Fragments

by Aya DeAniege

“What are you thinking of?” I asked.

  “Thinking of how I can get my hands on you,” Gerrid murmured as he stood.

  He took both plates and headed for the kitchen once more. The plates went into the sink, and the casserole dish was covered with its matching glass lid. Then Gerrid came back and held his hand out to me. I took his hand and allowed him to pull me out of my seat.

  He led me to the bed and then slipped his hand down my back. Gerrid bent and sniffed the side of my head.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You’re reacting like a normal woman,” he murmured. “And you don’t smell like sparkles, or flash like gunpowder lit up.”

  Given the sudden flowery, sort of, terms, I could only assume that Gerrid didn’t know what caused that reaction in him. That he was describing it as best as he could.

  “All kinds was wrong with me, just a few days ago,” I said.

  “I know,” he murmured. “The weird thing is that you kind of smell like my mother.”

  I scratched at my hairline, almost telling him about what had happened in Blane’s study. Instead, I tried to smile sweetly as I looked up at him.

  “I am a mother,” I said.

  Gerrid stiffened. “What if all mothers smell the same?”

  “What? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I-I-I need to go do something,” he said.

  And then he left faster than Abraham had when he had woken up beside me that morning. I stared at the door in shock, my mouth hanging open. I didn’t understand what had just happened, why Gerrid had run off suddenly like that.

  Rachel would know.

  Growling, I marched toward the door, determined to find someone who was going to give me some answers on why the Alphas were behaving the way they were, but only around me.

  Chapter Six

  “That is weird,” Rachel said with a bottle of wine in her hands. “I’ve never seen him do that. Matt?”

  Matt was of average height and weight. He was a little rounder than the others I had met that day, as if he were spoiled by the Alphas in the house. Grey hadn’t entered his hair yet, but he had lines of his face of both sorrow and happiness. The sadness still seemed to be there, a hollow sort of look to him as if part of his heart had been crushed and hadn’t been repaired yet.

  Alphas were supposed to follow the traditions for the passing of their companions for themselves, and for their other companions. Abraham had just lost a companion that he had cared for deeply, but he was doing what he needed to do to move on. Which was what Blane should have been doing, instead of wallowing in guilt and self-pity.

  Matt slipped up to Rachel and took the bottle from her gently. He gave her a scowl, then me a sympathetic look. He may have even winced as he turned away with the bottle, headed for the counter.

  “It happens,” he said.

  “It happens?” Rachel demanded.

  “I thought this was a girl’s night,” I said to Rachel.

  “I’m practically a girl,” Matt said.

  “He’s upset about something,” Rachel said to me.

  “I am not upset,” Matt said, struggling with the wine.

  “You are upset, that’s also a corked wine, by the way. You’re the one who brought it to us,” Rachel said. “I don’t know where the corkscrew is.”

  “How am I supposed to drink my good wine without a corkscrew?” Matt demanded.

  His voice had taken on an angry tone. It sent a shudder through me, making me want to hide because I was certain that I was about to be hurt.

  Matt turned, his lip curled up in a snarl, wine bottle clenched in one hand.

  When he laid eyes on me, his features fell, anger forgotten. Matt tried to calm himself down and he sighed just a little. He handed Rachel the bottle and made a motion for her to move. She got out of the way, and he started going through the drawers.

  “Does Morgan even have a corkscrew?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes, I gave him one. I was sick of going back to Blane’s rooms anytime he made me angry and want to drink,” Matt said, finally producing the corkscrew. He shook it at Rachel. “You’ve been moving things.”

  “I’m allowed to nest,” Rachel said.

  “You pregnant?” Matt asked.

  “What?” Rachel demanded, her voice rising in pitch suddenly. “No. Abraham won’t let Morgan breed yet. Why is that again?”

  “Because shut up, that’s why,” Matt said, snatching the wine bottle from Rachel.

  “That’s not nice,” I managed to get out.

  “That’s the reason Abraham gives me when I ask,” Matt said as he began to de-cork the wine.

  “Oh,” I said, focusing on him. “You said it happens, that Alphas wander off like that all the time. Why do they do that?”

  “Hm? Oh, right,” Matt said as he struggled with the cork. It popped out and Mat sighed in a happy sort of way. “Maybe not all Alphas, but I’ve seen it in some. Especially with Blane. You tickled his curiosity, I suppose you could say. He’s probably down at the lab, running some kind of test and will be there all night. See, Rachel? That’s how it’s done.”

  “He smelled my hair and said I didn’t sparkle,” I said. “Then he said I smelled like his mother, and that maybe all mothers smell the same.”

  Matt nodded silently. He seemed to consider his wording before he answered.

  “Pheromones,” Matt said. “Gerrid is interested in how our bodies work, but there’s no money in it. He has done so much work to find out why we do what we do. Why Alphas were once thought to be psychic. It’s all in the invisible, technically odourless, scents that we give off. Like, uh, I think he compared us to bees once. Or was it ants? It was some creature that he was laughed at for because it had a queen and Alphas clearly don’t.”

  “Wouldn’t the Alphas have noticed before?” Rachel asked. “You can’t just swap out an Alpha’s mother. That’s part of the trouble we’re having with Owen’s children.”

  “You can’t,” Matt said as he turned and poured wine into the three glasses. He was quiet until he set the bottle on the counter, then he turned back to us and leaned against it, crossing his arms as he did so. “An Alpha develops a bond with hes mother—shit, his mother—that cannot be synthesised. Blane’s mother passed when he was a young boy, and Ezra couldn’t have brought someone else in to help raise Blane because young Alphas have been known to attack those who are not their biological parents who attempt to parent them. Death, blood, screaming, whole nine yards.”

  “Does her special smell have to do with being a faerie?” Rachel asked.

  I hoped what she meant was: did the genetic marker that set us apart from other women who were carriers of the G14 marker have something to do with Gerrid’s reaction to me.

  “Probably,” Matt said. “Mothers and daughters, that’s what you two would classify as, under that spectrum. Mothers and daughters. Alphas meet Rachel and immediately want to have her. At the same time, they want to keep her close and safe for their sons. The what if, then, is: what if what distinguishes you, Rachel, from you, Rebecca, is a small line of code tacked onto the end of some sequence somewhere, that has made your eyes, Rebecca, slightly darker than your eyes, Rachel? And that tiny bit of code also dictates that after giving birth, Rebecca here starts giving off a certain scent.”

  A scent I couldn’t smell, and normal men couldn’t smell either. Just one that the nose of an Alpha could pick up, and that imitated the smell of their mother so closely that I could walk into a room and push the limits of my rights, then renegotiate those rights with a Master. That I could ask for anything, and the Alphas couldn’t help but get it for me.

  “But all Alpha mothers must give something off,” Rachel said. “They told me everything Alphas do is really hormone or something based, those invisible scents of yours.”

  “Exactly. An Alpha’s mother’s scent is coded between the two of them,” Matt said. “It’s unique, just the same as the scent of any person is unique, like a fingerprint. It cannot
be duplicated, Gerrid has tried. Lots of Alphas have lost their mothers. Can you imagine an Alpha with a stuffed animal that smelled like his mother? We’d end wars, we could control them instead of the other way around. Just drop one of those suckers into an angry Alpha’s lap, and then watch him purr himself to sleep.”

  “I think I see your point,” I said. “The question then becomes: what if these Mothers you all keep talking about—and no one has bothered to explain to me the significance of—are different from others in that once they become mothers to an Alpha, they smell like the mother of all Alphas?”

  “That would give a woman a great deal of control over the Alphas and explain the behaviour that we’ve been reading about.”

  “So, Rachel needs to get pregnant,” I said. “Blane wants us indistinguishable, that’d be the only way, right?”

  There was a knock on the door. Rachel sighed and walked over to it as Matt picked up a glass and sniffed his wine. He swirled the wine as I watched him, eyebrows rising in an almost annoyed, yet knowing fashion. He sniffed the wine glass again as Rachel opened the door behind me.

  “Uh, sure, come on in?” Rachel said.

  I turned as Blane, Gerrid, and the man from that morning walked into the room, brushing past her. Abraham looked a little annoyed. He looked between the two of us and frowned, then turned to Rachel, grabbed her by her shoulders and pulled her close, sniffing the top of her head.

  Rachel went along with it, but had an annoyed look on her face. Like a cat who was being pulled into an unwanted kiss. When Abraham released her, Rachel raised her hand and jabbed at Abraham in a threatening manner. He bared his teeth and nipped at the air as he smiled.

  Surprisingly, Abraham reached out and did it again, sniffing the top of Rachel’s head. Perhaps with the threatening finger, Abraham realized who Rachel was, and was hoping that he could figure out how we smelled to keep from making an awkward mistake later on.

  “Not the top of her head, you idiot,” Gerrid snapped.

  “I was taller than my mother, that was where I sniffed,” Abraham said, sounding baffled as he turned his head to look at Gerrid while holding Rachel still.

  Gerrid walked up to me and slipped his arms around me. He held me close and sighed out. Smelling the side of my head, right by my temple, he made a contented little sigh.

  “Maybe it’s a base that only releases at certain times,” he purred out.

  “I’m a little worried now,” I said, leaning and turning my head upward to look at Gerrid. “That you’re hard at the smell of your mother.”

  He adjusted his hips, confirming what I had suspected. Gerrid even looked a little awkwardly around the room as if wanting help.

  “It’s a little different now, than it was before,” Gerrid murmured.

  He slipped away and Blane took his place. After a moment of consideration, Blane moved around me and then wrapped his arms around my shoulders, he drew me close and hugged me, then bent his nose and sniffed.

  The Alpha stiffened. A tremble ran through him. He even made a little whimper sort of sound a second before he pulled away and moved directly for Matt. There, he wrapped his arms around a startled Matt and buried his face in the crook of his companion’s neck.

  Matt didn’t squeak out, but his eyes were wide in silent surprise, wine glass held about the middle of Blane’s back in an awkward sort of hug.

  “Did that just happen?” Abraham asked as he stepped up to me and peered at my face.

  He reached out and brushed two fingers across my temple and into my hair, then brought the fingers to his nose. There was clear confusion, then startled surprise playing over his features. Abraham, too, stiffened and turned to Gerrid, then looked at Blane.

  “Can you do it, thought?” Abraham asked while still facing Blane.

  His hand swung away from his nose and to the side, clearly trying to move the smell away from him. He took a step back and rubbed his fingers together, looking down at them as his thumb ran over his index and middle finger.

  “Rachel technically owns her as she was a broken breeder of Owen,” Gerrid said. “I can’t just claim Rebecca and then fuck her into my sheets and use the sheets to extract the smell.”

  “Why in the hell not?” Abraham demanded. “Do that immediately. I’m sure a woman would be happy to be pleasured by an Alpha for science. Isn’t that how you’ve been making a living recently?”

  Gerrid growled out, then glanced at Matt. The companion was clearly confused, but didn’t come right out and say it. He was probably afraid to do as much with Blane still wrapped up in his arms.

  “For starters, she can’t have sex until the morning.”

  “She has an ass, are you telling me that you can’t pleasure a woman with anal?” Abraham asked. “I thought I trained you better than that.”

  Gerrid’s mouth worked just a little. Like he wanted to say something to Abraham about that comment. He looked away in the end and just gave his head a little shake. Likely, whatever he tried to say would only get him into more trouble.

  “I’m sorry, I never agreed to anal, screw you both,” I snapped.

  Gerrid made a little motion and a face that I took to mean, “See?”

  Abraham turned to me and frowned. He looked like he was about to say something, but then bit back the comment and gave his head a shake.

  “No, I do not actually want to know the answer to that question, especially with her in the room, so I’m not going to ask. Look, sort it out. Matt, sweetheart, maybe you should bring your glass of wine and we’ll go to Blane’s rooms, okay? Don’t worry about the wine, I will replace the bottle. These three will probably drink it anyhow. Come on.”

  Abraham pulled Blane away from Matt and prodded him toward the door before he made a motion to Matt. The companion looked Abraham up and down, then sipped his wine and shifted his head to the side. His look seemed to ask if Abraham thought he was that stupid.

  “Oh, my promise to Morgan still stands,” Abraham said. “If you want this, you can have it. But it’s not allowed to touch you without permission.”

  Matt made an annoyed head motion and turned, grabbing the bottle of wine off the counter.

  Bottle in one hand, half-filled glass in the other, Matt followed after Blane and out of the room. Abraham waited another moment, then turned to me and sighed slowly.

  “You smell like my mother. Do not think that means you own me.”

  “You owe me,” I snapped back.

  “Hell no, I did the safest thing for everyone, running away before you got your hands on me,” he said, jabbing his finger at me. “Also, you started this thing with Gerrid, fix it before he starts biting people.”

  “Started what thing?” I asked as Abraham walked away. Because he offered no answer, I turned to Gerrid instead. “Started what thing?”

  “I’ve been discussing it for a while with various people,” Gerrid said. “Basically, making scent toys, but no Alpha wants a companion scented toy when they can just go out and pick up a new companion. We’ve been using some in certain places to do certain things, like for the War Brats. They can’t have a companion, they might rip the poor man apart, so we’ve got the scent for them. Not much demand for it otherwise.”

  “You’ve been talking to Matt about this?” I asked.

  “He’s sort of the one who suggested it in the first place,” Gerrid said. “Blane lends Matt’s services sometimes. Because he can’t be broken, he can have that effect on various Alphas. Normally companions can only do that if they’re sexually active with the Alpha but Matt doesn’t need to.”

  “I asked because shortly before you arrived, he was talking about just that. He thinks the Mother part of the Mother and Daughters smells like every Alpha’s mother.”

  Gerrid went completely still. Then his eyes moved to the side slightly and he seemed to be caught up in a thought, a thousand miles away.

  “Ohhhh,” he said.

  “Gerrid?” I asked.

  He gave himself a shake and
moved toward me, pulling me into his arms. He gave me another hug, then pulled back and smiled at me.

  “It’s fine. We’re still figuring it out. Morgan is excluded from Rachel’s, well, whatever it is that Rachel does, but not from your… whatever it is that you two do. Near as we can tell, the only difference is that Morgan got Rachel’s blood in his mouth the day they met, he bit her. She’s agreed to an experiment or two, but we haven’t been able to try it yet.”

  “You want me to bleed in your mouth to exclude you from all this?” I asked.

  “No, not yet anyhow. I need to be able to smell it to do my work. Until then, my awkward boner will continue to be confused.”

  “Or, you could stop sniffing my head,” I said.

  “True, I spent some time between your legs at the masquerade and that definitely smells nothing like my mother,” Gerrid said. “Anyhow, I will leave you two ladies alone for your glass of wine and movie night. I’m going to head back to the lab.”

  “For two hours,” I said, jabbing my finger at him. “Then you are to be back here to pick me up and you are going to sleep tonight, mister.”

  “What? But I’m onto something. I should see to it while it’s fresh,” Gerrid protested.

  “Two hours and that’s it, I mean it.”

  “Fine,” he sighed out. Then he frowned. “Wait, are we sleeping together?”

  “It’s the only way to make certain you sleep, so yes.”

  He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he kept quiet and shrugged instead. Then he kissed my forehead before he moved around me and headed for the door.

  I strongly suspected that he wanted to protest again, but realized at the last minute that protesting would mean sleeping alone.

  I sighed and claimed one of the glasses of wine. I did as I had witnessed Matt doing, sniffing the top of the glass. I swirled it and sniffed again, but didn’t detect any difference in the smell. Turning to Rachel, I raised my eyebrows and fought back yet another sigh.

  We all sounded like we belonged in some young adult romance novel, with how we sighed and postured so much. For Alphas, that came normally. Especially Blane’s generation, they had been taught to pout instead of attack. I probably picked up habits while living with Owen, because as a breeder I hadn’t been able to attack anyone without his permission.