Her Broken Alpha - Isoellen Page 0,43

temple. "These are just the drones."

They were just drones. Just alive. Just sentient beings with needs, wants, and desires like her own. She wasn't sure he disagreed. His muscles went rigid from the stress levels in the room. These battered, abused drones made him uncomfortable.

In another room, there were more women. Breeds.

They were better-dressed, although their revealing clothing focused on the males who looked at them and not decent covering. They appeared better-fed, able to maintain their feminine shapes. Scrubbed faces, arranged hair, on the surface these women seemed to be faring better at the hands of Tenbel-until she looked into their haunted eyes.

Oddly, they all wore the same yeasty cinnamon perfume. It was applied so thickly it drowned their natural beta pheromones. It reminded her of the smell of some omega breeders she had met before.

Monster spoke to them over her head, his tone impatient. He didn't want to be in this room any more than he had the last one.

"What do you know of my kidnapped breeder?"

The breed women were not any braver than the drones. With only four rickety wooden chairs in the space, most were sitting on the bare concrete floor, short skirts exposing their legs. Huddled together as a group, they flinched as one when Monster spoke.

A rough noise escaped him. One woman whimpered like he'd hit her.

"Tell me." he demanded.

He would make them soil themselves in fear. Naya set her teeth in the line of his jaw, applying a gentle nip followed by a kiss.

"Monster,” she whispered.

He'd warned her not to interfere with how he did things, but he wouldn't get any answers if he terrified them so much they couldn't talk.

"I woke up in a shipping crate after falling asleep at home in my nest," she told them from her place nestled in his arms. "I don't think I've ever met the black-robed men before. I don't know how or why I am in this sector. Did he talk about me? I'm a registered breeder. I was getting ready for my marriage. That hateful man seemed like the type of male to brag about his conquests."

"Can you help us?" a pregnant blonde asked. Her belly was rounded beneath her short, low-cut wrap dress. "I'm registered. I don't belong here."

"None of us want to be here,” another said. She had a long oval face with and a thin nose. In other circumstances, she would be pretty with a sophisticated air, but her palpable anxiety and sadness pulled her lips down and aged her.

"What's your name? Where do you belong?" Naya asked the pregnant woman.

"I'm Isdorrie. I'm from Sector 7. I woke up here four months ago. I'd heard of the black robes, though. My brother was listening to a broadcast. I think he must be why I'm here. He liked the things Tenbel said.

“Can you get me home? Tenbel talked about an omega. I think last week? He didn't visit me as much now that I'm pregnant. He let the others come, and they only talk about—"

"What did he say?" Monster asked.

"He said he would get a prize that would win the Mad Monster's favor and distract him at the same time,” the girl answered weakly, tipping her head to the side to show her neck.

"Distract him from what?" Monster wanted to know.

"Some plan to get more women? I'm not sure."

"It was more women,” the long-faced woman spoke up. "Tenbel's Great Alpha would reward his disciples with women in this life and the afterlife. He used to make us listen to this book he read from—some dick fantasy. We are bait to turn alphas and betas in this sector into an army the way his Great Alpha did."

"He wanted to keep you, breeder,” a small voice said. “His scribe, Louis, convinced him to stick to the plan. I came in a box too. Just woke up in that place, in the sector of the damned. I couldn't have guessed it would be like this anywhere in the 12 Sectors. I thought they were united. But this place?"

She was sitting folded up against the wall, wearing a sheer purple wrap dress. With her face turned to the wall, she hid her identity, her youth, and her fear, but everyone could hear everything in her voice.

She sounded very young. Since betas didn't have a heat cycle, they often waited until their twenties or later to form marriage contacts. Their biology gave them more freedoms. Unless someone stole those freedoms from them.

"I'm pregnant now too. No one