Page 15 of Their Alpha

Worse still, I hadn’t been allowed to return to my father’s house after that first heat subsided. Battered, bruised, on fire with post-heat aversion to touch, I’d been forced to endure the community’s marriage ceremony and then live in that man’s home, tending his house and satisfying his lusts whenever he wanted me.

After my second heat with him, I’d had enough.

I tried to catch my breath as I looked at Fletcher’s slumbering form in the dark. Fletcher was my savior. I didn’t know what would have happened to me if we hadn’t met by accident. We’d been similar in a lot of ways, both growing up on a farm, though he hadn’t been part of The People, and both longing for something more. Not only had he keptme safe, he’d taught me that my natural instincts to submit and to crave pleasure weren’t bad things. Sex with Fletcher was a completely opposite experience to being used byhim.

The urge to pee pushed me out of bed. I was between waves, but at this point in my heat, there was no telling how soon the next wave would hit me. I had to take advantage of the time I had to care for basic needs. I knew Fletcher had brought some food and water upstairs, but I needed the bathroom first.

I tiptoed around the bed and made it halfway through the dressing room before spotting the large, solid form of the alpha Fletcher had found for me. I’d had only that brief glimpse of him after my third wave, when I’d caught him and Fletcher talking. He’d been standing up and erect then. It had terrified and aroused me so much.

For a second now I stopped, my heart racing, fear shivering through me, and just looked at him.

Fortunately, he was asleep. But he was big. So big. His arms and thighs were thicker than my entire body. Well, not really, but that’s what it felt like. Fletcher had told me his name was Artemis and that he worked as an executive for a fancy city company, but lying naked in the milking chair the way he was, he looked more like any one of the alphas from the People of God on Earth, all of whom spent their lives tilling the soil, like the Bible said they should.

My bladder pushed me through my fear and had me scurrying the rest of the way to the bathroom. I shut the door and panted in relief for a moment before moving to use the toilet. I was too afraid to flush it in case I woke Artemis, but I hated leaving a mess of any kind around me. That, along with my need to be lower than the man I loved, was another remnant of the way I’d been raised.

I lingered around the bathroom for a ridiculously longtime, but I knew I couldn’t stay there forever. I could feel the whispers of my next heat wave building. Artemis was there to help with that, not to take me or force me or terrify me, likehim. Besides, if I wanted to get back to Fletcher, I had to cross the dressing room.

I opened the door slowly and silently, then tiptoed into the dressing room. But I only got a few steps into the room before Artemis snorted, tensed, and raised his head.

“Gideon?” he asked quietly, as if he already knew me.

I panicked. I was in danger. An alpha was about to corner me, and because I was in heat, I wouldn’t be able to resist him. I would throw myself at him, offer up my mouth and hole like a whore, and he would use me while I cried to stop and begged for more at the same time.

I shrank back into the corner, hugging my naked body so he didn’t see me. I must have whimpered or made some other pitiful sound, because Artemis sat up.

“Gideon, are you alright?” he asked.

Admittedly, his voice was gentle, and in the dim light that came from the lamp off to one side that had been left on, I could see kindness and concern in his voice.

That didn’t stop me from flinching away from him and moaning into the wall as he made a move to get out of the chair.

“Alright, alright,” he said softly. “I’ll stay right where I am. I won’t come anywhere near you. Here, I’ll even do this.”

I’d closed my eyes, but when I heard a faint rustling and clinking sound, I opened them. Artemis was strapping himself into the bed, starting with his ankles and calves.

I watched with widening eyes, unclenching and standing straighter, as he fastened every strap, buckled every buckle that he could, then finally slipped his armsinto the long, leather sleeves on the arms of the chair. He couldn’t do up those buckles himself, but it made it appear that he was completely secured.

“There,” he said. “It would take me a while to get out of this chair. You’d have plenty of time to escape from me and to wake Fletcher if I even tried. You’re safe with me, I promise.”

I gulped and huffed a small breath, breathing in his scent as I did. Strangely enough, I believed him when he said I was safe. Not just because he’d restrained himself. Well, that was part of it.

I took a few hesitant steps forward. “Your name is Artemis, isn’t it?” I asked, ashamed of how timid I sounded.

“It is,” Artemis answered. “Artemis Montgomery. I live in downtown Barrington, on the twenty-first floor of a high-rise apartment building. I currently work as a financial executive for Victory Holdings and I’m on their board of directors, but I’m not happy there, so I’m searching for a new job.”

“You’re not happy there?” I inched forward a bit more, curious about how an alpha, with all the power and strength alphas had, could not be happy.

“No,” Artemis said. “I’m not pleased with the direction the company has gone in lately. I want to work for someone who cares about the world and the people in it more than their own profits. I want to help make the world a better place.”

“Oh.”

I moved closer still. I was terrified of all alphas, but it was starting to feel like Artemis might be an exception. I felt an inner pull toward him that I couldn’t explain. It had to be the heat hormones. Omegas were drawn to alphas like iron filings to a magnet when they were inheat.

But no, this was different. My insides hummed for him. He made me warm, not just hot.

I liked him.

It made no sense at all.

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