survive." I take another swig of vodka. "But it is my holy duty to give every willing cog in this machine the worst deaths imaginable."

"But why?" Ivy presses, her voice a mix of curiosity and fear.

I close my eyes, memories of needles andscalpels and pain flooding back. "Because they deserve it," I growl. "They deserve worse than any natural end."