Fragments Read online

  Gerrid reached over to the stove and pressed a button to cancel the baking oven. From under the stove, he pulled out two oven mitts, which he put on and waved at me with. I smiled, which made him smile.

  He pulled a casserole dish from the oven and motioned with a smile.

  Removing the lid, he revealed a noodle and white sauce something with little peas in it. The smell of it was pleasant for a moment, then it turned my stomach and made everything clamp down, including my jaw. I didn’t want to eat, though it had been hours and hours, I should have been hungry.

  “I can cook better things too,” he said to me with a glance. “But things and such and so forth. It will taste good, I promise you that.”

  I think what he meant was that he had tossed it together, then crawled into bed with me. Which meant that he did get about half an hour of sleep or so, before I woke up. Not much more than that, though.

  “You made dinner,” I said carefully.

  “A lot of women complain about their men not making dinner,” Gerrid said sternly.

  “I have eating problems,” I said.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Not allowed to be fat, he’ll beat me.”

  Silence filled the kitchen as I averted my face. I didn’t want to see the look on his face, the judgement or pity, or whatever it might have been. As the silence dragged on, I dared to look back.

  Gerrid looked at the casserole, then considered me. Finally, he looked back at the casserole. I have no idea how many times he had done that in the looming silence. Just back and forth, no judgement, just a blank sort of look.

  The Alpha bit his top lip as he considered the steaming food. His teeth worked back and forth, dragging over his lip.

  “You could eat the whole thing and not be fat,” he said.

  Not to me, but to the casserole dish. He reached up and brushed his top lip as he continued to consider the steaming dish of food. Finally, he moved away from me and opened a cupboard. He pulled out two plates and walked back toward me.

  “Rule one is that you eat,” he said, handing me a plate. “That’s not to say that I don’t recognize that you have a problem, only that you must eat something. Perhaps in the future you might tell me what you enjoy eating, so that I can make that instead of whatever I felt like making with what was on hand, no?”

  “Sushi,” I said.

  “Cannot make that, I’m not that good,” Gerrid said. “I can order out, thought.”

  “Can you afford that?” I asked.

  “Not expensive stuff all the time, but yes, some,” he said with a little shrug.

  I stared at him as he shrugged again and served us both food. He turned and tried to hand me the plate, but I just stood there staring at him. It didn’t quite register with me, that he didn’t have some grand empire like most Alphas his age.

  “Take the plate,” Gerrid said, raising it a little, then lowering it back to where it had been.

  I reached out and took the plate from him in a jerking motion.

  “What do you mean, you aren’t, like, a gajillionaire?” I demanded.

  Alphas were competitive. They set up little empires for themselves. The only ones who didn’t do that were wards, and no Alpha Gerrid’s age wanted to be a ward of an Alpha. Some did take on normal jobs, even security jobs, but they still had a steady income and investors or something of that sort.

  I don’t think I had ever heard of an Alpha who didn’t have his life planned out for him before he made it to high school.

  “Women like being in my bed,” he said plainly.

  “I get that, a face like that? Of course, women like your attention, but they should be paying for it, then,” I snapped at him.

  He walked past me, toward the little table without comment. He didn’t seem irritated with me at all, for him it must have been a normal conversation. One he had many times before with someone who made him comfortable enough that he didn’t bite back.

  I turned and followed him stiffly. Gerrid sat and I sat across from him, but I didn’t pick up my fork. I just watched him. Gerrid picked up his fork and ate a little. I swear I could hear him chewing from where I was, and I wanted to shout at him, but I knew better.

  Hearing him chewing was only in my head. Or it was bothering me because I was tired. I rarely noticed people chewing, but when I did, it made me so irritated.

  After several bites, Gerrid poked his food with the fork, then looked over at me. His lips pressed together in a thin line.

  “You have no vocation,” I said. “How do you have no vocation? I thought you were like, I don’t know, Blane’s heir or something?”

  “Meh, I mean, I suppose I could, but it’s kind of boring. The genetics I do is mainly for entertainment value. Maybe breeding. Suppose I should get on that part but I haven’t found anyone yet who has gotten my blood boiling in that way.”

  “What about being a male whore?”

  “Thought about that. Problem being, I find few women want to pay for it. Clients as a male whore? A few narcissistic women. Walk into a bar with this face, sit beside a woman and talk to her? I mean, really talk. And sex, I had sex from all angles. Telling a woman to pay for sex is an insult. It’s like telling them that no man would want to be with them. Which is shit in my opinion. But the ego of women is so small, so beaten down, that they believe them paying for sex is them admitting defeat and becoming an old maid somewhere. Not exploring their sexuality, not enjoying the company of a man. Paying for sex, for your gender, is admitting defeat.”

  “And if I was to pay you?”

  “You don’t have money,” Gerrid said in confusion.

  “What if I were a client?” I asked.

  “But, you aren’t,” he said.

  “Role play,” I said sternly.

  He seemed confused as he considered me.

  “Are you trying to find the problem, or are you honestly interested?” Gerrid asked.

  “Little of both, to be honest,” I responded.

  “I can’t do that with you. I love women, I do. But you aren’t women. You aren’t the lonely woman at the bar. You’re a woman who the Alphas would start a war over if they could. It just so happened that you asked for me.”

  “So you’re here, serving me.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Gerrid said. “I’m here because you asked for me, and I want to be here. Because I want to be inside you, and because I’m willing to wait the—what three more hours?—for you to be able to accept a penis into your vagina without it causing more damage. But I’d like to be clear, I’d be more than willing to wait longer, if that’s what you wanted.”

  Bed talk is his problem.

  Gerrid was too literal, not enough flowery phrases. Maybe it was the scientist in him.

  I, for one, appreciated the stumble. It told me that he was not infallible. He was not polished or thought too highly of himself.

  “Why?” I asked. “Why offer to wait when, like most Alphas, you just have to walk into a single’s night at the bar, and make an announcement?”

  “You’re pretty,” Gerrid said slowly.

  “Yes, but so is Rachel,” I countered. “And a lot of other women.”

  He shrugged at me. Then he sighed and poked at his dinner again. Gerrid ate a little and I finally picked up my fork and began to eat my own food.

  “What’s the difference?” I asked after several minutes of silence.

  “Between what?” he countered

  “Between Rachel and I?”

  “She swears a lot more, for starters,” Gerrid said. “If we’re just going absolute basics, she’s also been claimed by Morgan. I could have my way with both of them. Oh, could be fun.”

  He seemed to trail off, looking over my head with a distant look in his eyes.

  “But?” I asked.

  “You may not recall, but Blane held a masquerade, which was how he got Owen here. I found you and Rachel under the steps almost naked, swapping dresses and I could tell the difference then. Rachel left, th
ough I thought you had left, I went to make my move, and you sucker punched me.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Eyes moving over his face. I saw no lump or bruise or anything of that sort. Which meant that I couldn’t have hit him that hard.

  Or Blane’s miracle drug was used on him.

  “Yeah, you sucker punched an Alpha. Then you proceeded to do what I can only really describe as ‘almost raped’ me. It’s only almost because it turned me on so damned much. I would have begged for it, but I was fairly certain that would turn you off.”

  “And that’s a difference?” I asked.

  “Sexually, Rachel is afraid of her own shadow,” Gerrid said. “I want the woman who hit me, climbed on top of me, then had her way with me. I want the woman who isn’t afraid to take the pleasure that she wants.”

  “I… I raped you?”

  “I never said yes, but I never said no,” he said with a little shrug.

  “Gerrid, that’s not okay!”

  “With me, it’s perfectly okay. Tie me up and whip me.”

  He paused as a little shudder rolled through him. I watched it happen and wondered what it meant that an Alpha had entertained the fantasy of being dominated. Then I dismissed it, because it was none of my damned business until he decided to share for me.

  “Are you being serious?” I asked.

  “For you? Yes,” he said with a nod. “For others, not so much. I’ve found women can’t or won’t give me that thing I desire in that, you know, line of thought.”

  “You’ve gone to men for it, you mean?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said slowly. Then he cleared his throat. “Yes, I did. They didn’t know what I was, just that I was pretty on the eyes.”

  “And you liked it?” I asked.

  “Yes, I very much enjoyed being dominated.”

  “It just, I mean, I’m not judging you, but an Alpha wanting to be dominated? That’s kind of weird.”

  “I know, right?” Gerrid said. “Then I actually talked to Robin. Have you met him?”

  “No. Uh, but if I recall, he’s Blane’s father’s companion. The last remaining companion.”

  “He also had self destructive tendencies when he was normal. Ezra broke him toward BDSM. For far too long, I looked at Robin and was, like, why would Ezra do that? Robin is a clearly dominant personality. He consumes everything in his path. How did he and Ezra even get along?

  “And after my first session, it dawned on me.”

  “Ezra was submitting to Robin,” I said.

  The safest way for an Alpha to fulfill his desires was to break a companion who suited that purpose. A companion wouldn’t share the secrets of his Alpha without being commanded to by the Alpha. It only made sense that Ezra, who had had three companions most of his life, had selected them each for a very specific role in his life.

  Gerrid nodded slowly. “Looking across the board, just at all Alphas there… there is a pattern, if you know it’s there. Almost every Alpha has a companion whose only job is to stand behind them and whisper about how they aren’t good enough. Every Alpha. For Blane, that was Alex. Though, admittedly, Alex did it loudly and proudly by showing Blane up at every turn.”

  “For Ezra, it was a knife happy crazy person?” I asked.

  “He’s not crazy. You have to meet him to know how, but he’s not crazy. Robin is… he’s the quiet Dom that some of us need, while also being the destructive explosion that young Alphas need.”

  “Mommy figure?”

  “Goodness, no. He’s more of a representation of what could be, if only we could get women like you to stand for yourself and say no more often.”

  “They want to cull my children, doesn’t sound like they want anything to do with me besides sex.”

  Gerrid set down his fork. He seemed to struggle for some time. As he struggled, I forced myself to eat a bite or two. It hadn’t been that long since I had eaten last. The food tasted like ashes to me.

  “They want to what?” he demanded finally.

  “Blane says there’s a possibility that they won’t be culled, but it still must happen.”

  “They want to what?” Gerrid asked once more, ever so carefully.

  “Why do you care?” I asked.

  “Because you care,” Gerrid said. “Even if it is children who aren’t my own, and that brings up jealousy. And possibly a strange desire to throw you down and prove how virile I am.

  “They are your children, not Blane’s. I don’t care about Alpha law. The parents get a freaking say in the life or death of their children when those children are Alphas.”

  “So, Owen gets a vote?” I asked.

  “In the life or death of his children? Yes. Fathers get a right.”

  “I get that. My father petitioned for paternal rights. It’s not that the father wants a right, it’s that the father in this case is Owen.”

  “Let me get this straight. If I fathered your children, I’d have a right to the child, but because Owen did, he has no rights?”

  “Fuckin’ rights.”

  “I want to have sex with you so hard right now.”

  It is definitely his bed talk.

  I almost laughed at how absurd it sounded, but managed to keep the laughter down. Gerrid was being serious, and in his own strange way, it was kind of sweet.

  “Blane says not for at least another ten hours.”

  Gerrid groaned loudly and rolled his eyes. Something about the display appeared to be sarcastic or even over acted in nature. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I thought Gerrid was sarcastically pointing something out and I wasn’t certain what.

  “Can we talk about parental rights as, like, foreplay?” he asked.

  “If a man gets a woman with child, and she caries to term without telling him, knowingly and willfully so, he shouldn’t have to pay child support,” I hesitated as Gerrid smiled just slightly. “A man and woman break up and have a child. The woman doesn’t answer text messages or phone calls from the man? Doesn’t let him see his child? That’s kidnapping and isn’t right.”

  Gerrid bit his bottom lip.

  “Man does the same thing?” I asked as Gerrid groaned just slightly. “That’s also kidnapping.”

  “Mmm” Gerrid closed his eyes and smiled.

  “You are so weird,” I said.

  “Can’t have sex, talk of parental rights is closest I can get,” he grumbled.

  “Why? Alphas apparently take all rights of children who are born and are Alphas, even if the child is a product of rape.”

  “Per tradition, but law states the woman then has the rights, because she was raped,” Gerrid said. “See, breeders have accepted what we tell them about their children. No one has ever gone to the police and filed charges or demanded the law see to their rights. If they did, the police would file a report, and Abraham has his enforcer, Peter, scouring everything for those reports and anything sent in by registered breeders and their children.

  “They’d find that, even if the police say no, Peter would show up on the doorstep of the Alpha and greet him with a fist to the face. Women still hold the rights. We just say no and hope you follow along, but you have the rights still.”

  “That’s providing false information.”

  “Tradition is there for a reason. I do support it, but it rarely comes into play. If you or one of your, uh, sister breeders? If one of you had walked into a police station and filed a complaint against Owen, Peter would have found it.”

  “Not if they don’t file a report.”

  Gerrid smiled in response and wiped at his jaw. “Smaller police departments are wired with video. We were worried something like this would happen. Video and sound. We would have found you, and your parental rights would have been supported.”

  “And that somehow gets you off?” I asked.

  “It does,” he purred out.

  “Then why don’t you become a lobbyist or something? You could get hard doing your day job, everyday, all day.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t want to get hard doing my job. I want to feel like I’m making a difference in the world,” Gerrid said.

  “Fair enough.”

  “Which means I need to get a man on the closest planet, or somehow figure out a way to do interdimensional travel”

  “You don’t want to make electronics or anything?” I asked. “Advance medical or genetic sciences?”

  “No, not really. Why would I do any of those things?” Gerrid asked. He shrugged. “I have little interest in those things. I inherited my father’s estate and the government stripped me of it. They burned four hundred years of history and art to the ground just to slap me in the face.

  “In the war, I earned my reputation. I found a way to make a living just doing nothing,”

  “What have you been doing the past few days?”

  “Helping Blane in the lab,” Gerrid said. “Tracing your genome and trying to figure it all out, running tests and all the rest.”

  “Why isn’t Blane running those tests?”

  “Because he’s distracted and tired,” Gerrid countered. “I’ve dabbled in his line of work for decades and know as much as he does.”

  “It’s just strange to me, that an Alpha isn’t reaching for something more,” I said.

  “I’m not like Morgan, who has no line of work. He’s discontent because he has no direction in his life. I wander through territories. I’ve put a few Alphas in their place, and I’ve collected information for Blane as I went, earning myself enough to get by. That’s all I really need, is enough to get by. They’re all freaking out every time someone steps on their toes,” Gerrid hesitated and looked over at me. “Eat your food.”

  “This is not the same as what I did,” I said.

  Meaning that I didn’t think dinner was equal to oral. Gerrid watched me for a moment, then smiled just a bit.

  “I know,” he said. “But rule one is you eat.”

  I ate a little more. Gerrid finished his plate in silence and sighed as he looked over at me.

  “If you aren’t going to finish that, can I?” he asked finally.

  I pushed my plate over to him and he cleaned the rest off. We sat at the table for some time after he finished eating. Just sitting there in quiet contemplation.