by Isoellen
The monster had chosen a bride, but Nothonal Darre was all-in for the ride.
Chapter Eleven
Naya
Monster fed her everything on the tray, made her drink all the sweetened tea, and only took a little for himself.
Once the tray was empty and the other alpha left the room, he turned his attention to concentrated torment. Both hands at her neck, he drew her face close to his so that his apple-scented breath moved over her eyelids, cheeks, and mouth. Soft and dry, he pressed his lips to her temple.
"Naughty treasure. Do you know what you did?"
"Ate a meal I wasn't hungry for?" she replied lightly.
He kissed her cheek, nose buried in her hair. "No. Not that."
"Sat in your lap like a child instead of on my own like an adult?"
He moved his mouth closer to hers. She tried to turn into his lips, but he held her immobile. "No, not that. Don't you like your daddy's lap?"
She could feel the humor in his voice even if she didn't hear it in the sound.
"You are my monster, not my daddy,” she corrected him.
Rewarding her with a kiss at the corner of her mouth that teased her with the tip of his tongue, he said, "True enough."
Naya breathed out a sigh of want. She wanted his kiss. Wanted to taste him. Why wasn't he doing that? Why wasn't he giving her what she needed?
"You don't know that you broke one of the rules? Bad little breeder girl. Now you have to be punished." He moved his lips to her jaw and tipped her head back so he could kiss along the bottom of it to her ear.
Covering her in sensuous touches, each one deliberate, relished, he acted as if in no hurry to go anywhere. He was killing her with the sweetness of his attention. By the time he reached the pulse point in her neck, he'd awakened her womb, stirred the bundle of wanton hunger that was her clit, and made her nipples hard, all with the judicious placement of his kisses.
"How shall I punish you? It's your first time. I should be gentle." He moved one hand, giving his mouth unhindered access to her neck.
"Please, Monster,” she whimpered. Using her legs, she tried to find leverage to push herself closer, deeper against him. She flexed the muscles in her bottom and thighs, mimicking the sex act. "What are you talking about?"
"Baby. Sweet baby,” he murmured against her skin. His mouth was incredible. His nibbling teeth and tongue brushing back and forth found her every nerve ending.
Help her. He was gonna make her cum this way.
"You broke rule number three. Don't get in the way of how I do things."
She shook her head.
"You did,” he said against her shoulder, giving her a sharp bite. Naya gasped.
"And we will have all night to address it,” he promised.
Dizzied as she was, she was slow to catch up with the fact that he had finished with his tender persecutions. Her face was in his neck, her mouth open there, breathing and tasting him, waiting for his next words. Instead he put his data pad into her hands.
"We are going to talk to Tenbel's slaves. I want your help with this. They are more likely to talk to a poor lost princess than they are an old monster like me. Will you do this?"
"What?"
He kissed her nose. "Pay attention. Are you always so dreamy?"
"You—" she began, but he interrupted before she could finish.
"I want you to talk to Tenbel's drones. Don't promise them anything or you will be punished twice. Just ask my questions. Can you do that?"
"Yes." Why was he asking her this now? Didn't he want to—
"Good. Let's get this done so they are out of my tower. I feel like I can smell their stink already."
His words brought her back to reality, leaving her chilled. That didn't sound like a nice comment. Rather speciesist, Naya thought, as he picked her up as if she were a little girl and walked out the door.
He must be one of the breeds that looked down on drones because they didn't have the same abilities. The man was such an arrogant beast; he thought everyone beneath him.
He took her to a lower floor which was a rougher version than the one above it. Guards at the stairs watched over the defeated-looking people they'd taken from Tenbel's home.
All the alphas wore breathers over noses and mouths. The uncomfortable masks protected the wearers from pollutants, but as a side-benefit, they also dampened the effect of breed pheromones.
They weren't foolproof, though; skin also absorbed the mood, health, cycle, and dynamic chemicals emitted from breeds. But if the alphas kept their distance, drone fear or female ovulation cycles wouldn't affect them.
There were a lot of drones, many more than Naya's upper-class household employed. Thin, poorly dressed, unwashed, scarred, and disfigured, they were the most abused lot she had ever seen.
The cruelty of it went beyond her understanding. More than half of them were women, and a couple of these were noticeably pregnant, holding heavy bellies. If the fathers were breed, those women would need medical care. Breed to drone pairings resulted in twins and triplets. While intercourse was painful for the drone, conception was common, as were the serious complications that came with the delivery.
In her sector, if any breed impregnated a drone, he would be shunned. It was the lowest of the low kind of cruelty.
It smelled like there were more pregnant women than she could see. All of them were terrified. Some were crying.
Naya wanted to cry with them. What these women had suffered was horrible. They expected nothing good to come out of this meeting, and Monster had warned her not to promise anything.
Promises to help were the first words that rose to her lips. Monster gave a warning growl as a reminder and she clawed at his arm in frustration.
"Can you put me down, please?" she asked.
"No."
Holding her in his arms the entire time, Darre had her ask several questions, each of them designed to find out what the drones knew about the black-robed men's activities, and what, if anything, they knew about Naya's kidnapping.
He wasn't interested in anything Naya wanted to ask.
Their suffering rolled over her stronger than their smell, but Monster didn't seem to notice it at all.
She thought she recognized faces. She felt like she should know them, like she had experienced something with them, but it was hard to pinpoint what or how. Now that her head was clear, her ordeal with the false priest had become a collection of vague memories: getting out of a box, mushrooms growing on a wall, being scrubbed raw in a shower.
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 comfortabl
e 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.
"What's your name? Where do you belong?" Naya asked the pregnant woman.
"I'm Isdorrie. I'm from Sector 7. I woke up here four months ago. I'd heard of the black robes, though. My brother was listening to a broadcast. I think he must be why I'm here. He liked the things Tenbel said.
“Can you get me home? Tenbel talked about an omega. I think last week? He didn't visit me as much now that I'm pregnant. He let the others come, and they only talk about—"
"What did he say?" Monster asked.
"He said he would get a prize that would win the Mad Monster's favor and distract him at the same time,” the girl answered weakly, tipping her head to the side to show her neck.
"Distract him from what?" Monster wanted to know.
"Some plan to get more women? I'm not sure."
"It was more women,” the long-faced woman spoke up. "Tenbel's Great Alpha would reward his disciples with women in this life and the afterlife. He used to make us listen to this book he read from—some dick fantasy. We are bait to turn alphas and betas in this sector into an army the way his Great Alpha did."
"He wanted to keep you, breeder,” a small voice said. “His scribe, Louis, convinced him to stick to the plan. I came in a box too. Just woke up in that place, in the sector of the damned. I couldn't have guessed it would be like this anywhere in the 12 Sectors. I thought they were united. But this place?"
She was sitting folded up against the wall, wearing a sheer purple wrap dress. With her face turned to the wall, she hid her identity, her youth, and her fear, but everyone could hear everything in her voice.
She sounded very young. Since betas didn't have a heat cycle, they often waited until their twenties or later to form marriage contacts. Their biology gave them more freedoms. Unless someone stole those freedoms from them.
"I'm pregnant now too. No one will want me. I think... I think my father sold me. I'm just another beta by-blow." Her words were hollow and helpless. "I never met you, breeder, but I know of you. I think I know who you are."
"Who are you?" Monster snarled. Something about the poor broken girl was making his hackles rise. Under her hand, Naya felt all the hairs on his nape prickle.
"Will you help us, Alpha? You're the Mad Monster, right? Nothonal Darre, the Administrator Prime of Sector 2? Can you help us?"
"What did you call him?" Naya asked.
Monster exploded in a riot of cursing.
Her question unanswered, Monster hurried her away, shouting orders at a soldier. "Interrogate all those beta women. Find out everything they know about Tenbel, my mate, and his fucking plans to take over the world. Find a beta male named Louis in the hole. I want to know what he knows. Get everyone off this floor, out of my tower, and over into C building, and do something about their growling bellies!"
"Monster," Naya protested as he ran down a hallway and up the stairs. He shifted her in his hold, putting her face under his chin and against his neck. He held her there with a hand on the back of her head.
"Scent me. Breathe me in. Too late now." His voice lowered to that bass that was more monster than man.
Naya was putting the pieces together. He must have known she would. His heart was pounding and his anxiety twisted at her insides until Naya realized he was afraid. This giant, brutish, killer of men, Monster of the Tower, was afraid.
Talking over her head, his words slurred and he lisped a little as if his tongue had become too thick for them. He wouldn't let her move her head or look at him.
"You're not her. You will never be her. But I won't let you go. That bastard won't take everything from me."
Coming out onto the landing at a speed that startled the guards there, he went to the sleeping chamber, set her down on the nest, and growled low. "Fix it. Invite me in."
Naya narrowed her eyes at him in frustration as he rocked from foot to foot, clenching and unclenching his hands. His twitchy agitation did not intimidate her in the slightest. They needed to talk.
"Fix it now, breeder." Playing unfair, that gorgeous growl of his went from upset to sexy. It rubbed at her nerves and made her belly and the small of her back flutter.
"I want to talk. Is that who you are? Are you really the Broken Prince? Nothonal Darre, the Mad Monster of Sector 2?" She stood where he put her. He used that sound like a weapon against her and she had to hug herself tight to keep from leaping at him.
"Fix. Your. Nest." He chomped out each word like he was biting into bone, showing his teeth.
She dropped to her knees at the alpha’s order, whimpering because that wasn't what she wanted to do right now. He planned to get her all drunk on him so she couldn't talk, couldn't ask questions.
She knew of him. Of course she knew of him. The embargoes and bans against his sector were notorious, making the place uninhabitable.
All because the King's second-born son refused to follow any of Administration laws and policies. He'd been in rebellion for years. There was always speculation about when the King would replace him, why the Administration didn't intervene to save the sector, and what horrible thing the Broken Prince would do next.
Stories about Nothonal Darre were
the stuff of nightmarish legend. He was the evil in the dark that came to snatch you out of your bed and take you to the sector of the damned if you didn't obey your mother. He raped women, ate drone children, and fought every alpha he met to the death.
Naya tore the nest apart. Monster grumbled and paced.
He wanted to make her do this? She'd take her own sweet time.
She ignored him as he growled and snapped at her. She wasn't one of those betas and drones frightened of his snarls. She'd given him her mark. She'd obey him, but she would not fear him.
He didn’t want to talk? He could wait.
Darre turned up the glow on the lamp. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he went to one chest, unlocked it, and flipped the lid.
She shook out the pelts he'd given her and snapped them in his direction. They needed cleaning. This was no proper nest. But they smelled good, like their bond, so she positioned things with the crusty, soiled sides down and the fresh sides up.
He pulled something from the chest—a blade as long as his forearm.
Naya didn't bother humoring him with a flinch. She tossed a dirty shirt out of the nest and pointed to his clothes rack, which only had a few things hanging on it.
He grunted at her, opened the other chest, and pulled out a long, richly layered and embroidered piece of heavy fabric. He tossed it at her, smacking her in the face.
She growled at him, glaring in frustration.
His answer was more of his lust-stirring noise and a hiss. His face was tight, body tense. She could almost see the difference now between the man who’d set her in his lap to carry on an intelligent conversation and the predatory alpha, all aggressive, driving instinct, and animal brain.
This was Monster.
She looked down at what she held. It looked like an Administrator's robe.
Watching her, growling at her, he deliberately put his left hand on one of the trunks, raised the big knife high, and chopped off one of his black claws near the tip of his finger.