by Aya DeAniege
Books By Aya DeAniege
Contracted
Contract Taken
Contract Broken
Contract Renewed
Daughters of the Alphas
Masked Intentions
Fragments
Coffee and Blood
At Death's Door
Cheating Death
Death Mask
The Ethereal
His Grace
His Wings
Coming Soon:
Crop
Seed
Harvest
Contract Signed
Contract Sealed
Contract Claimed
Being Written:
Contract Delivered
The Awakened
Prototype*
Fragments
Daughters of the Alphas
Aya DeAniege
Copyright 2018 Aya DeAniege
Front Cover Design by DeAniege Designs
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Before the invention of modern science, the world believed Alphas were psychic. The Alphas could do things that seemed other-worldly and no one had an explanation for. Now, with the Mothers and Daughters, they are applying the same science. But knowing how it happens isn’t helping any of them from reacting when these women lay hands on them.
Chapter One
I awoke with no recollection of who, or where, I was.
It took me a moment to register my immediate surroundings.
I was in a bed, under rich, soft comfort. It wasn’t more than a sheet covering me. The blankets were bunched up near the end of the bed, over my feet. Those blankets kept me nice and warm, even though the rest of me was only covered with the silken sheet.
There was a body laying next to me. I could feel the warmth of it without opening my eyes. I made a little sound and turned my head toward that body. With that sound, I drew his scent in through my nose.
Hot, thick, it reminded me of a steak cooking to perfection and made me want to sink my teeth into him.
As I lay in the bed, my eyes still closed, the who trickled back to me slowly.
My name was Rebecca Margrove, I had a father and mother, a brother and twin sister. Memories floated up as I clenched my eyes and straightened my head, willing to give into the exhaustion that threatened to overcome me.
Childhood memories, happy memories. I was loved and cared for, and there wasn’t anything that my family wouldn’t do for me, and in return, I for them.
Then why is it all coloured with sadness?
I pried my eyes open and stared up at the ceiling, wondering at that comment, and turning over the memories in my mind. Not quite, but yes, that nagging voice was correct. There was a laden sadness over my memories. Like how waking from a nightmare sometimes made the whole world feel as if it were the nightmare.
Stretching, I rolled onto my side and tucked my hands up under the pillow. I adjusted slightly to prop up my head and get a little more comfortable.
That was a silly way to describe that marvellously warm pillow. It was covered in a soft fabric, but with a firm filling. I moved my arm out of habit and in search of that bodily comfort one finds when they are nearly asleep.
The body laying beside me was sound asleep. My eyes roamed over the dark hair and the muscles under the skin that shifted with a predatory grace as the man adjusted sleepily. His face was almost hidden, an arm up and almost touching his nose. His features were slackened, but I was fairly certain that he was older than me. No grey in his hair to give that away, but there were little lines at the corners of his eyes, and a crease between his eyebrows from a frown.
The bedsheet was tucked around me, not him. He was curled on his side, hiding his sex. He was naked, but didn’t seem to be bothered by being bare. There were no goosebumps up his sides or arms.
There was obviously no place to be, nothing to rush after, so I closed my eyes and resigned, once more, to give in to that exhaustion that kept nagging at me.
There’s a naked man next to you.
My eye snapped open and I jolted upward in bed, suddenly alert as the man also sat up. He was still half asleep, the imprint of the pillow working its way up his cheek. His hair was standing at an odd angle.
I screamed, he screamed.
We all screamed for ice cream!
He bolted for the door and I watched him go, frozen in place from fear.
His muscles rippled under his tanned skin as he fled. He was fit as could be, but I only saw his back. There were scars there, rips and slashes, a bullet wound just below the ribs.
Some people were harder to kill than others, and Alphas were harder to kill than people.
That bullet wound suggested that something had gone through his liver, but obviously that hadn’t killed him. It certainly didn’t seem to trouble him any as he ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
I think that was an Alpha.
They were difficult to kill, but also difficult to scare. He should have stood his ground at the least. In reality, he should have tossed me down and had his way with me, if he didn’t snap my neck for startling him while he was half-asleep.
That was simply how they worked.
I gaped after him, unable to bring myself to say or ask anything. In those moments after the door slammed shut, that was all I could do, stare at the door, not understanding what I had just witnessed.
A fragment of something came back to me, a memory of a party, at a bar. A laughter as someone slipped me a drink.
I put my hand to my head and struggled to recall what I had seen, what I had been a part of. I shuddered in a breath and closed my eyes.
That was right, that was the last memory I had. Heading out to a party, drinking for the first time outside of home. Little shards welled up, but then were buried before I had a chance to really see them. Those few minutes of sitting in bed, struggling to remember, I felt so distorted. Almost like the world changed around me. I felt out of place and time. Like my blackout hadn’t just been a night or a few hours.
The room I was in was not in Owen’s territory. It was too clean and smooth, and not country enough. There wasn’t a worn almost trailer trash look to anything in the room. At all.
Owen’s home didn’t look like you’d expect of the modern Alphas you saw on the television. He wasn’t a landed Alpha or a higher blood. He wasn’t even newer blood that was trying to be more than he was.
His land didn’t give a great deal of income, because he hadn’t invested in anything. It was more like a run down, backwater little town.
If I had been moved to one of the other areas—which were close enough for me to have been moved while passed out from alcohol—they would have had that country sort of look to them.
Bare wood, or barnwood, and a warmer feel. It still would have been as clean as the room I had woken in. There would be giant windows looking out over a farm or ranch, or just green land. I had been in one of those homes on a school trip once. It had been absolutely gorgeous.
But it wasn’t where I had woken, not by far.
The walls were smooth. The ceiling looked like there was a pressed pattern inlaid into it. The fl
oor was some sort of stone with lavish rugs over it.
Every fixture, every bit of furniture, even the artwork on the walls had that richness to it. That subtle something that set the real thing apart from a replica, every item had that special something.
The kitchen looked like it was brand new, along with the fireplace and the bedspread was just…
So soft.
I ran my hand over the blanket and saw, for a moment, a worn-out flannel under my hand. Faded by time and washing, patched in places. Then the richer sheet was beneath my fingers once more. I dragged that sheet up to my chest, pulling my knees up as I did so.
That brief view made me suck in a breath in terror, heart pounding in my chest, ringing in my ears.
Owen’s territory didn’t make enough to bring in rich things. Even the hotels were more like shady motels, with scratchy blankets and air conditioners that rarely worked.
The nearest place that might have rich fabric would be a landed Alpha estate and the nearest one was… Blane’s, I thought, I wasn’t certain on that.
Blane and his line had been inheritors for two hundred years, a thing which for Alphas was impressive in and of itself. Each son became the heir of his father, but truly so by Alpha tradition. Blane’s estate had been built on the bodies of his great-grandfather’s enemies, expanded on the remains of the old beliefs his grandfather had torn down, and on the old regime that Blane’s father had pulled the teeth of, and then Blane had executed.
All the while, their estate had been upgraded, polished, refurbished, and renovated with the latest and greatest. Two hundred years of wealth had led to an estate that—if it wasn’t the same one I was sitting in—was very similar to it. Landed Alphas were not always the same as, but very similar to, higher blood.
Blane was the Master of Owen, which meant that he should have done something, but after his companion’s death, Blane’s teeth had dulled.
Alex had been Blane’s everything. Something about how Alex broke had made him so competitive that he and Blane had taken over the area without any extra effort. But after the takeover, all Blane had cared about were his studies and inventions.
But how did I know that?
I remembered hearing that Alex had died. I recalled that. It had made the news, because he hadn’t been a normal companion. There was no way to explain the rest of it. Especially not the feeling that I had been laughing at Blane when I heard the information. It wasn’t something I’d do, laugh at a grieving man, it just seemed so petty of me. Not like me at all.
Rubbing at my face in frustration, I decided first thing was first.
I lifted the sheet.
I was naked.
And had stretch marks.
What the fuck?
I snapped the sheet back down and tried to control the panic. Fragments like a dream came back up, masked people, music…
“You don't deserve forgiveness. You deserve everything you've ever done, given back to you.”
The hatred and anger behind those words chilled me to my core. They had come from a voice much like my own, but I was fairly certain was not mine.
I could only assume that meant that Rachel had been talking. I couldn’t tell who she had been speaking to, though, just all that anger making the air dance like coloured ink dropped into water.
Right. Something is wrong. Get over it.
I wouldn’t find the answers I needed by remaining in bed. Those answers were outside the room and had something to do with the man who had bolted when I had woken him up. Someone would likely be coming to get me.
And I was naked.
Which made me nervous. I hesitated and did a bodily check, a feeling of every tense muscle and raw ache that might have been bothering me.
I really thought about it, and I decided the ache between my legs wasn’t a painful sort. Naked body plus naked body, mussed up bed, and that sort of ache? That spoke of sex. The fog that filled my limbs and begged for me to go back to sleep spoke of good sex too. The kind of sex that an Alpha shouldn’t have been running from unless I had bitten him.
Which was a distinct possibility, but it still left me confused as to what to do. With myself, with the situation. Where did I even begin to right the weird that was my waking?
What do we do when we’re naked?
Yes, little crazy voice inside my head, I totally knew what you meant.
I sucked in an annoyed breath and shifted to the side of the bed, deciding the first and best course of action was to shower and then dress. At least, I hoped there was clothing somewhere in the room.
I almost had my foot on the floor. It hovered just an inch or so above the thick rug as I looked around. Something had stopped my foot, like a barrier between the tip of my big toe and the marble flooring.
A panic was welling up, shuddering along my nerves and turning my insides to liquid. I didn’t know why that fear was tingling up my nerves, or why I wanted to cry at the prospect of getting out of bed without permission. That had never been the case for me in the past. My parents had always allowed us to come and go as we pleased.
Well, within the confines of our curfews.
My father had never struck us in a disciplinary manner. Only by accident during our self-defence lessons.
I pulled myself back together, gathered my wits about me as one might say, and placed my foot on the floor.
The world did not end, the walls did not come crumbling down. No one was running through the door to shout at me. I forced myself to relax and stepped out of the bed entirely.
My heart was pounding in my chest. There was a tremble to my hands and up my arms. The fear was still there, causing a barely noticeable tremor. I was afraid for my life, that’s what that cold, yet somehow empty feeling in my chest was. Someone had done something and made me afraid of my own shadow.
I looked down at my belly, which gave me a pretty good guess what had happened.
As a carrier of the G14 genetic marker, I had probably been broken and bred. An Alpha wasn’t supposed to break a woman and were strongly discouraged.
But Owen...
Something about breaking a woman didn’t work. I had studied genetics and the studies done on those who were carriers, interested in what my body would go through over the course of my life.
Women weren’t meant to bond with an Alpha like that. They were meant to bond with their children. By breaking a woman, an Alpha made them go mad, or just sit in a cloud and stare at the wall.
It was a possibility that would explain the changes to my body, and the lack of empty bottles everywhere. The other option was a complete break with reality, but I couldn’t fathom how I had come to be there if it had been because I had gone mad.
The other option was a simpler explanation and—given the fact that I knew an Alpha who did that to women—I could make a pretty good guess that it was Owen who had broken me. I didn’t remember the how, but there was no way it had been a fair fight.
When I found the bastard, I’d gut him with his own tongue.
That’s right, I said it, his own damned tongue!
Revelling in that anger was why I kept my feet on the floor, why I marched into the bathroom and closed the door. Closed, but didn’t slam because I didn’t have that much courage.
The bathroom was only slightly richer than the outer room. The floor was tiled with some kind of granite, I thought. That same stone went up the walls. I don’t know why the bathroom was grey, or who would have thought that was a good idea, but it was.
The lights overhead gave off an almost pure light, but were a little yellow. Which meant that whatever I saw in the mirror wasn’t going to be the true colouring or lighting. No point in even looking at myself.
There was a large, triangular tub on the far side of the room. I was betting there were jets in that tub, and that they would be fantastic for my aching body.
But I didn’t have the time.
I found the shower easily enough, off to one side. The stall was large enough for two pe
ople and was tiled with the same stone as the rest of the bathroom. I turned on the water, then stepped in.
My mistake was just that.
Cold water hit my back, making me cry out in startled surprise as I reached through the stream, trying to keep my face out of it, and slapped at the knobs. The hot hit me full blast, causing me to shriek and hit the side of the stall, back cringing in protest as I stood there, trying not to burn myself as I reached for the taps once more.
When the water finally balanced out, I sighed out in relief and slipped under the water.
I washed the smell of the man off me, not understanding what had happened. Not until I was under that almost too warm, delightful pressure, did I realize the problem with my hypothesis.
If I had been broken, there would have been no going back.
A broken G14 was a broken mind.
The Alphas had tried to piece us back together before, tried to solve that little issue. The nearest they had come was a set of drugs that could be given to a companion to put off the breaking, if their Alpha wasn’t there, or if that breaking would result in a creature that was a shade of themselves.
Because, unlike Owen, most Alphas chose their companions out of some sense of love and adoration. They wanted their companions to retain as much of their personalities and being as possible.
When all the Alphas in all the world couldn’t make something happen, it probably wasn’t possible. Which only brought up more questions.
How had I awoken whole and who had that man been? Where was I? When was I? How long had I been broken?
I hadn’t looked in a mirror on the way by, just straight to the shower. I could smell the sex on me even after a good rinse. It was a deeper smell, as if I hadn’t washed in several days.
Frankly, I was surprised the Alpha had still been there when I awoke, if I hadn’t showered in days. Even if we had been having sex the entire time, it was my understanding that an Alpha’s nose would make him seek out water at some point and wash everyone involved.
