Her Broken Alpha - Isoellen Page 0,6

husband-mate," Phee said with a sigh.

Naya looked at the extra cup on the untouched tray. "Would you like some water? Some of the night draught?"

"No, I don't want to fall asleep before we get home. I can get something there." She passed Naya, touching her shoulder and meeting her eyes with a gentle expression.

"All right, Phee. Thank you," Naya said.

Chapter Two

Naya

Naya woke in darkness.

The air, stale and unmoving, made it feel like nothing was getting to her lungs. She couldn't breathe.

Where was she? What was this? There was darkness and then sharp light. Heat, then wet cold.

She blinked. Tree branch arms and claws were reaching toward her. She tried to scream, but no sound came out.

A nightmare. It must be a nightmare.

Then her body jerked out of the darkness and into the light.

Three men dressed in black surrounded her like crows descending. The light felt oily and yellow.

She'd wanted it desperately when she was in the dark, but now it burned her. She heard words, knew the language, but the sounds bounced around inside her skull uselessly like the other strange, disorienting sensations. All sensory input skewed and splintered.

Was she drowning? This was intense. Terrifying. She wanted to scream, but couldn’t. Wanted to see, move, do something, but a heavy weight pressed in on her, trapping her.

Hands groped at her arms, shoulders, waist, face, and breasts—everywhere.

Body numb, head fuzzy, everything felt wrong. This world was all wrong.

Where was her mother? Where was Crispin?

More importantly, where was she?

Movement was jarring and painful. Words of protest and fear bubbled up in her throat, but solidified there like rocks before she could speak them.

A pair of hands shoved her onto a bed, then retreated. Someone pressed something to her lips, something familiar, but she couldn’t place what.

"Drink," a voice commanded.

She didn't want to. Wasn't going to. But the cup pressed sharply into her mouth and cold liquid moved against her lips.

"Drink."

She couldn't ignore the order. Her mouth opened, filled, and she had to swallow.

Rough hands released her shoulders and an array of masculine voices and smells bombarded her. Shadows moved around her. A door slammed shut.

Naya blinked and the stone room came into focus. She was in a small, musty cell with tiny mushrooms growing in the corner cracks. Her eyes found them, focused, and couldn't look away. Were they the edible kind or the deadly spore kind? She counted their heads, watching them grow and swell, then shrink to nothing. Were there even any mushrooms there?

A drone with a black eye and crooked arm invaded her vision. He shoved dark, seed-covered crackers on a plate across the floor, then set a bucket of water closer to the door.

"A cup?" she asked.

He stared at her vacantly, then turned and left. She hadn't even heard him come in.

Searching her memories, she couldn't find a reference for this—a reason she would dream it. Was she imagining a scene from a book? It'd been a long time since she’d read any tawdry Radcliffe novels with dungeon scenes.

The shadow of sleep lingered at the edges of her eyesight and pressed inward, its misty tendrils clouding her mind and vision. Something was wrong with her, but she didn't know what.

Males in half-masks, their mouths lewdly exposed, stood outside her door. Garbed in black robes, they watched her through the bars of the window while the drone came back with more crackers.

The masks distorted their faces and made them look dangerous, and their scent was even more unnerving. Protected all her life, raised in dignified Sector 5, Naya had never smelled beta lust before. The foreign weight of it pressed against the input receptors of her breed senses, recognizing the danger.

She couldn't say it was pleasant at all.

Where would she relieve herself in this tiny cell? There were no facilities, not even a grate in the floor. Drinking as much water from the bucket as she could, she washed her face and emptied the rest to use it for her toilet.

At one point the door opened and another man entered. Another beta, smelling distinctly different from her father and brothers, different even than the men who'd been here before, weirdly herbal and unpleasant.

“Tenbel at your service, omega.” He wore black robes like the others, but with an officious black ribbon draped over himself like a Scribe's collar.

He didn't act like any Scribes she knew, but he felt familiar somehow. Was it his smell or his look? She couldn't tell.

“What is happening? Why am I here? Where is my family?