Auctioned: An Omegaverse Anthology

by Merel Pierce

  Pulling the fur throw blanket from the end of the settee over her body, she huddled under it, lost, clueless. What was she supposed to do next?

  Carl’s gray head appeared in the corner of the doorway. Beyond him, broken men lay scattered on the polished floor of her uncle’s grand hallway.

  “Carl, is my uncle alright?” she asked. “Is he alive? Is—”

  Carl yelped when Druku stepped between them, eye ridges lowered and hair bristling. “No see other men, Niddie. Eyes down. Mind yourself now. You will see only this orki.”

  “What?”

  “You do not see or talk to other males. Unless you want them dead males.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He rumbled, rock and earth colliding, a terrifying warning that came from the well of his chest. Her body clenched in instinctual fear, producing a humiliating gush of slick in response. Years of supplements were nothing against this monster of a male. He had awakened everything in her that was omega; she’d never be the same again.

  She preferred his purr. “Please.” That sound made her want to lie down on the floor and expose her belly and neck to him. “Don’t do that. I don’t understand what you are saying.”

  The offended nature of the sound tapered off, but her body still responded. He came over to her, smoothing a big hand over her head.

  She flinched. In his other hand, he held a wicked looking blade. He must have taken it from Zeke. It was ostentatiously sharp and dangerous, matching something he might have owned.

  What was the slave going to do with that? Would he torture her now that he’d claimed her? Her imagination went wild, her eyes opening wide.

  At her expression, Druku moved the blade behind his back. “Not to worry, little lamb.” The hand on her head moved to her neck, where he gently cupped her. She got caught in the pools of his eyes, intense circles of earthy color and took him in with deep breaths. She tried not to, but he smelled so nice.

  His gaze probed, tracking her every action, searching, digging at her soul for the truth.

  He looked into her eyes as if he had all day and nothing could please him more. As if she would never be boring or dull; as if she were valuable and important, not just because of her omega womb, but because she was a unique human being. As if he saw more than a naked woman in a blanket, more than a body with a grand inheritance attached to it.

  Finally, Niddie had to close her eyes and shield herself from his seeing.

  “I see you. You will learn to see me. Only me. Until then, mind self. No talk to other males. No see other males.”

  He couldn’t mean that. Could he?

  His hand slipped away. Eyes still closed, he moved to the doorway and repeated the question she’d asked of Carl a moment ago.

  Confused and terrified, he answered, “Your uncle’s fine. Napping. We were locked in. I went to the kitchen to get some food and found everyone there. Is everything alright?”

  “You do not talk to her,” Druku said. “No males talk to her or see her. You may send your women. I do not harm women, but I will kill any man who disobeys this rule. See to the uncle. Clean up the mess.

  “Go to the slave dorms. Wear gloves. Do not touch any of the blood or fluids without gloves. It is infected with the gorn parasite. The sick man locked in the blackout room also has the parasite. Niddie has said her mother is coming here. You will prepare for the dam’s arrival.”

  Niddie could hear Carl absorb the orders. The gorn parasite. She wanted to go over to Zeke’s body and kick him. He had bought slaves with the gorn parasite? She was thankful that Druku knew it and had protected them all with the warning but incensed that a slave would arbitrarily decide who she could talk to and start giving orders as the master of the house.

  He’d turned her world on its head, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

  Niddie had her eyes on Druku and the knife behind his back. She felt Carl’s baffled gaze shift between them before he went to do as the alpha had told him. The footman didn’t have it in him to disobey a powerful male.

  Standing before the room’s entertainment module, Druku pulled the knife out and set it against his own naked body. Before she could cry out, before she understood what he was doing, he sank the blade into his flesh. Horrified, she watched him slice downward, peeling off the top layer of his skin.

  Cutting off his tattoos.

  “Hurts, yes. Very much,” he said as if she’d asked him. “But it will heal instantly, and as you see, no blood to make a mess.”

  His expression tightened, lips firmly pressed together. His eyes glazed, three eyelids shuddering repeatedly as he released a long, hissing breath with the downward cut of the blade. The skin he cut off plopped to the floor and shriveled on impact, wrinkling and curling in on itself as it transformed into little piles of dark dirt.

  She must have sounded really distressed. The impossible sight of his calculated, deliberate self-harm had taken her to a new level of shock.

  “Close your eyes,” he said. “Take deep breaths, little lamb. I’m going to need your help with the marks on my back.”

  Oh, no. She couldn’t. She couldn’t cut into his skin.

  “Deep breaths, Niddie,” he commanded in an alpha tone, and her body, attuned to his, obeyed.

  He purred for her as he sliced two wide strips off his own pecs, straight through the nipple to remove the Ikuvu warning symbol.

  “Look at me,” he said. He demonstrated breathing for her as if she’d forgotten how.

  Without that purr, Niddie knew she’d be dry heaving. She inhaled through her nose and out her mouth, eyes locked with his.

  When he fully turned to her, the raw flesh he’d exposed was being covered by new gray skin. It self-generated, spreading over his flesh like mercury from each cut, leaving the slash of new scars behind. Before her eyes, the plain gray speckled, spots of various colors appearing.

  “What are you?” she asked, her mouth dry.

  “Yours. I am yours,” he said, kneeling next to her perch on the couch. He dug through the blanket, found her hand, and put the knife in it. “I have never been a slave, only a male alone. Now I am not alone. I have my everything, my reward. You are my war bride. My redress woman. I have a reason to live.”

  Niddie’s mouth opened and closed. She didn’t know what to say.

  He closed her fingers around the handle of the knife and bought it to the meat of his shoulders. “The skin will regrow best if the cut is smooth and straight with horizontal lines. This is a good blade. Make a cut at the top of the mark, set the blade beneath the edge, and pull the knife down like you are skinning fruit. If you hesitate, the new skin will grow in and it will look unnatural. We will have to do it again.”

  Niddie moaned. Her hand was shaking, and everything went wrong.

  When he hissed, she dropped the knife. Edges growing together in a jagged rippled mess, his smooth skin was mottled and ridged. A choking sob burst out of her, tears streaming down her face when she saw what she had done.

  Purring the whole time, Druku pulled her close by her neck and into a bite that sank past all her trepidation, transforming her sobs to hiccups.

  “Easy, little lamb,” he whispered in her ear. One of his tusks brushed her cheek, followed by his lips. It would be so easy for this male to crush her, either with his actions or his words. Instead he cooed encouragement.

  “I am sorry you have to do this for me. We must remove the marks before your dam arrives. I have no DNA sample in the registry. Once the marks are gone, I am free. The orki makers did not want their accomplishments stolen. And there is no tracker because I can easily remove it, and my body will destroy anything foreign. Only the spine inhibitor worked because they found a way to render me unconscious before attaching it. Do you understand? You can do this. You are strong.”

  Kissing her cheek, he pulled back, searching her eyes. His soft, distracting mouth had her attention more than his words. Fascinated, she watched his black tongue sweep out and tou
ch his bottom lip as if capturing the taste of her tears there. He was so close she could feel his warm breath on her lips, making her want a deeper, richer taste.

  “Again, my Niddie. You can do this. You are a war bride. You are redress, so strong.”

  He gave her back the knife. It was a horrid thing. She didn’t want to do this. But his insistence that she could, that she was strong, challenged her.

  She had wanted to be strong all her life. Strong against the oppression of her nature. Strong against her mother’s will, and the influence of an unwanted alpha. Never had any man told her she was. She was good for managing a household, planning meals, dressing pretty, and nothing more. Nobody needed or wanted her help with anything.

  But this slave—this giant gray and spotted alpha—he looked her in the eye, told her he wanted her, and asked her for help only she could give.

  Choking back sobs, she set the knife into his skin again. He was muscle everywhere, swells and bumps across massive shoulders narrowing to a thick waist. Making noises of sympathy, she sank the blade into the skin and peeled downward through another red Ikavu warning sign as steadily as she could. Better this time.

  “Good, my Niddie. Good girl. Quickly. Cut the rough parts, too.”

  She kept going, trying not to think, fixing the mess she had made and making sure there was no trace of the tattoo.

  Finished, she dropped the knife and pressed herself up against him, wrapping as much of him in her arms as she could. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t know what she was sorry for. She was a mess of emotion. Her chest hummed with his pleasure, not disappointment, but she had cut him, hurt him, and it went against everything inside the new Niddie she had become.

  He let her hug him like that for a moment before moving her around to his front, lifting her into his arms like a child. “Beautiful mate. Beautiful Niddie. Good girl,” he murmured into her neck, tongue licking and teeth resting against her tendons. The sensation shot through to her spine and belly, her nipples and clit, and electrified all her tender bits.

  She felt that urgency again the way she had under the influence of the drug Zeke had given her. But this time it wasn’t foreign and forced. Now her deluge of want stemmed from the combustion of alpha and omega. His and hers.

  “Mate you again, my little lamb? Want to be buried in you, locked to you for hours. But your dam comes, yes? You must clothe yourself for strangers. I must find clothing. Come, my Niddie. Show me the way.”

  “Please.” She turned into him, mouthing at his cheek and chasing his lips.

  A low booming came from his chest, strange and repetitive, maybe a laugh. “Clothing, little lamb. Do you wish your dam to see us mating? I did not think that was the favored way of huumons.”

  “Oh. My dam. My mother.”

  Niddie sat up. Yes. Her mother.

  Chapter Five

  Niddie

  Niddie took Druku to her room where they washed quickly. She dressed again. He made her find something she could wear without a bra or panties. He yanked on the light fabric, complaining about the unnatural layers even when she tried to explain to him why she needed them. The bossy male didn’t care at all.

  Finding clothes for him was harder. He was a beast. Finally, he decided to make something himself using a belt from the stable tack room and a blanket he’d found in her room.

  He fashioned a skirt of sorts that wrapped his waist. Over that he put another thinner belt and the intimidating knife and sheath. It was odd, but it suited him more than anything else they could come up with.

  Carl and the other servants cleaned up the mess he’d made, bodies removed and the house righted. He asked questions about her uncle, the slaves, whether there were hired workers, and who her mother might bring with her, listening to everything she said.

  There wasn’t time for her to get chatty, but he seemed to care about her opinions, her thoughts, and it was easy just to spill everything that had happened in the last weeks. She found herself confessing how she’d found herself at her uncle’s in the first place.

  “You have a strong mate now,” he told her, fingering her hair.

  She almost reminded him that he was a slave, that mating him broke an unspoken taboo of the Houses and they couldn’t survive the repercussions. But he didn’t look or act like a slave. He was as alpha as any alpha she had ever met—collected; powerful; completely in charge. With all the tattoos and warnings cut away and his slave bindings disposed of, he was an alien on a planet full of aliens. Their only worry would be if one of the others said something.

  He made her stay with the women and prepare a meal while he did some alpha thing to establish his authority. By the end of it, there was one more dead body and no one alive who doubted his position or his ability to hold it.

  When her mother arrived, they were eating in the dining room. Niddie preferred to be dignified, to be sitting in her own chair with her own service and a helpful maid at her elbow. Instead she found herself snuggled into Druku’s lap, watching his mouth with fascination and wanting his kiss more than she wanted air.

  He kept finding other things to do—drinking this, eating that, asking questions and demanding answers. Without eyebrows and with a mouth shaped by his tusks, his smug smile was a slant of his lips and a playful twinkle in his eyes she could feel in her chest. He knew very well what she wanted from him.

  Announced by the doorman, Morella Trenneth swept into the room several hours after Niddie had begged her for help. As usual, her mother did nothing without grand ceremony. Dressed in a robe that trailed behind her, her hair a towering modern creation that added a foot to her height, she surveyed the room like it was her kingdom before realizing that there was a formidable male in there with her.

  Like ice melting in the sun, her mother tucked her pride away, hiding all her sharp edges. Behind her, wearing the Trenneth colors of white and silver, four alpha freemen, two beta males, and six silver-collared alpha slaves trailed by two omega handmaidens followed in a stately parade.

  His hand on the back of Niddie’s head, Druku gently pressed her face into his chest. “Niddie mind self now. No see.” He nuzzled her hair, inhaling her scent when he stood with her before setting her down in the chair he’d vacated. Tension emanated from all the men with an intensity that raised the hair on her arms.

  “I have come, daughter. Where is your uncle?” Morella said.

  “I see that, Mother,” Niddie said, eyes down. “Uncle is in bed already. He retires early.”

  “And where is Foreman Zeke? You said you had trouble. You said you were worried for the holding.” Morella’s voice held more accusation than worry. She managed to soften it a bit when she addressed Druku. “Excuse me, but who are you?”

  She wanted to look up at her mother. The need was almost a burn. But Druku had warned her that if she disobeyed, she’d be disciplined. This seeing thing was important to him. It made little sense, but it was something from his culture, and she felt compelled to please him. It was like another challenge. Was she strong enough in this as well?

  There was a scuffle. Movement. “I am Druku. I am Niddie’s alpha. Which of you is in charge?”

  Her mother’s voice softened more, becoming a thing of feigned weakness in the face of a powerful male. She understood how to placate arrogance but was clueless to what she faced now. “I am in charge, I’m afraid, since my dearest brother is already asleep. May I ask how you are my daughter’s alpha? How has this come to be?”

  “I won’t ask again. Which of you males is in charge? I see my Niddie. I see only her. If you do not declare yourself now, you can leave, or you can die.” Druku ignored the woman who had ruled House Trenneth for the last decade as if she hadn’t spoken at all.