by Aya DeAniege
There was a thump directly behind me and suddenly the intruders were back peddling. A hot body seemed to loom over me, which made me raise my hands a little higher in the air. I didn’t look as the predatory huff came by the side of my head. It was filled with annoyance at the stupid people, yet underneath it was an almost growl of delight.
Penelope launched herself into their midst like a dog chasing squirrels. They flung each other into her path to get away, but she didn’t seem to be trying to catch any of them, just scare them enough that they broke up and kept away from me. She was hardly trying to hurt them at all, just batting them around when they got too close.
A shot rang out.
The sound of it echoed off the stone that made up Blane’s estate. I thought I heard a bullet ricochet off the floor near me, and I jumped in place. There was that moment of terror, though, as I reached for my body, trying to find the bullet wound.
They said it took time, sometimes, for the body to realize that it was supposed to be dead, but I found nothing as I looked up.
Penelope’s body jerked as if yanked by an invisible hand. She stumbled back a step, almost falling on her face, but staggering there and trying to straighten once more.
As she did, I moved toward her. I had my hand on her as the others finally realized that they had weapons. Those guns levelled on me as I placed my hand over the wound on her shoulder. That much registered in my fear fogged mind.
Blood had to stay inside the body, and when in doubt, slap something over the wound to keep from bleeding out. A cloth would have had less chance of infection, but I didn’t have one with me, this was not a perfect world scenario.
What we did have was a mad scientist who could probably bring the dead back to life if he really set his mind to it. Surely, he would have a way to combat an infection.
Despite the guns on us, we went down as one. She almost looked like she fell, but there was something controlled about it. Her head didn’t bounce off the floor, it just sort of settled there. As if she had decided to lay down in the middle of a fight.
Penelope grinned, showing off some sort of capsule between her teeth. She crushed it with her teeth, settling her lips over her teeth, and then relaxed.
Did she just kill herself?
She was certainly limp like she had died. I looked up, at those around me. Startled surprise, that’s what it was. The intruders had known Penelope on sight, running from her. They would have known the risk of killing her.
The female Alphas were known to be more dangerous than the males, and they were reaching breeding age. They practically had an army of males ready to carry out whatever vendetta that came up, just for the chance at breeding.
I spotted one among the intruders that might have been an Alpha and let out a little, desperate sort of laugh.
Alphas brought guns to an Alpha fight.
“Get up,” the Alpha snapped.
I had laughed because he had known Penelope, but no one had told him about Rachel, or what she could do. He hadn’t been warned about the faeries. Either because they didn’t believe it, or they thought the others weak. Owen had been weak, that was how Rachel had broken him in her rage.
But few Alphas could resist our commands. We were to them, as they were to their companions.
“Sit,” I said, putting that edge to my voice, like I was talking to an annoying dog.
The Alpha frowned at me in confusion, but didn’t move.
Rachel had told me how to do that on purpose. She hadn’t quite been practiced, but she was getting a hang of it.
There was something about reaching maturity and being able to command Alphas, which separated us from the other G14s. To Alphas, a G14 wasn’t mature until they were in their twenties. There were few companions who were plucked up before the age of twenty-two besides the ones who volunteered. Which meant that we were just maturing, not even at our full strength of what we were capable of, and just learning how to order Alphas about.
But it took a great deal of something.
Rachel had that anger and hatred toward Alphas. She could turn it on and off at the flick of her hair.
Penelope’s blood, under my hand, had stopped flowing at some point. It no longer oozed up around my fingers and that one little drop down the side was just from the initial blood loss. Blood only moved when a heart was beating. There was no point keeping a hand over a wound that didn’t need that extra protection.
I stood, staring down at her.
“You made the mistake of bringing guns to an Alpha fight,” I said. “You might have stood a chance, otherwise.”
“Winning is all that matters.”
I turned to him and reached out. As I did, the others backed up suddenly.
So, they have been told about us.
They just didn’t give a damn, and that angered me. That they would attack women in Blane’s estate despite knowing exactly what we could do. They were doing it out of fear of what we might become, like so many hate filled zealots before them.
The Alpha bent away, disgust playing over his features as he batted at my hand. I followed after him, moving as he moved.
None of them wanted to touch me. They were probably afraid that I was Rachel, and that I’d break them if I had the chance. They weren’t wrong, if I could get my hands on one of them, I would have.
Except, they were so concerned with keeping away from me, that they didn’t notice the silent death slipping through their numbers.
I caught flashes out the corners of my eyes because I was watching for it, wondering where they were.
Gerrid and Blane grabbed the Alpha as one and both gave him a tug in opposite directions. He stopped as they held tight, looking around in confusion at the bodies of his men.
“More are coming,” the Alpha spat at Blane. “You can’t win, we’ll kill them all. All the women will die, as is right.”
“Gerrid, get them to the bunker, grab Matt as you go,” Blane said, his hand locked firmly on the man’s arm.
He hadn’t even broken a sweat. The Master glanced over at me, up and down my form and gave a little smile. It was an appreciative little thing, no hunger in his eyes. He almost seemed proud as he looked up again and met my eyes.
“You’re very useful. Know just how to move, to keep the attention of an Alpha focused entirely on you.”
“This is insanity,” I said.
“It is. Someone blew a hole in my home,” Blane said. “Da decorated that study, you just blew up the last vestiges of my father and you dare to sneer at me? Boy, you chose the wrong Master to challenge.”
The stranger sneered in response. He clearly had no love for Blane, or fear either. Alphas would sometimes attack those they feared, in the hopes of removing a threat. It wasn’t Blane, in this instance, that they feared, it was Rachel.
They hadn’t even heard what I could do. They probably assumed that I was still a broken mess somewhere, weeping my eyes out because my Alpha had been broken and stolen from me.
“You’ve had this coming a long, long time,” the Alpha said. “Making that whore a Dom? That was going to far.”
I marched up to the man and lashed out with my foot. The sound he made as he went down, hands on his groin, was imitated by Blane and Gerrid as they released him and covered themselves by crossing their arms and turning away. Their response was the sympathetic motion of men who knew just what that felt like, and how much it hurt.
As the stranger went down, I grabbed a handful of hair and jerked the Alpha’s head back up. His pain was coloured with anger, the type of anger that was turning into a boiling rage quite quickly. He glared up at me as I bared my teeth and snarled in response.
They understood the flash of teeth and the sneer. What they didn’t understand was a finger shaken at their noses, but I still shook that finger. When his mouth opened to try to bite me, I flicked him on the tip of his nose, eliciting a startled response.
Suddenly, he didn’t know what to do with me.
“My si
ster, Rachel, is the Dom,” I said, pulling on his hair until he reached for my wrist. “I am not Rachel. If she was here, she would have broken you. Made you a footstool to go alongside Owen.”
As if saying her name called her, Rachel appeared at my side. She sucker punched the Alpha I was holding, then gave him a hard kick to the stomach. I was left holding a handful of hair.
Grimacing, I opened my hand and rubbed at my palm with my fingers to get the last strands off.
“He’s down, Rachel,” Blane said. “What happened to your face?”
“They’ve infiltrated on at least four points,” Abraham said as he came toward us. “She held quite well for not being an Alpha. Penelope?”
“I’m good,” she groaned. “I hurt so much.”
At her words, I stiffened. Slowly, I turned toward the female Alpha, who grinned up at my with her eyes closed.
“Guess we’ll find out if my wonder drug has any effect on fertility or growth,” Blane muttered.
“What?” I turned to Penelope. “I watched you die.”
“You watched me play dead,” she said in an annoyed fashion as she sat up, hand on her shoulder. “We’re traditionalists, not stupid. Someone brings guns to a fight, we bring our own tech. If they’re here on four points, they probably hit Morgan, Abraham, here, and your rooms. They might have Matt.”
“You’re down and out,” Blane said to Penelope.
“Fair enough, are you going to call in security?” she asked.
Abraham produced his phone and walked off, making a phone call. Blane looked down at the Alpha on the floor, curled up in a ball of misery. His look was something that I couldn’t even begin to describe. Whatever it was, I hoped that he never looked at me like that.
“Great,” he snarled. “Now we need to be punching bags for you two. He should have been up and raging. Don’t kick an Alpha in the balls unless you want to die!”
“Clearly, I can kick an Alpha in the balls,” I said.
I then motioned down to the Alpha as evidence of that fact. Of course, I could do that. He went down pretty fast, and he stayed down.
While I understood what Blane meant, that Alphas typically came up swinging and in a furious rage after such a thing, that particular Alpha didn’t look like he was going anywhere anytime soon.
“Yeah,” Rachel said. “You kick anyone in the groin hard enough, it’s going to hurt.”
“I’m not denying that it hurts,” Blane said. “I’m saying they get angry and—”
The Alpha on the floor lunged for Rachel suddenly. She kicked him in the face as Gerrid grabbed him by the back of his jacket. Gerrid slammed the Alpha into the floor as Rachel snarled and jabbed a finger at Blane.
Blane watched her for a moment as Rachel’s features screwed up in pain. He raised an eyebrow as if asking her if she were done.
“Kicking someone in the face is like kicking a rock,” he said.
“You could have stopped him!” she protested.
“Yes, I saw it happening and didn’t stop it,” he said with a shrug.
“Peter is coming,” Abraham said, coming back to us. “You’ve got a couple of hiding places in here, right, Blane?”
“Safe rooms, of course,” he said. “Gerrid, take the women with you. I need to go find Matt.”
“I can help,” Gerrid said.
“No, you can’t,” Blane said sternly. “Do as I tell you.”
“What about Abraham?” Gerrid countered.
“He’ll be fine. Go.”
Chapter Thirteen
Gerrid made a face, but motioned to Rachel and me. He moved around us and slipped his arm around Penelope to help her move.
Blane and Abraham stayed in the entrance hall, talking quietly over the prone body of the Alpha. I wasn’t certain if the Alpha was still alive or not. Something about a foot to the head at full speed just didn’t sound like what a body could survive. Even the resilience of an Alpha could only go so far.
Down the hall on the first level, we turned a corner at a motion from Penelope and hobbled a little ways down the new hallway.
“Wait,” Penelope said.
Gerrid pulled to a stop and looked around. The only door near us was that of a closet. It had one of those folding doors like a linen closet. He frowned at the door, then adjusted Penelope’s weight and looked at her.
“That’s a closet,” he said. “I know, I checked.”
I wanted to know why Gerrid had checked for safe rooms in Blane’s home. There was a nagging feeling at the back of my mind that he hadn’t done it to help out in case of emergency. I felt like he had done it to know where to go when he started something. He wanted to know where everyone would go to hide, that way he could do a proper purge of the estate.
Alphas are crazy.
“The safe rooms you found are just the public ones,” Penelope said, groaning as she pulled away from Gerrid. “The estate is centuries old, you really think they built them easy enough to be found?”
She opened the closet door and then seemed to disappear. We stood outside the closet, with the door blocking our view for a minute. Whatever Penelope did, she didn’t come back out.
Gerrid looked in, then motioned to us. Rachel then motioned for me to go first. I slipped into the closet and looked down first. I half expected there to be a set of steps that just appeared.
The floor was solid.
Looking up, I turned and found the left wall of the closet, which had been hidden from our view by the door, had been moved to the side. Beyond the doorway was a set of steel steps leading down.
Down implied a bunker, not a safe room. A safe room could be located anywhere. Alphas, during the last government, hadn’t lived in fear of being bombed. At least not as far as I was aware. That didn’t mean that they weren’t prepared.
For all I knew, the reason that they weren’t concerned about being bombed was because they all had bunkers built to withstand a nuclear missile.
I stepped through the opening and immediately went down the steps on the other side. There was a handrail built into the wall, I kept my hand on that. No need to go stumbling down the steps at a time like that.
Gerrid and Rachel entered behind me, and I heard the wall slide back into place. Then the clunk of metal as another door closed.
“I didn’t check the walls,” Gerrid said in embarrassment. “Just the back. Who the hell thought of building that in the side?”
“Granda,” Penelope said. “Story goes, the contractors were never happy to do it, but he found some eventually who did it without complaint. Money eventually shuts everyone up.”
The room was small compared to all the other rooms in the estate. In the back corner was a little closet with the door closed, and right beside it a bathroom with the door standing open.
A tiny bathroom, toilet, sink, and just enough room for a small shower from the look of it. There were cots hanging on the walls, waiting to be pulled down for the occupants. In one corner was a couch, in another a dining table by a counter with a microwave on it. There was a little bookcase by the couch, with books and a few games on it, to pass the time in the room and fend off boredom.
Not even a hyperactive child could compare to a bored Alpha, I had been told. I wasn’t certain how true that saying was, but I was glad that some form of entertainment had been offered, considering the fact that we couldn’t just excuse ourselves to another room.
The walls were painted a creamy white and were bare besides the cots. There was nothing on the floor at all, just the grey, cold tile underfoot. Real tile, to withstand the tests of time and allow easier cleanup.
The room was the least decorated one I had seen in the estate up until that point. Even the closet had been painted.
Not the safe room, though.
No one saw that room except to update the technology, and I had a nagging feeling that the Alphas did that work themselves rather than trust someone else with blueprints to their estates. If they did hire out, they had a contractor fo
r each of the safe rooms to prevent any one person from knowing too many of their secrets.
At the bottom of the steps, Gerrid pushed us a little further into the room and turned, pressing something on the wall. Yet another door slid closed and locked into place. This one was made of metal and moved slowly, as if it were thick and heavy.
“Please tell me that is overkill,” Rachel said.
“It’s you specifically they are after,” Gerrid said.
He said it in a tone as if she should be thankful for that level of protection. It might have also been a tone meant to prepare her for another fight, that the door might not have been enough.
As Rachel watched Gerrid, he cast a quick look to Penelope, but the female Alpha was leaning on the counter by the microwave, clearly still in pain.
“But that’s still overkill, right?”
“No, that’s probably not going to hold them, once they know where we are,” he said.
“You aren’t a bloodrage?” Penelope asked.
“Not all who have killed a man are boodrages,” Gerrid said, looking to the door. “The real question is if this door will stop Blane, and how much of Abraham will be left when he’s done?”
“Abraham and Peter are both bloodrages, that’s how they started working together,” Penelope said. “I didn’t assume that your kill count is zero, but among the male Alphas, it seems a great many of those who are in the higher ranks have done that and had to pull themselves back. It’s like something about it makes them better leaders. I’ll never understand.”
“No, no you won’t,” Gerrid said quietly.
There was a bit of hesitance in his answer. A kind of sadness, or a hollowed out sound as he answered that made me feel as if he were a hundred miles away.
Bloodrage was a term coined by the general population for Alphas who had gone to war and then snapped. Or not quite snapped, so much as went temporarily mad. Something had happened and they had gotten so overwhelmed by emotion that they blacked out. When they came to, there was a field of destruction around them.