I squirmed and tugged at the collar of my shirt as the rules and procedures of the night were explained. I didn’t really want to be there, but at least there were rules and everyone, including the omegas, were there consensually. I could smell more than a dozen different omega scents in the air, and even I wasn’t immune to the effects. I might have been the only alpha there who was dead embarrassed to be sporting an erection in my suit trousers, though.
The auction started, and while most of the alphas got really into bidding for the omegas who were paraded naked in front of us all and shown off like meat, I stayed quiet. I just wanted to get the omega I’d been paired with and get out of there.
I counted it as an unexpected stroke of luck that the omega my dad had been paired with was up early in the proceedings. It turned my stomach to watch my dad bid so boisterously for the svelte, olive-skinned omega who he eventually won. The last thing I wanted to do was think about my dad abusing an omega through his heat, even if the omega had signed up for everything.
Mostly, I was just glad when my dad walked away to fetch his omega without so much as a glance for me. Good riddance.
I thought about just leaving. I thought about walking out and spending the weekend holed up in my fancy hotel suite, ordering room service and watching all the movies and TV shows I wasn’t allowed to watch at home. Maybe pink and purple haired Quincy would want to just hang out and eat snacks with me. But really, I could just walk away from the nastiness my dad had signed me up for because he thought it would make me a “real alpha”. I didn’t have to play along with his games. I didn’t have to?—
“Up next, we have this delightful wild child,” Kuhl called from the platform.
There he was. His wrists were bound behind him and he had a ball gag in his mouth. The alpha who had dragged him onto the dais from the other room manhandled him roughly over to the block so he could show off his body.
Quincy didn’t just have pink and purple hair and a lip ring. He had tattoos all over his body. Not enough to make him all ink, mind you. There was still plenty of pink, flushed skin available. Along with the tattoos. Including one of an arrow on his ass that pointed straight to his hole.
“We’ll start the bidding for this one at three hundred and fifty thousand,” Kuhl called out.
I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t care if I was doing it right or if I was supposed to play a game with the whole thing. I raised my hand and shouted, “Five million!”
CHAPTER TWO
Quincy
The gnawing feeling ofabsencenever left me. It was like an itch I not only couldn’t scratch, I couldn’t even locate it. It was everywhere, every part of me. Broken, wrong, crushing. I woke up screaming internally because of it every day, and I walked around all day, never quite able to catch my breath or settle.
But you never would have noticed just by looking at me, or even hanging out with me.
“Watch out, a monster’s coming!” I hollered as I stepped into the room where my younger siblings were watching tv before bed. “Rawr!”
I held my arms up, hands curled like claws, as I stomped into the room. Three sets of shrieks from my twelve-year-old beta sister, Jennifer, my ten-year-old brother, Alex, who was starting to present as alpha, and my nine-year-old brother, Teddy, who wanted to be an alpha but hadn’t shown any signs yet, filled theroom. My fifteen-year-old beta brother Miles just shook his head and rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t completely conceal his grin.
“The monster’s going to get you!” I shouted as I stomped slowly toward Teddy and captured him in a bear hug.
“No! No! Stay away from me!” Teddy screamed and giggled.
“Rawr!” I made all sorts of monster sounds as I swept through the room, catching my younger siblings now and then and pretending to eat them as they shrieked and dodged to avoid me.
“Really?” Miles called out above them. “Why do you have to be like this?”
“Because I’m a monster!” I shouted, letting go of Jennifer and clomping over to grab Miles.
The younger ones laughed until I was afraid they’d pee themselves. Miles eventually laughed, too, once I tickled him.
I was three seconds away from tears. Iwasa monster, irreparably broken, and all because another monster, the bigger monster, had captured and destroyed me.
“What is all this noise?” Dad hollered above us all as he stepped into the den’s doorway, a smile on his face. “Am I the head of a household or a zoo?”
“A zoo! A zoo!” we all answered him with laughter and craziness. Teddy zipped over to give him a hug.
“Okay, well, this zookeeper needs the youngest little monkeys to go upstairs, brush your teeth, wash your faces, and go to bed,” Dad said, kissing Teddy’s head.
The younger ones hemmed and hawed, but they did what Dad asked in the end. They were good kids. We were a good family.
Well, most of us.
“What was all that racket?” Papa asked in a repeat of Dad as I jabbed Miles in the ribs one more time, making him laugh, before standing.
“Just monsters,” I said with a smile, pushing myself to stand.
