Wolf Dominion Volume 2
Chapter 23

I sit with Opular over a midnight candle lit dinner, rushed together just for my arrival. He gave me his robe to cover my identity, and now I sit at a table, set before his bed.

Opular drinks wine, while Ryder sleeps soundly in another room in a cot.

“You have my entire attention,” Opular is looking me over like I’m crazy, but he’s slightly impressed I’d say.

I saw Seye in the corridor, dismissed with the other two concubines. She was just as surprised to see my return.

Hades was going to kill me for this. Oh well…

“Tyra isn’t really dead,” I start, “And there is more about this world you don’t know…”

“That we’re all cloned? We know,” Opular raises a brow.

Um.

Wait.

“We?” I was not expecting this.

“The Hydra told me, about a week ago,” Opular explains.

“But… you tried to assassinate the Hydra? The Queen to Reptiles –”

“No, I tried to fuck her,” Opular tries not to laugh, “It worked. I got her attention. Seye is a very sly woman. She doesn’t look her age.”

“…so you know about the… the cloning… and what do you mean, Seye…?”

“The Hydra, she wanders,” Opular winks, “And now I have a Luna too. Tell me. Why did you really come back with me? To fuck me?”

“I think we can learn from one another. We can gain. With a mysterious origin story, or no mysterious origin story, Wolf Dominion will retake this place. But I’m here to do it peacefully.”

“No need, we’re not meant to be at peace,” Opular shrugs, “The Hydra knows this, we’re all meant to slaughter one another.”

“You know what it all means, why we’re all on Genesis?” I lick my lips, excited, “Tell me what she told you.”

“The Genesis Mission. The last Dominion standing, will leave the planet – and return to our origin planet; Earth. Can’t imagine what that looks like, can you?” Opular asks, chuckling, “So no. It’s war for us, Ryder. And only war. There is no peace.”

“We all die, get cloned up, and fight again?” I ask, “Really? You want that? You accept that? You want to play that game?”

“No one knows where the ship is to get off this rock, I thought it might be this Dominion, can’t see any engines though,” Opular sighs, “But when the Mission ends, it’s when that ship is found. The Hydra knows this.”

“What happens if we find the ship?” I ask, hiding the fact I know all about it.

“We return to where we came from,” Opular drawls, confident.

“Hmm, until then, we fight,” I cut him off, now changing subject, “Imperator… I want to know… why did you tell me my existence was worth something? It’s my secret that only you know. Only you know, I feel like I’m worth nothing. I pretend to play Luna. I pretend I have a home. I fuck those Alphas like I’m nothing really,” I start to tear up, “And I’ll die for it too. I’m loyal to Wolf Dominion. Why do I feel so empty?”

“Who is loyal to Ryder?” Opular asks me, “Who is loyal to you?”

“I don’t even know what that question means,” I admit, “I can’t comprehend it. My whole life I’ve been a despised human, then a useless slave, then a blood thirsty warrior… and now some fucking queen.”

“Why don’t you show me,” Opular asks, “I can’t tell you. You’ll have to find out what that means. Lions think different to wolves. I’m not your kind.”

“Show you?”

“Show me.”

“How?” I pick up a piece of bread and cheese, and I can’t even make myself eat it, “Sometimes… I can’t even eat anymore. Sometimes I rather just be dead.”

“You can take yourself off that podium if you want, out the window,” Opular suggests, “Over and down – you’ll be dead on impact. You’re welcome,” he’s being bold – to put me off the idea, reverse psychology.

Instead, he’s ignited a memory.

Over and down.

My original plan.

“Over and down,” I whisper, “…and maybe I’ll be cloned again… and it’ll end the same again…”

“Care to find out?” Opular holds out a hand, still playing along.

Actually…?

I kind of did.

I had an image in my head of the cloning room. The dead bodies, all murdered on Genesis, gathered in that cloning hull. Those robots, shifting between dead body and original body. The real first humans. In the tubes. Some tubes were open, because they took them out. Before returning them.

Making their next vessel.

But first… to get another vessel… you had to die again. Sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ (F)indNƟvᴇl.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

I stand up without a word, and I walk to that window.

Jawkin had known something. She had mentioned it. A quick end from a tall height. Over and down.

I think of her and her worried hands. And Medivian Levana, who told me I was important. Some people… some Helpers – some Elders, some people on Genesis, had to know what the hell was going on here. They all knew bits and pieces of the game.

“Ryder!”

As I’ve walked, the Imperator has waited for my sense to knock back in, but I haven’t stopped moving my body.

Opular swiftly follows me out onto the balcony.

I’ve tried to close the door but he’s pushed out to come stand with me.

As I wait out there, he puts an arm around my shoulders, holding me against him.

“What are you doing?” Opular whispers in my ear.

“Just looking at the view,” I lie.

“Don’t jump, you beautiful idiot,” Opular lets me go, and I turn around into his front.

“Opular. I just worked out who I am,” I say, “I’m human.”

Opular is perplexed, as he reaches back for the door, “Come back inside –” he starts to turn, and I also turn.

I run and I leap.

There was only one way to find out the truth on Genesis.

But first you had to die.

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