Fragments Read online

  I had been right, Owen had broken and bred me.

  Gutting him with his own tongue would be too gentle.

  Two years, all right.

  That sort of explained the age difference but not a lot. Rachel looked like she had aged more than two years. Stress though, that could do that, right? Overworked, freaking out, even drinking could make a body age faster than normal. Her voice didn’t have that thicker quality of someone who had been drinking, so at least she hadn’t gotten addicting to anything.

  Four pregnancies, and three living boys.

  My brain just sort of malfunctioned and I shook my head again.

  “That’s not possible.”

  “It is, it happened,” she said. “You and I carry a genetic marker that is recessive to an umpteenth degree.

  “I think is what he said.

  “It’s carried, but not as dominantly as it used to be in the past. It wasn’t evolved out, it was killed off by normal people because our kind of G14 used to be hunted down and killed.

  “We aren’t entirely certain why but it might be something like we gave the Alphas a reason to work together instead of always fighting, so without our type of G14 the Alphas were basically taken down and then the previous government genetically modified mom’s eggs and accidentally created a set of identical twins with the genetic material of a G14 like us but not quite like us, but they’re still calling me a Mother even though I probably qualify as a Daughter and those are titles, not just like, I am someone’s daughter, but, like, I am a Daughter. We think it was kind of like saying I was a Daughter of all Alphas and that all would then protect me as such and you know how protective Alphas are about their Mothers, well there used to be women who weren’t their mothers but were called Mother and were treated with that kind of respect. Like murder an entire city because she broke a nail, type of woman.”

  I listened to all that, but even for me the words began slurring together. She never seemed to stop to take a breath, just going on and on like she had had way too much sugar.

  “Have you learned how to not breathe?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Rachel said quickly. “Anyhow, that bit that makes us like that also makes us capable of becoming whole again. We can’t be broken permanently by an Alpha. Sex puts us back together. Except it’s also good sex, like orgasmic sex. You’d be surprised how many Alphas will offer to give you oral because you seem unstable and you carry that gene. They’d offer regular sex too, but it’s been made clear to them that it sounds like they think you’re a blow-up doll and those who view us as blow-up dolls will suffer the same fate as Owen. Whose name I would shorten, per tradition, but you can’t really make Owen shorter, you know?”

  “What happened to Owen?”

  “I broke him like the little bitch that he was,” Rachel said, going completely still. “He had broken you. He broke mom and then threw her out on the street because you miscarried. Oh, and he broke her because you miscarried the time before that.”

  “That’s not possible,” I said with a shake of my head.

  “Yes, it is, it’s what happened.”

  “Rachel, you just said I had three children across four pregnancies in two years. It’s not possible!”

  She made a face and looked away. Then she pulled out her phone and brought it to her ear. I could practically see the steam coming from her ears as she tried to put it all together and make it make sense.

  Apparently, everyone else had forgotten how long a pregnancy took, then the time in between necessary before a body could even get pregnant again.

  “Morgan, have you taken stock of the children yet? Yeah, are there like, a set of twins or triplets? Twins, hey? Yeah, uh huh, no one is saying whose is whose? Can’t you do genetic testing? Right? That’ll help you make the decisions you need to make. Okay, well, yeah, take the twins and test them, but I think I know whose they were. And why Owen may have wanted me so badly. Well, don’t tell me that, tell Gerrid and Blane that, they’re the ones who do all the genetic stuff, I’m just supposed to stand here and look pretty, remember? Great. Okay. Kind of care for you, bye.”

  The phone slipped away and she looked me up and down.

  “Morgan says twins aren’t carried through the mother and Owen didn’t have the necessary genes, but it’s possible you had a set of twins and then a single boy.”

  Except a lot of Alphas carried the genes for twins. Rachel wouldn’t have known that, though, she hadn’t read the studies. And whoever Morgan was probably didn’t know that, because the only genetically inclined Alpha right then was Blane, and that was more out of curiosity than anything else.

  “I need to talk to an Alpha,” I said, looking around.

  Rachel was some sort of lover or companion to an Alpha, or being kept as one of Blane’s curiosities. She only knew half of what was going on. I needed an Alpha because they’d explain it to me, or I’d kick them in the balls until they did, damn it.

  “They probably won’t be coming,” Rachel said with a grimace.

  “Why? Because you broke the weakest Alpha alive?” I asked. “So what? Alphas break Alphas, it happens. Why can’t a companion do the same?”

  “I broke him without having sex with him or beating on him,” Rachel said. “We apparently give off a pheromone that only our style of G14 gives off. It can something, and something, I don’t know, I stopped listening. Anyhow, we can actually break Alphas when in the right mood and with enough oomph behind it and boy, was I angry.”

  If we could break an Alpha, that made us a threat to them. A companion who could turn the tables on an Alpha? That was too special to keep alive. We should have been destroyed before we got our feet under us.

  “Which means I can’t ask an Alpha anything because you went and scared the piss out of them?”

  “Pretty much,” she said with a shrug.

  “That’s not a great thing, Rachel.”

  They were probably trying to figure out how to murder us without touching us. Or ordering guns online.

  Blane’s a scientist.

  I glanced up, looking for any sort of vent or hole in the wall.

  An Alpha didn’t like using guns, but that didn’t keep him from using his own creations against those who were a threat to him.

  She shrugged again, then sighed.

  “Look. It’s been two years. Another two hours while they wait for me to calm down isn’t going to be the end of the world. You and I are pretty well all that’s left, and I can’t even kill Owen, because it might cause his companions and breeders to die of broken hearts, because even though he’s a complete douche, that’s actually possible. So I’m stuck with him and he killed dad and mom is, well, she’s being cared for as of this morning, so that’s a good thing.”

  “Right, I’m sorry. I don’t remember what happened, but you had to live it. What about—?”

  “He’s fine, his university is covered and they’re looking into him actually, because he’s starting to compete with Alphas but doesn’t carry any of the necessary genes to be companion or Alpha. Basically, the Alphas are impressed with him.

  “They’ve noticed a few normal people like him, who are all of a sudden challenging Alphas in their fields and they want to do studies and research and pay their way through schooling to see what happens. Most of the Alphas have stopped seeing everything that challenges them as a threat. Suddenly we’re like hissing kittens. Adorable fluff balls with claws that kind of feel nice.”

  An Alpha must have told her that, because it didn’t sound like a description Rachel would give.

  “Okay, good. And dad was buried?”

  “Yes, in his plot where he wanted to be buried. Thank goodness, he paid for it before hand. And if he had told us about his work with the Alphas instead of keeping it all a secret and our origin from us? I could have called any one of them—literally any of them—and told them what happened. Blane would have been there the next day to save us all. If not a couple of hours later. But he’d probably wait for Abraham
to arrive and they would have just burned Owen’s place to the ground.”

  “Why didn’t he tell us, then?”

  “We aren’t his children. We were the product of a genetic experiment meant to create public born Alphas to be raised by the government. They only allowed the pregnancy to go to term to study us. Something about one of us should have consumed the other in the womb, we’re like one in a billion because the G14 doesn’t allow for multiple births? I don’t really know, that’d be a question for Blane.”

  I was taking in a lot of information. It wasn’t until Rachel started talking that I had that ‘oh, right,’ sort of feeling. Even though she had just told me about the genetic experiment, it had gone right over my head. I didn’t want to believe it, so I hadn’t retained it the first time.

  It’d probably take quite a few more times before I did manage to keep that little tidbit.

  “The Alphas must be having a heyday.”

  “Twin companions are born about once every hundred years, so not completely unheard of, but very rare. When they do show up, they’re kept together and wars have started over having them. Blane’s hoping that because we were lab created, the statistics will fall in the favour of the Alphas and they’ll find a full-grown set of twins while he’s still young enough to enjoy his cock. His words, not mine.”

  “Okay, I think I have the basics. I think.”

  “Oh, Morgan is mine, don’t touch him.”

  “Like I’m some kind of slut?” I asked.

  “No, like you had to be told not him. Maybe it’s his genetics and our genetics, anyhow, no. He’s mine and I plan on keeping him. Just… things are kind of complicated with all that has gone on. So he’s over there doing that and I’m here doing this and we’re just trying to figure out where and what we are. Normally Alphas would just, you know. But it’s different for us and it’s nothing the Alphas are used to so we have no basis to judge it against.”

  “Okay, who did I wake up beside?”

  “Abraham.”

  “Abraham?” I asked, my voice hitting a pitch that made Rachel wince.

  “Mmhmm,” Rachel said with a nod. “You were given the choice of all of them with a couple removed because they were needed for testing and stuff and you chose Abraham. For the past three days, you two have been having sex. He checked in with us on occasion. It seems you wore him out. Which has only made Alphas from outside the estate start calling, wanting to spend some time with you. Besides nymphomaniac companions, an Alpha is rarely worn out to the point that he bitches about it, but he was determined and decided that until you were whole, no other man was allowed to touch you.”

  “He ran screaming from the room.”

  But I appreciated his seeing it through. It took yet another moment to fully comprehend what it all meant.

  Abraham and I had been having sex because it put me back together, made me whole again. Which sounded all kinds of crazy, but I just couldn’t argue with being me again.

  He could have let another Alpha step in, but he had chosen to keep them at bay. Keeping the men I was exposed to limited until I had the ability to give consent again.

  I still wanted to punch him, but he was kind of sweet in a way.

  “…” Rachel looked around, then frowned and focused on me. “I should probably double check. If someone else slipped in, that’d be good reason to run away screaming, because Abraham made it pretty clear that he would break anyone who got in there or tried anything with you.”

  “Got it. All right, what do we do now?”

  “We should probably work out, see how you’re moving,” she said. “Abraham wants us to both work it out so that we can take down an Alpha without breaking him. See, when I broke Owen, I apparently inherited all that was his, per Alpha law.”

  “You’re a Dom?” I demanded.

  “Yeah, can you imagine?” she asked. “Anyhow, he’s hoping to get you up to par so that no one can tell us apart. It’s not been unknown in the past for female Alphas to hunt the males who aren’t exactly good. He’s opened the lands to us as they are to any Alpha. We can take over as many territories as we want and work our way up. If we want.”

  “Wow,” I said slowly. “That’s probably going to be the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around.”

  “I’m still trying to figure it out myself,” she muttered.

  “Great, so, is there a way to play music in here?”

  “There are cameras everywhere, Rebecca.”

  “So? Why would that stop me?”

  “Uh, because I danced for them once and they began bickering over me and Morgan threatened his own Da. I don’t think they have that relationship now, I think. Geez, I hope not, otherwise Morgan may be in for a mean surprise when he comes back for a visit.”

  “You want to see how I can move. That’s the best way to see, isn’t it?”

  Rachel considered me, then nodded once. “You’re right. We could spar, but I don’t really want to see their response to two women fighting.”

  “Besides throwing water on us?” I asked.

  “Or mud,” she muttered.

  She looked around the gym. I did the same, but I saw nothing that might play music. No speakers or stereo in sight. With a sigh, I motioned to her.

  “You have your phone, that would have a speaker.”

  “True,” she said, pulling it out. “It’s been years though, I don’t move like that anymore.”

  “Your body doesn’t forget,” I said, walking to the open area in the corner of the gym. “Why aren’t we wearing shoes? There weren’t any in my room.”

  “It’s this whole weird thing with Blane. Most Alphas have an inside and outside set, because their estates are so big. They leave the shoes by the door of their room, but Blane keeps everyone’s shoes like a crazy person.”

  Rachel frowned at her phone and poked at it for a while. Finally, she made a sound and moved toward me, the phone in her hand. She grumbled and hit something on the side.

  An ad started playing on her phone, talking about some cereal. At least, that’s what I thought it was. It talked about morning and grains, it must have been a cereal of some sort. Rachel set the phone on the nearest piece of equipment, then approached me as the music began to play.

  For our entire childhoods, we had switched back and forth. We got so good at it that even our parents couldn’t tell us apart. Our mother had threatened to have our names tattooed on our foreheads so that she’d never have to guess again. She had obviously never followed through on that threat, but it had been an endearing one.

  We had practiced that for years, thinking that was all we were good at. Swapping became almost second nature to us.

  “I am Rebecca, right?” I asked.

  We had been called one another’s name so often that for a small period of time, we had forgotten which of us was which, but we did figure it out eventually.

  “Yes, you are Rebecca and I am Rachel. Unless mom mixed us up when we were babies,” Rachel said as the music began.

  “Good.”

  “It’ll hopefully come back together, but until it does, don’t push too hard. We don’t want you breaking again. We aren’t certain how many times we can break before it’s, you know, like permanent or something. Or has lasting damage.”

  “Right,” I muttered, looking down at my feet. “How’s this go again?”

  “I honestly think you make it up as you go along, no matter what you claim,” Rachel said. “So, close your eyes and make it up as you go along.”

  I gave a little nod and closed my eyes. My body remembered. It had been a long, long time, but it still recalled how to move to the music. As I moved, I opened my eyes, because I was in a strange space and didn’t know where everything was. I had to keep an eye out in case I ran into a wall or something.

  I had done that once dancing in a new area. It had hurt.

  Rachel watched me for a minute, then joined in.

  I always led our dances, she joined in eventually, trying to
imitate my moves as I slipped through them. It was a test of body language and knowing. Before it all happened, we were almost seamless. Moving so smoothly that neither of us was quite certain, after the first song, who was leading and who was following.

  We moved across the space as mirror images of one another. Our bodies had changed, time had separated us, but still we recalled how to move as if we were one body. The music seemed to pound in my ears, imitating my heartbeat, or perhaps my heart beat in time to the music. It was a song I hadn’t heard before, that I didn’t recall. Perhaps it was new.

  I have so much to catch up on.

  As the song came to an end, Rachel huffed out a breath and came to a sudden standstill. I took a moment to breathe out, standing as I turned to the door.

  Alphas stood there, their mouths hanging open and eyes wide. Three of them in total. I recognized Blane, but not the other two. While Rachel retreated to the side, I didn’t want to give up so easily. I had no idea how long it had been since I had danced last, or when I would get to again.

  I ignored them, as if they weren’t even there.

  When the next song came on, I moved with it. The music was like water. My soul was thirsty and music was what it craved. I moved with the music, refusing to stop just because others were watching me. A pounding along my nerves called out to me, reminding me that this was not my normal activity, my body was no longer built for dancing.

  Just one more song.

  As the song ended, my back was to the door. I huffed out a breath, a little annoyed that I would have to stop when I had just started. But I had to respect the limits of my body, least it put me on the floor or something silly like that.

  The next song began and I moved once more.

  Except, something was different.

  I turned and swore I saw someone out the corner of my eye, moving with me. I kept up with the dance, assuming that I was seeing something. That the feeling of someone behind me was just that, a feeling in my head, made up by my broken mind to explain the panic that wanted to well up.

  The song talked about sex, that much I registered, but it was the beat I moved to, the sound of another instrument. I didn’t care what the words were, only that the music itself existed.