Fragments (Daughters of the Alphas Book 2)

by Aya DeAniege

  Something about slipping into that altered their body chemistry, that’s what the school had taught us. They were dangerous because the adrenaline pumped quicker and for longer periods of time. They rarely blacked out again, but they were more vicious than others who hadn’t gone through that because they were no longer afraid of what they might do.

  Because they had already seen the worst of it.

  “You’ve watched one at work, haven’t you?” I asked.

  “I have,” Gerrid said, glancing at Rachel, then focusing on me. “What’s about to happen up there is Peter and his team will arrive. They’re a sweep team. They service Abraham and only Abraham. They will clear out the Alphas with Abraham and Blane leading them. They will kill anything that gets in their way.”

  I really had to dig through memories to figure out who Peter was.

  The son of Paul, the Alpha who had ruled before Abraham. Peter had never expected to succeed his father, he was a few years younger than Blane. The two, Peter and Blane, had spent much of their formative years competing with one another for dominance. When they had chosen separate paths in life, they had gone their separate ways.

  Working as Abraham’s right hand put Peter just a step below the lead Alpha. No one could lay a finger on him without incurring Abraham’s wrath.

  I didn’t know anything about Peter in his position, but that in itself spoke volumes. He never left witnesses, otherwise his reputation would have preceded him.

  “What about Matt?” Rachel asked.

  “Even Matt, if he’s not careful,” Gerrid said. “He could also be claimed as a prize, so to speak. Hopefully Blane is the one who finds him. Cards, anyone?”

  “Cards?” Rachel asked. “You just casually state that Matt could get gangraped and you want to play cards?”

  “We’re down here for a while, there’s no point in running through the scenario over and over again. Okay? It sucks, but it happens.”

  I glared at Gerrid, who cast me a desperate sort of look at the same time. Trying not to grumble, I folded my arms and looked away.

  We couldn’t leave the safe room, there was no way for us to go out and save Matt without putting ourselves in danger. Matt had lived with Blane for over twenty years, he had likely done drills and knew what to do in such instances.

  “Rebecca is bleeding,” Penelope said.

  “What?” I asked, lifting my arms and looking down.

  Everything seemed to be fine, and while I hurt it only felt like pulled muscles, not broken skin at all. I turned to Penelope and found the woman was standing there, blood on the tip of her finger.

  She had snuck up on me and wiped a bit of blood off with her finger. I hadn’t felt her so much as poke me, which told me that I was in some sort of shock. That was a bad, bad thing, to be in shock, but if I had been bleeding that much, I would have been bleeding enough that someone else would have noticed.

  Penelope looked at the finger, then up at me, and ever so slowly opened her mouth.

  Gerrid slipped between us and grabbed Penelope by the wrist. The two struggled for a moment, but Gerrid ended up on top with Penelope’s hands pinned to the floor. She wriggled under him, but wasn’t able to get her wrists free. He used his weight to pin her against the tile, drawing a whimper from her as she stilled.

  Whatever she had taken, whatever had been in that capsule, obviously didn’t work as quickly as Blane’s injections. She was still in pain, and her body was still damaged.

  “There’s a kit there,” he said with a motion. “Bring me an alcohol wipe.”

  I went to where he pointed, and pulled open the kit on the side of the wall. I went back to Gerrid and handed the wipe to him. He ripped it open with his teeth and cleaned Penelope’s fingers thoroughly. He huffed out as he stood and grabbed me, pulling me away from Penelope and toward the bathroom.

  He pushed me inside and closed the door behind him as I sat on the toilet, if only to make space for him.

  The Alpha looked down at me with dark eyes, studying me as I sat there watching him.

  “Shirt off,” he said.

  I did as he told me, pulling the shirt off over my head. There was a feeling on my arm as the fabric dragged over something. Right arm, near the shoulder, but I still didn’t feel the pain or the damage. Just an awareness that something wasn’t quite right on that side.

  Gerrid took the shirt from me and dropped it into the sink, filling it with water as he did so. Once the shirt was covered, he turned back to me and grimaced.

  “That is going to leave a scar,” he said.

  “Shouldn’t I feel it?” I asked.

  “Normal people say that when the adrenaline gets pumping, you don’t notice the pain,” Gerrid said.

  “I think they say that if you’re in shock, you don’t feel it. Adrenaline doesn’t do that.”

  “Adrenaline does do that, but let’s do this quickly and get you wrapped in a blanket or two just in case it is shock.”

  “Doesn’t shock mean death?”

  “Without proper medical care, it can. But, like I said, I’m pretty certain it’s adrenaline, not shock. You’ll be fine.”

  He reached for my neck, two fingers moving gently up until he found my pulse. The heat of his fingers on my neck made me want to curl up in his lap. His body was much warmer than mine was, and I was even colder without my shirt.

  Gerrid was quiet, watching the wall for about a minute, before he pulled his hand away.

  “I’d definitely say your adrenaline is pumping. I’m going to go grab that kit and be back.”

  Gerrid left the bathroom. He returned a few moments later with the kit and a little bar of soap. The soap was set on the sink, the kit across it, because the sink was small enough to hold the kit without falling in. He opened the kit and looked down at me, watching him.

  “Penelope didn’t mean anything by it,” he said. “She’s out of it from the drugs and the blood loss. When she gets better, she’ll likely apologize about the entire thing. More embarrassed than anything else.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “Penelope saw your blood and was going to ingest it. We believe Morgan ingesting Rachel’s blood accidentally was why he became immune to her ordering him about. For them, it’s just like he’s the Alpha. Except she can be all sparkly like a companion sometimes.”

  “So that’s why you tackled her?” I asked.

  “Ingesting a fluid form someone else without permission isn’t a good thing, it’s shady at best and Penelope should know better. She never should have tried it in the first place,” Gerrid said.

  He pulled out several items and went about cleaning my wound.

  I hissed out when the rubbing alcohol got into the wound itself. Flinching away, I shuddered and batted his hand. He immediately backed up and sunk down, crouching so that he could look at me as I whined out, putting my hands on my face as I curled over, hiding my face from him.

  “You may have just cracked,” he said quietly, like he was talking to a skittish animal. “We know the solution for that, but I don’t think it’s appropriate here and now. How about you lower your hands, and let me finish tending your wound, okay? Then we’ll pull down a cot and give you something to sleep. By the time you wake up, everything will be back to normal.”

  “You can’t promise that,” I said with a shake of my head.

  I stayed hunched over in the silence that followed, then looked up when he didn’t answer. He was watching me with those green eyes of his, no judgement whatsoever. Not even pity, just watching.

  Gerrid was silent for a moment longer, then nodded slowly.

  “You’re right, I can’t promise you that and it was silly of me to try. But at least this all will be settled and we can go back up. The stress of waiting could break a normal person, Rebecca, and your being whole is still fresh and new. Your body isn’t used to it. It wants to revert back to the state that it was, being broken is a lot easier than being whole and holding it together.”

  �
��Okay,” I said, lowering my hands to rub the palms of them on my pantlegs. “Okay, patch me up.”

  “Good,” he said with a little smile. “Blane has some of his drug in here, but we’re to save it in case of emergency, like Penelope being shot, emergency. We need to save it. Something like that might happen again, and the Alphas need it to keep on our feet to protect you for longer.”

  “The bullet that grazed me would have gone through her,” I said.

  “Yes, and that might cause problems,” he said. “You two don’t have the same blood type, you could end up with a fever and other rejection based symptoms. However, our bodies don’t just bleed because the flesh is damaged. They bleed to remove foreign debris from a wound as well. There’s still a chance that her blood didn’t enter your system.”

  “And if it did?” I asked.

  “Blane will deal with it,” Gerrid said. “He’s a magically mad scientist, remember? He probably has a pill for that.”

  “True,” I grumbled.

  He stood and reached for the sink. As he went about preparing a dressing for my graze, a thought occurred to me, a question more of.

  “Where’s Owen?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Gerrid said, opening the door without showing me to the rest of the room. “Hey, Rachel, what happened to Owen?”

  There was a moment of silence.

  I knew for Rachel it was a stunned silence. She was wondering why one of us would ask that question when we all pretty well wanted Owen out of the way. I couldn’t even explain why I had asked. It just felt natural to do so.

  Maybe Gerrid was right, maybe I had fractured a little, and I was looking for him because he was familiar.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “They blew up the wall and he just bolted. If they took him, or killed him, I mean, that kind of deals with that, right?”

  Gerrid sighed loudly and glared at his feet, then he looked up and gave his head a shake. He was facing out the door, which meant that Rachel saw the look.

  “What?” Rachel asked. “Why are you huffing and puffing over that? He’s a bad man that lots of people want dead.”

  “You’re supposed to look after your companions, not lose them in a fight and act like they should die already, that’s a sign of a bad Dom.”

  “I’m not an Alpha,” Rachel snapped back.

  “Making an example for Alphas,” Gerrid said with just as much attitude. “If he’s dead, you are in so much trouble. You will be held accountable.”

  “Well, I didn’t know that. This job didn’t exactly come with a training manual.”

  “We made it clear to you when it happened, you are responsible for him.”

  “God, you guys just are not on my side about killing that moron.”

  “He’s a companion. He is no longer and Alpha, and therefore should be protected as such,” Gerrid said, kicking the door closed.

  “It would solve a lot of issues,” I said.

  Because I didn’t want to admit that I had wanted to know where he was for personal reasons. I didn’t want to be that weak, pathetic creature who asked after their abuser and pined for them after they were gone.

  “Oh, I want him dead too, companion or not,” Gerrid said with a shrug. “He was a bad, bad man and deserves everything he gets. But the whole world is watching her and him, and to see what she will do with him. She needs to treat him as a companion, not as a vendetta she’s carrying on. Don’t tell her I told you that.”

  “Is there a chance that he’s dead?”

  “Only if he gets in Blane’s way. The intruders will protect him, rather than kill him.”

  Right, because the intruders had been there to end Rachel and I for what Rachel had done to Owen. They would view him as the victim, but also as a mascot for everything wrong with us. They wouldn’t end him because they wanted to show the world what horrible creatures we were for breaking an Alpha.

  Which was exactly what Alphas did to companions.

  Oh, and Abraham did to Alphas.

  “Damn, we just cannot catch a break with this guy.”

  Gerrid placed the dressing on my wound and gave a little smile. He smoothed out the adhesive, then reached into the kit and pulled out a little pill bottle.

  “One now, and we’ll see how it’s going eight to twelve hours from now, okay?”

  “Sure, but if they burn down the whole estate, you need to get me out of here,” I said, holding out my hand.

  “If fire gets into the safe room, we’ve got bigger problems on our hands, but all right.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I awoke the next morning, bleary eyed and sluggish. Gerrid sat up on the cot beside mine the moment I moved. He reached for me and set a hand on my shoulder, which made me groan and adjust. I dragged the covers up over my head and groaned again.

  “Found a zombie,” he said.

  “I want to sleep forever,” I mumbled.

  Except my face was near the cot and I didn’t put as much effort into talking as I should have. The words came out little more than a grunting, grumbling mess.

  Gerrid chuckled and slid off the cot, walking away. I listened to him go, keeping my eyes closed. It was only when I heard a door open that I pried my eyes open once more. I sat up, rubbing at my face as Gerrid moved about the kitchen area.

  Penelope and Rachel were already up and at the dining table with food before them. They were eating and talking quietly, a low murmur that I couldn’t make out the words for.

  I made myself move, unable to shake off the feeling of being weighed down. Getting off the cot and walking to the little kitchen area felt like a trek uphill with a heavy pack on my back. I had never taken a sleeping pill before, but I assumed that was what was making me sluggish.

  Gerrid turned and handed me a package of instant oatmeal. It was bowl and packaging all in one. He had used hot water from an electric kettle to cook it.

  “Spoon is on the side there,” Gerrid said.

  “We should be having sex,” Penelope said to no one in particular.

  Gerrid and I both stiffened. We stared at one another over my breakfast as his eyes went a little wider.

  I had no context to place Penelope’s comment. Why we were supposed to be having sex was beyond me. I had possibly fractured the night before, that was a reason for it, but not to have it with Penelope. Just with Gerrid, and even then, I don’t think I had to have actual sex.

  The only specific requirement was orgasm. They had said good sex, but… come on.

  “I like my bits attached to me,” Gerrid said finally as he turned back to the counter.

  “I could have sex with the twins,” she countered.

  “That is not an acceptable alternative, get over there in the corner.”

  Gerrid pointed to the far corner, opposite of the dining table. Penelope pouted like a child and glared at him, refusing to budge as his finger jabbed again.

  “But that’s not fair!”

  “Get, or I will put you there.”

  Penelope grumbled and stood. It seemed that there was a second meaning behind Gerrid’s words, because she didn’t fight him on it. Alphas fought all the time, and fighting and then dominating him would have given her what she wanted.

  Unless she knew she couldn’t win.

  Penelope took her oatmeal to the corner and sat with her back in the corner. There, she ate in a pouting sort of fashion.

  I moved to the table and took the seat that Penelope had vacated.

  The spoon was a little plastic thing attached to the side of the package with a bit of adhesive on the handle. It popped right off, and I used it to stir the oatmeal. Looking over the oatmeal, to Rachel, I watched her study her food far too hard.

  Gerrid sat beside me with his oatmeal and considered both of us. He picked his spoon off the side and began stirring the oatmeal.

  “I dislike groups of women,” he said. “Even if they’re all sleeping, somehow they end up bickering. What is it then? One of you dreamed the other stole
her man?”

  “I don’t want to be down here anymore,” Rachel said.

  “Did you sleep at all?” Gerrid asked her.

  She gave her head a shake. He made a face and began eating his breakfast.

  As he brought the spoon up to his mouth, he made a motion to me with it, then toward my untouched oatmeal. I grabbed my spoon, which I had stuck into the oatmeal and had it standing almost straight up, and began picking at the oatmeal.

  Rachel continued to do the same, eventually clearing her package off and taking it to the closet. She opened the door and placed the packaging into a receptacle on the door. I watched her do that, then focused on my oatmeal and made an effort to eat.

  Gerrid stood and took his package to the closet. His, too, was placed in the receptacle. Gerrid moved back to my side and sat in a pointed sort of fashion. He entwined his fingers and watched me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Waiting for you to finish your meal. You’ve had quite some time and only eaten a few bites. You need to eat.”

  “I am eating,” I said.

  “I like my women with flesh enough to form muscle and maintain that muscle,” he said. “I realize it’s not the most appetizing and you already have troubles, but you need to eat.”

  “I am,” I muttered.

  Gerrid looked pointedly at my spoon, still buried in the oatmeal. I picked it up and placed it in my mouth. Gerrid watched me as I ate all the oatmeal. My stomach was already turning, grumbling and complaining because I had forced food into it.

  He stood and bent, kissing the side of my head before he grabbed the package and walked off. Gerrid returned a moment later and rubbed my back with his hand gently.

  “Why don’t you go lay down?” he asked.

  I stood, pausing as my stomach tried to gurgle. Gerrid slipped right up against me and wrapped his arms around me. We stood there together, as my stomach settled. I looked up at him and he smiled down at me.

  “See, nothing wrong here,” he murmured.