by May Sage
“I see my companion, thank you,” she told the steward, before crossing the room, doing her very best to ignore the murmurs and the looks directed her way.
She was shocked when Alexander stood up at her approach, a hand outstretched. She gave him hers and gasped when he kissed its palm, before leading her to her chair.
“You're breathtaking today.”
That did the job, reminding her that she wasn't in the middle of a fairytale. Flattery rolled off her back like rain on a duck.
“I take it I wasn't yesterday.”
She opened the menu which could as well have been written in hieroglyphs, for all she knew. The fancy names meant nothing to her, and only served to aggravate her. Halfway through the starters, she closed it with some annoyance. The names were foreign, posh, designed to remind anyone who weren't used to them that they didn’t belong there.
It wasn’t like she could forget. She wasn't meant for empire dresses, heels, and stupid suspenders belt. She wasn't meant for him.
“You're angry,” he observed, without raising his eyes from the menu.
“Which makes you psychic.”
“Observant,” he corrected. “You're breathing is rather quick and as you're not aroused nor frightened, I'm settling on angry.”
“That’s a little freaky.”
“I am most certainly a freak,” he said. “Would you like me to order for you?”
“I would like you to get to the point.”
“Now isn't the time or the place for getting to the point, Ruby” he answered suggestively. “Although the idea merits some consideration.”
“Ruth,” she spat, angrier by the minute. “And the point would be, what you'd like from me.”
“I thought we already had this discussion. I'm very open to conversations, but you should know, I'm not very fond of repeating myself.”
“If you'd like a child and nothing else, how about artificial insemination? It has better results than intercourse.”
That got his attention.
He looked up and finally pushed the menu aside.
“Because I have bought your vagina as well as your uterus and I shall use both as I see fit.”
After close to two centuries, even he had learnt something akin to patience but this woman was shredding it. Why had he asked her out for dinner? He should have told her to get her damn fine ass to his house and get on with the point.
“At least tell me what you expect of me. Your contract isn't exactly specific.”
He expected to fuck her senseless, until he grew tired of it.
“I'm not sure as yet.”
“I have a life. An interview on Monday and then, with a bit of luck, a job five nights a week for a month.”
Five nights a week? She was kidding. She must be kidding.
For one, girls like her didn't need the kind of lowly jobs available at night – waiting, cleaning... other things...
And the nights were supposed to be his. Surely she'd expected him to want her every night, at least at first?
“No.”
“What do you mean?”
“No, because I am your job at night, Ruby.”
“It’s Ruth!” she repeated, rising to a shout. “And I am not giving up everything I've been working for for your convenience.”
“You'll find that it's exactly what you did.”
That did shut her up.
Xander should have liked her sudden compliance.
After staring at him, she closed her mouth for good. That wasn't exactly accurate: when he asked if she liked the soup, she answered yes, and when he remarked she should eat more of her main dish, she said no. Otherwise, she remained silent, ashen, broken and he was surprised to discover that he didn't like it at all.
“What's the job you've applied for?” he surprised himself by asking on their way out.
“Nothing of importance.”
He'd done this. She was still so beautiful he couldn't look her way without wanting her, but the light he'd been so drawn to had completely shut off and he had done this.
“Go, pass the interview. We'll speak about our schedule later.”
She nodded, but nothing in her stance or the emotion painted on her face changed.
It wasn't that he had taken what mattered in her life. It was the realization that he could.
Although everything in him recoiled at the idea of letting her go, he did just that, dropping her off at her house after dinner. She was visibly confused, and he said no words to ease her mind, unable to come up with an explanation himself. He had no idea what he was doing.
All he knew was that, to his annoyance, she’d wordlessly made him realize that she had feelings. That she was a woman – a human being, not a female. A person he could break.
He sighed and closed his eyes, trying to think rationally for the first time in twenty-four hours.
He needed time to get his mind straight. The party he supported had an election to win, as Lucian had reminded him a thousand times. Their campaign had been based on treating regulars with respect – something he firmly believed in. Yet, he’d bought one, when they promised to abolish the Drafts. Yet, he’d subdued her, when she’d asked for nothing but the most basic form of freedom; the right to work. The possessiveness he felt towards her had robbed him of his ability to think clearly, and it would harm more than her, if he didn’t regain control.
Five months. The elections would be held in five months; he could leave her alone until then, and attempt to regain hold of his senses in the meantime. He’d lived three hundred and thirty years; five months were nothing.
So why did it feel like he’d sentenced himself to a millennia of torment?
News
Ruth liked to run, first thing in the morning, starting out so early she always caught the rise of dawn. She pushed herself as far as she could, torturing her muscles and burning her lungs, which had always served to ease her body as well as her mind. Today, it didn't work. If she was entirely honest, it hadn't worked for months now.
It had been a month since the Drafts; an entire month, and she’d heard no word from Alexander. At first, Ruth had been confused, and more dejected than she cared to admit; also, very pissed at herself for feeling that way. She should count her blessings.
She’d spent so many nights staring at her ceiling, wondering what the hell that damn Alpha wanted from her. Nothing, by the looks of it. One moment, he was acting like he’d planned on chaining her to his bed and keeping her there – which admittedly, had pissed her off to no end, and the next, he dropped her off. Alexander never made a move on her that night, and he hadn’t called her to him since; for some reason, he’d changed his mind and had suddenly decided he didn't want anything to do with her.
How she hated herself for caring.
It had taken a week, at most, for her to realize what was happening.
She’d kept busy, focusing on her audition at the theatre, and then, when she’d been hired, she’d had to juggle the mandatory work she did at the chemist lab, her time spent at Lowtown, and her new job. But finally, the ball dropped, when she caught the morning papers.
There she was, right in the front page, under an obnoxious title she wasn’t even acknowledging. She’d stared in disbelief, before shaking her head, and chuckling humourlessly.
Of course. She should have thought of it; there was only one reason why he would have picked her; to make his party look favorable somehow. It didn't make a blink of sense to her, as his party was against the Drafts, from what she knew of it; but then again, she didn't understand much about politics. All she knew that was that the man was heavily involved in the campaigns – she’d looked him up at the library and the server had found pictures of him at each event held by the New Reign.
The paper she’d quickly scanned on her way to work said something about him rescuing her, but leaving her alone, and she couldn’t deny either of those things. But if he had bid on her to make himself look like a white night, why a first contra
ct? What had his attitude been about, at the restaurant? It was giving her headaches.
The following week, she was approached by a journalist for the first time. There were laws in place that made it impossible for them to hassle her out of the blue, so she was impressed by the woman’s guts – she walked right to her in the street, and said, “Look, if you want me to go away, just say so, I’m happy to. But I’ve read dozens of articles about your Alpha over the last ten days, and they all repeat the same assumptions. I figured it would be nice to print the truth, for once.”
Ruth was too startled to say much, but the woman was smart, starting with a straightforward, “Does he abuse you?”
“What? No! I don’t even see him.”
The woman nodded, her expression relaxing. She’d really looked as though she’d cared.
“Right. Did he tell you why he bid on you?”
Ruth shrugged, as the words she never quite forgot run around her mind. Yes, he’d told her, explicitely. She wasn’t going to share, though.
“Here’s my thought. Don’t worry, I won’t print it. You’re a Sterling. You’re our Siren. People in this city care about you; I don’t know you, and I care. This was just a political stunt… and it will work.”
Ruth didn’t know what to reply; she knew her family had a certain standing; their work in Lowtown could hardly go unnoticed. And yes, if such a thing existed, she would have been the Regular’s Siren, she had been for the last twenty years or so.
The tradition had started in the dark age, sometime after the Last War, before their ancestors left their bunkers. They’d had minimal use of technology; electricity had been a luxury, a finite resource, so in each underground bunker, the Haute had named a Siren – a woman who’d sing each night, before curfew. No such thing was needed nowadays, but they Haute still elected a Siren every year – the singer who sang at weddings, funerals, and whatever ceremony they deemed important.
The Regulars never had their own singer, but as children did, Ruth had started singing along with the faint melody they could hear from their part of town, at age five. What she hadn’t known at the time was that her voice had been stronger than most; growing up listening to her father’s violin, and learning music because she’d learned to read and write, was bound to pay off.
People indulged her, clapping at her. They encouraged her to sing at each event, probably because they couldn’t quite make out the sound of the real Siren the Haute had chosen. They got used to it, and while it had embarrassed her for the last decade or so, she’d carried on singing for them.
Her parentage and the fact that she made a fool of herself every other week meant most people knew her; she’d never thought they actually liked her all that much, though. Ruth didn’t have many friends; in fact, she couldn’t count one, apart from Rachel.
“Don’t give me that look. You’re the darling of Dome,” the woman said, rolling her eyes, “No way was that a coincidence.”
Ruth flushed, and nodded her agreement. If what the journalist said was true – if people really cared about her, then all of a sudden, it all made sense.
And she should have been happy about finally having a logical explanation.
“I actually support the New Reign. I don’t know if they intend to do half of what they promise, but if they do, the world will be a better place. So, if we’re on the same page, help me make my article sound good.”
She’d liked her no-nonsense approach, but Ruth didn’t have much to say. She bit her lip, before asking, “What do you want?”
“Do your best. If I’m supposed to make this farce sound like something people can get behind, I need something to go on. Just give me an angle. Anything would do.”
Nice save
“Genius. This is fucking genius.”
Xander bit back a groan, wishing people would just leave it the fuck alone.
Yes, it was genius. No he didn’t have anything to do with it and pretending otherwise just pissed him off.
He had nothing to do with the latest turn of events. Xander had stayed away from Ruth, keeping her out of sight and pretending to keep her out of mind too. But doing so after today was pure torture. She’d had to go and do stuff like that, saving his skin.
The last month had been a nightmare. Politics had kept him out of his lab most days, and he couldn’t even complain about it, as he’d created the mess. Bidding on a Regular had made him some sort of a punchline amongst his peers – some openly laughed at him, others wondered if he was losing his mind. But the Traditionalists used and abused his actions to denounce the duplicity of the New Reign. He couldn’t say he hadn’t seen that one coming; and there was no point blaming them; he had been a complete hypocrite.
They hadn’t seen any way to tip the scale back, but then she happened.
Xander hadn’t believed his eyes when he’d read the article online first thing in the morning; hours later, he still didn’t.
There was no denying that she knew exactly what she was doing – helping him. If she’d wanted to, she could have used his words, and spun a very different tale.
A journalist who’d signed as A. Grayer had asked her to comment on her Drafts; reading that bit, Xander had frozen, seeing the impending doom of his party, but instead, Ruby – the woman who mistrusted, and perhaps even hated him – had replied, “I'm very lucky. Alexander is a little overbearing perhaps,” a understatement, given the way he’d acted with her, “but he’s also kind, and patient with me.”
The journalist then merrily proceeded to wave a completely fictitious tale saying that the woman had blushed and looked enamoured. Recalling her glare, her haughty, mistrusting expression, he highly doubted either, but the media had a way to spin things as they liked. The journalist was on their side, and apparently, so was Ruby.
He owed the woman; big time.
Reading the rest of the article, Xander fell further into disbelief. This was perfect.
To believe the article, Ruby apparently was some sort of a Regular celebrity.
Most know Ruby Ruth for the many times she’s sung for us, but the town sweetheart also volunteers daily at the Sterling Foundation. The foundation has, up until now, been financed by her parents, but the rumors say that Ruby has gifted most of the proceeds of her Drafts to feed and aid the inhabitants of Lowtown.
Needless to say, the odds had skyrocketed in their favour over the last few hours. They couldn’t have come up with anything better if they’d invented it themselves; but it rang true. It fit with everything he’d noticed on that first night; the house, the clothes – costly, but worn.
Fuck. He’d unknowingly picked the most popular woman of Dome.
Lowtown
He wasn't sure what he was doing there; maybe he’d needed to see it for himself, trying to see just how much about that damn article had been fabricated.
His feet wandered the quiet streets – it was the middle of the day and most people of Dome were working, studying, or doing whatever else was penciled in on their schedule. People were expected to spend quite a few hours being productive, which was what made charitable organizations few and far between. No one had the time for them.
But there she was, her dark hair tied up in a bun, wearing plain grey clothes, and smiling innocently as she distributed food to a grim, miserable crowd that made him want to kick something.
He knew about the lowtowners, of course. Everyone did. They were those no one could – would – make use of. Those who’d been unfit to work, or otherwise useless to society, at first. When the Haute had cast them out to Lowtown, refusing entry to the rest of the city to those who didn’t have a pass, they’d expected them to die out. At the time, it had seemed like a cruel, brutal, but necessary solution, just like the Drafts. They didn’t have the resources to support those who couldn’t pull their weight.
The issue was that they had survived, and now, it was their children, and their children’s children living in the abandoned buildings, remnants of the world he’d been born into. T
here were skyscrapers and glass buildings in Lowtown, only, no one had maintained them for the last three hundred years and they were falling apart. They would have destroyed them, if no one had lived there.
Lowtown was dangerous; young Regulars and Elite alike spent their free evenings there, and every other week, there was an incident reported to the Guard. Murders, muggings, rapes. When he’d come here, he’d first intended to give her a lecture. Didn't she know how many people ended up dead and that part of town? Didn’t she realize how dangerous it was to stand so close to desperate people who might steal from her, or hurt her? But now he was there, looking around, he didn't see any enemies; all he saw were poor, tired men, women and children, who couldn’t seem more grateful.
Ruth, and the handful of volunteers, who stood out like a sore thumb amongst the dirty crowd, didn’t seem worried at all. She was smiling at an old man, as she thrust a bowl of soup into his wrinkled hands.
He’d never seen her smile. Of course, it disappeared the moment she turned and saw him.
Shock was apparent on her features, but after a beat, she walked towards him, stopping to say something to another volunteer as she passed her by.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, her tone making him smile.
Looked like he had recalled her temperament quite accurately. Right now, she sounded almost threatening.
Well, that was the question of the day, wasn’t it. He’d like to know himself.
“You might have bought me, but this,” she said, gesturing to the large tent under which she and the rest of the volunteers had set up their makeshift canteen, “is out of limits.”
“Retract your claws,” he replied, holding his hands up in sign of surrender, “I don’t intend to bite today.”
He knew they’d started off on the wrong foot – mainly because he’d bought her, and then insulted her – but a month of thinking about it had made him far less likely to mess it up again.