Page 42 of Her Broken Alpha
The questioning went nowhere. There were too many of them and they were too afraid.
"Do you like any of them?" he asked after he finished their questioning. "Pick two or three to serve you."
Naya started to protest—she didn't need anyone to serve her—but Monster beat her to it. "I run a household of males. You need someone to bring you food, go shopping for your needs, and be a companion, if you wish. You said you wanted clothing, undergarments, goop for your hair, pretty bedding, and better food. You want me to send Mac to look for female support wear?"
The question surprised her. He'd been paying attention to everything she said and was willing to do something about it.
For her.
But he was offering nothing for them.
She picked out the four women who felt familiar. "What about the rest of them?” she asked. “They need medical care, food, help. How could this happen to them?"
Monster ground his teeth and his arms flexed. Turmoil emanated from their bond.
"I'm not running a rehabilitation center or hospital. This is fuckin' Sector 2, Naya. This is what real breed, free from the veneer of hypocritical laws, do. This is the outcome of our actions. Might makes right and weakness suffers. This is our nature."
"It is the nature of males without self-control."
"And who judges what is and is not self-control? The Administration? Don't you think they pick and choose what is good for themselves? What is easy and comfortable for themselves?"
She tipped her head back to meet his black eyes. "Who will help them if not the strongest alpha?"
An irritated growl vibrated through his chest. Naya slipped her hand into the collar of his shirt to feel him, tucking her head under his to offer a calming purr.
He held her tighter, breathing deeply of her scent as he wrestled with something she couldn't see.
After a moment he kissed her temple. "These are just the drones."
They were just drones. Just alive. Just sentient beings with needs, wants, and desires like her own. She wasn't sure he disagreed. His muscles went rigid from the stress levels in the room. These battered, abused drones made him uncomfortable.
In another room, there were more women. Breeds.
They were better-dressed, although their revealing clothing focused on the males who looked at them and not decent covering. They appeared better-fed, able to maintain their feminine shapes. Scrubbed faces, arranged hair, on the surface these women seemed to be faring better at the hands of Tenbel-until she looked into their haunted eyes.
Oddly, they all wore the same yeasty cinnamon perfume. It was applied so thickly it drowned their natural beta pheromones. It reminded her of the smell of some omega breeders she had met before.
Monster spoke to them over her head, his tone impatient. He didn't want to be in this room any more than he had the last one.
"What do you know of my kidnapped breeder?"
The breed women were not any braver than the drones. With only four rickety wooden chairs in the space, most were sitting on the bare concrete floor, short skirts exposing their legs. Huddled together as a group, they flinched as one when Monster spoke.
A rough noise escaped him. One woman whimpered like he'd hit her.
"Tell me." he demanded.
He would make them soil themselves in fear. Naya set her teeth in the line of his jaw, applying a gentle nip followed by a kiss.
"Monster,” she whispered.
He'd warned her not to interfere with how he did things, but he wouldn't get any answers if he terrified them so much they couldn't talk.
"I woke up in a shipping crate after falling asleep at home in my nest," she told them from her place nestled in his arms. "I don't think I've ever met the black-robed men before. I don't know how or why I am in this sector. Did he talk about me? I'm a registered breeder. I was getting ready for my marriage. That hateful man seemed like the type of male to brag about his conquests."
"Can you help us?" a pregnant blonde asked. Her belly was rounded beneath her short, low-cut wrap dress. "I'm registered. I don't belong here."
"None of us want to be here,” another said. She had a long oval face with and a thin nose. In other circumstances, she would be pretty with a sophisticated air, but her palpable anxiety and sadness pulled her lips down and aged her.
