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  Born Taken

  Broken Angel (Prelude)

  Penelope Woods

  Penelope Woods

  Copyright © 2019 by Penelope Woods

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Broken Angel

  I used to be innocent.

  Optimistic and carefree.

  But once he woke me from my peaceful slumber,

  He showed me his dark side.

  He’ll never let me go again…

  I saw him in the horizon. The nightmare man. Every step he took broke the soil. Gold spurs arched over the heels of his cavalier boots. A deep scar ran across his face. He looked deep into my eyes and grinned.

  When he was near, he knelt down, revealing a single rose. I knew he’d be the man to take me away from my family forever. I knew he’d break me.

  I tried to run. I screamed, gasping for air. I was trapped in his dark and pointed eyes, consumed by his wicked smile. He took my hand and showed me the sunken place, the darkest recesses of his deplorable mind.

  From the start, he made on oath to never let me go. And though I dream of a day I can escape him, I should know better.

  Nightmares are for dreamers.

  Penelope Woods brings you the start of something twisted and sinister. Born Taken is a FREE 11,000 word prelude to the Broken Angel Series. The series will end with a HEA, but for now, this author must warn you: if you are easily offended or triggered, please close its pages.

  Dedicated to my sister.

  Penelope’s Dungeon

  Are you all caught up with the Broken Angel Series? Be the first to know when the novel comes out. You don’t want to miss out on these books.

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  Contents

  Penelope’s Dungeon

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “Is this a dream, or have you come to kill my family?” Rae asked.

  She rolled her knuckles over her eyes and watched the decorated soldier meander through the stables. Gold spurs arched over the heels of his cavalier boots. Every step he took broke the ground apart beneath him. Face hidden by the glare of the sun, he knelt down and revealed a single rose.

  “Just came for a little talk,” he said.

  Reaching to take the precious flower’s stem, Rae stumbled as he pulled back, wagging a thwarting finger in front of her eyes. Suddenly, his face was in full view, revealing hideous scars. “Careful. There are thorns.”

  A chill shuddered through her, and it didn’t come from the sudden drop in temperature. She was young—too young to know about the ills of the world with full clarity, but old enough to understand the wrongs of alpha men.

  Time and time again, she was told she was special. One of the few women who could give birth. Her father had gone through much effort to shield her omega scent from the breeders who passed by on the morning shifts. If this man moved any closer to her, he’d smell her fruitfulness. Perhaps, he already did.

  “Papa!” she called out.

  The man stayed kneeling and placed his dirty finger against the smooth ridge above her lips, dragging down to expose her teeth.

  Sniffing wildly, he nearly pressed the arch of his nose against her temple.

  “Lower your voice. Let’s surprise the old man,” he whispered, a deep, resonant tone.

  Quiet. Calm. Freezing Cold.

  Distant thunderclouds collected into purple heaps, the building storm threatening to close them inside for the week ahead. The orange haze of smoke and burning trash rising into the sky reminded her of the wars. Reminded her that this man’s one goal was to knot and ravage her ovaries.

  Glancing down, she noticed the medallions that graced his shoulders. Either he was a solider, or he was a breeder. Either way, he was powerful.

  At times, she felt obligated to offer the breeders her family’s hospitality. To be fair, every province succumbed to their wretched, carnal hungers. Somehow, looking away from the massacres in the near distance made them all feel safer, as if their blocks were immune to any and all attacks as long as they kept their manners in check. But there could only be one end to her beautiful farm village.

  Rae knew that her age would come into question soon enough. Not too many women could give birth since the ever-growing problem of the chromosome deficiency. The omegas were the last commodity of a dying world. Naturally, the demand created a market, but without any government oversight, the ones that ruled did so with an iron cock.

  She was far too aware that, soon enough, her thighs would be propped open, and her pussy would be filled with the seed of someone she despised. In return, she’d become the vehicle to usher in a new era of prosperity and growth.

  Of course, every omega was desperate for safety. They would agree to the men’s commands, purely for that reason. But Rae wouldn’t allow for that within her own life.

  She carefully ran her palms down her dress. Forcing a smile, she watched as the man stood, his boots scraping closer. His hand soon cradled her face, and, in a rushed moment of panic, she knew she was trapped.

  His large hands, enclosed in the richly embroidered, dark leather gauntlets took her slender white shoulders. His shiny locks of sable hair, cockerel feathers, and black lace, slowly shrouded his ugly and scarred face again. “I am Cassian,” he said. “Think of me as an… uncle.”

  She choked. “I understand,” she whispered, gravely.

  “You understand nothing,” he snarled.

  Stepping into the light, the hardened alpha took her hand like the father she never really had. The compulsion to run was strong, but his thick palm tightened around her brittle fingers like a python. Abruptly glancing at his hand, Rae noticed the darkened tattoo of the insignia of his pack. The Ouroboros Breeders. The snake eating its own tail.

  “I am the man of the night. The last one you see before you close your eyes.”

  Rae wavered and felt her throat tighten. Unable to suck in another breath, she choked again and dropped to her knees. “I’ve seen you before. I know you...”

  “Then you will do what I ask of you, sweet child,” he whispered.

  She despised the monster. Every drop of saliva and sweat compounded above his upper lip to leave a rich coat of filth. Voice thick with mucus, he opened his lips, reminding her of a fish she ate the night before. But it wasn’t his looks that bent her to nausea. It was seeing the meaty flesh rising against the pocket of leather between his legs that made her squirm.

  Slowly, he unzipped, swinging the pulverized mass of foreskin near her face. His sac hung beastly in a tuft of unkempt hair. A slow and rich chortle caught at the edge of his throat, and his pupils widened with hunger. The smell was horrendous.

  “Oh God,” she cried out.

  Rae shut her mouth and writhed away from him. Slowly, he hid his flesh back into the leather satchel, groaning as he zipped it closed. “You’re right. Perhaps I will wait until you are ripe.”

  In one instant, Cassian drained Rae’s energy with a vast smile. Plucking her fr
om the ground, he brought her into his arms. “Rest, child,” he whispered, warm against her ear.

  Violated and alone, she wrapped her arms around his neck. She did what she was told until she couldn’t take it anymore. A rush of panic hit her in the chest, and she hungrily dug her fangs into his porous flesh.

  He stumbled forward like a buffoon, dropping her to clasp his hand over the wound. A pin prick of blood formed around a weak puncture.

  Running for her life, headed for the Coalition authorities, Rae stumbled against the dried grass. Tears splattered her face, forming into a mist in the air around her. She could feel him coming after her, hunting like the predator he longed to be. His masculine scent, musky and foul, followed her every turn.

  Cassian’s voice shook with each pounding step forward. “I can hear your heartbeat.”

  He laid his hand across her shoulders. Ankles giving out, she collapsed on the field. He looked at her as if she were his prey and sank his teeth out wildly with one thing on his mind.

  “What is this place?” she asked.

  “The world is what I want it to be. I broke the world. Now, I create the rules,” he spoke. “You’re going to spend a lot of time with me, darling. Not days. Not years. Decades. Do you understand that, sweetie-pie?”

  He shook her head until she understood. In his world, women were to be beaten until molded into obedient slaves. Sellwhores and mothers of destitution. Every omega taken was to be made powerless. For a brief moment, her mind painted a picture of what her life was going to turn into.

  Laughing, Cassian dug his fingers into the grass and dirt, smearing mud into her thick roots of hair. He lifted her by her dress, ripping the thin fabric enough to expose a cheek of flesh. “Let us find Daddy.”

  As they made their way up to the grass-laden entryway, Rae felt a brief lapse in time. Suddenly, everything shifted, and she became catatonic. Like a broken television set, her vision flickered chaotically.

  Her eyes fluttered open to a brightly lit white room. As it came into focus, she blinked but strangely couldn’t move an inch.

  “Subject EC23 has resumed consciousness.”

  A man with a blue specialist mask stood above her, breathing deep into his stuffed nostrils. Every breath he sucked in seemed to give him jolts of unknown pleasure.

  Another voice broke the silence. A familiar voice. “She’s conscious?”

  The doctor swiveled his head to face the brute alpha. While glancing above at the screen, he wiped his forehead. Why did he look so damn worried?

  “It’s nothing we can’t fix, sir. What I worry about is her memory functionality. We can’t keep her under for very much longer.”

  Hammering his fist against the wall, Cassian roared.

  Rae’s eyes rolled to take in her surroundings, and a muffled cry escaped her parched lips.

  “You promised me this would work,” he said.

  “The brain adapts to trauma like a body to a parasite, by slowly spreading around the affected areas of the mind until the rest of the functions follow. When her mind has been fully changed, she will beg you to knot her.”

  “She still has some time to go before she is… ripe,” Cassian said. Lowering his voice, he whispered, “I have been dreaming about taking that satisfying first bite.”

  Rae struggled to keep her eyes open. She noticed the tubes that threaded through her arms, now a blackened mass of bruising and tragic scars. She had the idea to claw them out, one by one, but she was overcome with such incredible pain she could only grunt with suffering.

  “W-where am I?” she finally managed to choke.

  Cassian eyed her without an ounce of compassion. Cursing under his horrid and wafting breath, he turned the set of headlights off and forced the anesthesia mask around her nose and mouth. His grip was tight as she screamed out in terror.

  “Shh...” he whispered. “This is only a dream. You will wake soon, my sweet little slut of mine.”

  As the wave of chemicals flowed through her lungs, she felt the urge to fall back into the world she knew. It was the one place she could return to, time and time again. But it always ended with the sense of something devious, followed by the rush of panic.

  She almost made it outside of the village. She could have called for help. The sight was almost too much for her to see.

  She succumbed to the hot touch of his evil hand…

  Chapter Two

  “What makes you so sure we’ll find the mutt?” Lucas asked.

  The trio scanned the horizon outside of the train car windows, assault rifles held at the ready. A splash of orange sun seeped through the smoke-filled landscape.

  They were Ouroboros breeders, high in the ranks. While that granted them immunity to search and seize, it didn’t stop the sour glances from the passengers on the train. They were hated but feared by all.

  Lucas relaxed against the grimy chair. “We could be with Cassian right now,” he said. “We could ride away from this unscathed.”

  Vash leaned against the bar of the door and bit into a red apple, allowing the acidic juices to linger against his palette. Keeping his head down, he wondered if she even existed. His brother had been the source of so much chaos, but it was hard to imagine he had developed a breeding program worth a damn.

  “We’ll find her,” he said, tossing the core on the floor. Squashing it underneath his tactical boots, he added, “And then we will make our case to the new ruler.”

  Killian grunted and shook his head. Vash understood neither of the others believed he could win at negotiating a bigger spread of power, especially as the illegitimate child of the family. Their father, a ruthless breeder himself, was the one responsible for finding Vash as a baby in one of the war-torn villages. Saving the child from harm, he was seen as a charitable man. But this world wasn’t fit for saints.

  “After we kill him, we will all be equals. Hell, we can leave this continent and find something better,” Vash said.

  A better world… was it possible?

  The rushing winds invaded the train car as the doors glided open. Stepping outside, Killian grabbed Vash’s shoulder and forced him to pause before the staircase. “And the girl? Is she merely a bargaining chip?”

  Vash chuckled. “If the stories are true, she is everything that you’d want in a woman. Curvy thighs. An ass to die for. Ready to spread and fill,” he said.

  The men eagerly licked their lips at the thought. Vash hoped he’d not misled them since he had no idea what the bitch looked like or whether the stories his brother told him weren’t simple boasts of dominance.

  “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Does it?” Vash asked as they walked through the station.

  “I’m not following your logic,” Lucas replied. “Right now, they’re traumatizing the poor bitch, and our likeness will be all over the reports tomorrow. Everything matters right now.”

  Vash laughed arrogantly as he propped the exit open with his shoulder. “All I’m getting at is that you are both wanted in two provinces for acting against the chain of command. How will that shape up now that Cassian’s the big boss?”

  The warm air outside stank like a decaying beast. Lucas ran his hands through his slicked jet-black hair. While taking a breath, he then adjusted the sleeves that curled over his darkened forearm of ink. A sharpened, metal toothpick rocked against his lips. “We’re fucking breeders—we do what we can to survive.”

  “You’re talking about minor offenses, Vash,” Killian grunted.

  “Not to mention, you have more at stake than we do,” Lucas added.

  Vash stroked the edge of his unkempt facial hair. His sandy mop wavered against his eyes, and, for a brief moment, he let it hang like a curled thorn. He wasn’t a devil like Cassian, but, sometimes, he wished he could be. “Leave me if you must, for I will suffer my losses alone easier.”

  The two alphas stopped walking and shared a glance, but Vash moved through the damp alleyway that led through to the heart of the massive dome. Already, he could see the fa
int outline of electricity that ran across the glass edges and rose above the buildings. It was, of course, one of the most heavily guarded areas within the province. That didn’t mean shit to them.

  “Vash.” Lucas ran toward his old pack-brother in arms. “How many chips you got?”

  Vash hesitantly searched his jacket pocket. Feeling the loose coins roll across his fingers, he roughly counted the circular edges. “Too many to count,” he said.

  Lucas arched a brow. “Think the guards will take the bribe?”

  This time, they could laugh and breathe a little easier, despite the polluted air that swirled into their lungs. Vash didn’t have to answer that one. The guards, police, soldiers, and breeders loved a sweet kickback, especially if it meant getting more than a pack-brother.

  Voice terribly clinging to a cacophonous note, Killian sang, “It’s a dog-eat-dog world.”

  “It’s a god-eat-dog world. We’re the dogs.” Lucas grinned foolishly.

  “Quit with the jokes. They’ll take the fuckin’ bribe,” Vash said.

  Continuing forward, they kept their eyes on the trail until a voice shouted down from a tower. “Hands!”

  Killian was the biggest of the bunch, and the first one to step forward. With both rifles in his hands, he held the weapons in the air. He wanted to make sure the guards knew they were armed. He shook his head forward to lower his rounded sunglasses and grinned. “Can you see my hands from up there, fuckwad?”

  “An Ouroboros…”

  Going ahead with the plan, Lucas stepped forward next. “We need access into every room in this facility.”

  It was a hell of a lot to ask.

  The sleek metal clicked from the guards’ writhing fingers. They had their red sights focused on the pack, but Vash saved the best for last.