On duty, riding in the transport with his alpha and his mate, Alreck fulfilled the role as Second and guard. His other two men rode outside at the back of the vehicle.
Alreck felt a new kinship with the King’s men–his home had shocked them. Now theirs did the same to him. He shook his head and took keep breaths, forcing his instincts to submit to his self-control. This was a different world from anything he’d experienced. Alreck felt unprepared here, and he hated that.
Added to this, Naya twitched anxiously over her impending reunion, and couldn’t get comfortable in the seats because of her pregnancy. Making every effort to hide this from her alpha, her voice was high and her movements overly deliberate. This was a special brand of torture someone should bottle and use on unmated alphas in the hole. They’d break in the first hour. Could there be anything worse than the concoction of a woman trying to hide her nervousness and pain mixed in with a constant low-grade arousal? It triggered every alpha instinct he had. Protect, comfort, fuck.
Without a breather on to clean the air, Alreck suffered everything. The potent smell of alpha and omega together churned his morning meal to acid in his gut. He knew Darre had woken his mate with sex and marked her with his semen. Fucking everywhere. Alreck’s head buzzed from their combined aroma.
Once they’d left the sector division area, the wall at their backs, they drove over a canal bridge and started seeing suburbs. Every neighborhood boasted its own park and commerce street. It all fit together in a neat, well-planned grid. In Sector 2, people lived where they could. There was no grid.
“That is beta family housing,” Naya said as they drove past buildings where several family groups could live. The structures were four stories high, with open garden rooftops and colorful awnings. “It is just in the last few years that the Administration decided to allow single betas to take their own space. Drones have homes here too, though almost every commerce street has good drone housing that is just walking distance from the shops. I think Sector 9 is set up that way. I know you couldn’t do anything like that at home, but it has worked here,” Naya said.
“It looks like it works,” Darre replied distractedly.
Alreck looked where Naya pointed, trying to imagine a world where betas and drones didn’t need an alpha to protect them from other alphas. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Darre lift Naya’s fingers to his lips and gently bite.
She giggled.
Alreck’s cock jumped. Dammit, he needed out of this transport.
Darre’s eyes flicked over him knowingly. “But that is only what you see on the surface. You don’t know what is happening inside those buildings.” Darre added.
Darre did not believe the current structure here truly worked. His tone suggested he thought it all fake. Alreck saw a well-ordered, clean world. It even smelled peaceful. How else could omegas just walk around outside, unmolested? Yet like his alpha, Alreck knew the impulsive drive of what it meant to be an alpha. All this order spread out over the land like a banquet, seemingly unguarded. Ripe and ready, Sector 5 dared a male to claim it.
It was his nature. It was every alpha’s nature.
It took several hours of driving to get to Naya’s former home. The first thing Alreck noticed after pulling up behind the house was the difference in sounds. With the window open, he could hear everything—birds, kids laughing down the street, a dog barking, the wind in the trees. The sounds were alien to him. People here had time to live and play.
This place was all ease and privilege. Soft. He wanted nothing more to tear into its underbelly and take a bite. Keeping himself ruthlessly in check, he nodded to Darre.
Naya smiled at him. It was a little shaky. He didn’t understand her history here, but Alreck felt the waves of conflicted energy coming off her. He let himself smile back in encouragement.
Exiting the king’s transport, he took in the area around him before assuming his place at the corner of the vehicle while his other two men positioned themselves.
He waited for Darre and Naya. Jordan and the other guard, Blane, created a loose circle, watching for the unexpected or unusual. Edgy tension flooded their muscles, all of them shaken by the differences of this world compared to theirs. The unnatural tranquility affected them too. They were as jumpy as shine junkies. There was no mob waiting to attack them, but the peaceful scenery might hide worse than anyone expected.
The males here must be halfway to insane. How did they manage to live like this? It was too neat and easily overrun. It would take him less than a day to assemble a mob of men and claim everything. The trained, tactical side of Alreck’s brain plotted a lightning strike takeover invasion from habit. He wouldn’t waste his time sending out scouts. They’d hit it hard and find all the omegas first.
Because there were definitely omegas here.
Alreck didn’t know any breed who could endure this kind of amiable existence. It felt like an echo of their ancient human past, with no connection to the reality of their present. Seeing it firsthand explained some of what Nothonal Darre hated about this world. It was beautiful, but how could it be real?
Naya had grown up in this perfect little house and ended up as a pawn in a power battle. Her kidnappers had expected her to die. No, it wasn’t as serene as it seemed here.
Noise from the house made them tighten their circle, looking for danger. Working instinctively, reacting with timing their weapons trainer could be proud of, Alreck and his men responded, hands hovering over the blades at their backs. As one, they realized the noise had come from rambunctious children inside the house, and as one they eased off their weapons.
A moment later, the door to the house flew open. Jockeying for position and yelling for their sister, three boys spilled out.
The children jerked to a halt, still three feet away when Darre looked at them, subdued by his gaze. He must look very different to them. Alreck remembered his first encounter with Darre’s solid, battering-ram presence. If Monster wanted to exert himself, those boys would likely fall to their asses and scramble away in terror. To face him in the fighting pits was to face death. Alreck would never forget his own personal day of reckoning. But he didn’t force the boys to cow down. Alreck assumed it was for Naya’s benefit.
In Darre’s arms, Naya was smiling, greeting the boys who ran out of the house like a pack of feral dogs. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to be raised in one place with siblings. Their puppy-like eagerness baffled him. He’d never seen innocence like that on an alpha, even a young one.
The door to the house opened again, an older gray-haired drone exiting to hold the door for a mature couple who shared some of Naya’s features. Alreck guessed they were her parents—though the omega woman smelled available.
From across the yard, their identifying scents carried on the light breeze. They smelled like they shared space, not bodies. What a waste. He couldn’t wrap his head around it.
Alreck noticed that Darre kept Naya close in the circle of his arms, not allowing her to leave the embrace.
Behind her parents another pair exited the house, a younger alpha and omega. Aleck’s focus immediately arrowed in on the young woman. Who was this? Family friend? Or the sister?
