Her Broken Alpha - Isoellen Page 0,12

yes? What can I do for you today?" he repeated, filling the silence.

"How go your conversion efforts, priest?" Darre asked mildly.

The man threw his shoulders back. "Oh, Lord Alpha, sir, we have been sending updates via your man. The admi-stream, as you know, has given me access to all sectors. The lost ones keep trying to silence us, but truth will not be silenced. Small underground congregations are forming. Many young men are seeing the light and leading the way, bringing their females with them."

"How many congregations? How many young men? Are they finding their enlightenment and forgoing their king's duty? Isn't that what you told me—that your faithful would become runners?"

Darre eyed the bottle. Empty. Was everything so empty? It was good while it lasted, but gone so quick that it felt like a waste of his time.

Tenbel tried and failed to meet Darre's gaze. The bald beta had the mucked-up aspirations of being an alpha and thought his intelligence was enough to be a leader. A self-styled big-time priest, Tenbel and a couple of his cronies had created a whole belief system from scratch. But he had not an ounce of strength to inspire even a single alpha to follow them.

Because Tenbel was a follower. It was in his genes.

Darre had known better than to trust a beta to start a spiritual insurrection. Insurrections required leaders. Alpha brawn. But no alpha would come up with such bullshit, much less believe in it or follow it. Alphas were simple creatures in that regard; they did not believe what they couldn't see, needed proof of it before their eyes, and would not follow any who couldn't pin them in the dirt.

There were plenty of betas who would. And that, unfortunately, seemed to be what Tenbel had gathered in his underground congregations.

Discontented, whiny little betas who wanted to be reborn as something else.

"Unfortunately, I'm not seeing much evidence of this success,” Darre said at last.

"Alpha, sir, I must say, we have been working hard to spread the message. But as you know, there is the permanent travel ban from this sector. I would be able to do much more if I could cross sector lines."

Which was a roundabout way of blaming Darre for his troubles. There was a rumbling of disapproval in Darre's head.

Tenbel's eyes started to dart back and forth, rolling about like balls in a box, a game Darre had played as a child. Seeing the man's sudden fear, Darre realized his growl had been audible.

Though Tenbel had promised Darre young men and women who would be ready to stand against Administration law, the reports showed something very different: Tenbel was spending his time and energy on his personal goals.

Darre wanted men ready to die on a king's sword to prove that they were true believers. It didn't matter what they shouted, as long as they were willing to storm the border Rhineholth had erected around Sector 2.

Men stripped of civility devolved into raiders and barbarians, their inner thugs unleashed. Men just like Darre.

Tenbel's growing crowd of followers might be useful for something, though—a good meat shield for the true fighting men, if nothing else. After all, the beta population outnumbered the alphas almost five to one. No one would miss the worthless creatures.

As long as Tenbel's faithful used their bodies and spilled their blood to bring down the empire Rhineholth had built, Darre didn't care what they believed.

Results weren't too much to expect. He'd been helping Tenbel and his disciples for several years now, making it easier for them to communicate with friends in other sectors, easier to spread disinformation and sow rumors.

Unfortunately for the priest, enrollment in the King's school and the King's army had held steady with population growth. These were not the kind of numbers Darre wanted after all his output of coin.

Tenbel bobbed in a series of girlish curtsies, his neck cranked to the side in submission as he breathed in the scent of Darre's displeasure. He looked about ready to piss himself.

"Well, Lord Alpha, it takes time to cleanse minds of the Administration indoctrination and the poor influence of family. It takes time to make them understand that truth is worth dying for. But I assure you, the underground meetings—"

"Are little more than beta orgies," Darre interrupted. "I've given you time. Plenty of time. Are you wasting that time, Tenbel?"

Standing, he walked out from behind his desk and leaned a hip casually against the corner of it. Tenbel squeaked, unable to form a