A green-gloved hand swept across the large display that made up the surface
of the desk. It then turned the block of text scrolling across so that itoriented in her direction. His second hand casually pushed the stylus towards her. Leda had never been told the man’s name. She had only ever heard himcalled The Whoremonger.She winked down at the tiny printed lines, trying to make sense of thecomplicated legalese that might as well have been written in anotherlanguage.“With you?” She tried for flippant to cover her mounting unease, but hervoice rumbled on the last word.The older Alpha chuckled, the tone was intense and full-bodied. But the smile didn’t quite catch the eyes that polled her with a calculated coldness. The silence sloped for a long moment as his gaze never broke from hers.A steady buzz of shuttles flying past the window of his high-rise office wasthe only sound, but even that drew her away. Heavy curtains, far finer thananything she had ever owned, draped the floor-to-ceiling windows,obscuring almost all the light from the brilliant sun outside and casting theroom in darkness.How long had she been here? Minutes, hours, more? Time had becometrivial as she sat on the edge of the metal bench that offered not eventhe slightest bit of comfort. It was in stark contrast to the artifact leatherchair that the man across from her relaxed in.“My intentions are more particular, dear girl,” the man said, finallybreaking the silence. He bent the fingers of one hand to inspect the clipped nails. “But a beautiful Beta still has considerable value.”If there was mockery in his tone, the Alpha hid it well. Obviously, he referred to the unique and highly sought-after female Omegas. Fewer and fewer of them were born with each passing year. But her likely value, whatever he decided it would be, was exactly whyshe was sitting in this office. She didn’t feel particularly gorgeous at the moment. Instead, she like what she was: a twenty-year-old College dropout, living in the hovels with her family and pulling double shifts at apublic Diner just to keep food on the table.She moved her hand over the agreement, swiping multiple time as dozens of pages flew across the screen. It wouldn’t be possible to read it all, not unless she had numerous days and an industrial telescope.She halted on the lab results from the multiple vials of blood and salivathey had demanded before anyone would even speak with her. Part of herwanted to inspect the test results in greater detail but her attention would elicit unnecessary attention. If they had found out something, then she wouldn’t be sitting here.“What exactly does all of this mean?” she asked, swiping past the testfindings to the signature page at the end.“The terms are relatively simple, really. I inferred it had all been clarified to you already.” The Whoremonger drooped in his armchair, stooping his leg to rest one foot on the opposite knee. “One extra time, then.” Leda clenched her hands together to halt themfrom shaking. “Please.”“Of course, my dear.” His small smile made it clear he knew she wassimply playing for more time, her stamina too wrecked for reliable decisionmaking. “I am prepared to offer you two thousand dollars, with half deposited in your account upon acceptance of our agreement. In exchange, you will spend one night at Ceres House for the amusement of our clients.”Clients? She hadn’t expected the plural and hoped that he had misspoken. “What would I have to do?”There was not even a clue of a pause.“Whatever you’re told.”The shock of his words felt like being drenched in cold water. She stoodand crossed behind the uneasy chair to stand by the window. Herhands flicked at the heavy drapes until she caught a sliver of the spectacular view. This blue sky was the cleanest thing she had ever seen. You didn’t get views like this down in the slums where a cloud of pollution filled the air.And the many high-rise structures — full of Alphas and the fortunate Betas who served them — blocked whatever view of the sky might have been available through the smog.People had traded their lives for a peek of this sky.“I can’t do this.”The Whoremonger stood and came to Leda’s side. His hands touched her back, the effort to be gentle obvious, in a motion that would have been almost fatherly under other circumstances.“It can seem daunting at first, I know, to have your limits tested and thesebarriers pushed.” His hand stroked her hair, the rings on his fingerscatching in the wild curls. “We have a very select clientele with certain desires, Alpha’s carefully chosen from among Aquila’s most elite. I canpromise they will treasure you like the jewel you are. No harm will come toyou, at least none that is permanent.”She did not like the emphasis he placed on that last word.His client's would be Alphas, of course. Who else would pay so much for the license of having a Beta obligated to follow their every command? As if they didn’t control every aspect of Aquila and all the people in it, even more was expected to satisfy them.Leda hated Alphas, their roars and needs, and the fact that they acted asif their position in society was some natural birthright rather than just acruel twist of fate.But she couldn’t afford to have an opinion. Not anymore.She thought back to how this had all started. One of her customers at thediner had approached her, not a regular like most, wearing a suit muchtoo fine for the place. He never spoke a word to her except to place hisorder, leaving a black business card with a generous tip on the table after he left.Ceres House had been written on it in holographic print, along with anaddress.Everyone had heard of Ceres House whether they actually believed it existedor not. It was said to be a secret place for the wealthy and well-connected wherealmost any desire could be fulfilled — for a price.It wasn’t easy to believe they wanted her. She had a beautiful enough face, but not exceptionally so, and her body was a little too lean frommissed meals. The thick, dark hair that flooded around her shoulders inmessy waves and curls was probably her best feature, along with expressive eyes that were the color of shined mahogany. But she was also small, details delicate, with small hands and a slightbuild, even absent the near-starvation. And she only seemed even more undersized next to the graying Alpha who seemed to have experienced no depreciation in strength or musculature despite his advancing age.She was created like an Omega.And that would be worth something to a man like this, who traded infantasy. The money she could make with one night would be enough to feed her family for a year.The Whoremonger moved away to lean against the desk. His hands wereclenched in his lap with legs crossed neatly at the ankle, casual, as if hesensed her weakening. “You said I could get half of the payment now?”“Half now and half on completion of the contract. To protect all partiesinvolved, of course.”Leda cleared her throat against the knot of fear that tried to steal her voice.“When would I resume?”His teeth glinted in the low light when he bared them in a smile like acrocodile’s. “There is no night like tonight.”Her heart beat hard against her chest, the sound so audible that she was sure he could hear it. She thought of all the things that those credits could buy — water, food, pills. It was ten times as much money as she would earn in a year working at the Diner. She momentarily entertained the fantasy of going back to the college, maybe even getting a job for Central Command after graduating. There was nothing elegant about life as a bureaucratic drone, but she’d make enough to live in the middle levels above the hovels where at least the air was breathable and clean water ran from the pipes when you turned the tap.Two thousand dollars were enough to change her life.But was it worth the risk?“Can I have that stylus?”The Whoremonger held out the sleek writing tool with manicured fingers that seemed starkly clean against her much grubbier hands. The tips of theirfingers brushed for the smallest second and she looked up into his face. His smile was preying. “You won’t be sorry.”She already was sorry, but the attraction was impossible to ignore. There was no other legal way for her to earn an amount like this and credits were the only ticket out of the hovels.Leda held the stylus for a moment, trying to force the tremble from herhand. Blood rushed through her ears, loud enough that she couldn’t hear theWhoremonger’s words as he continued to speak to her, although the cruel twist of his lips was almost enough to distract her.Her name came out shaky and jagged as she slid the stylus across the glasssurface. Signing herself away.The Whoremonger swiped across the screen, just as she made the last littleflourish, and the contract vanished, leaving the screen blank. An expression crossed his face that was in mockery of a smile, equal partscovetous and threatening.“Welcome to Ceres House, my dear.”“Leda!”The tone of Cythia’s yell tore her attention from the grimy window. Shehad been watching the encroaching darkness of sunset creep across thegarbage-filled street outside their apartment.She could still hear the Whoremonger’s voice drifting over her, even though ithad been hours since she left his office. “Hush,” Leda whispered, pointing to the small pallet where her youngerbrother, Argus, slept. The narcoleptics they had given him were not enoughto eradicate the raspy quality of his breathing, but they were the only thingthat relieved the pain enough for him to rest. It would be impossible to get him back to sleep if he woke without providing another pill that theycouldn’t afford.Cythia glared down at her, eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me to hush. Are youready?”Leda shrugged, ignoring the obvious disapproval that rolled off her sisterin waves. “If that’s even possible.”Cythia sneered. “I still can’t believe you’re doing this.”Clasping her cheek against the cold glass of the window, Leda sighed. “Ididn’t realize that I had a choice.”“This is dangerous.” Cythia glowered out into the night. “I shouldn’t have letyou talk me into it.”Leda combated the urge to roll her eyes. Cythia had been a willing accomplice from the beginning. She had been the one to present herself at the medical testing station, using Leda’s identification card, to have the lab work done.It was her test results appended to the contract that had just been signed.“Maybe we should try to get the payments in some other way. Maybe there’s something that I can do.”Leda bit her tongue on a sharp retort. There was nothing she could say that would be fair. She continued to stare out the window but shifted her gaze to take in her sister’s reflection, protesting off the sense of despair that always existed in the background of her thoughts.They looked very much alike — not identical, but similar enough to be mistaken for one another as children. But Cythia was damaged. An accidentover the cook stove during childhood had robbed her of what would likelyhave been considerable beauty and covered the upper part of her body inravaging scars, including her neck and the right side of her face. It waspossible to hide the worst of the damage with the flowing scarves she kept perpetually wrapped around her head, like a Sh’islim convert who covered for modesty, but she wasn’t fit for a duty job. No shop owner wanted her to be the face of their business. Nerve damage to her hands from the fire made manual labor impossible, and that was the only other kind of work available in the hovels. So it was left to Leda to support them.Only the three of them were left now, a family half-formed. Alphas were responsible for every bit of the devastation. She had been born in the middle levels, her father a Beta sergeant in the logistics corps. Her mother had been Omega, and beautiful. A ranking Alpha had taken a liking to her mother and when her father had resisted, the Alpha had slay both of them. The judicial body had ruled her mother’s death an accident, so they’d only earned death benefits for her father. That money was spent within a year and the only place to live that they could afford had been in the hovels. Cythia finally broke the brooding silence. “You look nice.”Leda murmured her thanks, even as the hollow impression grew in her chest. She was wearing a knee-length dress with thin straps, made of a soft cotton. Natural fibers were a rare commodity in the hovels as were any clothing items that were not government-issued uniforms. The robe was left over from the days when they could still afford minor luxuries. It had belonged to her mother.“Are you sure they’re requiring you to wear something this simple?”Comprehending that her sister criticized more out of concern than anything else, Leda tamped down on a flash of annoyance. “They didn’t say, but it’s this or my work suit.”“If you say so.”For about the hundredth time, the idea of just taking the money andrunning crossed her mind. The Whoremonger had been a man of his word. Two thousand dollars had registered in her account before she’d even reached the lower levels from his office. It was enough money to start a new life somewhere else if she went on her own. There had to be a place she could hide where even The Whoremonger’s cold gaze couldn’t reach. And if not, she could always try disappearing into the Forbidden Zone. Nobody ever came back from there, but maybe she was strong enough to withstand the condition.Of course, that would make her a liar and a cheat. And she wasn’t interestedin being either of those things. And her family wanted her here, not torn to pieces in the Forbidden Zone.The clock above their ancient stove glowed the time in blood red. It waspractically the only bit of light in the gathering darkness of their apartment.Silence weighed down on her, heavy like a cloak. Her family surroundedher, and yet she was completely alone.“Here.”Leda stunned and stared up at her sister, who had been watching hersilently. She took the little packet and unrolled it with trembling fingers.Four mismatched tablets of different colors and sizes rolled onto her palm.“You’ll need an additional dose,” Cythia mumbled, voice deceptively casual.“The last thing you want is to slip your scent around a bunch of Alphas.”“Will this be enough?”“Fuck an Alpha and I guess you’ll see,” Cythia snapped, the anger betrayingher anxiety. “This is your stupid plan, not mine. I pray you don’t fall intoestrous the moment that you’re mounted, but it’s not like I can look up the proper dose for black market alterants on the CommNet. Really, Leda.”Dropping her head so her sister wouldn’t see her scowl, Leda gulped the pills, not bothering with the lukewarm glass of water sitting next to her on the windowsill. “Thanks for the assistance, sis.”“That’s a week’s wages you just swallowed down. They had better work." Scent suppressants, hormone inhibitors, whatever cocktail of chemical alterants that they could get their hands on — Leda took her pills dutifully every day. The payment of the black market meds was part of what kept them in the slums, and Leda sometimes went without meals to supplement the costs.It was a punishable offense for citizens of Aquila to conceal theirbiological alignment. Offenders would be hauled off to Central Commandfor sentencing to incredible fates. If they caught her, all of them couldend up serving a life term in the works camps. The bright lights of an approaching skycar lit up the window. Trembling, Leda adjusted the short hem of her dress and stood.“Time to go.”Her sister’s muttered words felt final somehow as if she were leaving for alifetime rather than just for the night. She tried to rationalize away the fear.There wasn’t a fate worse than death awaiting her, no public flagellation orfiring squad. She only had to endure one night with a stranger in exchangefor Two thousand dollars.But that didn’t stop the sense that something horrible awaited her.Leda had acquired her history lessons in school as well as anyone else,but that didn’t mean all the questions about her world had been resolved.Details of the thousand-year war that had destroyed humanity had beendiscussed to exhaustion. Those who survived had been forever changed bythe biological and viral agents that were used without approval by all sides asthe world dissolved in war. But huge gaps existed in the fossil record,so it was impossible to know how far they had come from their ancestors.She had wanted to explore history at the College, perhaps become anacademic or a researcher and unearth the secrets that hadn’t withstood thegreat wars of the past. According to the archive records, the people of Earthpast had used nuclear energy not to power their world but to destroy it. Thatdestruction had forced civilization into the sky patterns and off of thelarge swathes of the planet too injured by fallout and radiation to beha
They kept her alone in a darkened chamber, lit only by a single lantern on the bedside table. Stillness descended around her like a burden. The sound of voices and music from downstairs had faded as they stepped further upstairs and then cut off entirely after the door shut behind the Whoremonger and his Beta clients.Leda cursed the courage that made her teeth and hands tremble. She wanted to be like Larisa who is happy and simple, contented with what the world presented her. But she couldn’t be like Larisa, or even like the two girls kissing and grinding against each other on the couch, because she was something wholly different.You’re the girl that likes to be broken. Because she knew exactly what that meant and it terrified her.That first estrous was still burned in her memory. She had barely made it home before the heat cycle heightened and she became a shaky mass of sweat and slick, so desperate to mate that her family had to lock her up for
In a motion too fast to follow, the Alpha grabbed her around the waist and plucked her across his lap. He was so much huger than her that her entire physique fit across his thighs, with just her forearms and the lower part of her legs left swiveling. She battled against him but the halo of his arm might as well have been compelled by an iron.“I am going to whack you,” he informed her as if talking with something as commonplace as the climate.“I don't expect you to enjoy the grief, you little Beta, but the more you resist then the more punishment you will receive.” He said still holding her.I don’t want you to enjoy the pain. He could not mean it, she thought frantically. Is this what got the Alphas in the Aquila to blow their loads…physical misuse?She had anticipated a bruising rut from a giant Alpha, and a little pain was to follow that, but this was something different entirely.Still Panicking, Leda
Pre-dawn light almost crept over the perimeter as the black skycar floated down to the lower levels. It was too timely for much activity in Aquila, but the hovels had already come alive as vendors threw open their doors and listless workers headed toward jobs in the coal mines or to the few factories that still make use of manual labour..The seat squeaked underneath her as she tried not to notice the weakness of the leather. These slight tastes of extravagance just underlined the life of bare subsistence that she lived, an indication that not everyone had to survive in the dirt as she did. Her head kneeled against the window, glass poise against her cheek.Leda felt too tired to move, but her mind jogged. She had encountered nothing like what had transpired in that apartment. Even though almost an hour had enacted, the recollection already felt fictitious, as if she had imagined the whole thing. She had wanted to be humiliated and compelled to overcome things that s
Next, Leda scanned the archives, looking for information on Omegas dynamic. She had averted her mother’s sermons for years and, even after they passed away, she never bothered to prepare herself further. After her early heat cycle, she’d had no intention of ever living a life of an Omega so what reason could there be in knowing what that entailed.Omegas had invariably been very rare. She knew that only an Omega that could give birth to another one, regardless of the dynamic of her spouse.Clearly, there had been a few issues in the past of male Omegas but that was even rarer than an Alpha female, which rarely existed.But prevalent poverty in the lower levels had murdered the birthrate, vastly decreasing the number of any children born, but particularly Omegas. Even with that, fewer Omegas were birth to each passing year even when the total birthrate remained constant.. Different researchers had laid claim to the purposes for the decrease — pollutio
Undersecretary Damon slipped a stack of papers on the desk and it came down with a loud bang.“We’ve run the gene sequence numerous times. I even had to send the sample to a specialty lab for confirmation. It is all here in the report file. The girl is clearly a "Beta". I can seek this further, but I doubt if the result is going to change.”The governmental officer quickened to add:“On your order, of course, sir.”Brumeh opened the file with one finger, mood inscrutable, although his dissatisfaction scented the air. He was not habituated to unanswered questions and he paid the Undersecretary heavily to provide him with the data that he requested.“I’m rarely wrong about such things", said Damon as he bows with respect.He was too minor for an Alpha, but dressed smartly in an official outfit that he clearly hoped made him more committing. His gray hair had been darkened with black dye but it was obvious that the man was ahead of his prime.
The file opened to a picture of the Leda’s face. She was lovely, but not the most beautiful that he had ever seen. Although, it was not her visual appeal that had him so caught, that had forced him to ask a favor of the Undersecretary and endure the man’s offensive fume in his office.It had been her scent. Not as full-blown as the irresistible pheromones contained in Omega lub, but softer as if it had been transmitted from afar on the wind. And that small hint, of something deeper and more genuine, kept him excited.It wasn't a secret that he had little patience for the bootlicking and status enthusiasm of government types.Unfortunately, he needed them almost as much as they desired him. It was government funds that made up the pile of dollars that his empire was presently sitting on.He had built a plant that supplied most of the air purifiers to the Aquila. The devices were all that kept the atmosphere breathable in a place that would have otherwise been a filthy wasteland
Leda jecked awake in a cold sweat, aftershocks still wracking her body. Her fingers were bunched in the tiny blanket as she willed her frantic heartbeat to slow to a more natural rhythm.The fantasies had come each and every time she slept since the night at Ceres House. More than seven cycles had passed and, instead of decreasing with time, the dreams had only risen more strong. It was becoming impossible to remember that they were only fantasy and not certainty.She didn’t want to think about how many times she had woken in the last week with her desperate fingers buried between her legs.Thankfully, she was alone in the apartment. Cythia had gone to the market, wearing the protective scarf that covered her deformed face, and Argus still attended the crucial education program during the day. He loved to call it government-sponsored indoctrination. But they compelled him to go, without finishing off primary schooling it was nearly difficult to get a work certificate.He