Shards of sin the comple.., p.1
Shards of Sin: The Complete Duet, page 1
shards of sin
THE COMPLETE DUET
SK PRINCE
© 2023, SK Prince.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
eBook Cover Designer: Melony Paradise
Paperback Cover Designer: Natasha Snow
Editor: Jennifer, Mistress with the Red Pen
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
SK Prince
c/o Blue Feather Enterprises
P.O. Box 367
Cisco, Texas 76437 USA
contents
About this Duet
Trigger Warning
Omega Alliance
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Alpha Vendetta
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Want More?
about this duet
Trust is a risk, love a weapon, and rebellion the only path forward.
They stuck me in a glass box for the world’s twisted pleasure, making me dance like a puppet. They watch, they decide, they control. But tonight? I'm cutting the strings.
They think they own me, but my spirit’s no longer for their bidding—my heart is mine to give, and I choose to give it to the pack who aided my escape. Our path forward is paved with danger and desire, every moment a battle, every embrace an act of rebellion, but it is one we must tread together.
The Alliance thought they could dictate my destiny, but they were wrong. And now the world is about to find out what happens when the watched becomes the warrior.
trigger warning
SHARDS OF SIN is a dystopian Omegaverse reverse harem romance that includes an FF relationship, but does not feature any shifting or magic.
It’s an action-packed story with several possible triggers, including voyeurism, false imprisonment, forced masturbation, sexual assault, human experimentation, life-and-death scenarios, and other high stakes and incredibly dangerous situations.
The author has taken to lovingly referring to it as her “trauma book.” You have been warned!
omega alliance
BOOK 1
Love me or hate me, everyone knows my name.
I am Sin, the people’s omega, and my life is not my own. Instead it’s broadcast for the unmated packs of the world to watch whenever they desire.
Good behavior grants these alphas the right to choose my outfits, meals, and even which designs ink my skin.
My tattoo artist is the closest thing I have to a friend, but lately I wish she could be more. Wish I could be more.
They’ve imprisoned me as a means to control the others, but what they don’t know?
I’m breaking out… tonight.
one
SIN
They chose me because I had nobody to stop them. Nobody to love me. Nobody to care.
But now everyone knows my name, my face, my life. And whatever reaction I elicit in them, it’s sure to be strong.
My name is Sin, and my life hasn't belonged to me in a very long time. Instead it's become a commodity for public consumption.
I am the so-called people’s omega, a pretty little plaything put up on a stage so the audience won’t notice the many liberties our directors are taking behind the scenes.
By controlling me, they control us all.
At least that’s what I’ve managed to gather from bits and pieces of overheard conversations and whispered concerns, words that were never meant for my ears. That was mostly in the early days. My captors have since become much better at keeping their secrets from me.
They plan my days down to the very second. Where I’ll be, what I’ll wear, who is allowed to watch, and for what price.
I don’t blame the watchers. They aren’t the ones who put me here, and in a way, they suffer far more than I ever have. That is, if my memories of the outside world have remained true rather than becoming warped by the passage of time. Still, I would rather be part of that broken world than kept whole in isolation.
I am a delicate bird trapped inside a gilded cage. Every single need is met, and yet I never get to fly.
I am also among the last of my kind. An omega.
Nobody knows why our numbers dwindled, seemingly overnight. Birth rates plummeted while infant mortality rates skyrocketed. So even when a coveted omega baby is born, it remains unlikely that she’ll ever live to see adulthood.
For whatever reason, alphas and betas are unaffected. Whatever virus or curse took hold, it is ours to bear and ours alone.
Some alpha packs happily shifted their affections onto beta females, and as a result, their lineages became tainted. Only an omega can bear an alpha child. Betas always birth betas, which means the alpha population is now rapidly declining as well.
Sometimes I think maybe that’s the way it should be. That people should just be people, defined by their experiences and personalities rather than some outdated notion of biologic predetermination.
The future is bright, I say. The future is beta.
Yet here I remain, stuck on the razor edge of our perilous present with precious few to share my outlook.
I am well cared for, pampered even, but I have no agency in my own life. I’ve been caged for seven long years. So long that I can’t remember the sky, what the wind once felt like rushing beneath my wings.
I’ve only been the people’s omega for four years. My first three under the watch of the director and his team were to get me ready, get “the experiment” ready.
To my knowledge, I am the only one in this exact situation. Perhaps I’m just the first of many, or perhaps this cross is only meant for me to carry.
The packs who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—claim a beta mate had become unruly, lawless. That’s what they say. Those packs needed females to take as their own, to desire, protect, and cherish. And so my captors found me. In a way, my virtual presence has completed each of these unmatched packs. Provided they follow the rules that govern them, all omega-less alphas are invited to become watchers. Yes, even those with betas.
They can turn on their devices to see me at any time. There is nowhere in my house that isn’t captured by cameras and broadcast to my society of admirers. They can even put in for lotteries to dictate decisions about my life—what I’ll wear on a given day for starters.
The truly favored are granted private sessions with me. For two hours every week, I go offline. I am then brought into a secure room that is split in two, each half separated by thick bulletproof glass. I touch myself while they look on, instruct my movements, join in from the other side.
It’s the only time I ever come in any contact with men. The few others in my life are female, though I suspect the captors are male themselves.
I only know what they tell me and what I’ve been able to piece together from their few slips over the years. Like I said, they’re getting better, which in turn means my bonds are growing even tighter.
My life hasn’t belonged to me in seven long years, and I say it’s time for that to change.
They’re adding another tattoo. A purple-ink snowdrop flower on my inner left thigh. The blossom looks sad, defeated as it droops toward the ground. Doesn’t it know that if it just looked up, it would see the sun?
“This will hurt,” Dani warns, her lips pressed into a firm line as she readies her ink gun filled with a blackberry hue selected by the pack who won the latest lottery, giving them the power to paint my body with whatever image or symbol they chose.
“It always hurts,” I mutter beneath my breath.
“Not like this will. It’s a pretty sensitive area.” Dani studies me for a moment, then frowns. Her usually bright blue eyes appear to dim as an unspoken thought crosses her mind. I can see the wheels turning, but I don’t want to know wher e they lead. It’s better that way, really.
I close my eyes tight and suck in a deep, shuddering breath. “Let’s just get it over with.”
The first touch of the needle isn’t that bad, but as the artist continues her work, the area begins to throb with pain. I grip the edges of the chair and dig my fingers into the polished leather.
“I tried to warn you,” Dani whispers, compassion reflecting in her ocean eyes.
“Uh-huh,” I half grunt, half sob.
“Would it help if I kept talking to you? You know, as a distraction?”
I try to answer but instead choke on another groan.
She pauses for a moment and drums her fingers against her work tray. “Okay, okay, let me think…”
Normally we don’t talk beyond the basic pleasantries required as we say hello and goodbye. This whole encounter is televised, which means hundreds of thousands of people are watching, listening, latching on to anything and everything either of us utters.
Dani needs to tread lightly here. Meanwhile I just need this wretched flower to be finished. If it’s this bad going on, it’s going to be murder dealing with it as it heals. I’ll need to waddle like a damned duckling to avoid letting my thighs brush together and unleashing a fresh torrent of pain with each step as I go about my meager life.
“I could talk about myself,” Dani offers after a beat, then brings her gun to my thigh to resume her work. “But I worry that won’t actually help anything.”
“What do you mean?” I ask as that white-hot sensation spreads over my thigh, threatening to reach even farther, to take over my entire body.
She bites her lower lip before speaking again. "It's just that my life is out there. Yours is in here. They're very different."
She's right about that. Our lives are very different. What I wouldn't give to hear about how the world has changed since I was last a part of it. But no, the directors wouldn't like Dani sharing. If she did, this might be the last time I ever see her.
I still remember the tattoo artist before, wonder what happened to her. I can't even recall her name now, but she inked me the first two times. While working on her second piece, a massive mandala that covers a good portion of my back, she filled our time together by regaling me with stories about her pet cat. We laughed together as she described the way he chased after a laser dot and kept a hoard of stolen hair ties under the sofa.
I couldn't stop myself from smiling whenever I pictured that naughty feline, even going so far as to imagine I had one of my own. When I closed my eyes to picture the soft touch of its fur, the deep rumbling of its purr, I could almost feel it there with me—a hopeless daydream, but one that brought me comfort all the same.
Until the time rolled around for my next inking, revealing that the first artist had vanished, leaving Dani in her place.
I didn't ask what happened, because I already knew. She'd gotten too personal, excited too much curiosity.
And curiosity can lead to many unwanted things, including rebellion. These days I am finding myself more and more curious about what it’s like outside these four walls.
Back then, I just wanted a friend to keep me company. But after that shock to my system, I never thought of that cat again, not when it hurt too much to lose something I never even had in the first place.
Now I get a new tattoo every three months. Some are small and quick while others take the better part of the day to complete. This is my fourteenth session with Dani, and I refuse to let it be the last.
"Maybe we shouldn't talk," I tell her now, gently brushing my fingertips across her arm. She is the closest thing I have to a friend in this place, and yet I know almost nothing about her.
Still, I'd hate to lose her. Especially since I don't know what happened to the first girl who perched on that stool and held that tattoo gun, looking down at me with something akin to pity.
Dani's gaze connects with mine, cool and assessing while mine burns with an intensity I pray doesn't show through the cameras.
The corners of her mouth tilt up, revealing the briefest flash of a smile. "All right, then I'll sing to you."
"You can sing?" I ask in surprise. Here I thought people were only ever granted one special talent, but Dani apparently has both art and music. It makes me wonder what else she can do.
She nods. "I can, but it's usually only in the shower." She smirks. "You know, when I'm completely alone."
No, I don’t know. I am never truly alone. I am always monitored, always watched. Yes, even in the shower.
"I don't want to be a bother," I whisper rather than explain all this, my gaze dropping to my lap even though it's a wasted effort. The cameras can see everything, can hear even the softest of voices and barest of breaths.
"You're not." Dani’s voice lingers for a moment before she clears her throat. "Are you comfortable? Would you like a pillow behind your head or under your legs?”
I think about it for a moment, then shake my head gently, careful not to move my thigh and upset her work.
Dani leans forward, her shoulder brushing against my arm, making the contact as brief as possible as she whispers in my ear. "This one always makes me think of you."
My mind is still reeling when the first notes escape her lips. Dani's voice is clear and bright like a bell. It's been so long since anyone has serenaded me. The last I remember is my mother singing over my bed as she tucked me in each night. She skipped past lullabies and instead sang whatever she'd heard on the radio that day, always taking care to add my name into the lyrics, even though it didn't belong there.
Back then, I was Cindy.
Now I'm just Sin. The watchers had a vote, and they like it better that way.
But as Dani reaches the first chorus of her ethereal song, my mind jumps back to those nights so long ago. When my parents were alive. When my entire life lay undiscovered before me.
Dani's song is a sad one, and I can't help but stare at her lips as they form each sound:
what was ours is gone
what was started is done
what was beautiful is dead
what was here has fled
fly away, little bird, fly free
just promise that one day you’ll fly back to me
My tears come on so suddenly, I don't have time to stop them from falling.
First one hot drop, then a second.
Oh, God. I can't let them see. If they notice Dani moving me like this, they are sure to take her away.
I can't lose her, not when she's the closest thing I have to a friend.
Thinking quick, I force a sneeze, jolting forward in my chair. The tattoo gun slips and pierces me in an area covered by the soft fabric of my underwear, silencing Dani's mournful song.
That hurts almost as much as the unbidden ink. The absence of what was, what could have been.
But I've managed to hide my tears, at least for now.
Dani hands me a tissue, and I resettle myself in the chair. We both remain quiet for the rest of the session. I wonder if she suspects what her simple melody meant to me, how I desperately long for more.
I don't know how much time passes. It could be minutes, hours. The only thing I'm aware of is the patch of skin Dani is inking, the constant burning, the way my thigh muscles feel as if they're about to cramp up for good, and my hands are curled in tight, white-knuckled fists.
Eventually I open my eyes, find that Dani is staring at me with open concern.
"I'm sorry," she murmurs, her voice as soft as her gaze. "I hate having to put you through that. But we're done now."
