by Isoellen
Sasha needed a stronger alpha. An honorable alpha. Someone she chose. Maura wanted to strip that from her, rape her own daughter of the right to choose. She wanted to punish her own child for being born.
If Sasha did nothing, Maura would get her wish.
Determination filled her. She'd learned how to endure, but also how to take care of herself and her drones. Sometimes one had to just hold still and take the beating, lower their eyes in pretend meekness, and let the pain block out everything else. And sometimes one had to stand up in defiance, raise their eyes, and find a solution.
If she did nothing, her life would be predictable misery. The lives of her friends, the drones she grew up with, would be constant harassment and drudgery. They would be treated without care or respect.
So, Sasha would do something. She'd choose a stronger alpha.
She'd choose someone Merrick couldn't win against.
Her plan took shape as she lay in the dark of her room, considering who she needed to go to, how she might get there, and what she would say when she arrived. She spent a restless night lost in planning. Then, it was time to get up and start setting things in motion.
She'd have to leave Dover's End to Merrick's leadership for a few days, a risky proposition. Even leaving for a half-day at the market felt dangerous.
The first time she left with Silas, Patrick, and Lilla on their weekly supply run, Sasha had returned at dusk to find four naked beta women dancing on tables in the main bar room. Merrick liked to have surprises for Sasha whenever she returned.
Hours yet from first light, she gathered supplies. It kept her hands and swirling thoughts busy, to slink downstairs and avoid notice while males were drinking up the potent gin of Dover's End. It sounded like there was still a crowd in the main room, which must have pleased Merrick, if they were the paying kind of customer. He sometimes thought an exchange of favors paid the bills just as well as credits.
Maybe she could go and come back in three days—two for travel, one for convincing. Maybe. Doubtful. She'd never been farther than the market. The need to stay safe had always outweighed any of her curiosities. Child or not, females did not go anywhere alone. Ever.
She'd dress like a drone, camouflage herself, take food and water, and use the mead money for public transport once she was out of Sector 10. Since Merrick expected market day, she’d go with the drones in the donkey wagon. She’d be on her own after that.
The old donkeys were strong enough to pack goods in and out for market, not so good for speed and escaping an alpha. She’d go by foot. Take a transport. She would have a good part of the day before Merrick would notice she was gone. A good part of the day to get where he couldn't find her.
And he wouldn't be able to find her, because Sasha had no idea where she was going. She had a name. That was all. A name she remembered hearing her father mention again and again with his friends gathered around the card table.
A name Merrick had reminded her of.
After sneaking out of the main building, Sasha found Silas sleeping on his pallet in the still house. Like Lilla and Lanny, he had been a part of her life as long as she could remember. The old man had often watched out for her, hiding her from Maura when her father traveled for pub business.
He was in his late sixties now, thin and strong, crowned with a short, wiry beard and silver hair. Joints knotted from arthritis, his weathered features and curved spine told the story of a hard life.
Once a property owner in a better sector, when his wife and son died from an infection, he lost his desire for civilized living. A shine addiction had brought him to the slums. Servitude and poverty made the drug unobtainable, and he'd gained back some of himself—if not his life—helping to run the still and fill the gin bottles for Sasha's father.
Sasha rested a hand lightly on his arm. Sometimes she thought she could feel his bone eating arthritis and she imagined drawing it out of him, calling it to herself where it could do no harm. It was a silly fantasy, but it felt natural and she did it anyway, picturing his pain as black mold and demanding it come to her.
In the dark her eyesight was better than the old man's. She saw his lids move, blinking awake.
"Silas," she whispered. "I've decided that tomorrow I have to get away. Will you help me? I need to leave the sector, go find help."
"Child? What are you saying?" he croaked, rousing too slowly to understand.
She patted his arm. "It's the only way. Maura and Merrick have set up a plan to give Merrick Dover's End and trap me. Trap all of us. He's no good, Silas. I thought I'd be free of that man when Maura died. I’d planned to pick a good husband from the Selection. I never thought he'd want me. Look at me. I don't look like a woman you marry, do I?"
"You still have growing to do, I think. But… What are you telling me?" He rubbed at his face, trying to wake himself. "What are you telling me?"
"Tomorrow I was going to get the honey for the mead, but instead I’m going to the border to catch the bus. There should be a bus, right?"
"Oh, aye. One damn bus that comes in from the other sectors. Administrator Ebbon Blaze here is so blasted obstinate. Only the bare essentials in exchange for his right to govern as shittily as he sees fit."
Sasha giggled. "Silas, don't talk bad about the Administration or an alpha. You could get in so much trouble."
"And who is to be awake at this hour but breeder girls with crazy plans? What are you telling me? You are running away, alone? Going to another sector? Why?”
"Maura told me she and Merrick have a plan. I think they have bribed an official. He will force me to marry him. I can’t let that happen. I have to find a stronger alpha, someone Merrick can’t bribe or defeat. I don’t know anyone like that here and I don’t think it’s safe to wait for the Selection."
"Sounds like all you’re going to find is some trouble. That’s what it sounds like. Go to market and then run away? You can't go alone. You know that, right? That Merrick and the rest of them are slime, but you are known here. Protected. What if some stranger gets the sight and smell of you? You'll be raped in the street, that you will."
He heaved himself up with a creaking of bones and Sasha reached out again to touch him, knowing it must hurt.
"I don't smell like a breeder yet, Silas. It'll be fine. I'll wear Lanny's clothes. No one will pay attention to me. But I don't know where I'm going. I need a map or a guide."
"There are maps at the public transport stops, unless all that's changed in ten years, which I doubt."
"Oh. Really?"
"Yes. Really."
"And can I cross sectors?"
"As far as I know, there will be street checkpoints. How are you going to cross a street checkpoint? They will want your number."
Sasha hung her head. Silas eyed her, challenging her grand plan. "I'll look like a drone. Just stay with the daily work herd. Not all drones have numbers, and breed guards don't pay as close attention."
"It takes one, girl. One to notice you. Then he'll look up your number, contact Merrick, or keep you for himself. There are all kinds of things you don't want happening."
"But the law!"
"Shit law. You just said Merrick and your mother have found a way around the breeder law. Do you think they are the only ones? Think, child. It's in the nature of males to challenge laws, especially if something sweet is dangled right before their eyes.
"Which is where I am right now."
He made his old man hacking noise and spat in response to her mention of Merrick.
Sasha drew a circle on the cold floor, puzzling out the issue of crossing checkpoints. Silas was right; it would only take one.
"Where you going, anyway? I think we should go now to the Administration for the Selection. That’s what we should do. I’ll take you there. They'll fight for the right to a girl like you, missy. Just see if they don't line up to shed blood to get into your nest."
Silas had protected her in the past but been reduced to a puddle of fear when he was hit so ha
rd with tremors from breed pheromones that he could barely crawl out of a room. Now he spoke about her like he could understand what she was, what it meant to be an omega.
He had no clue.
How could he? Even Sasha didn’t know. "I don't think anyone in Sector 10 is strong enough to take on Merrick. He might be young, but you have seen how he fights. And, anyone of them could already be in on this plan he has with Maura. They could just report back."
"Fights dirty, that one."
"I need an honorable male. One who can beat him. I heard him talking. He has an enemy—someone named Alpha Warlord Constantine Kane. He must be strong, to have a name like that. Have you heard that name?"
Silas whistled. "Your father, girl. You know that male was your father's enemy too."
"Do you know why?"
"They always talk about him getting in the way. That he has too much power, needs to be taken down a peg. I think your father may have had some run ins with that Kane during his soldier days."
"But my father didn't take him down, and Merrick's friends say he can't be beat. Do you know where he is?"
"I think Sector 7. I bet if you get there, you could ask some drones. Some of your breed alphas have lived five drone lifetimes. If he’s been around for a while, someone will know."
"How far is Sector 7?"
"Girl, I don't like this. It's not safe. Not safe at all."
She gave Silas her most determined, resolute expression. He needed to see it in her eyes and the set of her mouth. "Doing nothing isn't safe."
He inhaled deep, taking in the scent she knew swirled around her. "Alright then, child. Alright."
Chapter 4
Sasha planned to leave that day.
But Merrick, damn him—there was a mess in the common room from another fight. Several fights.
Sasha thought Merrick encouraged them, having figured out a way to glean extra money out of the violence. He'd taunted a beta, taller than himself, into the first conflict, credits stacked on the table for the winner to claim at the end. Merrick moved with fluid, predatory ease and a twinkle of humor in his eye that belied his deadliness.
As an industrial sector, the mostly single male worker population had nothing to spend their hard earned credits on except drinking, drugs, women, and violence. Despite the physical distinctions between betas and alphas, Merrick baited them both.
He provided booze, women, and on occasion, violence. By fighting and winning, he built respect and control, but tore the common rooms apart while doing it. Four benches and two tables suffered the consequences of his reckless indoor fighting. There was broken glass everywhere.
Lanny cut her hand trying to clean the mess. She cried, her blood dripping all over the floor.
With no drone doctors around, they always had to do the best they could in taking care of each other. Sasha went for the waxed thread and disinfectant.
When she returned, Merrick was there, shirt off and damp from a wash, his pants hanging low on his waist and clinging to his legs. He looked head-hurt from the night’s intemperance, face a sneering mask of irritation, his eyes too bloodshot to twinkle.
He stood over Lanny and Lilla, who were now cowering on the floor, faces pale and eyes full of helpless lust.
"Get up. What are you doing? I need this place cleaned up. I don't have time for you to be sitting around doing nothing." He was shouting, his muscles tense, as if preparing for another fight.
"Get up and do your jobs," he growled, flashing his incisors.
At his growl, the girls whimpered.
"You’re coming on too strong, Merrick," Sasha told him without thinking. "Lanny has a nasty gash on her hand. Don't you see all the blood?"
Sasha pointed at the girls on the floor, Lilla holding her sister, Lanny putting pressure on her palm with a rag that was rapidly darkening with blood. The cut was deep. Sasha just hoped that nothing vital had been sliced.
"I need to take care of it," she said.
He swung on her, a new target for his foul mood. "Are you telling me what to do again, little girl? Are you stepping in where you are not wanted? Do you think you are the boss?"
The cut on Lanny's hand was his fault, born of his recklessness. If he had to fight, why do it here? Why destroy things? There were other places that held pit fights.
He could have gone to any one of them to take on challengers. Maybe get some credits, and hopefully have his face bashed in. Why did he have to bring his low ways here, right here in the middle of her home?
Angry at him, Sasha met his eyes straight on, her thoughts out there for all to see.
Incredulous, his eyebrows shot up.
Her heart stuttered. Realizing her mistake, Sasha looked at the floor, but it was too late. Everything she did irritated him, but this—outright defiance and anger—sent him straight into a rage.
He rushed her, hands at her shoulders, pushing her all the way back to the wall. "So that's what you think of me? You think I'm a fool, that I can't smell it? You may still look like a baby, but I know how old you are. I know how close you are to your first fucking heat. Your cycle is going to change everything, little girl. Everything. I. Can't. Wait."
Sasha turned away and held her breath, ignoring the punishing grip of his fingers digging into her skin. He brought his body against hers, hot skin and alpha muscle overpowering her.
Merrick bent his shape around her to speak into her ear, too close to her neck. Instinct had her skin rippling in panic. She did not want this male at her neck. She did not want him in her space.
He wasn't just head-hurt from drink the night before; his breath smelled mead sweet. He was still drunk, all his rational thinking stripped away.
Heart pounding, her anger replaced by fear, she knew he could damage her badly in this state. He wouldn’t realize his mistake until later, and by then it could be too late for her.
"I don't know why I have to wait. I know you aren't much to look at, but you are still a tight, breeder cunt born for fucking. You know that, right, Sasha?" he hissed. "You know that the only thing you will ever be good for is taking a big cock up that little pussy hole of yours?"
Her face flamed.
"Get away from her!" Silas shouted.
Sasha moaned. "It's alright, Silas. Please take the girls and go. I can—”
"Shut up!" Merrick moved a hand to her throat and squeezed. "Shut up! You don't get to tell anyone what to do! When will you learn that? What do I have to do to teach you your place? Why don't any of you people know how to act?"
He shook her, grasp tightening and cutting off her air. Meeting her eyes, he watched her panic as it built, until Sasha was clawing at his hand. Then releasing her throat to capture and squeeze her head in both hands. He forced a nod from her while she gasped for air, heart beating hard against the case of her chest. "This is what you do. This is what you say. ‘Yes, alpha Merrick. Yes, sir.' Can you do that, Sasha?"
"He said get away from her!" It was Patrick now, who lived in the shed with the donkeys and took care of the kitchen garden. He had served as a grunt in the Administration military and understood better than anyone else not to confront a drunk, angry alpha.
What was he thinking? Had they all gone mad? Merrick might hurt Sasha, but he would kill them. They were nothing to him. Just common worker drones.
Merrick let out a growl that became a roar, turning on Patrick and barreling toward him. Patrick notched an arrow into his hunting bow, but Merrick wasn't a garden rabbit and the aggression rolling off him went right to Patrick's brain.
He loosed the arrow, drawing a line of blood on the naked meat of Merrick's upper arm.
Before Merrick could pounce and rip the drone human to shreds, Sasha darted between them. "Don't, Merrick, please. Please don't. Don't hurt him. I'm sorry. This is my fault. You’re right. I do take over. I don't know my place. Punish me."
Merrick picked Sasha up and set her aside, seized Patrick’s wooden bow, and threw it across the room. Facing his challenger, Merrick
balled his hand into a fist and cocked his arm back to strike Patrick, but Sasha jumped on the alpha, wrapping herself around him as a barrier.
All her senses rebelled at the contact of bare skin under her hands, but she pressed in tight, clinging anyway. "It’s my fault. He was just protecting the child he has always known. Don't hurt him. Please. Punish me. It was me."
He narrowed his green eyes, hot with fury. "Punish you? And how should I do that? What will teach you and these drones a lesson?" He scanned the room as if searching for a way to make her hurt.
"Ditah," he called at last, "bring me my whip."
Their interaction had gathered a crowd. All the drones of the household, Merricks’s women and the males who had been with them, came into the barroom, drawn by the violence. Everyone was there except for Maura, too sick to leave her room.
Sasha caught the alarmed gazes of the drones, willing them to do nothing and stay quiet, to not make it worse.
Dragging her over to a table, Merrick pushed her face down over the edge. "This is the way breed should always treat breed. Pain makes the lesson stay, doesn't it? Or is that why you think you can tell me what to do? Did Daddy spare you a real upbringing? Is that why you don't know the proper way to behave?"
Merrick met no resistance as he tore her soft tunic top in half, exposing her. A helpless mewl escaped her at the shock of it, but Sasha quickly silenced herself.
The drones who had already risked their lives for her were forced to watch as patrons swam through the alpha pheromones that flooded the room. The pub guests watched the spectacle with eager interest.
Merrick hissed a breath and touched her back, a quick bush of fingers between her shoulder blades, tracing the marks already there. This wasn't her first whipping. He'd been wrong. She hadn't escaped breed lessons in pain. But her father hadn't been the one to administer them. He'd see that now.
"You'll take these lashes for your drone, who had the audacity to shoot a fucking arrow at me. And you'll take them for yourself, so that you won't forget who is in charge. Do you understand me?"