Her Broken Alpha - Isoellen Page 0,58

words when a wave of masculine reassurance washed over her. Monster. He felt her through their bond. Her emotions and lack of confidence had reached him, and he’d answered with an outpouring of comfort.

His response melted her. Fortified her. Rubbing her chest over her heart, she cleared her throat. "How long were you a servant in that man's parish?"

Sara's smile was grim. "Slave, Miss. We are slaves. Not paid, no choices, no will of our own."

Naya straightened her shoulders. "It's wrong. Horrible. I have heard of factions who want to enslave all drones, saying they deserve it for first engineering and creating breed in their labs. I don't agree. That was over a thousand years ago, and much has been done to humanity since. We must learn to live with our biological differences.

“Apologies aren't enough from me, so I'm not going to offer them. Just know I don't agree with slavery. Not that it really matters."

Sara looked Naya in the eye. "I shouldn't be talking this way with you, Miss. I could be killed for it—beaten."

"You won't be. But Sara…" Naya stopped herself, thinking carefully. "If you cannot find it in your heart to be loyal, to trust me, then it would be better if you go now."

Sara laughed, brisk and harsh. "I don't want to go. Forgive me. The last twenty-four hours I've felt safer than I have my entire life. I'm a bit lost with it. My tongue gets away with me."

"I prefer your loyalty and your honest tongue. How long were you at the parish?"

"Three years, miss. My last master lost a pit fight and I was sold."

Naya asked questions, trying to find out about Sara's life. She wanted to know her as a person. It would go a long way toward helping them trust each other.

Not born a beauty, Sara has spent much of her life doing menial tasks. She’d spent time hauling water, working in gardens, and sewing clothing. Naya asked her if she would be able to help her make clothing, and she offered a confident smile.

"It's one of the tasks I enjoy doing, sewing. I made a few of the dresses for Tenbel's ladies." She frowned. "Poor girls. He wanted them dressed like he imagined a harem of ready breeders would look. Then I see you, all modest and proper—not what he envisioned at all."

Naya didn't feel modest or proper.

The drones had found her a long scarf she used to cross over her chest and tie at her back in an effort to give her breasts some support. When she’d realized earlier in the day that Monster's intense attention had made her chest extra sensitive, binding them became a priority she wouldn't put off.

While it helped a little, it didn't feel proper. She wore the scarf under another of Monsters shirts, this one made of soft leather, gaping at the neck down to her navel and hanging like a dress to her knees.

She kept reaching up to pinch the neck closed so that the sheer scarf covering her chest wasn't hanging out for all to see.

With Monster about his business, she also braided her hair, but her curls had gone wild and frizzy. A braid couldn't contain the mess of it. She needed conditioning cream.

Her mother would have had a heart attack if she saw her youngest daughter's appearance, and her older sister would have laughed for days.

"No breeder I know would tolerate a harem or share space with other women. They'd have to be forced," Naya said with a frown. "It's not in an omega breeder's nature to share. We are as territorial as alphas. More so, because we invite the alpha into our space and not vice-versa. That man did not understand breeders."

"It was in his book. But that was all make-believe anyway. There were passages about how the faithful would become fruitful and multiply, and their children would be the strongest and most beautiful in the land," Sara said.

"I'd like to read that book." A book that made breeders out to be willing brothel workers? What fantastic drivel, Naya thought.

"It promised everything they ever wanted for themselves and their future. Just follow the way of truth and life comes together like ripe fruit to the hand."

Monster had asked if Crispin could have betrayed her—uniquely gentle Crispin, first-born son of her father's faithful, longtime friend and Second. Father and son had both been in the house the night she was stolen, waiting for her estrus to begin. There had also been