by Leann Ryans
He had no way to judge the time he spent sitting on the cot, but it was at least a few hours before someone banged on the door, startling him. Jumping, Austin was on his feet as it came open. He could see three figures in the hall dressed in solid black, including face shields. He couldn’t see any details about them, even if they were male or female. Behind them, he caught a glimpse of the owner watching over his transport from the facility.
Holding his hands up to show he wasn’t going to fight them, Austin waited for instructions knowing that any move he made was likely to be seen as hostile. Being tasered once was enough.
“Step out of the room and turn to face the door,” came the voice of the figure closest to him.
Doing as instructed, Austin was placed in cuffs as he stared back into the cell he had been held in. When he was turned back around, he caught Ms. Haranne’s eye.
“I’m sorry for injuring them. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Her expression didn’t change in any way, but at least he felt a bit better apologizing for what happened. He was sorry.
Walking between the three black figures of Alpha Control, Austin was led from the building to a small van. The three Controllers climbed into the back with him and the van took off, heading to whatever destination they had set it for. Resigned to his fate, he leaned his head back against the wall behind him and closed his eyes. The ache in his chest had returned as he sat in the room alone and it tugged at him fiercely now, like it was some living thing trying to pull him in a different direction.
The four of them sat in silence for maybe half an hour before the van pulled to a stop outside a nondescript building. Following behind one of the figures and flanked by the other two, he was led inside to a small cell made of three cinderblock walls with the fourth being blocked by bars.
Heart dropping to his feet, Austin walked calmly inside though his mind was in a panic. The three people he was with hadn’t emitted any scent, which he had been highly grateful for in the close quarters of the van, but as soon as they had entered the building, he could smell other alphas, and his agitation was already growing. The aggression in the air was stifling. Trying to breathe through his mouth, he watched as the cell door was shut.
“Someone will come get you once your punishment and camp have been decided. Is there anything you want to say?”
Staring at the black shield hiding the figure’s face, Austin couldn’t come up with anything that might make this better. After a moment he shook his head saying, “No. Thank you.”
Sinking onto another tiny cot much too small for his frame, he wedged his shoulders into the corner and closed his eyes, trying to ignore the scent and sounds of other Alphas. It was fairly quiet around him, but he could hear yelling from somewhere not too far away.
Gritting his teeth, he gave in to the urge to think about Sandra, focusing on his memories of the short time he had spent with her. It wasn’t just about the sex, though that played a large roll. He thought back on their first meeting when they had eaten lunch together and he had tried to shock her, and how much fun he had with their banter. When she had been locked on his knot and he had fed her strawberries from a tray that had been left on the table by the bed. Their last moments in the tub washing each other before he had run away like a coward.
Somehow, in the small amount of time he had spent with her, he had decided that she was his, and being separated from her was what was driving him crazy. He was sure that’s what the problem was. He itched to find her and sink his teeth into her neck, claiming her for all to see, but he would never have the chance to see her again since he had been kicked out of The Haven. He was going to be sentenced and punished for attacking the other Alphas, and then he would be sent to an Alpha-camp. He probably wouldn’t even see a woman, much less an omega, unless he got truly lucky.
Picturing the way she had been when she had awoken in his arms that last day, Austin let his mind carry him away in a fantasy that would never come true.
20. Sandra
Going to the doctor had only made things worse. By the time her lunch break rolled around, Sandra was so tied up in knots that she canceled her meetings for the rest of the day, knowing she was unfit to deal with anyone until she heard back from her doctor about the results. The idea that she could be pregnant by Austin had wormed its way into her head, and now she wasn’t sure if she would be more upset about it being confirmed or denied.
Forcing herself to keep pushing through the work before her, she almost jumped out of her chair when her personal phone rang, and she scrambled to answer it. Sweat beading on her brow, she gave a breathless hello.
“Sandra, I received your results back from the lab. Is now a good time to talk?”
“Yes, of course,” she answered, nerves on the edge of breaking.
“The good news is that you’re not pregnant. I know you were concerned about that.”
Sandra’s racing heart stuttered to a stop. Forcing herself to keep breathing, she listened to the doctor continue on as if she hadn’t just destroyed the hope that had built throughout the morning.
“Everything looks good, though we did notice a few anomalies. Did you attempt to bond with the Alpha during your heat?”
“No. I used a stud at The Haven, and he had teeth guards on. He never bit me, even in play.”
“A bite isn’t the only thing that can cause a bond. All you need is an exchange of blood. It’s not always going to work, but with you being in heat, a single drop could possibly cause the bond to start. Especially if the exchange went both ways. A partial bond might explain your symptoms and the anomalies we noticed in your labs.”
Staring straight ahead, Sandra didn’t see her office. She saw a shattered pink candle on the bathroom floor. Both her and Austin had been cut. Thinking back through the muddled memories, Sandra let out a gasp as her eyes widened. She had sucked on his fingers shortly after leaving the bathroom. Fingers that had been covered in his blood minutes before from a cut he received cleaning up the glass.
The memory of the taste of his fingers flooded her. Under her own sweet flavor and the saltiness of his cum had been a coppery tang. Trembling, she almost dropped the phone before she was able to answer the concerned voice on the other end.
“Sandra? Sandra, are you all right?”
“Ye-yes,” she managed to stutter out, still trying to pull her racing thoughts into some semblance of a picture she could figure out.
“There’s no way to break a bond is there?”
Asking a question she already knew the answer to seemed foolish, but she was hoping for a miracle at this point.
“Well, a regular bond, no. When an Alpha and omega fully bond it’s for a lifetime. Your bloodwork showed very low levels of what we would usually see with a bond, so I was going to suggest that you attempt the bond again with your next heat cycle and avoid any long separations for now, but if an accidental exchange of blood happened, it may be possible to break it by fully bonding with another Alpha. The new bond would override the old, partial one. I’m not sure what that could do to the first Alpha though.”
Mind racing, Sandra didn’t see how that would help her. There was no other Alpha she wanted to bond with at the moment. She thought she would still have a few more years before considering finding an alpha to mate.
“What if I don’t do anything? If I don’t complete the bond or form a new one?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.” The sincerity in her doctor’s voice pierced Sandra to the core. “You could get used to it in time and go back to feeling normal, or your symptoms could get worse, like someone with a broken pair-bond.”
“Thank you for letting me know,” Sandra whispered into the phone.
Ending the call, she wasn’t sure how long she sat there staring into the room. The work on her desk forgotten, her mind circled the options she was facing. Most likely her and Austin had formed a partial bond. She could continue to deal with the partial bond and hope that the symptoms got better with time, w
hich may or may not result in her losing her clients, her business, and her mind.
She could try to find an Alpha looking for a mate and hope that bonding with him would break the partial one to Austin. It would need to happen as soon as possible, which meant during her next heat and that didn’t leave her a lot of time. While she had dreamed of having a bond like her parents had when she was a child, she had always hoped it would be with someone that she chose who also chose her, not just a bond of convenience. While the bond was nature’s way of assuring that an Alpha and omega were happy and stayed together to raise the children guaranteed from the pairing, she didn’t want to love her partner simply because the bond made her feel that way.
The other option was to fully bond with Austin. She wasn’t sure she wanted that either, and she didn’t know if it was even an option he would consider. She couldn’t force him to bond with her if he wasn’t interested. She didn’t know if he was having any symptoms and he may be angry with her if he found out she had caused a partial bond between them
Pushing her hands through her hair, Sandra looked at the clock and realized it was past the time when everyone should have gone home. Gathering her things, she walked across her office and opened the door, intent on going straight to her bed to sleep. She wanted to escape the thoughts circling her head and edging her nearer to despair.
She was brought up short when she noticed her assistant still sitting at her desk. Natashia had turned to face her when the door opened, and she stood as Sandra stopped, staring at her.
“Are you okay? You haven’t come out all day. I wanted to be sure everything was all right before I left you here alone…”
Natashia trailed off as Sandra tried to pull herself together. Trying not to let how much of a mess her mind was show, she pulled her lips into the semblance of a smile and nodded.
Natashia’s eyebrow raised. “If you think that was reassuring, you are mistaken.”
A slightly hysterical giggle that almost became a sob escaped her as her eyes began to water. Sandra looked away and took a deep breath.
“Thank you Natashia, I’ll be fine.”
Turning back to give her a genuine, though small, smile, Natashia returned it. Her eyes still showed her worry as she searched Sandra’s face.
“Call me for anything. I’m always available,” she said finally before taking her things and going to the elevator that would take her down to the lobby.
Watching her leave, Sandra began moving again once the elevator doors shut, cutting off the worried brown eyes that seemed to see all of the cracks around her edges.
21. Austin
He was left in the cell alone for almost two days, only seeing another person three times when they came with a tray of food. Austin had thought that he was bored in his room at The Haven, but this was so much worse. With no books or anyone to interact with, the only thing left to him was his thoughts and the occasional yelling from other Alphas being locked up.
Pacing the length of his cot, he counted each step, attempting to keep his mind clear of the building tension. The constant scent of Alpha aggression in the air only served to increase his own, and he had realized that thinking about Sandra, while enjoyable in the moment, left him more prone to outbursts.
Counting was the only way he had found to keep his mind focused on something, and there wasn’t a lot to count in a room with nothing but him, his cot, and twenty-four vertical bars. It took four small, or two large, steps to get from one wall to the other. There were sixteen questionable stains on the grungy sheet covering his cot, and four on the pillowcase. The guard walked by an average of six times between meals during the daylight hours, and the guard changed every fourth round.
Austin had barely slept since he had been brought to the cell and had reached one-thousand steps before he started over. He was on step four-hundred and thirty-two when someone finally stopped outside of his cell door.
“Come and place your back against the bars and extend your wrists behind you,” the androgynous figure said. He couldn’t even tell by the voice if it was a man or woman, but he figured that didn’t much matter.
Doing as he was told, he waited as cuffs were once again placed on his wrists. Door clanging open, he was taken by the elbow and led back down the hall he came through when he had been brought in. They turned and went up a set of stairs before making it back to the lobby of the building and emerged in a hallway that looked like any regular office building.
He was pulled through a door on the left about halfway down. Waiting inside were two more uniformed figures and an older male seated behind a large raised desk. Scenting the air, Austin could tell the man was an Alpha, and he wasn’t sure if that was going to be a good thing or not. Austin was pushed into a chair across from him as the figure that had escorted him took a spot standing by the door.
“Austin Nevouto. Thirty-two. Trained carpenter. Great scores throughout your schooling, and perfect on your behavioral testing.”
The man behind the desk rattled off his information without even looking at him, scrolling through his information on the computer taking up the corner of his desk. He was silent for a few moments, reading whatever he was looking at Austin guessed, before the Alpha’s faded green eyes met his.
“So, do you want to explain what happened?”
Swallowing, Austin figured the best approach was to be truthful and take responsibility for what happened. Holding the older Alpha’s gaze, he told him as simply as possible what he had done.
“I haven’t been feeling quite myself lately and I reacted poorly to some taunts from another Alpha. We had a bit of a dominance issue when I first came to The Haven. He was taunting me about a recent client and when he tried to block me from leaving the Pen, I attacked him. I don’t remember clearly what happened, but others came to try and stop me, and I attacked them as well.”
Watching him without a hint of expression on his face, the older Alpha waited a moment after Austin stopped speaking like he expected some form of excuse to follow.
“One person has bruising on his jaw and throat with swelling around his windpipe. Another has bruising on his face and fractured ribs causing difficulty breathing. The third has a broken arm that had to be set and cast. All three have been removed from The Haven which caused an issue with a client. You’re not arguing that you are responsible for all of that?”
“No sir. I lost my temper. I can usually brush things off but,” Austin trailed off, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me, but I couldn’t stop myself. There’s no excuse. I do feel bad for doing it.”
Trying to show his sincerity and hoping for the best, Austin watched the Alpha and waited.
Sighing, the Alpha looked down at his hands before looking through the report on his computer again.
“The way I see it, this was most likely an isolated incident. Just two Alphas who couldn’t get along and the two others were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You have a perfect record up to now. I’m willing to go easy on you this time, but if I ever see you back in here again,” green eyes locked with Austin’s blue ones again and he could feel the threat growing in the room, “I will go twice as hard on you and send you to the worst camp I can find. The worst conditions, with strict rations, and no chance of interaction with anyone outside of the camp. I’m sentencing you to a week of isolation. In that time, I will find a camp where your skills can be put to good use, and this incident will be sealed unless you do something again.”
Swallowing hard, Austin forced himself to nod in acceptance. He wasn’t sure he was going to make it through a week of isolation, but he really was getting off lightly. If all he had to do was sit in a cell alone for a week for this to disappear and be able to continue on with his plan, he would find a way to survive. Hopefully by the time he was let out he would have better control of himself.
Signing the paperwork when it was thrust in front of him to accept his punishment, Austin stood and thanked the Alpha. Turning, he was
led to a new wing of the building where the rooms no longer had bars across the front but were completely enclosed. Thankfully, it significantly cut back on the Alpha pheromones in the air and Austin felt himself relaxing marginally.
Entering his new cell for the next week, he was uncuffed and the door shut behind him. Looking around, he dropped onto the cot against the back wall and closed his eyes. The tension of the past two days drained from him and he was snoring before he even realized he was tired.
22. Sandra
Sandra spent most of the night tossing and turning, unable to settle down even as she clutched her favorite blanket. The fact that it had brought her so much comfort lately made more sense now at least, but after two weeks, the scents were beginning to fade. Her scent was overtaking Austin’s spicy musk and the smell of his salty seed still dried on the fabric.
Glancing at the clock, she sighed and threw back her blankets, crawling out of the mess her nest had become. Dressing in simple slacks and a blouse, she headed down to her office. She was there an hour earlier than usual, even before Natashia had made it in. Taking a seat at her desk, she tapped her fingers on it and looked around. She had been staying late most nights, working until she felt ready to drop from exhaustion, so she was caught up on everything. Even ahead on a few projects that could go no further without consulting with the clients.
Feeling her thoughts begin to slip, she desperately searched for something to occupy her. Emptying her email folder far faster than usual, it only distracted her for a moment before she was back to jittering with impatience.
Luckily, the feelings of irritation and hostility had lessened over the past couple of days, but the ache in her chest and the inability to eat or sleep were still plaguing her. Though she was exhausted, she felt restless and woke multiple times a night.
Striking on an idea to keep her occupied, she pulled up a blank file and began to type. It was going to take researching into the permits required before it would ever work, but it was something she could do to keep her focused and possibly help others.