by Isoellen
The hormonal change would rob her of all her dignity and will.
Naya couldn't wrap her mind around feeling any of it, but she'd seen it happen to her sister Phee two years ago at her bonding ceremony. They'd been in the dining room with her intended, Grayson Swift, two of his brothers, and the family. Phee's face and upper chest had melted to pink before she moaned, biting her bottom lip bloody. Clutching her waist, Phee had started to crumple to the floor, flushed with perspiration and sudden arousal.
Naya, two years younger, had smelled the difference in her sister's pheromones, a shockingly rich sweetness overshadowing every other scent in the room.
Chaos had exploded around them, but the families’ trusted friends and her brothers held back Swift's siblings, whose pupils grew giant in awareness of the ready omega breeder in the room. As if it bled from his face, composure left him, inner animal taking over as he entered a mating rut.
Naya remembered feeling a fascinated dread watching the change take over Swift from his head to his toes.
Father had carried Phee out, Swift tailing them like she was bait. Struggling in his arms, lost to the powerful instinctual onslaught, Phee had fought as she cried, reaching toward all the available alphas, not just her intended.
Naya had felt so ashamed for her.
But that would happen to her as well. Biology would take over, and there was no knowing how she might act, or what she might do under the power of her first estrus.
In contrast to this animalistic drive was all this civilized ceremony. Family to protect her. Crispin at hand as her choice. Drones and beta servants at the ready to see to their needs. And everyone there to witness her loss of self-discipline and every shred of self-respect.
She dreaded it.
"Yes. That would be nice, I'm sure," Naya replied reflexively. What else was there to say? No one wanted to hear her honest thoughts. "I think my brothers will also be here in a day or two. I can't wait for you to meet them. It will be nice to have them in the house again. Wherever shall we put all these guests, Mother?"
"We always make room for friends and family." Mother smiled, pleased by Naya's compliance. When Mother glanced toward Alpha Corre, Naya thought she saw her blush a little. How odd.
Eager for an excuse to end the conversation, Naya followed Crispin's example and made herself a plate. It was a little mound of flaky, buttery, spice-and-fruit-stuffed goodness she knew Mother would frown at, but she was too busy talking to Alpha Corre to notice what Naya ate.
This was happening. She would mate, marry, and have her own home.
She looked at the cool and colorless tones of heavy linen fabric in her mother's parlor as she ate. The tight, knotted carpet over the white painted floors was a plain, gray-dyed wool. In her head, she redecorated it with bright, soft, happy things.
Not all change was bad.
*
She'd eaten too much.
The dining room sat too many people. Twelve of them gathered around a massive spread of food. Two drones rushed in and out of the narrow doorway to keep plates and wine glasses full. Her sister Phee, sitting next to her Grayson Swift, had already drank more than normal. She kept leaning toward Crispin on her opposite side and petting his shoulder.
Her father talked too loudly, arguing politics with Corre and the two older unmarried alphas who worked with them like he was in the courtroom. Phee's namesake, their aunt, laughed raucously at something Naya's younger brother did, while another friend of her father encouraged him to do it again. Naya's mother looked on with a frown.
Naya kept putting food in her mouth to keep from having to talk.
Finally, Phee did something useful and saved her from them all by asking to see her bonding day dress.
"A dress? You aren't going to present yourself like our Queen?" her baby brother teased.
Under normal circumstances, Naya would have smacked the young alpha upside his head. But with so many other alphas present, she didn't dare. She turned so they couldn't see her embarrassment, letting her older sister do the smacking.
Naya felt the weight of the males’ eyes on her body, following her progress. Her father had been bringing home unmated friends for the last several weeks. While he had done his duty in helping to prepare the marriage contract, toasting them both at the pre-signing, he wore a constant glower whenever he looked at she and Crispin together.
Crispin's kindness to her when she was younger had always kept him at the forefront of her mind as the perfect kind of alpha to spend her life with. She'd fixated on him early and had told her mother, who’d told her father her choice.
But as the time drew near for her formalize that choice, she noticed more and more alphas sitting with her at the dinner table. They would lean into her space to pass a serving dish and offer food from their own plates. These were subtle, uncomfortable attempts at courtship.
The men he brought home were all older and established, close to his own age. A union with one of them would benefit her father. And something in their eyes made Naya shiver with fear.
Until her heat, until the formal contract was signed at the bonding day ceremony, Naya could change her mind about Crispin. If she didn't bite Crispin and create their bond with her blessing, she knew Father was ready and willing to get her out of any contract marriage and into one that better suited him.
Compared to the other offerings her father had presented, Crispin was the best choice for a mate she could make. She was certain of it.
Naya opened the door to her sleeping room, holding it wide for Phee to walk in ahead of her. "There are more people at the table tonight than there were for me. Administrator Asesino attended no family meals when I lived here."
"I think Father likes your choice of mate better than mine," Naya confessed, watching Phee for her reaction.
Phee picked up a stuffy from Naya’s bed, a fat bear Naya’s older brother had gifted her, now dressed in a shirt saturated with Crispin’s scent. Naya watched Phee handle and sniff at it before setting it back down in the wrong place.
Since Phee already sounded petulant, Naya didn't bother to tell her the Administrator had come to dinner four times already in the last week.
At least Crispin was there tonight. Naya could breathe a little easier when his sunshine smell was in the room.
Phee went over to the speaker phone on the wall and pressed the button to activate it. "Send an after-dinner tray, please," she said into the grated mouthpiece.
"Well, little sister." Phee's gaze drifted over the room again. "Soon you will have a husband and your own home. Bride-mate of Crispin Spear. What do you think of yourself? Crispin seems a placid sort, nothing like that prowling father of his. He might wait a few years, after your first son maybe, to take up with a beta mistress."
"He wouldn't do that," Naya said. "We are going to bond."
Phee's eyes went wide. "A bond?"
Naya nodded. She didn't know when; Crispin had agreed to wait until it felt natural. But Naya wanted a full bond, making their marriage permanent and irrevocable.
"Then it will be all the more painful for you when he does, won't it? They all cheat—it's an alpha status thing. They must have dozens of women falling at their feet to feel manly. And those beta females lap up the chance. Crispin is sweet and pretty. Don't doubt that they will be after him or that he will succumb."
Phee's face scrunched in a mask of disgust. She must have been speaking from experience.
Naya felt the fullness of her regard, a heated glance before Phee turned her eyes away again. "There are ten beta women to one of you, always ready for alpha attention,” her sister said. “Even a civilized alpha like the one you have caught."
Naya chose not to argue. Her sister had a binding legal agreement. She'd never said, but Naya and her mother thought it likely that Phee had chosen not to share her bite and blessing with her husband, even though she had chosen him herself.
Instead she cleared her throat. “Do you think I smell different? How can they tell
I'm close? I don't feel any different.”
"You have always smelled of flowers to me. Maybe sweeter now? I don't know. I could never tell either," Phee replied thoughtfully. "Swift says when I'm near my heat I smell like a dessert he doesn't want to share."
Naya thought that was a nice thing to say. Though they’d been married for three years, it sounded like a sweet type of newlywed sentiment.
Phee had gotten pregnant during her first heat with Swift, but lost the baby early. There had been no child since. The doctor had told them she was healthy and that these things happened often.
It was a classified secret that one in three omega pregnancies didn’t make it to term. And that the devastating loss could have affected her cycle.
Horrified when Phee had explained the odds, knowing that their mother had also suffered several miscarriages, Naya’d had a hundred questions. Unfortunately, Phee wouldn't talk more about it.
Phee went to Naya's closet. "So, where is your dress? You said you wanted something in blue and green with bursts of red flowers. Did mother let you get so much color?"
Naya followed her to the closet and pulled out the pale cream dress. It had a blousy bodice which tied at the waist with a wide ribbon, and three layers of skirts covered with beading and embroidery she and her mother had both added.
Embroidered green grapes draped across the fine fabric at the chest. Mother had insisted upon adding them, just as she had insisted upon the off-white color of the dress; grapes were, after all, a symbol of fertility. It was only proper.
Naya had spent weeks working on it with her, and while she couldn't say the dress was what she had dreamed of, it was beautiful.
Phee laughed a little when she saw it. Naya smiled despite herself, knowing what Phee must be thinking.
There was a quiet knock. A drone entered with a tray containing two glass bottles, a plate of flat biscuits, and two daintily painted clay cups. She set it on a table near Naya's favorite chair and left the room without looking at or speaking to either of the sisters.
"Mother says our other brothers will be home tomorrow or the next day. Do you think they have become rude while away?"
"They have always been rude," Phee said. "I'm sure it has only gotten worse."
"I'm thankful the other brats had to stay in their rooms tonight. All the dinner party needed was those two troublemakers to turn it into a riot. Bad enough that Runt was there. What he said to you! The king's service can't come fast enough for all of them."
Naya liked her younger brothers, though they irritated everyone else in the family. She enjoyed having them around, the three of them running wild.
Ladies did not run or raise their voices like the boys did—unless said lady was at the park with her younger brothers and no one reported the misdeed back to her mother.
Had the youngest pair sat at the table tonight, they would have challenged every male there for daring to look at her. They were much more protective than the eldest three boys. It was the reason Mother kept them out of the dining room during these dinners.
All the family’s sleeping chambers were on this floor, and the boys had the run of it. They came and went as they pleased. It was a surprise not to see them here in her room, messing up her bed, getting their pre-teen pheromones all over everything, and eating up the biscuits on her tray.
Naya watched Phee spin in a slow circle, surveying the room. Then she turned to Naya's bed. It was small, and Naya had been filling it with extra pillows and rolled blankets to practice making a place she could hide and nest.
There, at least, her mother had no say. A nesting bed was deeply personal—instinctual—the safe territory an omega breeder created for herself in a ritual as old as time. Humans and betas had no inherent drive to build a soft, inviting nest like an omega breeder did.
"Well, sister, I'm going to go back to my 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 re
st 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? Don’t you know who my father is? This is an insult my family will not ignore. Take me home.”
A small, vicious smile appeared on his lips. “Look who is awake and aware. I think you will need some help with that.”
“Crimes against an omega are punishable by dismemberment and death,” Naya reminded him. Not that he should need that reminder—all citizens knew the 12 Sectors breeder laws. Still debated decades after their making, they were a mandatory school subject.
“You will behave, girl, or you will be the one being punished,” he threatened.
Naya thrust back her shoulders and tried to stand up straight, prepared to let him know his place. But he slapped the side of her head hard enough to send her to the floor, making her ears ring. Hatred poured out of him, the ugly, dangerous scent draining all her bravado.
“Women should be seen not heard.”
Leaving the room, he made a noisy show of locking the door behind him.
Her vision was cloudy. Was it from his blow to her head or something else?
She lay back down. The drone came with more crackers and more water. Any moment now she was sure she’d wake up back in her little nest.
Instead two more of the horrible masked beta freaks came and pulled her from her corner. They laughed at her, mocked her, hated her, and she didn't know why. Where had these enemies come from? This kind of barbarity didn’t exist in Naya's world. No one treated her like this. What could she have done to deserve this?
