“Husband-mates. Bound by contract. You are so innocent. So young and very foolish. You make it sound as if I am the only woman who ever strayed outside the piece of paper. I assure you, I am not.”
Phee’s stomach turned. Who was this woman?
Mother had more to say, her mouth twisting. “Do I look like I am dead to you? Unfeeling? Your father fell into depression. Like a big baby, that man got depressed when he didn’t get what he wanted. He couldn’t knot me. He couldn’t satisfy me. You have no idea what a heat is like without a male’s knot. I know it is obscene to mention it, but you asked, so I will tell you.
“My body betrays me at every opportunity. Makes me weak. I won’t have it. I won’t let some male control me or claim me based on biology. Even the drones don’t suffer that indignity. The drones do everything I tell them. They have so very little will power or agency. And those low humans don’t have to put up with the curse of a bond, so why should I? I will not let my body make me a slave.”
“What a stacked basket of shit, Mother,” Phee said. Mother gaped back at Phee, her mouth opening and closing in shock like a fish gasping for air.
But Phee kept going. “You say you won’t be made a slave, but then you let your body drive you to sleep with alphas outside of your contract—alphas who belong to other women. What is that? What do you call it when you need a knot so bad you will do anything with anyone to get it?”
Speaking through her teeth, Mother said, “You presume to say things to your mother that you understand nothing about.”
“How can I understand them? After only three heats, here I am in early menopause. The knot hurt me, and I hated it. Why would I want that? Why?”
She knew why. Her body, her spirit, her mind—all her parts were hollow. Maybe it was the lack of a genuine bond. Maybe it was that she didn’t have a single friend she could speak to with honesty. Maybe she had no purpose in this life now and didn’t know what to do next. But she missed the alpha knot that hurt her and the babies she could never have.
“I did not raise you to speak to me this way, Phee. I don’t understand what has happened to you. You didn’t leave my house that long ago, and that Phee would have never talked to me this way. That Phee was a good omega. I don’t understand who you are, or half of what you are saying.”
“What I understand, Mother, is that you chose Naya’s husband the same as you chose mine. We trusted you. I was going to follow in your footsteps, but I didn’t know what being like you would cost me, or that I would be so unhappy. Haveyouever been happy?
“What I understand is that you and these other males—you planned something. You must have. You handpicked every son, and I want to know the truth of it. And you are going to tell me all of it. Everything. What did you plot with that vile man, Corre? Did you sleep with Swift’s father? Why did you pick him for my mate?”
They both heard the distinct buzz of the intercom at the same time. It was like an alarm going off, highlighting all Phee’s ugly questions. Someone answered it.
Standing in the front room, Phee faced her mother like an adversary. She hadn’t planned to accuse the woman of things so underhanded. But the connection of Mother choosing the sons of Alphas she’d slept with as the mates for her daughters was too odd and deliberate to have no ulterior motive.
As if waiting for a reason to move, Phee stared at her mother and her mother stared back, sighing impatiently. At her waist, her hands fluttered like moths, guilty and unable to settle.
“They are coming down the road,” Phee’s father said from behind them. “Are you ready?”
Oncca appeared, a shawl in her hands to wrap around Mother’s shoulders. The three of them said nothing as the drone assisted the older woman. Oncca wrapped the fine, lacy wool over Mother’s shoulders, then stood at her side as if to help her walk. The silence was heavy.
Father cleared his throat.
Her mother and father almost never touched, not even casually. Oncca touched Mother more than Ratmhir Zel touched his wife-mate.
Everything had changed now. All the known things Phee had lived her life with were full of new, slanted, painful meanings. Her own insidious complacency and indifference had robbed her of something precious she hadn’t known she needed.
There was a clatter of feet on the stairs from the third level. Her three youngest brothers raced down them, their voices loud, breaking into the strained moment. Mother rolled her eyes to the floors above, happy to ease the tension by picking at her sons. “Those wild animals will make us seem like heathens, Ratmhir. Can you do nothing about them?”
“They are boys.” Father’s hair was whiter every time Phee saw him. He looked tired. Significantly older than his omega breeder wife, he’d never received the mysterious blessing of a bond that would keep him young, heal him, and extend his life. Like Mother, he still wore the stress of Naya’s kidnapping. The grooves were deep in his face, and his eyes drooped beneath his brows.
Mother said he had depression. Corre—Ratmhir’s former second in the scribe house and business partner—had conspired behind Ratmhir’s back to kidnap Naya on the verge of her heat as a way to humiliate the senior alpha, and to prove Ratmhir was not a worthy leader of the scribe house. Corre had also planned to use Naya in other ways—apparently the plot had involved a fake religion, unseating the king’s brother as administrator, and changing the laws to make drones into slaves and property. Phee didn’t know all the details; her father had never explained. But she secretly believed it also had to do with how some of the betas, like the nurses at the clinic, were behaving.
“They are your sons. You should do something about them. They are going to humiliate me with that behavior.” Mother’s lips pinched with disapproval.
The boys hit the landing as one, a loud thump shaking the house. Phee’s older brother Talis called from the other room, “Mother, are you coming? Naya is here.”
“Let us go then.” Father said. He waited until Mother stood next to him, and together they left the room, not touching, but walking side by side.
Chapter Seven
Sector five was a different world. No trash or buildings falling apart under the weight of previous battles. No sign of the past other than a few older drone built structures. For fuck’s sake, there were potted plants on public walkways, storefronts with enormous glass windows, and tree-lined transport ways. Every muscle in Alreck’s shoulders and neck hurt from keeping his head still and his exterior calm and stoic.
Too clean. Too many people. Too much to see and keep track of. He wanted to whip his head back and forth like a curious child. And what were those delicious smells?
When he opened the window on his side of the transport to escape the scent of Darre and his mate, the smell of omega women from outside came at him full-force. The heady scent was everywhere. Omega women of all ages, both mated and single, must be scattered throughout the light flow of people walking on sidewalks and strolling through the greenways they dove past. Alreck wanted to chase down every scent just to see what wonder might wait at the end. Darre had warned that it would be different here, but different was a too tame a word.
