Chapter 12 #2
And he had left her.
The tears started. As much as she hated to lose herself to them, once she started crying, she couldn't stop.
Lilla and Lanny came back from the laundry house, wondering where she had gone, only to find her red faced and snot nosed, bawling her eyes out with her fist wrapped in one of Kane's shirts and pressed to her mouth.
They couldn't cheer her up. Davila brought a meal, but Sasha wouldn't eat.
They tried to distract her with their own woes, but she turned her back.
They threatened to call the nurse, and Sasha wailed that they should leave her alone and let her die.
When Zinanno heard she had missed a snack and a meal, he called Sara, who reminded him that they could give her the little white pills. So they did.
Sasha slept five hours.
When she woke up, she'd made a decision. It settled like a hard little rock in her belly, firm and resolute.
She needed to leave.
*
To go back home, Sasha would have to ditch her guards and then get past the gates. When she’d snuck in before, she entered with work shift drones. But after the retraining and punishments the staff had received, and with security heightened, the guardsmen would be watching carefully.
She told Zinanno she wanted to go shopping. He was thrilled. It was as if she had given him a gift—finally the breeder wanted to do something he expected a woman to want to do. She said she wanted to buy gifts for her friends and asked for her wages for helping with the laundry.
Zinanno glared at her, offended on behalf of his alpha. "You think that necklace means nothing, my dear? You are under the protection of the alpha. You don't work. Whatever you wish is at your fingertips. How much do you need? What can I give you?"
Sasha felt like this was a lecture he'd been longing for the opportunity to give.
"I don't need very much," she said. "I have money of my own, an inheritance, but it's in holding until I'm married. I just need it for gifts. And I want to go alone so I can surprise them."
"You will have guards," he told her firmly.
"Of course."
Sasha pretended to be full of excitement at the prospect of going shopping.
She wore her hair long and brushed out so that it touched the top of her bottom, picked out her most colorful dress, red slippers, and a brightly contrasting silken scarf.
In her shopping bag, she packed a lunch and dirty clothes stolen from the laundry.
She didn't know who the tunic set belonged to, but she'd find a way to repay that drone later. All that mattered was that it smelled and looked droneish.
Sasha insisted the shopping trip start early so that she would have all day for her chance. She bought baubles and scarves for her friends and used every public toilet she came across.
If she hadn't been so intent on planning an escape, she might have enjoyed herself.
This sector was so much different from home.
The streets were clean and felt safe. Sellers smiled over their wares, handing out free samples of cheese, meats, or sweets.
This modern world was drastically different than the one she grew up in.
At the end of the day, she declared that she hadn't found everything she needed and asked if she could go back another day.
Zinanno was pleased to have her out of the compound doing the types of things young ladies should do. Of course, she could go back.
Sasha did everything the same, except this time when she used a toilet with two exits, she changed into the borrowed drone clothes, braided her hair, and rubbed her lunch of onions and garlic all over herself.
She exited the bathroom with a group of drone teenagers, got out of the building, and set off for the nearest Administration Office.
People moved about the city on foot or carts pulled by other people on wheeled pedal cars. No donkeys here. There were public transport stations, but she avoided those because of the enforcer’s presence.
As usual, the drones she met were friendly, responding to her smile without suspicion, and giving her directions.
She avoided the males, knowing that she no longer looked like a little girl, but there were plenty of women and young people moving about to blend in with.
The daylight hours were filled with people going about their business; she fell into the crowd, headed in the general direction of an Administration building.
The gray day became sunny, the sky turning a beautiful blue-green. As it grew warmer, Sasha began to sweat. In her nose the smell of onions and garlic ripened, reminding her of days spent cooking at home.
She'd get to that big building, show her mark, get them to look up her file, get the list her father left for her, pick a mate, and finally get to go back home where she belonged.
She thought of the drones she had left behind. With her property "in custody," what had happened to them? Was the place abandoned? Kane hadn't taken the time to explain.
She looked forward to getting into her father's safe. She was the only one with the code, after all. She'd get the recipes. She'd get the account books and see where she really stood. Surely there was a way to restore her father's legacy.
Sasha had gone to Kane for help, and though the outcome wasn’t what she’d hoped for, he had helped her. Maura was dead, and the slimy Merrick was on the run. He was nowhere near Dover's End.
Kane had left her, but she didn't need him anymore.
The sidewalk crowd slowed to a bottleneck. She couldn't see over the heads of the people around her, but she smelled the aggressive alphas before she saw them.
The bottleneck turned out to be a line for a checkpoint, with the sector enforcers shaking everyone's left hand.
They'd look for a black drone star, which meant the drone had registered with the Administration and had all their vaccinations.
They'd look for the two dots and scan in the numbers below.
Anyone over two years of age without a mark was pulled aside.
It didn't happen often. The vaccinations that came with registration prevented life threatening illnesses common inside the sectors and ensured the fertility of its citizens stayed intact. Drones didn't suffer infertility, but needed their own set of vaccines.
There were some people, so called Freedom Fighters, who believed the vaccines were unhealthy. They believed that instead of preventing death and infertility, the shots were an Administration plot to cause both.
She'd heard about men who wore black robes and spoke of a First Alpha who said registration marks and Breeder Laws were blasphemous. Some people didn't register their children, or they came from the slums where clinics were few and hard to get into.
Whatever the reason, it happened often enough that there were periodic checkpoints around the sectors. Vaccinated or not, the Administration wanted every citizen in their data bank.
Sasha was wearing a drone tunic that she just couldn't pull aside. She'd have to take it off. Just as her mother planned, her number sat on the top of a now full breast, stamped so close to the soft pink areola that it almost touched it.
It had been difficult and embarrassing to show the mark before, but now? The idea of exposing herself in such a way at a public checkpoint terrified her. She couldn't do it.
The line moved forward. She turned around, squeezing her way between the people behind her.
She stepped on someone's foot and got shoved in the ribs.
A man yelled at her and called her stupid.
A woman told her she had to go forward and tried to turn her back.
The disturbance caught the alpha's attention.
"You there!"
Sasha's belly dropped and her mouth went dry.
No. No. No. This wasn't happening.
The harder she tried to escape the crowd, the more like sticky hot taffy it became. She was caught, pushed in the very direction she was trying so hard to flee.
The public sidewalk narrowed to an area with gates on both sides and an actual guardhouse. Her route wasn't a random checkpoint, it was an established one, and she had walked right into it.
So stupid. Why had she done this?
People were getting angry. Her need to escape made them assume she had done something wrong, and they pushed her toward the alpha, who reached over the barrier and plucked her out of the line as if he were picking up a naughty kitten.
"By the rod, what are you doing, girlie? You causing trouble in my line? You slowing things down and causing a disturbance?"
Trembling in real fear, the smoky smell of his displeasure filling her nostrils, she kept her eyes on the ground.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, sir. I forgot my data pad at home. I'm supposed to be someplace by now, and I think I'm going to get into trouble."
It was a jumbled mess of half-truths, but she managed to speak them and even add in a few tears.
"Well, girlie, I'm not unreasonable. Let me see your mark and I'll walk you out of the line." He stepped into her space, reached for her wrist, and smelled her.
The change in his body, his smell, his intent, was instant. He went from agreeable to hungry and lust filled in less than two seconds. Peppery and hot, his foreign, unwanted desire made her stomach roll. Leaning closer he inhaled deep.
"What's this?" he growled, voice lowering.
He forced her arm to the side to look for the mark where it should have been on her hand. He was not as big as Kane, neither as broad nor as tall, but he was still an alpha. He was strong enough to make her do what he wanted.
He tipped her hand open, looked at it, brought it close to his face, and licked across her wrist.
As if starved for alpha touch and attention, Sasha's body reacted. She felt the warning butterflies gather low at the apex of her thighs.
"No," she whispered. No, not this. Not now and not with this stranger. She did not want him.
"Your smell," he said, his pupils dilating.
"I'm registered. I'm under the protection of the Warlord Alpha Constantine Kane. Please." She tried to pull her arm away. "Don't touch me. Alpha Kane won't like it. Just let me go. This was a mistake."
"You have no mark. You're unregistered, that means I can claim you. Don't care if you’re infertile. Your smell! I have never smelled anything like that."
He put his arms around her, drawing her in so he could put his face in her neck.
"I want you," he growled that rolling alpha growl.
It went through her and touched her in unwanted places, making a slick of desire leak out.
No. No. No!
"Savage, man. What are you doing with that girl? Is it your break?" one of the enforcers called as he approached them. "I didn't know you had a girl, you lucky dog. What a curvy little thing. Where she come from? Has she got a sister?"
"I'm not his girlfriend!" Sasha shouted, trying to push away from the man hugging her like she was his long-lost love. "I am a registered breeder. I have a mark. I'm under the protection of Constantine Kane. You have to let me go. You know the law, and I've done nothing wrong."
Breathing hard and getting more aggressive the more she struggled, the alpha named Savage asked, "What mark? I'm claiming you, girlie. I'll be good to you. Care for you. Mate you. You have no mark, and that Kane has never taken a woman."
His face at her neck, he licked her, moaning. "So good. I'll take care of you. Not gonna hurt you, girlie. Just relax. Relax and let me."
Sasha pulled the neck of the tunic down and tried to push her breast up. Always sore, it hurt, but Savage got a flash of a black dot.
"Where's her mark?" the other guard wanted to know.
"On your tit?" Savage asked. "Let me see."
As if they weren't outside on the street, next to a thick line of people trying to get through the checkpoint, Savage ripped her tunic down the front.
The pieces fell open, the tunic torn clean in two.
The white support garment she wore kept her breasts lifted and barely covered her nipples, so the dark mark stood out stark against her pale glowing skin.
"Fuck me," Savage whispered. He growled again, his hand coming up to cup her breast and pinch her nipple.
Sasha moaned in despair, assaulted by her own desire. It felt so good—heat and tingles, a sharp spasm of pleasure, and slick wet her leggings for everyone to smell and see.
"Oh, shit. Savage. Did you even look at that necklace she's got on?"
Sasha was moaning, fighting against herself and a male succumbing to the rut. She wanted to yield to him. She wanted to vomit.
She heard a screech—a crash, yelling—and snarling.
She looked up at Savage's face, his pupils blown in desperate hunger.
His mouth twisted in a snarl as someone from behind suddenly pulled her away, and two men wearing black uniforms jumped on him.
She was picked up like she weighed nothing, walked through a parted crowd, and placed gently into a transport.
Zinanno was in the front seat of the car. He handed her a blanket. His expression was sad and angry at the same time. He watched her come to the realization of who’d found her.
"You don't like me very much, do you?"
Sasha wiped at the tears on her face. She hated them. "What? I like you. You're fine." Her breath shuddered in and out of her lungs, unsteady. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it trying to escape.
"He kills breed for less," the beta secretary said solemnly.
"You know that, right? I have a beautiful family.
We've been planning a grand get together, all the children and their mates, even the babies.
Now I must call my dear wife and tell her no, please just plan Zinanno's funeral.
I want my ashes scattered in the yard where the children play.
They can use Zinanno to fertilize the flowers. I would like that."
"This isn't your fault."
Zinanno hung his head. "I was gifted the charge of you, clever girl. Of course it is my fault."
Sasha clenched her teeth. Holding the blanket against her chest, she repeated Bella's words.
"He left me." She closed her eyes, leaning back against the seat cushions. "He doesn't want me."