Page 4 of Choosing Her Alpha
Cruel hunger glimmered in his eyes. "Look at me. She can't take me. Even after twins, she can't take me. No knot for the betas. I'm saving it just for you."
It wasn't his alpha command that tempted her to look, but a sick fascination. Sasha closed her eyes to keep from giving in.
He inhaled deep, hoping to scent her arousal. Perhaps it was because she hadn't had her first estrous or made the transition into adulthood, but whichever it was, he had no effect on her at all, and she was grateful.
With her eyes still closed, Sasha missed his expression when he finally caught a whiff of the filthy bedding. The alpha made a disgusted noise.
"Stupid bitch. What are you doing with that shit in here? Get out!"
"Yes, alpha," she said with relief, backing out of the room before he could see she was smiling.
*
The laundry had to be carried down two flights of stairs through a dingy, mold decorated hallway to the washroom. There Sasha found her friends on duty, doing washing for the twenty people that lived and worked at Dover's End. The twin drones smiled when they saw her.
"I bring you a challenge!" Sasha declared, holding up her mess of soiled fabric.
Their faces twisted unpleasantly at the smell. With blonde hair in short, fancy braids they wove for each other and guileless pale eyes, they were a half an inch apart in height and had different face shapes, but their expressions and words were often humorously identical.
"I know. It's bad. Can you help me rinse them out? I need to close my eyes to do it and hold my breath. You two can shout helpful directions from the corner. That's all I'm asking. Don't make me look at this yuck."
The twins laughed. In their late twenties, they wore black leather collars of indentured servants. Used as collateral in a bad business scheme, their beta father had sold his children into servitude to save himself. It was common to split up sets among relatives and fostering households. Sasha was glad Lanny and Lilla had escaped that harsh reality.
All the fertility treatments on the populations of the past had led to children born in sets. Fraternal doubles and triples were common from beta and human women alike. Sasha had never heard of omega breeders giving birth to more than one kid at a time; for all the hardships of her dynamic, that wasn't one of them.
Lanny and Lilla were the sweetest things. Their smiles and humor helped Sasha keep hers. She relaxed in their presence.
Lanny came up next to her. She'd had the good sense to find long service gloves. "I'm sorry you had to be the one to go help your mother. I get to the door, and when she starts yelling, I just find my feet turning the other direction."
Drones were susceptible to breeding pheromones in a way that made them the perfect servants. Their free will weakened dramatically in the presence of all the breeds, even immature omega breeders like Sasha, making them obedient but also vulnerable to abuse.
"It's not your fault." Sasha bumped her shoulder affectionately. "You should feel lucky. She looks…" Sasha didn't know how to describe it. "She used to make more sense. She used to want to live, at least."
Throwing all the disgusting linens in the big sink, Sasha went to wash her hands and find her own set of gloves. It had been stupid of her to forget to wear gloves in Maura's room. That layer of protection would have been nice.
"I have never known her to be happy," Lilla said, coming over. She had her own linens to wash, sheets from one of the beta girls’ rooms. It was just a step less disgusting than what Sasha was doing.
Filling a big tub with clean water from the roof reserves, Sasha began the process of trying to wash the mess with as little water as possible. Water was one of the pub's biggest expenses, a resource she knew not to waste. How was she going to get the stink out or get them clean again? It looked a hopeless endeavor, and not one she really wanted to deal with.
Lanny brought over a box of cleaning flakes. "These are enzyme cleaners. They will help." She sprinkled some over the top of the laundry. "But you are going to need to put your hands in there," she said with a smirk.
"Yeah. Can't avoid that," Sasha said.
Her dad had told her tales of when this world had plumbing that worked, machines to do this job and electricity on demand to run them in every city across the planet. Some nicer sectors still had that, she'd heard. He’d told her that the twelve sectors had once been one giant thriving, independent drone city of millions of people, a human built metropolis of modern technology, and if she kept her eyes open, she would see the remains of their creative industry.
Sasha missed her father every day. He had loved her endlessly, taught her everything, and dreamed big dreams for her. "You're going to help me change the world," he’d said.
His marriage had not been a happy one. Maura had gone through her estrous cycles, gotten pregnant, and then become so dangerous she needed restraining. Doctors advised Sasha’s father to help Maura through her heats only if she asked, but to not pursue a physical relationship with her otherwise.
An alpha male dominated by the mating instinct; he'd gone elsewhere for his pleasure after Sasha's birth. When she was little, Sasha had thought Lanny and Lilla were her sisters. Her father had doted on them, had chucked them under the chin and purred for them the way he did her.
He’d had a soft spot for pretty, biddable humans that led him to father drones of his own. He'd been honest about that. Sasha wanted brothers and sisters, but for some stupid reason, he didn't want any of them around Dover's End. He'd sent them who-knew-where.
There was a safe in the still room that contained all the recipes for the gin and mead, plus her father's records. Sasha knew the combination, and one day she hoped to have the chance to open it. Maybe he had saved the information of where he had sent her human brothers and sisters.
Swishing her hands in the cold water, Sasha saw that Lanny's enzyme was helping. Thank the shining stars above. The laundry might be saved. She smiled at it and began to turn and rub the cloth.
She thought again of Maura's threats and Merrick's assurances that Sasha's time was coming. Could she save herself? A marriage contract would assure Merrick's total control over Sasha's life and Dover's End. He would have control over Lanny and Lilla—over all the indentured drones whose papers her father had bought—to buy, sell, and torment as he saw fit. There would be no reprieve from his quest for wealth and power; he'd already shown a willingness to do whatever it took to get what he wanted.
