INTRO TO OMEGAVERSE
If you’re new to the term omegaverse, then welcome to one of my favorite genres, but it does vary from author to author. Let me give you some basics:
Humanity is divided into 3 designations: alpha, beta, and omega. While these designations have a lot of animalistic traits, they are not shifters. The world as a whole is the same as the one we live in, so you will see a lot of real-world references.
Alphas: Predominantly male (female alphas exist but are rare); they are much more aggressive and dominant. They tend to fall into leadership roles in society. They growl, snarl, and purr (purr is to comfort a stressed omega). Alphas also can go into rut or go feral where they lose control.
Betas: Male and female; these are your “average” humans. They make up the bulk of society and have a more muted
scent. They do not have ruts or heats.
Omegas: Predominantly female (males exist but are rare); they are submissive and influenced by alphas. They also go through heat cycles, which is when they’re fertile. Omegas also build nests (made of up fuzzy blankets and pillows and scents that make them feel safe). Omegas can purr for their alphas (to soothe), and then also whine/whimper when they’re distressed.
A few more things to note:
Alpha Knot: a gland at the base of an alpha penis that swells to lock inside a female omega to increase the likelihood of pregnancy
Slick: a fluid omegas produce when aroused
Scent/Perfume: every person (alpha, beta, and omega) has a specific scent, and some scents are more compatible with others (i.e. scent match). Scents increase/alter when emotions are heightened.
Omega physiology: Female omega lady bits are much more able to stretch to accommodate an alpha knot; omegas also tend to heal faster
Packs: alphas, betas, and omegas form packs which are family units. Pack size varies, and is made up of any combination of alpha/beta/omega.
Rut: When an alpha becomes aggressively aroused; can lead to extremely dominant behaviors
Hazel
THE SOUND OF FLESH SLAPPING FLESH, PUNCTUATED WITH THE OCCASIONAL moan, made me nauseated. If that wasn’t enough, the stench of bloated pheromones and cum was enough to make me throw up. But the absolute worst part of this entire shitshow was the feel of the body hard under mine.
A layer of thin silk was all that kept the alpha beneath me from rutting into me. The hard ridge of his cock, combined with the thick swell of his knot, rubbed the sensitive flesh between my legs.
Clenching my teeth, I looked away and tried to focus on anything else. The room was a large rectangle with crude wooden plank walls and flooring. They were the same shade of pale pine, but instead of coming across as rustic, it looked dirty and haphazard. The rows of
metal folding chairs used for meetings had been stacked in careless heaps around the room to make space for the divinemerging.
Divine merging my ass.
It was a sick display of power and violence. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Watch them, omega,” the rough voice behind me commanded, infusing enough alpha bark that I had no choice but to stare at the spectacle in front of me from my seat on his lap. The command in his words was an unbreakable order, forcing me to keep my eyes on the seven people writhing around and fucking like the world was about to end. His hands tightened to a bruising grip on my hips as he held my splayed legs open.
A sharp cry sliced through the air, and my stomach bottomed out as my eyes dropped to the eighth person in the orgy. The one who clearly didn’t want to be there. Honestly, of the four women that were present, I wasn’t sure any of them wanted to be, but the blue lotus tea they’d consumed an hour or so ago was enough to make a broom horny.
Apparently the youngest and smallest woman hadn’t drank enough, because she looked entirely too aware of what was going on.
And she was hating every single second of it.
I watched her face screw up in pain again as the alpha driving his hips into her roared his pleasure. He wasn’t even trying to be gentle. The woman was a small beta, one I’d seen lurking around the fringes over the last four years.
Fouryears.
How in the world had I been here for four years?
A hand crept toward the inside of my thigh, stroking intimately. His nose grazed the side of my neck, and my muscles locked up as he nipped at the pulse point of my throat. I wasn’t entirely sure how mating bonds worked, but I knew it involved teeth breaking skin. The brief pressure of his canines against my throat was a promise and a threat.
“Soon you will bear my mark,” he murmured, the hand on my thigh cupping between my legs and squeezing my bare pussy with
possession. Like he owned me and had the right to touch my body any way he wanted.
Fucking asshole.
The shapeless muslin dress I usually wore had been stripped from me before the merging began. I could still see the way the High Alpha’s pale blue eyes had heated as he ripped away the only thing I had to hide myself behind.
Tears blurred my vision, the violation and debauchery merely one more moment in the hellscape that made up my life.
“You will bear my heirs and they will lead us into a new age of enlightenment,” he went on, pushing the blunt tip of a finger inside of me. “But first, you need to be cleansed. Baptized in the fiery inferno of your first heat.”
A garbled, choked noise ripped from my throat as he forced a second finger inside my unwilling body.
Except, no, my body wasn’t unwilling. Even now, slick was trickling from my pussy, readying my body for sex.
Biology was a bitch, and I was the punchline.
As an omega, my body was hard-wired for sex. Even if my brain was currently screaming it didn’t want this, my body would always be ruled by hormones, pheromones, and alphas.
The High Alpha was the alpha. The one in control of everything and everyone. And he’d declared years ago that I was the omega destined to give him the sons who would lead society into a new era. Into a world where alphas were revered as the gods they were, omegas knew their rightful place, and betas worked to support their betters.
I still didn’t understand why people followed his absolute horseshit logic, but I hadn’t exactly had a choice about joining this damn cult. And I sure as hell didn’t have a way out.
Trust me, I’d tried.
What omega—no, what human being—would want to be held captive solely because their body was physically capable of taking an alpha knot?
Frustrated tears pricked the backs of my eyes, burning even as I furiously blinked them away.
I wouldn’t cry in front of these people again. I’d given them enough of the satisfaction of my tears to last a dozen lifetimes.
His fingers curled inside my body as his thumb pressed against my clit a little too hard. The sensation was too rough and all wrong. I smothered the cry that tried to wrench free.
I could be soundless. Lifeless. I would endure this the way I’d endured everything else.
His fingers left my body and he lifted them to his mouth, sucking them between his lips with an appreciative growl.
“You taste divine, omega,” he rasped, rolling his hips under me. His hard cock jabbed insistently against the small of my back.
My legs opened a bit wider of their own accord, my body and mind at impossible odds.
No,no,no.Closedammit!
But the alpha behind me chuckled. “You want me, don’t you? Want my cock, my knot stretching out your tight little cunt until it rips apart at the seams?”
Okay, not just no, but hellno. What woman would literally want her pussy split open? Did a pussy even have seams? I didn’t remember that from mandatory health class in high school.
I knew the basics about how omegas and alphas worked. I’d learned about their anatomies in health class my freshman year of high school. About how alphas had a knot at the base of their cocks that swelled to lock inside an omega’s body thanks to super elastic vaginal walls and copious amounts of slick omegas produced as lubricant. I knew they relied on scent and senses to guide them to a perfect mate or pack.
But I also knew that I’d spent the first seventeen years of my life believing I was a regular old beta. Only freak genetics changed that fact of life, but it had been years without my body going into heat, and, unfortunately for the High Alpha, I wouldn’t be a full omega until that particular gift of biology happened. A heat signaled my body was ready for breeding, and therefore I would be ready to marry the High Alpha and bear his heirs.
But as the years ticked by and my body didn’t show a single sign of heat, he began to grow desperate.
Which was why he’d started these weekly orgies where the other alphas of the group—known as Shepherds—selected members of the flock to sleep with. Omegas were driven by biology, and apparently there had been studies that showed an omega’s heat could be triggered if they were saturated by sex pheromones.
It wasn’t like I had access to things like a phone or computer to fact check that info, but it was what the High Alpha had declared was needed to “bring forth my time.”
I threw up a little in my mouth, too, when I first heard it put that way.
This was the seventh week of orgies, and I was so over it. Truth was, they did affect me; for days after I would be sick. The oversaturation of scents and sounds made my emotions and impulses go haywire. Sometimes that meant I’d throw up or have a migraine. Sometimes both.
There was a part of my omega side that was curious about sex and alphas, but none of these alphas smelled right. None of them felt right. I vaguely remembered my health teacher prattling on about omegas needing to feel safe with an alpha, and I felt anything but safe in this place.
Even now, one of the Shepherds was fucking a woman while staring at my exposed pussy. When he caught my gaze, he licked his lips and slammed his hips harder into his partner. His nostrils flared as he tried to inhale my scent.
The men—all alphas—didn’t need the tea to perform. They were ready, willing, and more than able. In fact, I had a feeling as I watched a couple of them that they were disappointed their partners didn’t put up more of a fight.
Humiliation scorched my cheeks crimson as the Shepherd let out a throaty growl, his eyes fixed between my legs.
“Bad omega,” the High Alpha snarled in my ear a second before reaching between my legs and pinching my clit with his jagged nails.
I damn near jerked off his lap as a cry ripped from my lips. This wasn’t pleasure, it was sheer pain. Tears instantly formed and spilled over, my heart pounding as he refused to let up. The muscles of his
forearm were taut and corded as he used all his force to squeeze the tiny nub.
Pain ricocheted from between my legs and through my limbs. My stomach lurched, and I knew I was going to be sick.
“Do not tempt my Shepherds,” the High Alpha added, finally releasing my clit.
It throbbed and my shoulders fell as a sob shook my frame. So much for not crying. But once the first tears had fallen, it was like a dam collapsing.
A thin, reedy sound scraped its way out of my throat. I wasn’t sure what that noise was, or why I sometimes made it when I was super upset, but the High Alpha only laughed.
“Don’t think to sway me with your whine,” he informed me, inserting two fingers back inside my pussy like there was nothing wrong. His other hand lifted to pluck at one of my nipples, and I flinched, expecting pain.
“There, there,” he cooed, licking my tears from my cheek. “I know you are just a simple omega, driven by your need for a knot. I will train you, mate. You will learn that your body is for your master’s pleasure alone.” He leisurely pumped his fingers into me, and after a few moments, brushed against my abused clit.
Fear and pain licked up my spine, curling around my chest and squeezing.
“No,” I moaned, the word breaking free before I could censor it. Shockingly, he stopped immediately. But I knew it wasn’t because he was actually going to give me a pass.
“What did you say?” His brittle tone was matched by the heady scent of mildew and moss. It turned acrid as his mood shifted, the scent potent enough to make some of the Shepherds pause midfuck.
I clamped my lips together. Apologizing was useless. I knew that. He’d be just as pissed off at my attempts at trying to calm him down. Sometimes more so. I’d learned that over the years as my omega surfaced more and more.
There was a bone-deep need to please an upset alpha. Any upset, irate, or furious alpha. It was like laying on a bed of nails. My
skin ached and crawled, my stomach twisted into tangles knowing things were wrong.
I’d made the mistake before of trying to apologize or offer comfort, it didn't end well.
Silence was my only option.
“I have been too easy on you, omega,” he went on, his hands going to my hips and easing me off his lap until I was standing. “Shepherd Hayden told me I was being too gentle with you. That your omega nature demanded I provide more structure.”
My gaze instantly went to Shepherd Hayden, the one who had been raping the tiny woman who hadn’t drank enough blue lotus tea. He was sadistic, cruel, and the High Alpha’s younger brother.
“I shall give you exactly what you need,” the High Alpha told me, standing and turning to face me. His expression hardened. “Get on the dais.”
I turned and looked at the stone table behind me, a sense of dread turning my blood into ice. My breaths came in rapid pants as I took a step away from the raised platform it sat on.
Nothing good ever happened on the dais. It was stained with blood from people who had been tied to it and whipped. Most recently, the blood of a beta woman who had allegedly had an affair with another beta. An affair with no proof other than her abusive husband saying he was certain she had defiled herself with another. She had been tied down and repeatedly assaulted by the Shepherds to teach her a lesson. Disobedient children were sometimes chained to it without food or water so they learned to obey their parents.
The High Alpha lunged forward, grabbing me by the throat and squeezing. “Get on the dais now, omega.” He infused the words with an alpha bark, and I scrambled away from him. I was up on the stone table before my body fully knew what it was doing.
An alpha bark was just another way being an omega sucked. They barked and we had to obey. I wasn’t sure what part of an omega brain had been hardwired to instantly react to an alpha’s bark, but there was no fighting it.
I sat on the edge of the table, my body barely complying with the order as I trembled from head to toe.
The High Alpha moved closer. “Lay down.” Another bark and my back was flat on the table.
“Do not move.” No bark this time, but I knew better than to even blink.
The High Alpha motioned toward the Shepherds, and I heard them rising to move forward.
I closed my eyes, sure this was it. For all the High Alpha’s decrees that my virgin body remain untouched for him, I knew this was when they’d rape me.
“Lift your arms,” the High Alpha said, his tone softer now, almost conversational.
My arms shook violently as I stretched them up over my head. I’d no sooner laced my fingers together than someone grabbed my wrists and slammed them onto the stone. My back arched as my shoulders screamed in protest, but I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood rather than cry out.
Cold chains wrapped around my wrists, anchoring me to the slab.
Two sets of hands grabbed my ankles and wrenched my legs apart. Chains once again immobilized me. Cool air hit my bare pussy lips, and I shut my eyes as tears started to fall again.
Not like this. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
“Bring me the device,” the High Alpha ordered.
Wait. Device?
I could hear someone moving away. Several long minutes of silence passed, the quiet only making my panic coil tighter. Each second was a lifetime of agony. I tried to retreat into my mind, letting myself go back to a place that only existed in my dreams.
The place where my parents were alive and my best friend lived next door. Calla and I were born weeks apart and were inseparable. She’d grown up with a big pack for a family. Her mom was an omega with three mates, and she’d had three sons—all alphas— before Calla, her only daughter, was born. Calla was an omega.
Probably mated off to her own pack now.
Calla’d had the life every omega wanted; a loving family full of support and loyalty. Her three alpha fathers adored their omega wife
and daughter. Growing up next door to the Dutton family had been perfect.
Our families had always been super close, and losing them had been almost as bad as losing my parents. They’d tried everything to get Uncle Henry to give them custody of me, but he’d adamantly refused.
Now I knew it was because he’d given all my family’s money to the APA. He was one of their Elite betas, an upper tier that policed the rest of the beta population and seemed to firmly believe alphas were the superior race. All of the betas here treated the alphas—the High Alpha and Shepherds—like they were gods. They believed society had forgotten the true hierarchy of social order, and it needed to be restored for the world to find peace.
It was bullshit.
The first time I’d said as much to Uncle Henry, he’d beaten me until I couldn’t chew solid food for ten days.
The Alpha Protection Alliance operated with the sole mission of restoring alphas to their glory. Betas were to support alphas in all ways—from finance to farming. And omegas? Well omegas were there to give alphas more alphas. Our vaginas and uteruses were currency.
The problem was, the OS monitored all omegas since there weren’t a lot of us. Packs often had to be approved to marry and mate an omega. Omegas were, more often than not, treated like princesses and spoiled beyond belief.
The Omega Services would have never okayed an omega to the High Alpha or the Shepherds. Not that they were a pack. Packs had formed almost as a necessity as omegas became rarer. It was easier for three men to share an omega than for them to individually try to pull her focus to just one.
And the High Alpha, as well as everyone he led, believed that true alphas didn’t share their toys.
That’s why I was fucked the second my designation came through.
As far as the world was concerned, I was just another beta—the most common designation. We weren’t monitored or protected. We
were grains of sand on a beach. And in a perfect world, the second my designation hit, I would’ve been registered.
I wasn’t entirely sure of the protocols, but omegas were given classes to help them learn how to handle their new emotions and traits. If you were wealthy enough—like Calla had been—your parents could afford private sessions with an OS certified instructor at home. If you couldn’t afford that, there were private schools omegas could enroll in for a year. The poorest omegas were sent to OS boarding schools.
I’d gotten nothing.
Not even a freaking manual to explain why I could suddenly smell things that I hadn’t smelled before and wanted to do weird shit like touch every fabric I saw to see how soft it was. I’d even spent an afternoon in the forest, collecting the softest leaves I could find and bringing them back to my cabin like a squirrel hoarding their nuts for winter.
All I knew was being an omega sucked, and I would’ve given anything to just be my boring beta self again.
Footsteps sounded on the boards, and I gasped as I zeroed back in on the present.
Naked.
Chained to a table.
My pussy—that the High Alpha insisted be smooth and bare at all times—exposed to anyone who wanted a look.
“Thank you, brother,” the High Alpha spoke from near my hips.
It took everything not to open my eyes and look at him to see what fresh hell they’d conjured this time.
A hand landed on my leg and I jerked in surprise.
“Easy, omega,” the High Alpha chuckled. A few of the Shepherds laughed as well, making me realize they surrounded me on all sides.
The High Alpha kept speaking. “It was my belief that I had to awaken your omega nature gently, but I now believe you require a firmer hand, my young bride. Forgive your mate his transgressions.”
There was a pause and I realized I was supposed to say something. To forgive this monster for… Honestly I wasn’t sure for what.
I waited too long to speak, and the High Alpha’s heavy sigh filled the space.
“I shall fail you no longer, omega, and, by the grace of all the alphas before me, your body will be prepared for its purification soon.”
As my mind whirled with what that could possibly mean, I felt something wrap across my torso, pinning my hips down.
Bile filled my mouth, and I swallowed it down as my pulse fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird.
The strap was pulled tight, biting into my skin enough that I knew it would bruise.
“Shepherd Hayden,” the High Alpha murmured. “It’s time.”
There was an audible click and then a distinct buzzing sound hit my ears. I was trying to place the sound when something pressed down against my clit. It vibrated in a never ending hum against my already throbbing flesh. I tried to jerk away from the sensation, but there was nowhere to go.
I was utterly helpless as I thrashed as much as I could, the belt across my hips and the chains around my ankles and wrists digging into my skin. There was no escaping the pleasure so sharp, so potent, that it turned to pain. My insides coiled, tightening so fast I forgot to breathe. It only took a second for my orgasm to crash over me like a tidal wave, but it didn’t end.
I screamed, unable to do anything else but feel the insistent press of the vibrator against my pussy, ramping me up into another brutal orgasm. That one, too, was ripped from my body. I could feel slick pouring from my slit, soaking my ass as my pussy spasmed around nothing.
Fuck, this actually hurt.
I’d had orgasms before. When I was a teenager and fooling around with my high school boyfriend. A few at my own hand before I’d come to the APA compound. And in the last few weeks, the High Alpha had managed to coerce a few from me. I always hated myself the next day for letting it happen.
But none of those times had been like this. This was cruel, brutal. My body didn’t know what to do or how to get away from the never-
ending barrage of sensations. My clit felt like it was going to break off, and I couldn’t catch my breath. Was this what having a seizure felt like? Being at a total loss of control?
“Stop! Please, stop!” I cried.
But he didn’t. He held the vibrator against my body, tearing orgasm after orgasm from me until I lost count. Until my entire body shook and my chest seized. It never stopped until my body finally gave out, and I dropped into darkness.
Hazel
GENTLE HANDS TUCKED A THIN BLANKET AROUND MY SHOULDERS, PULLING ME from the darkest part of my mind with a gasp. I jack-knifed upright, looking around wildly. The place between my legs was achy and swollen.
“Hazel?” A trembling voice spoke my name, reminding me that I actually had one of those.
When my designation hit, I simply became “the omega.” Like my designation was all the identity I needed. But once upon a time, I’d had a name.
Hazel Jones.
I turned and looked at the face of the boy kneeling beside my bed, terror in his wide blue eyes. “Hazel… I don’t know what to do.” His dark hair fell around his face in loose waves, hiding the beautiful
angles of his nearly perfectly symmetrical face. “You’re bleeding…” He started to tremble. His usual cinnamon apple scent was now closer to burnt apple pie, stress rolling off him in palpable waves.
“I’ll be okay, Logan,” I managed to rasp out, my throat raw from screaming.
Logan looked anything but convinced. He looked terrified and uncertain, but that was nothing new. We both lived in a constant state of fear and apprehension because our omega sides were never able to relax.
Male omegas were like a unicorn. They were extremely rare, but unlike the joy people usually felt when they thought of unicorns, male omegas were seen as utterly useless. Omegas were rare in general, but only women could bear children. Male omegas were infertile unless paired with an alpha female. Finding one of those was like looking for a needle in a haystack the size of the Empire State Building.
So when a male omega was found, they were looked at as a waste of omega genetics. Good for nothing except sex, which was why most ended up in brothels or as escorts.
Logan had shown up nearly a year earlier. He was two years younger than I was and had aged out of a state run facility for omegas the day he’d turned eighteen. OS tended to focus their resources on omegas who would help boost the population, so the rare male omega was still registered and given training, but it was all a joke.
His instructors had informed him that they knew of a pack looking for a male omega. He’d been told that they had no desire for children and were simply looking for an omega to complete their pack.
It was a lie.
A nine hour drive later and Logan was delivered to the house of someone who turned him over to the APA.
When I’d first presented as an omega, I’d heard there was a fight between the High Alpha and Shepherds over him being given the only omega. While the Shepherds followed their High Alpha ninety-
nine times out of a hundred, it turned out that when an omega was on the line, alphas got a little crazy.
To appease them, Logan had been brought in. Or, rather, bought.
Now he was just a toy for the Shepherds to play with when they needed to rut.
But at least we had each other.
“Hazel, this is bad,” he told me, his aquamarine eyes flashing with fear.
I swallowed, my throat dry. “I-It’ll be okay. Promise.” I reached out a hand for him, flinching when I felt the muscles in my shoulders pull.
Logan hesitantly laced his fingers with mine, taking care not to touch the raw, scabbed up areas of my wrist.
Sighing, he leaned a shoulder against the edge of my bed from where he sat on the floor. “We’re out of water.”
I gave a slow nod, not surprised. My gaze swept the one-room cabin that had been my home for the last three years.
Before I’d emerged, I’d been in the beta barracks with the other single women. It was a long wood cabin with a single fireplace at one end and dozens of bunkbeds lining the space. Even still, as the newest person there, I’d only been given a plastic mat since all the actual beds were taken.
As soon as my designation hit, I got upgraded to my very own cabin. The High Alpha became paranoid about my whereabouts. And, yeah, okay, it didn’t exactly help my cause that I’d tried running away twice.
So now I got my own cabin, which I shared with Logan. The omega cabin.
I was given an actual bed—a lumpy mattress on a metal frame that squeaked if I breathed wrong. Logan was given a sleeping bag. The locks and bolts that only a few had keys to kept me prisoner. Bars had been crudely welded to the two windows the space had. It was drafty, with gaping spaces between a few of the rough hewn plank walls, and I was usually freezing.
We were usually freezing. Logan and I often shared my bed, cuddling together for warmth.
Allegedly, unmated omegas didn’t get along with each other. There was supposed to be tension and catty shit, but that was never the case with us. Logan was like the sibling I’d always wanted, and I felt protective as hell over him.
And it absolutely gutted me that I couldn’t save him.
Yes, tonight he’d seen me delivered to our cabin, covered in bruises and blood, but I’d seen him dropped into the room much the same way. We took care of each other, but we didn’t ask questions. Not anymore.
The first time Logan had been brought back after a night with some of the Shepherds, I’d tried getting him to talk to me. He’d been covered in blood and welts, his eyes nearly swollen shut from crying. He’d sobbed louder when I’d tried to touch him, and flat out shut down when I’d asked what had happened.
Since then, we had an unspoken rule: we’d always support each other, but we wouldn’t ask questions.
Lately, though, I’d seen a shift amongst the High Alpha and Shepherds. The High Alpha had noticed how close I was to Logan, and wasn’t above using Logan to get me to cooperate.
If he wanted me to sit on his lap at dinner, all he needed to do was casually ask how Logan was and my ass was exactly where he wanted.
I didn’t have a family anymore, except Logan. And for him? I’d go to the ends of the freaking world.
I tried to shift my body, but it locked up when pain spiked between my legs. I gritted my teeth, swallowing a moan.
“What?” Ever observing, Logan didn’t miss much. “What can I do?”
“Nothing,” I managed. “But if you’re cold—”
“I’ll sleep on my bed tonight,” he cut me off, his azure gaze darting to one of the windows where the sun was starting to disappear behind the mountain.
I didn’t have the energy to fight him on where he slept.
“Haze?” His soft whisper cut through the darkness descending in the room.
“Hmmm?” It hurt to move, so I laid as still as possible on my side. My pussy throbbed with each beat of my heart, and I wasn’t sure if the wetness between my legs was slick or blood. Maybe both. Logan hesitated. “You smell different.”
My eyes were already drifting closed, my body exhausted. “I smell like them?”
“No. Like you, but more.” He sounded so uncertain. My heart twisted, hating that my pain hurt him. “It’ll be fine.”
But when the first cramp ripped me out of a deep sleep hours later, I knew I was wrong.
By morning, the High Alpha had gotten exactly what he wanted. I was in heat.
Hazel
FLAMES LICKED BENEATH MY SKIN, SCORCHING ME FROM THE INSIDE OUT UNTIL I was nothing but ash and need. A keening sound scraped up my throat as I tried to wrap my arms around my waist, but there was no use. I was pinned to the bed, my arms stretched painfully above my head where they were handcuffed to the crude metal bars of the headboard. My ankles were similarly chained to the matching footboard, and every flinch of my limbs made the metal-on-metal scrape together in a way that set my teeth on edge.
It was early March and I should’ve been a block of ice since the night air dipped below freezing. But usually Logan was here with me.
My gaze jerked to the small pallet bed shoved into the corner. Logan.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The botanist's repository for new and rare plants; vol. 07 [of 10]
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The botanist's repository for new and rare plants; vol. 07 [of 10]
Author: active 1799-1828 Henry Cranke Andrews
Release date: April 10, 2024 [eBook #73371]
Language: English
Original publication: London: The author, 1797
Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by Biodiversity Heritage Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOTANIST'S REPOSITORY FOR NEW AND RARE PLANTS; VOL. 07 [OF 10] ***
INDEX
TO THE PLANTS CONTAINED IN VOL. VII. ERRATA VOL. VII.
Vol. VII. of the Botanist’s Repository
Comprising Colour’d Engravings of New and Rare Plants ONLY With Botanical Descriptions &c. in Latin and English, after the Linnæan System. by H. Andrews
Botanical Painter Engraver, &c.
PLATE CCCCXXXIII.
AGAVE AMERICANA.
Great American Aloe.
CLASS VI. ORDER I.
HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Six Chives. One Pointal.
ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.
C nullus. Corolla monopetala, sex-partita. Stamina sena, corolla longiora. Germen inferum. Stylus longior staminibus. Capsula trilocularis, trivalvis. Semina numerosa.
E none. Blossom one-petalled, six-parted. Chives six, longer than the blossom. Seed-bud beneath. Shaft longer than the chives. Capsule three-celled, three-valved. Seeds many.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
A , acaulis, foliis dentatis, spinosis: scapo e medio ramoso: floribus terminalibus in umbellis densissime capitatis: tubo corollæ læte viridi, e medio angustato: staminibus corolla longioribus: stylo staminibus longiore.
A , without a stem; leaves toothed and thorny: flower-stem in the centre branched: the flowers terminate the branches in close-headed umbels: the tube of the blossom is greenish, and narrowed in the centre: the chives are longer than the flowers, and the style longer than the chives.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. A plant in miniature.
2. A flower natural size.
3 The same spread open
4. Seed-bud cut transversely.
5. The end of a leaf, the upper part scraped to show its thready fibres.
T tall and stately plant has ever been regarded, in this country, as an object of sufficient interest and curiosity to merit an exposure in the form of an exhibition; whilst in the southern parts of Spain and Portugal they are so abundant as to form hedges, by way of barriers to repress the inroads of cattle. There are several very slight varieties; one of whose leaves are edged
with yellow, but the same in every other respect. Miller enumerates one whose paniculated flowers bear a very different aspect. Cortusus is said to be the first European that possessed this great Aloe, about the year 1561: in 1714 two flowered at Hampton Court, and one at the duke of Buckingham’s. At Friedericksberg, in Denmark, one flowered with 19 branches and 4000 flowers; and one in the king of Prussia’s garden, said to be 40 feet high. They are now more frequently found in bloom, as rarely a year passes without one or more of them being advertised for public inspection. In addition to their grand exterior, they possess many useful properties: Cavanilles, in his Natural History of Valentia, mentions their abundance, and the numbers of people employed in manufacturing them; for, when bruised, separated, and steeped in water, they yield a strong thread, of which all the bags are made in which dollars are imported. The juice of the leaves is said to be used as a succedaneum for soap, and the spungy substance of the stem for tinder. The points of the leaves are by the Indians made use of to head their arrows, whose hard consistence is a good substitute for iron; and the thready character of their fibres furnishes all that is necessary to fasten them. Linnæus has separated this genus from Aloe, from the extension of the stamens and style beyond the corolla, and the resting of the corolla on the germ: they also differ in growth, as all Agaves have their central leaves closely enfoliating and embracing the flower-stem, which, forming in the centre, never appears till they are expanded; it then proceeds with a rapidity that in a few weeks reaches maturity, and when the flowers are past the plant dies. On the contrary, the flower-stem of the Aloe comes out from the side annually from the same plant. Our figure was made from two plants at Kensington Gore, each bearing 2000 flowers, and about 70 years old, belonging to J. Vere, Esq. who perfectly recollects them for above half a century: but in those warmer climes, where they are so abundant, 25 or 30 years are sufficient to bring them to perfection.
PLATE CCCCXXXIV.
PULTENÆA NANA.
Dwarf Pultenæa. CLASS X. ORDER I.
DECANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Ten Chives. One Pointal.
ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.
C quinquedentatus, utrinque appendiculatus. Corolla papilionacea, alis vexillo brevioribus, Legumen uniloculare, dispermum.
C five-toothed, with a hanging prop on each side. Blossom butterflyshaped, the wings shorter than the standard. A one-celled pod, two-seeded.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
P , foliis iliciformibus, undulatis, contortis, rigidis, acutis: floribus minii colore, axillaribus, racemosis. Caulis humilis.
P , with holly-shaped leaves, waved, twisted, harsh, and sharppointed. Flowers minium-coloured, growing from the insertion of the leaves in longish bunches. Stem low.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The cup, with its appendages.
2 The standard of the blossom
3. One of the wings of the same.
4. The two leaves which form the keel.
5. The chives magnified.
6 The pointal, natural size
7. The same magnified.
8. A ripe seed-pod.
9 The same spread open
10 A ripe seed
T lively little Dwarf Pultenæa we have not as yet seen any where but in the conservatory of G. Hibbert, Esq. where, contrasted with many large magnificent plants, its minute and diminutive form made a perfectly unique appearance. When we first observed it, its height did not exceed an inch and a half. Our figure represents the whole plant, which for six months was in
progressive constant bloom, and after flowering ripened its seeds freely; an evident proof of the plant being in a state of perfection. It is now three months since the plant perfected its seeds, during which period we have not perceived the least increase in its size. But, notwithstanding this apparent torpidity, it is now exhibiting the buds of its future blossoms. It has been imagined by some to be the Chorizema of Billardiere, a new plant found by that gentleman in New South Wales whilst in search of the unfortunate La Perouse; but, upon comparing it with the figure in that work, we do not find a sufficient resemblance to induce us to regard it as the same plant.
PLATE CCCCXXXV.
VERBENA MUTABILIS.
Changeable-flowered Vervain.
CLASS II. ORDER I.
DIANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Two Chives. One Pointal.
ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.
C infundibuliformis, sub-æqualis, curva. Calyx unifoliatus, dentatus, truncatus. Sem. 2, s. 4. nuda. Stam. 2, s. 4.
B funnel-shaped, nearly equal, and curved. Empalement oneleafed, toothed, and cut off. Seeds 2, sometimes 4, naked. Chives 2, sometimes 4.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
V diandra, filamenta quatuor: spica longissima, carnosa, nuda: foliis ovatis, basi productis, dentatis, scabris, villosis: floribus imprimis coccineis, denique incarnatis: caule fruticoso.
V , with two chives and four filaments. Flower-spike very long, fleshy, and naked. Leaves ovate, lengthened at the base, toothed, rough, and hairy. Flowers at first scarlet, then going off in a flesh colour. Stem shrubby.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The empalement.
2 A flower cut open
3. Seed-bud and pointal, summit magnified.
T native place of the Verbena mutabilis seems rather enveloped in obscurity: by some it is supposed to be indigenous to Peru. It is a beautiful plant, and the most desirable Verbena we are acquainted with, as it is at least six months in successive bloom. It is one of those Verbenas that, differing a little from the general character of that genus, has received various titles from different botanists: by Professor Vahl, in his Enumeratio Plantarum, it is called Stachytarpheta. The present species has been recently figured in the Paradisus Londinensis under the title of Cymburus mutabilis, and probably at some future period it may again receive another title: but until we can find
some better path to lead us into the open plain or Information, we shall keep jogging on in the old beaten track, in preference to every crooked turning that may bewilder us into the mazy labyrinth of affected Science. Our figure was made from a fine plant in the nursery of Messrs. Colville.
