As much as she had been eager to establish some sort of routine for herself, once she'd come to in this world, the one she was being required to follow was definitely not what she had in mind. She couldn't seem to make heads or tails of her new surroundings, because of an acute lack of information, as well as a hampering of her ability to acquire such knowledge. Far from being able to explore what her country had become, she was, instead, just as cloistered as she had been when she was in stasis. But at least then, she hadn't known – and thus chafed – against the restrictions he imposed on her.

This situation was quite different from that.

At first, she tried to keep herself busy. She got up when he did – which was early in the morning – she could see the pale light peeping in through the slats of the boarded up windows of his room. Sometimes, she awoke with him already locked deep inside her, sometimes he took her while they showered, but he always had her at least once before breakfast, and the longer she knew him, the more she wondered if he wasn't just as much at the mercy of his own primitive desires as she was. If she couldn't get enough of him, he seemed to be, genuinely, in the same boat.

Either that or he was simply taking the doctor's advice to heart – he was at her nearly constantly.

A woman, whom she could only describe as a crone, which was the only reason Emily didn't run for the covers when she appeared, delivered breakfast to them. She was old enough that there was no venturing just how old she was and just that rail thin and stooped, too – the embodiment of the woman the wicked queen turned herself into in order to give Snow White a poisoned apple. Her hair was stark white and shoulder length, and it looked as if it had never seen the touch of a comb or a brush, eyes just as starkly white from the ravages of cataracts, not that it seemed to impede her in the least. Her face was lined and leathery, betraying a lifetime spent in the unrelenting sun, and her dress – as Emmy generously termed it – was a shapeless affair tied around the waist with a plain rope, her sandals thin as tissue paper beneath the soles of her feet.

But she was spry enough that she appeared and disappeared within seconds, having neither spoken nor looked at either one of them, and giving him – who she remembered the doctor had referred to several times as milord – the most cursory of bows before leaving.

Not a chatter, that one, although if she could just get her alone sometime, Emmy thought that she might be her best chance at escape, although she never seemed to come in when he wasn't there, and she wasn't sure whether or not that was by design.

Food had become very important to her – even after such a short time of deprivation – and she could still remember her first meal with him, when he'd figured her stomach had settled from the sickness the trauma had caused her.

They'd sat down to a simple repast of some kind of meat, a little cheese and some bread, which he had arranged on a plate for her to eat, taking some of it for himself as they sat at the table together.

She had reached for the bread immediately, but a sudden thought had stayed her hand mid-grab, and it remained there, hovering over that big piece of bread while her mouth literally watered for it.

He had given her a questioning look, but said nothing as he devoured his own food.

But what if it's poisoned? she wondered, biting her lip.

"I'm eating it, too," he mentioned, startling her.

"Oh, fuck, did I say that out loud?"

"You did," he answered, surprisingly without rancor. But he did clear his throat and put his food down to consider her carefully. "Eat. You're skin and bones, and I like my women plump and healthy."

She managed not to point out to him that it seemed he wanted her quite enough now, despite how thin she was.

And, although she didn't want to make him angry, Emmy couldn't quite bring herself to do as he said.

With an exasperated sigh, he reached over to her plate and tore off a corner of the cheese, stuffing it into his mouth. "See? No poison."

Emmy scoffed. "That doesn't mean anything. A good poisoner will have been taking minute amounts of various kinds of poisons in order to become immune to them."

The stillness her words inspired in him made her instantaneously nervous.

"And what do you know about poisons?"

"Nothing," she hastened to reassure him. "I just remembered something I'd read about them – probably in a murder mystery."

He had looked dumbfounded and considered her carefully for a long moment. "You read?"

"I do."

Another long silence before he ordered again, "Eat. Your food is not poisoned, and you need to regain your strength."

Figuring that if she resisted much longer, he was just going to hold her and shove it down her throat, she did as he ordered, although only taking crumbs at first, and dreading what she imagined would be the horrible deadly cramps she was half certain would result from her folly.

But they didn't, and it didn't take long before crumbs weren't enough for her – poisoned or not, frankly.

She had thought nothing more of their exchange – except that she hoped that it hadn't become a rarity in this world that females were taught to read – until he had arrived back to her one day with a piece of paper in his hand.

"Read this to me."

Emmy couldn't keep the amazement out of her tone as she looked up at him. "You can't read it yourself?"

The mountain of a man rose so quickly, scowling so deeply down at her as he did so that she knocked over her chair trying to get away from him. Except for the occasional spanking, he had yet to raise his hand to her in anger, but she was in no hurry to prompt him to do that, either. The spankings were bad enough. If this man actually decided to punch her, she doubted she'd survive it.

And he did move towards her, but only to snatch the piece of paper away from her and storm out the door, leaving her standing there, her hand still clutching what she no longer possessed, dumbfounded by what had just transpired.

Unlike the rest of their time together, he hadn't come home for dinner that night. The concept of a midday meal of any sort had apparently fallen by the wayside, which she attributed to what was probably a lack of food.

The old servant woman delivered her dinner, slamming things down onto the table from her tray, not because she couldn't see the table, Emmy was convinced, but more because she knew she could get away with doing so, ignoring her attempts at conversation until she asked the one question one was never supposed to ask of a woman. "How old are you, anyway?"

Emmy tried to conceal her glee when the old woman paused on her way out the door with her tray, the keys to the room in her small, arthritic hand.

She watched her slip them into a pocket of her dress.

"Why do you want to know?" she asked, not turning around to face her.

Em shrugged. "Just curious."

The crone turned to face her sightlessly. "I have seen the rise and fall of four Lords since I was born. My mother before me saw six, but things were easier then."

"That is not a measurement of time to me. What does that convert to in years?"

The tray she'd been carrying hit the floor in front of the old woman with a loud clang, and she rushed to gather it up and come back inside the room before it drew anyone's attention.

And although she suddenly wanted nothing more than to shrink away from her – as she had the man – Emmy forced herself to be still.

She got terrifyingly close, close enough that Emmy could smell her fetid breath. "Who are you? Where did you come from?"

Her questions were very close to the same ones he'd been asking her all along – although the interrogations had become less frequent than they had been – she surmised because of the consistency of her answers – and Emmy was very aware of the fact that anything she said would probably get back to his ears. But, if she was ever going to escape from here – which she definitely planned to do – she needed information, and she wasn't going to be too picky about the source, especially at first.

So she told the other woman exactly what she'd told the man, watching those sightless eyes growing bigger with every word.

Finally, the woman sat heavily back on that big chair of his as if she didn't think she was going to end up on the floor.

"That's – that's quite a story."

"Every word of it is true."

Then she said something that Emily never expected to hear.

"I don't doubt it."

"You don't?"

"Lower your voice," she whispered hoarsely. "Vaudt's walls have ears, and then those ears have ears. He knows everything that goes on around here for five hundred or so miles."

Emmy frowned. "Who's Vaudt?" she asked, figuring it was some kind of deity.

It was the crone's turn to look blindly incredulous. "You don't know the name of the man you're bonded to? Not to mention that he's the fiercest warlord in the area – he's the Lord – the Tarq – of the Known County, for Heaven's sake. He and his fierce cohorts – whom he fights right alongside – have saved us all from the likes of the Skorges – men who will kill you slowly, over days as they sell off parts of you while you're dying..." Her voice faded at the horrible truth of her own words. "Time and again, he's kept us safe," she stated with no small amount of pride. "His father found this place, built it up, secured it as best he could, and now his son does the same."

Emily raised her eyebrow. "None of that really means anything to me."

The old woman laughed, but it was more of a dry cough than a chuckle. "You might not care much about his status, but you can't help but care about the man who sinks himself into you every night, who fills your cunt to overflowing with his seed, making you writhe in pleasure beneath him whether you want to or not, each time hoping to get you pregnant –"

"Enough," Emmy interrupted firmly. "I know exactly what he's doing to me. I don't need you to recount it with such eerie – and disgusting – accuracy." She leveled her gaze at the woman. "How is it that you seem to know – and accept – what I'm talking about so easily when he can't? That you don't look at me as if I need to be committed, like he does?"

Her smile was just about as inviting as Vaudt's was, if it could be called a smile at all. "Because I remember the stories my mother used to tell me as a young girl. I thought they were all fairytales, but I loved them. I memorized every single one of them. She was there – she lived when you lived. Before the End. She, too, talked of 'years'. And seasons, and dancing and music and trees and rain...whatever all of those things were...they sounded a fair bit more pleasant than struggling through life as we do now."

"And what did she say the End was?"

"Gummint. She railed against the Gummint, something they had done changed everything – even us. Making things worse by trying to make them better, she used to say." Her eyes narrowed. "Were you always an Omega, even before?"

Emmy nodded. Things had begun crumbling in her time, so she was not at all surprised to hear that the powers that had been at that point had done something catastrophic. That was another reason – besides her loss – to become a volunteer, as she had. She'd had a feeling things were going to come to a no good end, but she'd hoped to sleep through the harsh years and come out at the other – hopefully better – end.

"My question is going to give you my answer: everyone is calling me an Omega, but I have no idea what that is. Would you tell me?"

The crone fidgeted in her chair. "Omega is priceless. Omega is the counterpart to the Alpha, as you are to him. Alphas are strong, dominant, protective, and fierce – they are always male. Omegas are small, delicate, and weak. They make the Alphas become who they really are, once they've bonded."

"So society has now been forever divided into the dominant and the submissive? There is nothing else?"

"There are Betas – males and females, some dominant, some submissive. And although they can mate – with other Betas and Alphas – they cannot produce offspring."

"Do Betas mate with Omegas?"

She cackled again. "As if any Alpha would allow a Beta to do that. Why, when no child would result?" She drew a deep breath, venturing the question, "Things were not so where you came from?"

Emmy didn't bother to correct her about where she'd come from, since it was here, allowing a small smile to play about her face. "In my time, there were no such things. Men and women were none of those things – or very rarely – and they did what they wanted to. Men were lawyers, doctors, warriors, and leaders, and so were women. I was a nurse. Food was abundant, as was entertainment and children and animals and..."

"It was better," the crone sighed.

"Much better."

After a moment of silence between the two of them, Emmy put her hand on the old woman's hand where it lay on the table. "Thank you for talking to me, for giving me so much information about this new world I'm in. I appreciate it. Is there anything I can do for you – not that I could do much, but I would return the favor if I could."

She watched the old woman bite her lip and knew she wanted to ask for something.

"Go ahead. If I can do it or get it for you, I will."

"Could you…no."

"Please. Let me help you as you have helped me."

"Might you be able to spare...some..." She paused, her thin shoulders slumped. "No. I cannot."

Emmy tried to think what she had – which was precious little – which the old woman might want. And then, she hit on it.

What had she had personal experience in knowing was a hard thing to come by nowadays?

Food.

She pushed her plate across the table. "Eat."

But the woman shook her head vehemently as she craned herself away from that which Emmy was offering, although she could see her licking her lips even as she did so. "I cannot."

"Why not?"

"It is not yours to offer. If I eat from that which is his – even a tiny crumb – and he finds out, he will consider that I have stolen food from him, and he will have me beaten, dragged out into the courtyard and beaten. If he finds out I have taken food out of your mouth, especially when you could be carrying his child, he will have me beaten to death."

Emmy sucked in her breath at the bare, matter of fact truth of what the old woman was saying. She didn't say it with judgment or rancor – or even any particular inflection – of any kind. It was simply the way things were. Vaudt was the Lord around here, and what he said, went. No questions asked.

And no wonder, considering her description of what life was like outside this place. It was a wonder she'd lasted as long as she had out there alone, with no idea how violent the world had become.

When the old woman had left – without any of her food – Emmy caught herself almost waiting up for him, but he never appeared, and the longer she was without him – without the warmth and comfort of his huge presence beside her – around her – in her – the more desperate she became for him, no matter how she tried to distract herself.

She even got so frantic that she used some of her own wetness – that never seemed to not be running down her legs any more – to stroke herself, doing her best to relax and really get into a fantasy as she might have before, but all of them seemed to end up involving him, which annoyed and distracted her.

And made her just that much more horny.

Eventually, she became so frantic that she made peace with the fact that he was going to star in her fantasies, and yet she still couldn't bring herself to orgasm, ending up even more frustrated than she had been when she'd started.

Sleep, too, eluded her completely. Her body now so hyped and taut and completely ready for him that she caught herself lying on her back, legs bent, lifting her hips up as if to receive him, even though her thoughts had nothing to do with sex whatsoever, and she ended up huddled in on herself, under the covers, sobbing disconsolately.

Of course, it was then that he appeared, although she'd been too mired in her own misery to notice that he'd come in until she awoke to find herself lying there coverless all of a sudden, with him standing there next to the bed, staring down at her like a vengeful God.

And her mind flashed on what she'd learned about this world now, and about him, and she realized that he – with the absolute power of life and death over the people he protected – including her – pretty much was one.

Suddenly, he reached down, looping an arm around her middle and lifting her so that she was on all fours, facing away from where he stood at the edge of the bed. Face pressed into the mattress, she both heard and felt him adjusting himself, only bothering with setting himself free and not divesting himself of the rest of his clothing.

As he held her down, his other hand raised her hips to his and she felt him begin to enter her, splitting her around himself, making her more and more frantic to get him out of her – and yet this was so obviously the solution to her restlessness. Nothing provided that dichotomy of fulfilled need yet rampant desire like having him take her, although she wasn't a fan of it happening like this.

Although none of it had been at all romantic, this felt all too impersonal to her, as if she was just what the doctor had essentially referred to her as – a bitch in heat. But there was nothing she could do to prevent him from doing whatever he wanted to with her.

For the first time since he'd begun taking her, though, she began to cry, even as the twin sensations were at their peak – once he'd caught her onto him in those peculiar ways of his and her passions rose even further.

Even as her flesh began to squeeze rhythmically around him, which only drove her into more of an orgasmic frenzy, she wept through every scream, every groan, every shudder her body emitted, until he shrank enough within her that she didn't even wait for him to detach himself, but ripped herself away from him.

"Don't do that!" he yelled, "you could hurt yourself!"

Emmy ignored him, lying on her side, facing away from him as the evidence of their mating – both his and hers – dribbled slowly out of her, in much the same fashion as her tears ran down her cheeks and onto the pillow beneath her head.

Obviously sensing her distress, he tried to cuddle her, folding himself around her, but she gave no sign that she even noticed that he existed, so he eventually – after a good long time, she had to give him –rolled over onto his side, and seconds later, she heard him snoring.

Usually, he so exhausted her that she was barely conscious – and sometimes not even – by the time he was finished bathing her pussy with cum.

But tonight was different.

Tonight, despite the fact that she could already feel the stirrings – the craving – of her own body beginning to make her want him again, to the exclusion of all else, tonight she sat up, wide awake, and began to plan.

This was not how she wanted to live. And if she died attempting to rectify this obscene situation she found herself in, then so much the better. But regardless of whatever had happened here – and she was slowly coming to the realization that she may never know the real story of how things had come to change so drastically, nor exactly how long she'd been asleep – but there had to be more to this world than just this God-forsaken society.

There had to be.

And she was going to find it.

First, she had to find a way to get away from him, but she had a feeling that was going to be easier said than done.