by Isoellen
Choosing Her Alpha
By
Isoellen
© 2020 Isoellen
And
Reticent Desire Publications
ISBN: 987-1-7334553-5-0
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent of the author. This includes electronic or mechanical transmission, photocopying, recording, information retrieval systems or storage.
This book is a work of fiction and is intended for adults only. Some scenes may contain explicit material that could make some readers uncomfortable.
Any names, businesses, places, or events in this work are fictional. Any similarities to living or dead people, incidents, companies, products, or organizations are purely coincidental.
For my family, who believed in my writing my whole life, and the readers who taught me they weren’t liars. To RDP Publishing, who did most of the work, 'cause I’m just that lazy. Finally, this is for The Wee Little Omegaverse Writers, who helped me laugh all through this process.
Contents
Title Page
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
Epilogue – Part 1
Epilogue – Part 2
Isoellen
Chapter 1
Sasha stood in the doorway of the darkened room, a wave of disgusting smells assaulting her. She tried to breathe through her mouth, but it didn’t help; the special blend of her mother’s sickness and insanity invaded her senses. As if opening the cold locker to find the meat inside had turned bad, it made her eyes water and her throat seize.
She entered and turned on the two lamps, avoiding the sight of the woman on the bed shoved up against the wall. Sighing over the lack of ventilation, she glared at the curtained window near the ceiling. It was too high to reach without a ladder. Sasha wished she could open it.
With the breakfast tray in one hand and cleaning supplies in the other, she prepared herself to face the dying woman. Stained floor and marred walls were easier sights than her own mother’s sickly face. Stiffening her spine, Sasha forced her expression blank and turned.
No one had been in here for two days. Maura had not changed positions in longer than that, and she looked worse than she smelled. A small, shrunken creature under a soiled blanket, her mother turned her head to see who had entered. Sweaty, filth coated hair stuck to her skeletal face. Each of her shallow breaths were a gasping battle for life.
At only fifty two years of age, Maura was still considered young, in her prime years. Sasha knew this, and she couldn’t stop herself from making the comparison between the mother she should have and the one who lay before her.
Her mother should have had thick, gleaming brown hair threaded with copper, gold, and red. Her shape should have been full and curvy. Instead, sharp bones pressed against her thin skin, creating seeping sores at her joints. Her cheeks were sunken, her lips had thinned, her gums were receding; all of this creating the death mask appearance of her face.
If one didn't see pain in her cloudy, violet eyes—if one didn't feel the heavy weight of oppression that spread out from her in a cloud of hate and despair—one could hear it. Maura, with her last breaths, would make certain of that.
"Get out," she hissed. "Don't want you."
Sasha was hardly surprised. Maura had never wanted her only daughter.
"You tell everyone to get out. Now look at you. You’re lying in your own feces, Mother. Merrick told me to clean you and the room up, and you know I can't disappoint your... husband."
"Get out, you fucking bitch, " Maura slurred, already louder, angrier. "Out!"
The violent death of Maura's first husband marked her being like a giant scar. Wearing her personal agony like a dress, Maura never concealed or softened her hatred. No, she let it all out. Every crazy, poisonous drop of it.
Sasha stepped outside the door and grabbed the bedding and towels she’d left in the hall. For two days Maura had been sending away the drone workers. She’d refused the doctor. Refused food and water. Even with her being dirty and ill, the poor human servants couldn't resist the desire to please and obey an omega breeder. They couldn’t go against her wishes even when she needed help.
In those two days this room had become uninhabitable. Sasha had no idea where to start. Clean the skeleton of a woman first? Change the bedding? Nothing was going to get the smell or stains out of that bed now.
Maura growled low and bestial. Her eyes were rolling yellow marbles in the sunken hollows of their sockets. "Don't touch me. Don't touch me! Why aren't you dead yet? Why aren't you suffering yet? Where is my knife? Where is Merrick?"
"You have to get better to kill me, Mother. I don't think you have the strength to drive a knife into my chest, or even to cut my finger. You have to eat. Merrick told me to come in here and clean you up, remember? Let me help you. After, you can get better and then try to kill me. Since my misery is your life's work, I'd think you wouldn't be ready to die so quickly."
"It should have been you. You know that, right?" she hissed as Sasha worked. "You should have died. You should be dead. You shouldn't exist."
Ignoring her, Sasha continued her task. Maura’s gown was a loss, as was the bedding. There was nothing to do but use an extra sheet. Laundry that would never be clean again. Rolling the emaciated woman back and forth, Sasha removed the dirty bedding and put a clean sheet beneath Maura while taking the soiled one away. Careful not to touch dirty to clean or get it on herself, she bunched that up and set it aside.
"Hate him. Hate him. He is in his grave, why not you too?" Maura continued to babble. She would work herself up good at this rate. She always dug deep into the vast recesses of her mind to find the cruelest words to spew at her favorite target. "You don't deserve to breathe. He killed my love. You killed my love. Sent away my sons. My lovely boys. Where are my real children?"
Now that Maura was on a clean sheet, Sasha set about washing her. Her mother’s skin was translucent, a spider’s web of purple veins where it wasn't stained with feces or vomit. Her feet looked clean, but everywhere else was damp and crusted.
"They will kill you, demon," Maura said. "My sons will fuck you to death and cut off all your hair—cut your face… Kill you! You stole my life. Why wasn't it you?"
Sasha wanted to take a deep breath to strengthen her resolve against the spite, but all the hate, the smell, the feces had her swallowing bile.
"Two of your sons died fighting. The other three are soldiers," Sasha said with forced patience. "It's not my fault they don't come to visit you. Every breeder bears the burden of giving up her sons to the king’s battle. Isn't that the law?"
The woman was nothing but an insane thing of raging animosity. Everyone knew it. She was a broken breeder; even the doctors said so. The death of her first husband, Bracken Klaus, the recipient of her life bond and blessing, had cracked her spirit. The death of two of her sons had split her open.
The Administration forcibly encouraged a marriage to a second male who was meant to heal her, but that only caused more trouble. Maura hadn’t wanted him. Finally, birthing Sasha eighteen years ago crushed the last of her spirit.
Instead of being joyful at bringing a valued Omega daughter into the world, Maura had a psychotic break and descended into a place of no return. Doctors warned she might never heal. They cou
ld either send her home or commit her to the Intersector Omega Institution. No medication or therapy would bring her back.
Sasha set aside the towels she’d brought and submerged a rag in the bucket of warm water. Holding her breath, she drew Maura onto her side. She tried to be gentle, but the bedsores were oozing through the fabric of her shirt and her bones groaned with every movement.
That noxious smell permeated the bedding, coating her skin like a damp mist. It would stay with her for days.
Living and working within a compound of human drones and hard living breeds, Sasha was accustomed to cleaning up all kinds of messes. Feces and vomit were a part of life, but she still gagged as she worked. There were no words for how disgusting this process was.
"You are going to get yours. Finally. Your time is coming, breeder girl. Your time is coming. Merrick promised me."
Merrick, Maura's third husband and Sasha’s tormentor, had come along after the death of her father and used the broken woman to his advantage. No doubt he had also contributed to her decline, encouraging an addiction to a drug called “shine” to get her out of his way while he did what he wanted with the household.
"What did Merrick promise you?" Sasha could only imagine. Young for an alpha, he'd somehow escaped his years of full military service. Handsome and savvy with a mischievous manner, he'd charmed everyone at Dover's End.
It only lasted until the day he got Maura's signature on the marriage contract. Then the facade dropped and the drive to fill his own pockets began.
Maura laughed. "Merrick promised me. Your time is coming. It's all arranged. I'll watch from the grave while you get your reward. You will suffer everything I have suffered. You will get yours, breeder—bastard—girl. He’ll take everything you have, fuck you to death the way your father fucked me."
Rolling Maura to her side, hot, sick breath gusted over Sasha’s face before she could turn away.
"Merrick can't do anything to me, Mother. You took him as your third husband, not me. He can't touch me. You know the law says I can choose my mate. I'll pick from the Selection. There has to be one decent alpha in Sector 10 who wants an omega breeder."
There would be more than one, Sasha knew. She'd get to choose from a final eight who would have gone through a culling process to get their place on the list. Administration law gave women like her—sector-registered, immunized, and fertile—a chance to have a say in their inevitable husband-mate.
Sasha wished she knew of a worthy male so she could avoid the inherent risks of the Selection. But truth be told, anyone was better than Merrick.
"So, when you die," she explained to Maura, "Merrick goes back to wherever he came from, and Dad's pub will be mine. Dover's End, the brewery, the inn—everything you had will be mine. Your property-my property. Dad's wealth-my wealth. My mate will restore it all to what it used to be. No more prostitution. No more skanky beta dancers. No more crushed shine residue on every table and gangsters in the back room. It's going to be a good place again, with food and the best flavored gin a beta paycheck and drone pennies can buy.
"And I'll have a bond, Mother, like you did with your first husband. I'll give him my blessing, submit everything, and we will have lots of babies and live a very long life together. Maybe as long as the king and his wife. Because I get to choose. That's the law."
Most omega breeders didn't look forward to the transition into physical adulthood—the end of childhood freedoms and the beginning of the demands from an omega body. Sasha was ready. She'd choose a good, strong alpha and grab onto her future with both hands. She'd choose someone like her father, Edin Dover.
Maura laughed at Sasha’s words like a storybook witch. It was the satisfied laugh of a very evil woman.
"No. No. No. You don't know what I have planned. I've been waiting so long. Since he raped me. Since he killed my husband. Since your sire stole everything from me and forced his rotten seed into my body. I've been waiting. Your time is coming, demon. Merrick promised me. I know what he is going to do to you. Everything. Everything!"
It was lunatic talk. Maura mixed up who had done what to her and when things happened. She’d not been raped, she’d been married. But her hate for Sasha was a living, breathing thing.
The woman had tried many times to hurt, even kill, Sasha. If Maura had planned something with Merrick, then Sasha needed to know what it was. Insanity or not, Maura’s desire to harm Sasha often came about in startling ways.
She wiped her mother's face, rubbing the cloth over the hollows and wrinkles all the way down to her chest. Reeking gunk hid in every fold and crevice. "You can't touch me anymore. My Dad protected me."
"I'm going to laugh at your suffering from the grave. No Selection for you, girl. I selected. No choice, like I had no choice. Do you think Merrick doesn't know people? Do you think I didn't plan? Stupid girl. Foolish girl. Your spineless, raping father cannot help you. You will be alone like I was alone."
Sasha let the words sink in. No Selection for her? Merrick knows people? Had they bribed an official? What had they planned?
With hands like claws, Maura grabbed at Sasha's wrist. She tried to dig her nails in, but she was too weak and feeble.
"What people does Merrick know, Mother?" Sasha asked. "What can he do? I don't know if you noticed, but he's still a young alpha. He may have a few muscles, but I don't think he's won enough battles yet to know people who have any respect for him."
"You think you know everything. You think you're so smart, with your plans. You know nothing. My sons are coming."
Her tirade began again—what her sons, who had never come to Dover's Inn, were going to do to avenge their mother and punish Sasha.
And all the while, Maura never answered any of Sasha's questions.
Chapter 2
It took two hours to clean Maura and get some medicine in her. Finally, Sasha lied and said the drug she’d put in the water was shine. Her mother drank until her belly bulged, then fell asleep thinking herself pleasantly drugged.
Two hours in that room. Sasha gathered the disgusting bedding and rags for the laundry, wishing she could just burn them. Sadly, fabric was too valuable to waste.
The linens dragged the smell with her as she carried everything, burning the stench into the inner tissue of her sensitive nose. It coated her throat in a thin slime and soaked into her clothing. She needed to wash and change as soon as possible, or her stomach would never settle.
This hall had once been for the household, until Merrick came and decided the family bedrooms could be put to better use. He moved Sasha out of her previous sleeping chamber and into a little closet at one end of the hall. Her mother's sickbed went to the opposite end. He’d dedicated the bigger rooms to his female beta workers and an immoral occupation that put more money in his pocket.
Sasha’s skin crawled as she navigated the upstairs hallway past the four rooms where the hired women tended their customers. She never knew what she might inadvertently see, or what kind of drunken male might be stumbling about.
A door that had been closed when Sasha went to visit Maura now stood open. Ditah's room. It was ten in the morning, and Sasha thought it unlikely she had a client so early. She tried to hurry past, but a sharp voice stopped her.
"Sasha! Get in here."
Merrick.
She knew better than to make him chase her. Undoubtedly the smell clinging to her and the disgusting laundry filled buckets would put a quick end to whatever it was he wanted.
Sasha stopped in the doorway, eyes on the floor. An immediate show of submission usually pleased him. She didn't have to mean it to do it.
Rhythmic grunting and thumping greeted her ears. It was another reason not to look up.
"Did you take," Merrick began, as if speaking through gritted teeth, "care of your mother?"
Ditah broke in with a quiet whine. "Please, alpha, that hurts."
Slap. Skin against skin and a weak little whimper.
Sasha kept her eyes on the floor. Ditah's room
smelled like sour sweat, musky from old sex. It belied the cheery brightness filtering through her window.
Ditah was not a nice person. Petty and jealous, she had courted alpha attention to gain power. More than happy to welcome sex with Merrick at every opportunity. The woman had no care for anyone but herself.
Last year, Ditah had proudly presented Merrick with a perfect set of twin babies. As a beta woman with common genetics, she could never give him children of a stronger dynamic, born to be leaders. She could only have more children like herself, all of them followers. Merrick cared nothing for his offspring and had sent the babies away to parts unknown.
Letting him take them without shedding a tear, Ditah had acted if she'd done her duty by surviving the Cesarean section necessary to birth them alive. Now the babies were gone.
Only Sasha wondered about them.
It was still hard not to pity the foolish woman. What Merrick was doing to her did not sound pleasant.
"Come here, Sasha. Answer me."
She moved forward, the buckets and filthy laundry held in front of her like a shield. "Yes. I cleaned her up. She still smells bad. She drank water and a little broth, took the medicine. She's not dead yet."
Sasha made the mistake of looking up to see Merrick's thoughts about the last statement. She’d have to wash her eyeballs later.
Merrick had Ditah tied to the metal bedposts, her arms splayed wide. Her knees were hooked over his shoulders, he bent her in half, pounding into her vagina. Her normally lovely peach-colored skin was red and flushed, her breasts jiggling with his hard movements. There was blood on her face. Her upper lip was swollen to twice its normal size.
Merrick—beautiful villain that he was, naked and leanly muscled—kept a steady pace while watching Sasha for her reaction.
He laughed at her. It wouldn’t have been an unpleasant sound, but the man who birthed it was selfish and rotten to the core.
He knew his own attraction. Sasha thought the myriad of elegant tattoos he’d gotten to cover his shoulders and arms were there to distract from the lack of scars most men his age had. Even though he was pretty, his cowardice in avoiding military service had weakened him. Her father would have called him “boy” and made him wash gin bottles.