Rise

by May Sage

  The Cover Reveal for To Claim a King will be the first week of April – as it’s genuinely my most beautiful cover, ever, don’t miss it!!

  Till Dawn Do Us Part

  Note that this excerpt is unedited and is likely to change before release.

  There was no particular reason why she should have thought that the Drafts wouldn't go according to plan.

  Ruth had no motive or inclination to marry and as the only daughter of two successful artists, she was one of the few who still basked in the luxury of choice: in the third row, Jim – one of her mother's apprentices – sat, empowered by the weight of Fredrica Warner's purse. He could afford five thousands and anyone would be a fool to bid half as much on a girl twice as pretty.

  Certain of her fate, she walked up and down the familiar stage with as much confidence as one could muster when wearing knickers and a bra.

  The women weren't allowed to cover up: the buyer had a right to see what they were bidding for.

  Be that as it may, Ruth was attired quite modestly compared to some: the white high waisted low rise and brassiere ensemble revealed less flesh than her swimming costume. Her long, wavy mane had been twisted and knotted at the nape of her neck, effectively negating her best feature. She wore no cosmetics. Between her general lack of sophistication, curves, allure, appeal and mummy's purse, she was quite safe.

  The girl who'd been presented just before her, a sign reading 478 in her hand, had been less lucky.

  She'd been nineteen – another first timer – and pretty, curvy, with bright blue eyes and a considerable breast. Those were attributes no woman envied on the Winter Solstice.

  She was won at an astronomical nine thousand six hundred and fifty marks, by a man close to three times her age.

  The first Draft had started just a couple of years short of two centuries ago, at the beginning of the era.

  Ruth could comprehend how the barbaric tradition had started. To an extend, she even approved.

  The Last War had left the world in a state of complete chaos and devastation and certain measured had been essential to the survival of the specie. The Drafts were one of them.

  At the time, over two third of the female were born barren so the rest had inherited a duty and were beholden to perform it either by marrying, bearing three children or entering the Drafts until either requirement were met.

  It sucked, but she got it. She really did.

  What she saw as an absolute joke was that those facts were just that: historical figures, well in the past. They were hardly in danger of extinction and over sixty percent of female were fertile according to the latest census.

  The Drafts had become little else than a cheap entertainment, a way to keep the male population content and the female, subdued.

  “Madelene Ruth Sterling.”

  Her formal name recalled her attention to the present scene.

  It was a shame the refurbishments of the City Stadium had induced the Haute to edict the Royal Opera as the most suitable substitute.

  They'd been right: built to accommodate hundreds of technicians and artists below and thousands of spectators above, it easily fit the six hundred and twenty three women and the two thousands men eligible in the Inner Walls of the City.

  A perfect location, but Ruth wished they'd chosen the Halls or even the Palace. She'd always loved seeing her father play here but his performance would be forever marred by the recollection of her first drafts.

  “Madelene is nineteen, an musician and a runner.”

  Poor Hugo, the presenter who managed to make the most insipid of them sound like princesses, scowled at the short and bleak information showing on his screen. She hadn't given him much to go on, no mention of anything akin to skills or accomplishment.

  If her lack of appeal didn't deter some suitors, hopefully that would.

  The winners were requested to spend a minimum of five hours in their surrogates' company before being able to demand the first out of the twelve intercourse they were owed and who would willingly subject themselves to five hours in front of a plain boring girl in high knickers?

  Yet as the announcer called the first bid a buzzer rang out, followed by another one. Ruth rose her head, frowning as she tried to identify her suitors.

  There was Jim, of course, but also a man at the back of the tribunes who, thankfully, was little more than a boy.

  He couldn't be much older than she and when he saw her glance his way, he winked playfully. He wasn't at all unattractive: in fact, quite the contrary. In the soft lighting, there was no point guessing as to the colour of his eyes or hair, but his facial features were quite striking.

  Ruth couldn't help a smile.

  As soon as her lips curled up, the battle started.

  Damn. She had been told she had a nice smile.

  A third contender entered the competition, a man dressed in a formal suite. While he wasn't young, her skin didn't crawl at the idea of somehow being desirable to him. There was that, she supposed.

  “That's Doctor Fizpatrick at two thousand! Anyone for two one?”

  She bit down her lip, guiltily looking down, thinking of her parents who were most likely watching at home.

  She hadn't counted on owing quite so much to them. She could make it in a few months but what if it happened again next year, and the one after that?

  “Three thousands, five hundred for Mr Lawrence. Anyone raising at...”

  By that time Ruth, generally lively, was completely blanched. Hugo was raising by two hundred and fifty at each bid now, which meant that they were close to their limit – very close. Six bids, and they were out.

  Unsurprisingly, Damian's proposal came to mind.

  It hadn't been romantic, not even really sincere, but he had offered.

  She hadn't expected it: men hadn't exactly been knocking at her door. At University, in the street, they did everything they could to avoid interacting with her.

  “I mean, it's better than doing it with three strangers, right?” he'd said.

  Damn her pride. Had he asked with a little bit of enthusiasm, she wouldn't be in this predicament. She'd be married and living next door to her parents, with an up and coming pianist.

  No, she had been right to refuse. The kind of love her parents shared was worth it, worth anything she'd have to bare while waiting for it.

  And just then, as her mind shed the despair, resolving on determination, the boxes above lit up.

  Ruth had, with a morbid sense of dread, watched the Drafts on TV every year since she'd studied them at school, at age twelve, and while the cameras frequently returned to the seats constructed high above the City Stadium, they'd always been in the dark.

  She'd noticed them once and asked mum.

  “Every eligible man and woman has to attend the Drafts of their cities. That includes the Alfas.”

  Needless to say, there had never been any female Alfa on stage and those above them had never participated in any Draft.

  There could be a number of reasons why they'd reveal their presence now. At the top of her head, Ruth guessed that one of them might need the loo and couldn't see his way. There was a chance someone might be late. Maybe one had tripped and landed on the light switch?

  Likely, a little voice at the back of her mind said with all the sarcasm in the world.

  Alfas didn't trip.

  She told the voice to shut it and did her best to ignore the incident.

  No one else was, though: the auction had stopped as the contenders and the presenter gaped at the shadows now visible in the nine dimly lit boxes.

  “Hm. Right.”

  Hugo was staring at the control screen he held in his hand.

  “I have a... a bid from... I beg you pardon, I'm unsure of the procedure when...”

  His words fled as the entire stage shook under their feet.

  I'm going to be sick.

  The nausea had nothing to do with the fact that the floor was moving, slowly ascending, and everything to do with t
he certainty of finding herself utterly and quite literally screwed.

  When they were levelled with the seats, a voice greeted them.

  It was cold. It was detached. It was inhuman. Inhumanly low, suave and beautiful. Somehow, it delineated everything Alfas were.

  “Good evening Mr Welsh and 4-7-9” it said, before clarifying: “I'm afraid I haven't caught the lady's name.”

  As her otherwise verbose presenter seemed to have lost the ability of speech, she replied, without betraying half of her apprehension.

  “Ruth Sterling.”

  A pause ensued, followed by a curt “charmed.”

  Considering the lightening and the distance, she couldn't distinguish much, but one shadow, in the principal box, straight in the middle, rose and an instant later, a creature – she couldn't call this a man – jumped from their balcony onto the stage.

  No professional athlete would have managed that long jump, not without a hell of a runway, yet the thing crossed it effortlessly, reminding them all of what he was.

  Some said they'd come after the war – a result of mutations due to radiations – others talked of experiments performed on soldiers. Close to two centuries later, it didn't matter. The facts were, there was Regular humans and the Alfas who ruled them.

  They weren't the worst rulers, thankfully, as no human could hope to ever defy them and live to tell the tale. There were fools who still tried, without amounting to any success. When the Dissenters attacked, it was the Regulars who died.

  Ruth had seen more Alfas than most. They generally loved indulgence in all shape and forms: that included her mother's paintings, her father's performances. There was no call for the audible gasp that escaped her lips, but escape, it did, and many seconds passed until she thought to close her mouth.

  Right.

  Well, the only question left was what the hell did he want from her? And the answer wasn't sex, a child, or anything of that sort. The tall, lean predator whose clothes were doing a lousy job at hiding his muscular frame, did not need the Drafts. Wherever he walked in, he'd find women who would want to have his babies – or at least try.

  It was the mouth. And the eyes. The dark, deep green eyes, the... the whole freaking package.

  So: What. Did. He. Want. From. Her.

  He strolled towards her – there was no other word for it – and stopped a foot away. His hand cupped her jaw as he scrutinized her, from the tip of her toes, to her eyes, passing by every dips in her flesh.

  His thumb brushed across her lips and she felt right down to her inner muscles.

  “You did an awful job at hiding” he whispered in her ear. “A shame...”

  What, that he'd found her? He didn't make a blink of sense.

  When he released her face and walked away, she should have been relieved. Instead, she felt a strange, alien sense of deprivation, missing the touch.

  “I think you'll find” he told Hugo “that when one of us shows an interest, the lady gets a choice.”

  Funny how she thought she had made it, up until a few minutes ago. Her choice had been to remain herself, Ruth Sterling, for a few years, until she'd found that grand yet illusive picture she'd witness everyday at home. Until she'd find love. But they were fifteen hundred marks from the limit her mother had set. She was, by law, forbidden to use her own funds to influence the Drafts.

  “I offer ten thousands for a First Contract.”

  There was only word for it: disgusting.

  Year seven of the new era, when the fertility had been at its lowest, the rules of the Draft had been a return to the dark age, completely obliterating centuries of battle for equal rights of her sex. The woman didn't have to give herself once a month until the next draft or a pregnancy: they were bought and used as the owner saw fit until their heir was born. Any form of abuse was prohibited and severely punished in any other version of the Draftees' Contract.

  Correctly interpreting her utter abhorrence, the creature smiled – a cruel, frightening thing she wouldn't wish to see ever again – and clarified:

  “And that does mean ten thousands a month.”

  So as well as a slave, she'd get to be a whore.

  Whore to the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

  It should have been a clear, easy answer but there was one issue. Ruth had burnt her hair watching the fascinating dance of a flame too close as a child, she could spend hours looking at paintings and never tired of brushing her mothers long blue-black locks.

  The problem was her Achilles' heel: beauty.

  If she did the right thing, she would be a hero, at home and in the view of anyone who knew her. She would be the girl who'd taught the Alfas they weren't entitled to everything they were so good as to set their eyes on.

  There was no mistaking what they would say if she accepted.

  But if she said no, she might have to repetitively give the use of her body to a man of forty who might very well be intelligent, kind, but a man, nonetheless, to whom she wasn't attracted.

  She knew without the shadow of a doubt that the stranger below them was her best option, even as she nodded her acceptance to her new master.

  “You've completely lost your mind” his companion repeated, somewhat unnecessarily.

  It was obvious that what had occurred had had very little to do with his mind.

  “When I said we needed to kiss some Regs' asses, I didn't mean it literally.”

  He had known Lucian would think of the elections. There was little else occupying his mind since Seamus' death: winning his place as the next Regent of the European Kingdom.

  Xander didn't see the appeal: it was a tiring occupation no one seemed to outlive. He preferred the peace and quietness of the kingdom he reign over: his lab.

  As the head of the Research Department, Xander – and not whoever would be elected in two months – ruled the Alfas. He was the one single being able to prolong their lives and everyone who mattered knew it.

  Peace and quiet...

  There hadn't been much of either when he'd looked up from the games of cards he, Lucian, Rodrick and Klein had been engaged in and seen the girl.

  “I mean, she's hot...”

  “Shut it, Lucian.”

  The tone was curt and threatening, to his own surprise. Lucian and he had shared a fair number of conquests, Xander's current lover being the latest of the lot.

  Shit. He hadn't thought of Juliana.

  Xander, unlike Lucian, was monogamous, which meant that she had to go. She wouldn't like it. The woman didn't care enough to actually be hurt by his dismissal but she wouldn't take kindly to finding herself replaced by a Regular.

  “I just don't get it.”

  And he wouldn't have either, one hour and twenty six minutes ago, before he glanced down.

  Not a lot animated him anymore. He'd been twenty six when he'd turned into what he now was, and since, so many years had passed, so many faces had disappeared, places had been burnt to the ground and rebuilt; he had grown relatively indifferent to every pleasure, every distraction.

  Yet here he was, suddenly awoken, his eyes greedily following the little thing who nervously shifted from one foot to the next.

  She got him when she moistened her lip.

  “I'm going to be two centuries old this summer, Luce” he replied. “Live half so long and you might get me.”

  On that note, the Original Alpha got up. The Drafts were closing up and he had a contract to sign.

  Beyond Time

  Customer. There was a customer at the door! Aria practically tripped herself, getting up from the chair where she’d been reading a romance book, and skipping to the till, beaming up at him.

  She served a dozen customers per day around launch time; but it was barely past ten in the morning.

  Aria’s smile dropped; not because the person in front of her was a Xel; she was used to serving his kind in X-Press and her professional smile never dropped. They were alright, on a one on one basis. Most of them tipped more than her wee
kly salary with each order. It dropped because she couldn’t look at that man and simultaneously do anything else.

  He was a dick. That much was obvious. Why, otherwise, would he walk around practically naked? Yeah, that was drool on the corner of her mouth. That tanned, sculpted chest, the intricate, radiant tattoos, and the scars around them… If she’d launched herself at him and started licking his skin, she would have been perfectly justified. Then, there was his face. The long haired, green eyes hunk might have looked too pretty, if it wasn’t for the fresh scar on his jaw, the stubble, the… carelessness. He looked like a god and he didn’t give a fuck.

  Fuck… now there was an idea.

  “How can I help you?”

  His eyes lifted to her, and she did not squirm. Aria wasn’t one to be intimidated. She did not…

  Okay, she totally did, as would any man, woman, child, dog or turtle, confronted with that man.

  She’d taken one step back before consciously deciding to do so, getting him off her personal space.

  “I’m sure you can. Arianna, right?”

  That made her pause, because her name tag just said Aria.

  The man took a step towards her, put his large hands on her till, and leaned forward.

  “Is there any way we could talk for a minute? Alone.”

  She froze, knowing what it was about; no way was the timing a coincidence. She’d used her power for the first time in years yesterday and today, an alien turned up, calling her name?

  Well, that left her one option.

  Aria grabbed hold of the first suitable object she found around her - a tray - and launched it at his face, before jumping up the counter, to a round table nearby, and running for it.

  She had exactly one advantage - two second of surprise - and she couldn’t waste it; she considered attempting to make it to the busy avenue up the street, but the chance of success were slim so instead, she turned towards the road and leaped on top of a car, willing her heartbeat to slow down.