Auctioned: An Omegaverse Anthology

by Merel Pierce

  Druku decided he would be the one to give it to him. They’d have to take the immobilizer off so he could do any work. Once they did, Druku would make sure it never went on again.

  It was the only thing protecting them. All other devices were useless against his kind. The slavers had only put them on him because it was the law. These two bargain-hunters were clueless as to what they had purchased.

  “She’s just a woman,” Zeke snorted, “and all the males in her life are dead except for her sick, demented uncle. She’s ripe for picking a mate. After my special surprise, she will be willing to pick anyone to hide her shame.”

  “What the fuck?” The beaked nosed man laughed in glee. “Pick you, Zeke?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not me? Don’t you think every male on staff wants a chance at that bubble ass?”

  “Just her ass? What about those big tits? That mouth? She’s grade-A omega. Don’t waste that shit.”

  For the rest of the ride, the males talked about what they would do to the female in the household, the many ways they would use her, rape her, and every degrading fantasy they could think of. They talked about Druku as if he would take part in their festivities as well, as if he’d shove his big, gray dick down her throat and up her ass, making her scream while they watched.

  Though one of them thought him an orki, neither of them knew the manner of a male they dealt with. No one forced Druku to do what he did not want to do. He’d been engineered cell by cell to be a war hammer. The driver had seen Druku—standing seven-foot-seven, his hide marked with battle scars, his forehead broad and his ears pointed, and his lower tusks jutting up past his thick upper lip—and decided he was a monster with no honor.

  Soon the huumons’ idiocy would work in Druku’s favor. It always did.

  Chapter Two

  10 days later - Nedeliah

  Two of the slaves were sick.

  As an unmarried lady living under her aging Uncle Alger Trenneth’s protection, the slave quarters were forbidden to Niddie for any reason.

  But the foreman wouldn’t talk to her, as usual. He was also no longer updating the house manager with the daily logs for her uncle's prized horse stables, the farm slaves, or with anything else he was doing. Leaving the computer system without updates was a serious violation of his job. He’d managed to hide and excuse his thieving so far, but this was blatant. The man needed to be fired.

  After sending a message to her mother to send a decent foreman and a few obedient reinforcements, she grabbed a house footman and a maid and marched down the path toward the neat row of slave dorms.

  Her uncle required his property kept in top shape. His horses were expensive imports, reborn from Terran originals, a luxury item sold to the top-tier Houses in Algar-Din. Guests often came to enjoy a country weekend amid her uncle’s good food and beautiful garden surroundings. Giant trees hid the protective city walls, and wide, grassy fields contributed to the space between his sprawling house and the nearest neighbor.

  He had created a private retreat for himself and his rich friends, close to nature and only day’s drive from the city center. Not everyone wanted to view the world from a high-rise tower or wait in the traffic caused by millions of people.

  Niddie now walked a path that needed sweeping and edging. There were weeds that needed pulling and a gate waiting for fresh paint. This was why she’d ordered new male slaves; these problems needed to be addressed. Her uncle was at the decline of his life, but this was still a profitable farm, and the only farm where the extravagant Terran horse could be bought.

  Opening the green and white metal door, Niddie realized immediately that the foreman hadn’t just failed at grounds management. Zeke and his second in charge, Foster, did not have the same standards as her uncle. The lights were low, the corners shadowed because all the windows were shuttered. An awful odor of filth and sickness drifted out.

  Something wasn’t right. The hair on the back of her neck stood up before her eyes adjusted to the light difference.

  There was a dead man on the table in the common room whose body looked like it was deflating. Blood and waste were everywhere, dripping in dark, thin rivulets onto the floor. There were no longer two sick slaves—at least one was dead.

  Niddie lifted her foot to step forward, ready to face this horror with determination, when a gruff alpha voice made her freeze.

  “Don’t. Do not come forward, little lamb. His blood is contagious to you.”

  The voice came from a darkened corner where Niddie saw nothing more than a bulky shape. A very big, bulky shape—an alpha, a prime male unlike any she had ever encountered.

  She knew it.

  In spite of her daily supplements and omega suppressants, her body recognized him on sight.

  She quivered at the sound of his deep, gravelly voice telling her what to do.

  “Shut the fuck up!” the foreman hissed from his place by the table. He was standing in the nasty, bloody mess with red splatters all over his chest as if he’d splashed through it. “I thought you didn’t talk, you stupid bastard. None of you talk.” He lifted a black box from his belt, threatening them.

  “Well, I need to talk with you, Foreman Zeke.” Niddie emphasized her words, letting all her frustration with the man leak out. “At the house. I’ve sent a message to my mother. I expect her response, in force, within two hours.”

  Zeke had russet hair and a ruddy complexion with even, handsome features. He was built strong like all alphas were, though his legs were on the thin side compared to the rest of him.

  His mouth became a twisted smirk when he looked her over from head to toe, like she was a woman standing where she didn’t belong.

  Niddie watched Zeke exchange a meaningful glance with that creep Foster and said nothing to her.

  Getting huffy and arguing with him would reinforce her weak position. This was her House property. Alpha or not, the hired men must obey her. She refused to yield, surveying the room thoroughly so that Zeke would understand she was not a fool and not backing down. Her eyes found the corner where the voice had come from, but she saw little more than a great bulk that made her shiver with awareness.

  Back at the house, she went to her uncle’s room. In his delirium, his reprobate tendencies exposed themselves with no filter. He kept telling whoever she sent to stay with him to undress, male or female. It was clear her seventy-one-year-old Uncle Trenneth had no preference in sex.

  Thankfully for the poor slaves, once the undressing started, he forgot what he had asked, though they had already finished, and started looking for a credit for remuneration. Distracted by looking for it, the cycle began again when he realized a slave was in the room.

  Niddie’s mother, Morella, had not known her country-living half-brother had fallen into this state when she banished her only daughter to his ranch. She’d been surprised when Niddie informed her, and then admonished her for speaking of it. Single omega women did not speak badly of their House Alpha, even if it was the truth.

  Entering without knocking, Niddie went to the main house manager AI on Uncle Trenneth’s desk. She had been here a hundred times, looking at old records, trying to find the new ones, and checking into the credit statements and profits. She’d known that the foreman hadn’t purchased the slaves she’d pre-selected ten days ago. She’d watched them all sell to someone else from this main console. The owner of that voice, the dead man—they were the new stock. Foreman Zeke had brought a diseased slave onto the property.

  “Gads, Molly, don’t you ever knock? Can’t you see I was in the middle of something?” Uncle Trenneth said from his chair.

  Thankfully he recognized Niddie as family—as his half-sister, who she resembled, if not herself. “What am I interrupting, Uncle?” she asked.

  “Oh, I… Hmm. Did I pay you, boy?”

  The boy was a footman named Carl, who was only ten years her uncle’s junior. Her uncle saw what he wanted to see.

  “No, sir,” Carl said.

&nb
sp; “Oh, well, we can’t have that. I’m not a complete ruffian.”

  Niddie activated the cameras on the house and tried again to access the ones in the slave dorms. It was useless. She sent another message to her mother and turned to her uncle.

  “We should fire Zeke,” she said plainly.

  “Zeke? Wonderful man. Good taste in drink. Good with the stallions too. Why would I fire him?”

  “He’s stealing from you. He’s dangerous.” Niddie’s voice cracked. The man frightened her. Her position here, out of her mother’s household, was as close to powerless as she’d ever been.

  When she’d turned down Zeke’s offer to take care of her omega needs, insulted that he would dare, the nasty anger on his face had promised violence. Did he see her as a dog in heat, begging for any alpha who looked at her? He was like the men her mother had shoved at her at home; their eyes on the House wealth, eyes on the House name, eyes locked on the fantasy of an omega pussy, and he was deeply insulted she’d denied him.

  “Stealing from me? No man would dare. No man would dare!” her uncle shouted. Sick and weak with drug-induced dementia, he was locked into the licentious pattern of his youth. He saw himself as a strong alpha instead of a skeletal male aged early by alien pleasure drugs. “Was it you, boy? Did you steal from me?”

  Frail arms lifted, robe hanging open to show his bedclothes, her uncle rushed the stronger, healthier footman, who just gave him a hug and set him aside with a small, tired smile. Carl was the essence of patience. He saved the maids of the house and younger boys from this job, saying that Uncle Trenneth had always been kind to him and deserved kindness in return.

  Flustered, lost for a moment, her uncle straightened his shoulders, retied his robe in a neat, fancy knot, and then looked up at Carl. “Ho there, handsome boy. Why don’t you take your shirt off and make yourself comfortable? I’ll just sit right here.”

  Once he was back in his chair, he noticed Niddie. “Molly. Dear sister, what are you doing here? Please. A man must have his privacy. Go on and find your husband now.”

  Niddie looked at the house manager again. There was no message from her mother, no help. She couldn’t think of what to do.

  She changed out of her day dress, a plain garment of gauzy layers, out of style because of its modesty, and into clothing she wore when she went out to visit the animals: heavy boots, pants, a belted tunic, and a vest with pockets that buttoned down the front. If Foreman Zeke accepted her invitation and came to the house, she wanted to dress properly to face him.

  Out here, without the protection and resources she had in the shelter of her mother’s power, she felt isolated and vulnerable. That was what her mother wanted—for Niddie to remember that privilege wasn’t just the things she hated like proper behavior, ceremony, and societal expectations. It was good food, shelter at night, and protection when she was frightened. And everyone, no matter what family they were born into, had to pay a price for that.

  Her message to her mother consisted of a plea for help with an untrustworthy alpha employee and an apology. What else could she do? Morella Trenneth had been telling Niddie since she was thirteen that it was a man’s world, and she would have to marry one to have any hope of happiness in it. Rathsima male misogyny and narcissism was a way of life. A beta woman might escape it. An omega could not.

  Telling the women and young ones of the house to go to the kitchen and lock the door, she prepared herself for her meeting with Foreman Zeke. She had the three footmen, other than Carl, stay close by the sitting room. Their faces were grave above their black collars. As foreman, Zeke and his second, Foster, had the power to activate the devices at any time. Niddie had looked for the other control devices’ remotes and ordered replacements, but not a one could be found in the house.

  Before her arrival and because of her uncle’s dementia, Zeke had also deactivated the house manager’s internal systems, moving the control base to his office in the slave dorms. He said it was because her uncle had forgotten how to use the house manager and had inadvertently shocked all the slaves while trying to order his favorite brandy.

  Initially, she hadn’t realized that Zeke’s actions acted to consolidate his power on her uncle’s farm as he lay in wait for his chance. He’d let her think she was safe for a while—let her order fresh supplies, select new slaves to fill the labor gap, program the air-conditioning system to her liking—but he’d had total control over the house, the dorms, and the entire compound before she’d even arrived.

  Zeke didn’t make her wait long for their meeting. He came to the house with Foster and three slaves in tow. When the footman opened the doors to the sitting room, she took in her visitors’ imposing male shapes before Zeke prowled inside the room, closing the doors behind him.

  “Lady Nedeliah, you wished to speak with me?” he asked with fake solicitation. He was an alpha; he hated that she, a physically weaker female, would dare order him to do anything.

  “I’ve seen the dead man for myself. You haven’t been updating the house manager. You didn’t purchase the workers I chose. You didn’t refund the difference. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Chin up, arms crossed under her breasts, Niddie met his eyes in challenge. Female or not, she was heir to her house, her mother’s daughter. Her father had been a highly respected general. The dead slave was a waste of resources—the possibility of contagion an even greater concern. She would not sit inside the house and ignore it.

  His thin lips twisted. “These things happen,” he told her, coming close enough to touch. “Slaves get sick.”

  She couldn’t believe the audacity of the man. Slaves sold at the market came with a health and safety guarantee. “I think you are serving your own interests, Foreman Zeke, and not my uncle’s.”

  “And how is your uncle doing? I haven’t seen him in days. Is the old man still alive? I would like to talk with him. I requested a meeting. He hasn’t gotten back to me.”

  Shocked at his outright belligerence, Niddie lost her grasp on what she’d wanted to say next. She couldn’t believe he would talk to her this way.

  “Is he alright?” Zeke asked again. “And even if he is, he has no idea about anything, does he?”

  Invading her space, he dared to grab her by the arms. Trained to be soft and biddable, terror shot through her at his aggression. He could do anything. Anything.

  “Get your hands off me!” Her voice shook.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Zeke had something in his other hand and was raising it toward her neck. The air was filled with the smell of him, anger, and lust. She breathed through her mouth to avoid it, twisting to the side. But he held her arm in a tight, painful grip. She felt a pinch, and then ice-water seeped into her neck.

  “What have you done?” Her voice came out high, an ear-splitting screech. He shook her once and shoved her down onto the floor on her knees.

  “Foster!” he shouted. “Did you take care of those footmen?”

  The door opened, followed by a series of shouts. That ice in her neck spread to her veins, speeding with her elevated heart rate to every erogenous zone in her body, where it transformed into a crawling, ravenous heat.

  She whimpered.

  What was this? Poison? A drug?

  She knew need. Despite years of pheromone and heat suppressants, there were times when the precious medication just wasn’t enough. Once or twice, a male her mother had foisted upon her as a dinner companion for the evening sent her running to her room in fear, slick building between her thighs, a dam about to burst, consumed by an urgent need to be filled.

  Whatever Zeke had done woke up every nerve in her body in an instant activating all her omega instincts and reducing her to basest animal desires. On her knees, her back arched, saliva pooled in her mouth as between her legs, her pussy swelled and wept. The smell of the alpha, once so detestable, became the only air she wanted to breathe.