Sasha scanned the room and saw no one else, though she could taste the fear of the women shivering in their tents. He had pleasured them for hours last night, but not one of them dared face him when he was angry.
Not wanting to see Terasa’s brains splattered all over the floor like the last person that angered him, Sasha tip-toed over. He made her feel like prey, but that didn’t mean she had to be helpless and useless. She slid between him and his target, lightly touching his forearm with the tips of her fingers as she sought his attention with the most mundane thing she could think of.
"What time is that doctor's appointment? You didn't tell me, and I still need to dry my hair."
The inane question turned to pure stupidity as soon as it hit the air. She flinched at the sound of it.
Kane looked down at her intrusion with a snap of his chin. His cheeks reddened, though not in anger. No, the biting smell of his anger softened to something strange and shrinking.
Embarrassment. Shame.
He hadn't known she was in the room last night and knew what she must have heard.
An embarrassed alpha. That was a first.
He had never intended to send her to the harem. Before the relief registered in her brain, he was giving new directions.
"Get your shoes on, Sasha," he said briskly. Embarrassed or not, he offered no apology. "Do you have a jacket? We are going to be late."
"She can borrow one of mine," Bella said, stepping out of her tent wrapped in a red sheet. A sheer red sheet. She posed there for a minute, beautiful shape and high, pointy nipples out for all to see.
Sasha was not going to take anything from Bella. She dashed into where she’d slept last night and found the plain shoes she had worn here, stuffing her feet into the stinky brown things.
When she returned, Bella was naked and pressed up against Kane's chest, a delicate, luscious creature next to his monstrous size.
Drawing near the couple, Sasha choked on the scent of the other woman. Kane must have washed already this morning, but Bella had not. She smelled like sex and the man beside her. He would have taken her several times. Sasha thought she remembered someone crying and begging for his knot.
An impulse to go up behind Bella, grab fistfuls of that shiny, blue-black hair, and pull her down to the floor filled Sasha's limbs. She could see herself doing it. A bucket and bristle brush would appear, something to scrub that smell off the other woman.
Sasha so needed to leave this place. Her head hammered out the rapid beat of her heart right behind her eyes in agreement.
"Ready!" She dashed around them and out into the hall, unable to stomach being in that room for one more moment. She didn't know where she was going, but it didn't really matter. Maybe she'd bump into a drone she could convince to help her escape.
This had been a horrible idea. Silas was right—coming to Merrick’s enemy for help had been stupid. This place offered a different torture than what Merrick and her mother had planned, but she would still be miserable.
She needed to find an Administration House and file for Selection immediately. It was her only hope to find a worthy male to protect her and everything she loved.
She was down the steps and jogging through the main hallway when an impatient bark caused her body to seize, freezing her in place.
That damn alpha voice of his.
"Come, Sasha. This way."
She groaned and hung her head.
"Sasha,” he called again.
With a little growl, Sasha turned, following the beastly male.
Absently he grabbed her hand to pull her down a different hall, through a large room, and out a set of doors into a lighted entryway. His strides were long, and she had to take three steps to every one of his. The space was cavernous, white stone floors underfoot and a high arched ceiling with a glittering glass chandelier suspended from the center. Another magical room stolen from a storybook. Four uniformed guards stood in the corners, each of them armed with guns.
As she and Kane approached a side door, it opened to reveal another man—a beta, his arms full of things obviously meant for Kane. A belt holster with two guns on it, a heavy coat, and a sheathed sword nearly as long as Sasha was tall.
Sasha eyed the guns. One needed special permits for them, signed directly by the king himself. Their manufacture was on a need-to-use basis only. Guns, explosives, and audio deterrent devices—any weapons that could be used by drones to subdue breed—had been regulated in the 12 Sectors since Restitution Day. She knew what they were but had never actually seen one.
Yet here, in this compound, all of Kane’s men carried them. It was unheard of.
"I thought we were just going to the doctor's?"
