Sasha felt the difference and adjusted her attitude, lifting her head, putting her shoulders back. Here, even the drones walked with self-respect. But she’d have to change her clothing as well. Ragged and mended, she still resembled a slum rat. Exuding confidence when she walked with the drones, she deflected curious eyes with a diffident smile until she found a shop and covered up in a woven robe. It wasn't new, but it wasnewerand not as obvious.
In their guise of civility and order, these streets felt safe. Wall murals advertised images of a content society obeying Administration law. There were several signs with portraits of the king and queen that read, “Breeder laws bring happy lives.”
The transport station was easy to find, new cars arriving at regular intervals. Sasha made light conversation with the drones about her father telling her to apply for work at the household of Constantine Kane. Eyebrows raised in speculation and a couple of expressions paled, reassuring her he was the alpha to protect from her mother and Merrick.
After a day of walking and a few hours on the transport, she had to spend the night outside, tucked under the low hanging branches of a tree. In this foreign place, night birds calling and a dog barking in the distance, she slept, grasping her goal in her mind’s eye like a lifeline.
Chapter 6
Sasha’s grand plan and her ready arguments shriveled in the fear that overwhelmed her the moment she stepped into the room with Alpha Constantine Kane and his guest. She’d finally made it into the man’s presence, only to recognize that she’d made the worst mistake of her life.
"You are not Mary," he said. His voice was a low, masculine growl vibrating her bones. A dangerous wolf at her back. While all alphas had that tone, deep and powerful at any volume, Constantine Kane's voice was a distinct, life altering experience. It was not a voice one dared say no to. Ever. It was not a voice one wanted to hear when he was angry.
It made her afraid.
Nervous already, her hands trembling, Sasha stumbled over her answer. "I'm not Mary. She was busy."
This was true, and she was glad of it. A lie would have been impossible with this male. His aura chilled the room, a leashed threat.His self-assurance and power unlike any she had encountered before.
Sasha had helped Mary be busy so that she could answer the call to go to the conference room and clean up a little mess. It was the perfect opportunity, the one she'd been waiting for while hiding in the kitchens, acting useful. The household was busy enough that no one had the time to question an extra pair of helpful hands.
Nothing had ever made her feel as weak and as helpless as the apex predator growl of the alpha warlord at her back. He was wholly out of her experience range. His smell, his voice, his very presence made her tremble and rethink all her choices in the last three days.
The reality smacking her in the face now made her physically ill. Who was this male, and by the rod, why had she ever thought he was the one to save her?
She looked at the floor, cleaning buckets dangling from her hands. She couldn't look up. She didn't want to see what monsters surrounded her. His presence robbed her of all her confidence and bravado.
Why had she dared this?
There was another man seated nearby, close enough to her that she could see the ornate hem of Administration robes out of the corner of her eye. He grunted impatiently.
"Clean that mess and get out. I can't stand the smell of blood and brains this early in the morning. Shit, Kane, I haven't even had breakfast yet."
"It's never too early to kill liars," Kane replied with a lazy drawl.
Was he talking to her? Or about the previous owner of the blood and brains?
Sasha could feel the burn of his eyes on her as she lurched to the chair and wall where, to her horror, a liar's head had been smashed like a melon. There was no corpse, but spattered and pooled blood, pulpy slime, and bits of skin stained everything in the area.
She had grown up surrounded by casual, thoughtless violence. Merrick himself had taught her the many ways that alphas reveled in savagery.
This was something new.
She’d had no idea this was the kind of mess Mary had been called to clean up. Was this routine? Did poor Mary have to drag soap and bleach up here every day to wash blood and guts off the walls and floor?
Piss, shit, vomit, spills, fluids left over from sex, blood from bar fights—for the last two years she had been helping the drones of Drover's End deal with all of that. This was a brutality that she had never seen before. She couldn't process it.
Sasha was going to be sick. She was going to faint. She needed to run. Impulse after impulse bombarded her.
She forced herself to her knees beside the mess, the buckets clattering beside her. Soapy water spilled. She spilled more when she tried to seek out the scrub brush in the nearest bucket.
Where should she even start? She didn't want to touch it. More than just the sight of it, the lingering aroma, the last traces of terror and pain mixing with the smells of blood and body, paralyzed her.
She was prey. Prey for the sort of wolf who could do this. Prey didn’t stick around and clean up messes left from the wolf’s last meal. Prey ran.
She didn't know what to do with this.
She schemed and cheated her way here, set on pleading her case. But this was not the kind of help Sasha needed. This kind of violence was the very thing she was hoping to escape.
