Page 17 of The Alpha's Fake Mate
Yeah, there had been a space at the end. It was there for anyone who felt intensely verbose and wanted to write an essay about their experiences here.
A waste of time, I thought.
“Do you think you could at least put a comment in? Anything at all, even if it’s negative. It helps give perspective. This is an important thing that is happening here.”
“I don’t know why you would say that, sir. The new Alpha owner is young. He just doesn’t know any better yet how things work.”
“Hmm.” Chirl put his hand to his mouth as if thinking.
I looked up from the devil in the floor to his face. He wasn’t mad. He had the kind of patience with the worn, slightly frazzled edges that all unbonded Omegas wore on their faces. Heavy lines, sagging muscles. The word to describe that was forlorn.
“You’re very young to have such observations. I understand you’ve been through a nightmare. But the world is changing, not like it was when I was your age. We had even less rights, then. It will be the younger Alphas like Orion who will change it. I believe that.”
The muscles in my face hardened; my eyebrows narrowed. It seemed as though I was looking at the warden through a dark tunnel and he stood in the small light at the end but it didn’t matter because he was too far off. The darkness around me had hands, teeth, claws. It held me fast and hard, with rippling strength that drew blood.
“Take a look at the questions again.” Chirl kept his voice level, gentle.
I did not hide my heavy sigh. “Yes, sir.”
“That’s all I ask.”
He turned away, then, letting me do as I pleased, requiring nothing of me. How long that would last, I didn’t know. But I appreciated his patience if nothing else here on the farm.
All day and into the next, I couldn’t bring myself to take a second look at Orion’s meaningless questionnaire. It was pointless, and the questions vapid at best.
Why should I give Orion anything? Just because he had spoken soft like the winds above the pines beyond the acres of lawn, and stopped moving toward me when I told him to stop, and just because he projected a fiery, smoky scent that still would not leave the back of my throat, and puffed his smooth, tanned cheeks out when he sort of smiled at me. Just because of all that didn’t mean I owed him.
He hadn’t dragged me away to the pine forest. He was supposed to get credit for that?
I sat by the glimmering pool all afternoon. No one came out to the patio. Autumn had passed and now we were into early winter. Though the weather had been mild for the past week, it was still too late in the year and too cold to swim.
Before bed, I went to one of the computer rooms in the school and brought up the questions one more time.
Damn Chirl!
I didn’t re-read the form, but quickly scrolled to the bottom where the space was for a short essay.
I began to type.
Classes in pre-med, law, higher science and mathematics are missing here at Zilly’s.
Where are all the Omega doctors, lawyers, politicians and astronauts in your world?
Answer: Non-existent because we have no access to higher learning not even if we’re raised by loving parents in higher homes. It just isn’t done… teaching Omegas these things might worry their pretty heads.
Of course we have no rights, so cannot hold bank accounts, let alone any real jobs short of day to day organization on Omega farms, cooking and cleaning and teaching and caring for the young. Oh, and maybe some secretarial work on the side.
But that’s not something you can fix.
You want to fix the problems with Zilly’s. Right? Like roof leaks and paint chipping away and whether or not our computer system runs fast enough in the classrooms.
Do the stoves work so we can eat? Are we wearing clothes that actually fit? Are we sufficiently entertained with games, books, movies? Are our spaces well-lit and clean?
Pour some money into this place and we’ll all get fat on cake every day with plastered grins on our faces from the heaving orgasms we get from big, buff Alphas paying top dollar to visit our mating halls.
We’re all just fine here.
Unless you can alter the whole fucking world and its deranged belief systems and power-mad, sex-starved leaders…
