“You must forgive me for failing to greet you upon your arrival, Ambassador Havel.” Jacques had not dared bring the foreigner to his private apartments, choosing instead to meet with the Beta in the grandest palace sitting room. Cherubs cartwheeled overhead in a fresco that rumor suggested had been transported from the Vatican before the Dome was sealed. The furnishings were solid gold and rich light warmed the walls. It was a beautiful place where the Commodore had ordered the deaths of many rivals over the years. It was a room in which he’d killed seven of them personally. It was a room perfect for the coming conversation.

Before him stood a Beta with a muscular neck for his dynamic. A wise man would assume that under the ambassador’s clothes was the body of a conditioned soldier, that he was potentially dangerous… that he had been chosen not for his diplomatic abilities alone. Much could be hidden by a good tailor and a careful barbering. The male’s close cropped beard was immaculate, his brown hair short, tidy. Even his nails had been buffed. But when their hands met, calluses hardened the Beta’s palms, saying much while disclosing nothing.

“It is I who owe you the apology. I should have notified you that Vanessa was on the cusp of estrous. Considering your lack of Omegas here, I should have anticipated the ecstatic outcome of your man. May their newly forged pair-bond gratify them both.” Though his remark was fluently spoken in French, the words were clipped by a harsher accent. And even with his expression settled into a passive genteelness, Jules Havel lacked a smile.

Jacques’ shark smile was big enough for both of them. “The remaining females have been put away… out of enthusiastic reach until I decide what is to be done with them.”

“Of course. You must choose one for yourself. I had extensive dossiers prepared listing talents, traits, personality, family trees. Each lady is remarkable in her own way. There was a great deal of competition to be chosen to live in the beautiful Bernard Dome.”

And be mated to the most powerful males where they would live a life of spoiled luxury… or serve as spies.

“Greth must be rich in Omegas indeed. I have heard rumors that even your queen is Omega.”

Jules did not answer, choosing instead to turn his attention to the leather bound folder under his arm. “Her Majesty extends her personal greetings.”

Jacques refused the offered letter. “And Chancellor O’Donnell? Is that what he’s calling himself now?”

A dark eyebrow arched, Jules stone cold. “Would you prefer to know him as Shepherd? There is no need for us to pretend that Bernard Dome doesn’t control the functioning satellite systems and has some grasp of what happened in Thólos. The most dangerous man in the world knows you’re watching. He’s watching you too.”

Bluntness was seldom employed in Centrist society, yet greatly appreciated by the Commodore who’d rather not spend weeks on niceties and persuasion. “And sent you across the globe’s largest ocean to trade ten Omegas for orange trees…”

Hands folded at his back, Jules approached the window to look out over the beauty of the European city. “We possess the ships you lack. We have an entire ruin to loot for resources, making us capable of building anything we desire and going where we please. Bernard Dome’s stores are finite. We could change that. Shepherd is not looking for war. The war was won and it is over. Now he is looking for allies.”

“Against whom?”

Vibrant blue eyes cut across the room and seemed to look straight through Jacques. “Time. Inevitability.”

Jacques crossed an ankle over his knee, sitting back in his chair to ask, “Why orange trees?”

Jules’ expression did not betray the direction of his thoughts. “Our queen is very fond of them, and he is fond of pleasing her. It is the only thing he’s fond of. I suggest you remember that when dealing with him.”

* * *

The bruising on her wrists was beginning to fade, her health returning now that Jacques made a point of seeing she was fed regularly. Now that he was free to fuck her, his demeanor had greatly changed. He still seduced her at his whim, but he also doted… at least that’s the word he used.

Lavish meals, long baths that always ended with him penetrating her under the water.

Most days he left her alone for a few hours here and there to attend state business. When he returned, after he fucked her, he would invite her to play games, talk, ask a million questions she could not answer.

Sometimes he’d rub her feet. Sometimes he’d tell her to get down on her knees.

He liked to be rough, would make himself be gentle. And each new mating left her with new marks—a roadmap of where he’d been.

Brenya looked at the latest scuffs marking her knees, remembering a time when bruises were common but earned in a different sort of labor.

She missed fiddling with the mechanics of broken infrastructure, she missed being useful to the Dome. Now… what? She was left with little to do but dissect an ancient bedside clock while Jacques was away. Spread before her on a table nearest the window with the best light lay the cogs, dials, springs, the weighted pendulum, all the inner workings that when put in the perfect order, functioned seamlessly.

She could take it apart, put it together. Take it apart, put it together, over and over, and every piece would function seamlessly. It would always work so long as each component did their job. As she had done her job as a Beta.

Unit 17C had been a cog in the Bernard Dome machine.

Knowing that now, knowing how Centrist Alphas regarded the Beta workers, troubled her. All that effort, the peace of her previous life, the cohesion, what did it matter here? Was it okay that Betas lived so completely removed from the realities of the Dome?

Yes. They were safe that way.

Central was dangerous. Alphas were dangerous.

Brenya was beginning to suspect that Jacques was the most dangerous of all.

Look what he’d already done to her.

After that first night he’d penetrated and knotted her, he’d held her close and assigned her duties: perform for him sexually, bend over at his whim, learn the tricks that any Centrist female already knew. In return, he would cherish her with bruises and fluids, with ecstatic moans and orgasms.

When estrous came, he would teach her to love him. All would be well. Trust in your Commodore. Obey.

She was still a cog. A cog who knew things she wished she didn’t.

Even the most menial engineering task had been more fulfilling than whoredom.

But was she a whore when the anticipation of his return had… marked the soft chair where she sat? There was little he had to do to prepare her body now. A rich purr when he set eyes on her and her underthings were ruined.

If he growled, slick dripped down her leg.

In her weeks in Jacques’ care, he’d trained her well enough.

Well enough that she knew he would not be pleased to find his clock in pieces. Still she took it apart every time he left, fingering the bits as if they held the answers she lacked.

It was always completely sound before he returned, back on the bedside table and ticking softly.

There was nothing she could not take apart and put back together. What did that matter now?

Serve the Dome with advanced skills, or learn to suck Alpha cock practicing exactly how to squeeze a knot in your hands as a male shot gobs of sperm down your throat.

That she had yet to master, choking both times he’d drawn her head to his lap.

Absently her fingers went about their business, rebuilding the clock because it was almost time for the Commodore to return.

Setting the clock back in its home and tucking away the tools she’d used to take the thing apart: a nail file and a pilfered fork. She smoothed her skirt just in time to hear the click of the door.

She was supposed to greet him in the foyer, even pretend to smile just as Annette had practiced with her. She was supposed to put her hands on him, maybe press a kiss to his cheek.

These things she had tried, and each day performed better.

He had his arms open. Her body would fit there, tucked against him while he might kiss the top of her head and say hello. Sometimes it was nice.

If she closed her eyes hard enough as he murmured to her, it wasn’t so bad.

All she had to do was think of jasmine.

Turning her nose into his chest, Brenya inhaled deeply. She could practically smell the sweet flowers. In fact, all of him was drenched in sweetness.

She froze.

He smelled of other females.

But not of Betas.

Dumbstruck, Brenya backed away and tried to analyze the strange feeling in her stomach. When her rigging had failed and she’d plummeted down the side of the Dome, the same feeling had wreaked havoc on her gut. “I don’t understand.”

Jacques took pity on her desperate look, and explained, “Three days ago a transport ship from Greth Dome landed. Ten Omegas have been offered citizenship so long as they are mated to Alphas of my choosing. Today I was introduced to the women. Interviews were conducted so I might get to know them better.”

Real Omegas, here? Real Omegas who knew how to be Omegas, who weren’t… what had Ancil called her? Disfigured?

Hand creeping up to her cheek to hide her worst flaw, Brenya swallowed, completely at a loss. “Am I to be reassigned?” Terminated… was she to be terminated?

“No.” Jacques reached forward to pull her palm from her cheek, leaning down to kiss the long scar that pulled down her lower eyelid and puckered the flesh into an unseemly Y. “You are to be adored, by me. Forever.”

Blinking, breathless for reasons she could not comprehend, she took another step away. “I feel strange.”

The Alpha’s purr took on a tenor close to the roar of an engine, loud and pronounced. When he crooked his fingers and she failed to come to him, he made no hesitation of moving to take her.

She did not resist, thoughts whirring. In fact, she hardly paid attention to anything he was doing.

For once, he was not trying to fuck her. There were no fingers slipping under her skirt, or wet kisses placed on her skin. Jacques was only rocking her, whispering nonsense as he purred and held her on his lap.

Deep down she knew that if he stopped, she was going to cry.

And that confused her more than anything.