Her Broken Alpha - Isoellen Page 0,13

response.

"How many credits have I donated to your cause, Tenbel?"

"Lord Alpha, no need to stand on my account. No, indeed. Please, be easy. Let me assure you, my scribe keeps the books. Very good books we have, very good. He knows what comes in and what goes out. I give my time to the flock, you understand, to the broadcasts and spreading the truth of the First Alpha. Your generous contributions have been used carefully to further our cause—your cause."

Darre looked down at his nails. He'd let the black things grow after his father’s betrayal, had kept them oiled and sharpened. The surge of backwards genetics in his body had come as a surprise. The hate-tainted blood in his veins and saturation of breed hormones in his glands had changed him.

Claws were now an advantage as an alpha no one else could claim.

"What of this stable you have?" he asked.

Air escaped Tenbel as if Darre had punched him in the gut. "S-Stable?"

"I hear you have ten breed females in your care and a couple of healthy betas you have impregnated yourself. I had no idea you aspired to fatherhood. Ten females, eh? That's unheard-of wealth in a place like Sector 2, isn't it? More than most of the slumlords."

He glanced up at Tenbel before looking at the claws on his other hand. "More than any alpha in the sector."

"Lord Alpha, sir, I... The women are the bounty of the flock."

Darre's left-hand claws were perfect. Slightly hooked, they left nice, deep furrows behind in the flesh of men when used. "A bounty of pussy, eh?" He looked at the priest, waiting for his wobbly eyes to focus.

"Well, when people follow the Way of Truth, they come to understand the true place of the female, yes? In fact—in fact, Lord Alpha, Alpha Nothonal—I haven't forgotten all you have done. I haven't." The man was spitting and drooling with nervous energy.

Disgusting.

Darre wondered what he was doing that frightened the beta so much. Was he still growling? Disconnected from his own emotions as he was, broken over a hundred years ago, Darre didn't feel like he was contributing to the beta's nervousness.

Blanched and swallowing thickly, Tenbel must have been reading him differently. It wasn't as though Darre had decided whether to kill him or just beat him to a pulp yet. What reason did the bald beta have for anxiety?

This was an auspicious day, however. One could still mark it with a little blood to celebrate.

He let Tenbel see the vicious delight the thought gave him and sent him a grin.

"Sir, I hadn't a chance to tell you, but I brought you something unique. Something special. A gift. An offering for all you've done for the cause. As I told you, many young men are bringing their women with them when they turn to the Word, yes?"

Without Darre's permission, Tenbel scurried back to the door and opened it wide, motioning to someone outside. Darre heard the scuffle of feet and noises of female distress. Two men in black masks and robes invaded his space, dragging a dark-haired female between them.

The scent of her, spring violets and freshly baked sugar biscuits, told him she was an unmated omega breeder even before the men forced her to her knees between them and turned her hand so that he could see the two black dots and her registration number.

An offering indeed.

Sector 2 didn't have the fertility vaccine those two dots on her hand represented. Females born or stuck here by travel restrictions all fell prey to the cobweb virus. Locals were infertile.

Tenbel had brought him a baby-maker.

In the other sectors, a vaccination was given at two years of age, and the first dot inked with the first four numbers of her family's registration code.

A beta female would only have had one dot marking that she'd been vaccinated, and drone females weren't affected by the cobweb virus any longer, although history claimed the dwindling fertility of humans who birthed the breed dynamics and remapped humanity into different species.

A drone from the other sectors would only have a tiny star on her hand, evidence that her family had registered for the sector drone census and she'd received the common drone baby shots.

This precious female—with two dots, a number, and smelling of flowers and baked goods—didn't belong here.

He wanted to taste her.

Or kill her.

She did not belong here—not in this sector and not in his home. He didn't allow women in his tower, especially not one like her, an omega