Chapter 8
She lost track of time. It had been a very long day. The women of Constantine’s harem slicked stuff on every inch of her, rubbed it in, then ushered her into a bath.
Food was offered and declined. They pulled her out of the bath, back to the chair, and more thick creamy stuff went all over her body. They buttered her like toast—even her hair didn't escape treatment.
They brought clothes, holding them up for Sasha's inspection while her hands and feet were soaking in warm waxy stuff and her face was coated in frothy green gunk. Barely able to open her eyes to look, she saw wrap dresses in every color like armless dancing partners waiting to be chosen.
To her horror, Sasha realized the collective decision for Sasha's jewel color was pale baby pink.
When they let her go to bed and Sasha parted the curtains to the little tent, she found a luxurious, pink feminine hideaway.
If she’d had any energy left, she would have gagged.
Tomorrow this would be sorted out.
Tonight, despite the horrible color, she fell asleep. Every bit of fabric soothed her senses. It was so soft, like the belly of a baby rabbit. It all smelled good too, the smell of sweet baked treats in the marketplace.
Tomorrow she'd realize that not only had a color been chosen for her, but a smell as well. Tomorrow she would be disgusted that someone had placed the deciding vote on her being the pink vanilla cake jewel.
*
Her day began early the next morning. Sasha always woke up with the drones at home, even when exhausted and stressed. In this strange pink confection of a bed, she hadn’t thought today would be any different.
Sasha still felt sleepy and unrested, which was unusual, until she heard the sounds from outside of her private chamber. Those noises had awakened her, not the dawn—little feminine cries and a masculine rumble.
She had to lay there and figure it out. One of the women sounded like she was in pain, but it couldn’t be pain, because she was asking—no, begging for more. And the male, growling like a massive prehistoric lion, reminded her that she would take what he gave her or get nothing at all.
Sex sounds.
On the other side of her curtains, sex was happening.
With only one day of exposure, identifying the unique voice of each woman who lived in the big room was impossible, but as female cries overlapped, Sasha realized more than one of them must be out there. Maybe all of them were.
Her suspicions that the male outside was Constantine were confirmed when one of the women began begging, "Alpha, please, please, I need your big cock."
He chuckled. "Poor, sweet thing. You're just going to have to wait."
"Alpha, Master, please!" the woman cried.
"That is enough, Eze." His voice hardened in reprimand.
She heard movement. They were right there. Sasha's head was facing the wrong direction, or else she could part the curtain and see everything as well as hear it.
"Bella, spank Eze. Now," Kane commanded.
Sasha winced. Merrick liked to spank, hit, and leave bruises too.
"My pleasure," Bella purred. Her voice alone made Sasha's face feel hot and shamed. It was the only one she recognized that fit with a face in her head. Dark-haired, red clothed—a breeder, who like Sasha had no mark on her hand. Did she have a mark somewhere else?
Earlier she had seemed offended for Sasha's sake. And protective, more than once steering questions about Sasha's personal life to the more mundane, safe areas. Sasha should like her. She liked everyone.
Everyone except for Bella.
"No, alpha. No!" the one called Eze was crying out dramatically.
"Do you need to be whipped, then?"
"Oh, alpha, I just need you." She answered in a baby girl voice.
While this conversation was happening, Sasha heard another woman whimpering and moaning in rhythmic response to pleasures inflicted on her body. Clearly, when it came to sex, Kane was a multitasker.
"Ardrua, Neena, help Bella with Eze and then come back to me. I'm not finished with my dessert." He was in there with all of them.
All of her hopes that this was not his harem were dashed completely.
Of course he had sex with the jewels. He was an alpha.
Sasha learned in school all the different tendencies of the world's hormone driven designations.
Like every king's citizen of the 12 Sectors, she had the minimum of five years of school from age seven to twelve:reading, writing, and math.
The final year encompassed all three basics, plus added the subjects of history and health dynamics.
She had sat in a class of mixed boys and girls who had not yet entered puberty and been lectured on the expected behaviors, physical differences, and spectrum gifts of alphas, betas, omega breeders, and drones.
Alphas were top of the food chain, driven by might makes right.
A mature alpha's need for regular sex was as instinctual as it was biological. Lack of sex led to deadly aggression.
Some of the beta girls around her had laughed. Quipped that it was just an excuse for alphas to chase any female they could. But Sasha had seen it play out in real life more than once.
The king's law required an extra ten years of schooling for all who presented as an alpha; most of that was just to learn self-control so they didn't go around raping and killing everyone in the city.
Alpha males who didn't complete that schooling and go into their thirty years of military service were either killed or became rogues from all sectors. Like Merrick.
Kane was in the other room engaging in normal, healthful alpha activity.
And it pleased him. His voice was drenched with pleasure, rolling over Sasha's skin like a caress.
She found herself rubbing her face in the softest blanket, imagining that light touch of his on the back of her neck.
She loved the sound of his pleasure, the rumble and burr of it.
It turned her blood to honey, thick and heavy.
She knew this was the response of her own designation. Breeders preferred alpha mates. The stronger the alpha, the stronger the attraction.
That practical knowledge didn't help one bit when it came to the things just Kane's voice was making Sasha feel. His voice woke up sleeping nerve endings and engaged her underdeveloped omega breeder sensibilities.
So this was what it felt like to be an omega.
She didn't like hearing the giving and getting of pleasure, the interruptions of wet smacking and breathy female moans and pleas. The sounds invaded like the heady fumes of fresh alcohol, stripping away her norms without permission.
Sasha had only met Constantine Kane yesterday, mere hours ago, and he’d claimed he didn’t want her.
But Sasha's instincts didn’t care what he’d said.
Something inside her screamed at the insult of those other women being in that room with the man she intended to make her mate. Sasha didn’t have it in her to share.
Neither her father nor Merrick had been faithful to her mother, but for some reason, Sasha had naively assumed whoever she chose as a husband would only desire her.
In every dream and practical plan she’d come up with for choosing a male from the Selection, she’d picked one who wanted a true bond relationship with his breeder mate.
He would want her children, her love, and her full breeder's blessing.
Never once did she pick an alpha with a harem tucked away in his home.
The females sounded lost and needy. Sasha didn't want to hear them anymore. Her space felt invaded by the carnal noises even as Kane's voice rubbed at her senses and tempted her curiosity.
One after another, the women begged for more, for his hand, his mouth, his cock. Where were they putting all his parts? Why did they need so much?
And when it was too big, because betas just weren't built to take an alpha, he encouraged them with a coaxing growl, called them “sweetheart” and “darling.” And that growl brushed over Sasha like an invisible hand, stroking her in places she had never, ever been touched.
The jewels moaned and gasped, making sounds in tempo to Kane's actions. One by one he used them. Fucked each of them. The women said they couldn't take any more, couldn't come again, but he said they would take what he had to give and not complain.
Complainers were given swats on some fleshy part of their body. More than one female wept softly. The noise of it went on and on, the five women tiring, Kane tireless.
Without knowing how she got there, Sasha found herself lying on the floor in her flimsy pink nightgown, pulling back the curtains to see.
The massive windows were now shaded, the big room lit with only lamps. The space glowed with warm, low light.
The six of them were on that big platform couch, using it like a bed. Arms and legs tangled up. The bodies moving, languorous and rhythmic. The sensual sight of it warmed Sasha from head to toe with more than just an embarrassed blush. She was long past blushing.
Don't want to be here. Don't want to see this. Go to sleep.
Instead she closed her eyes, breathing in the heady smell of their exertions. She knew what sex smelled like—she lived in a brothel, after all—but this sex didn't include things like fear, hunger, or desperation. It wasn't tainted by shine sweat or intoxication. This was pure pleasure and desire.
Sasha couldn't help but suck in that smell, musky and soaked with Kane's special pheromone spice. It stirred up all the genetic memory of her breeder instincts.
It made her desire.
The bodies were all layered and fit together. It looked like all five of the women were with him at once. Kane's back faced her. He was a triangle plank of curved muscles down to his round, pumping ass and the strong, hairy columns of his thick legs.