Page 16 of Alpha's Embrace
A tiny voice in the back of my mind said:It’s just the Burn.
I wasn’t scheduled for another Burn for four weeks. My body had a rhythm I could rely on. My Burns came every two months on the nose. I was never late or early. I did not have strong urges in between Burns. I had been around Alphas about to go into their own Burn and never been affected. Most Alphas did not respond to another Alpha’s Burn anyway, except to get out of their way if they happened to be between them and the Omega they had eyes for.
Sometimes Alphas took each other as lovers and though it was seen as not ideal, it was legal. But the Burn mostly affected Omegas who became instantly aroused around the Alphas who needed them.
No. I wasn’t in the Burn. But I was obviously affected by Misha’s constant Burn. But not like an Alpha to an Alpha. He was a Sylph. Something entirely different.
Sylphs had no Omega wombs or egg sacks. I thought of them as another sort of Alpha, but with damaged DNA.
History bore my thoughts out. Before taking this job, what little I’d read in books about Sylphs of the past said they were monstrous warnings from the gods. Sylphs were what Alphas might become if they did not control themselves, if their Burns ruled them. They were called anti-Alphas by some sects, and through the centuries they usually did not survive long, and those who lived to reach puberty were feared, isolated, or ritually killed.
It was also said Sylphs had no ability to bond. But what Sylph had lived long enough to even try?
Meeting Misha had derailed all my expectations. Had he somehow tricked me? Was that why his files were incomplete? Did others fear his demeanor as a trick as well? It made sense in an odd way, for if true, no one wanted to be the one individual who fell for his tricks and lost their job, or worse.
I remembered a rhyme from childhood about Sylphs.
Take a Sylph to bed,
Tomorrow wake up dead.
But rumors had their way of twisting the truth. Beliefs that were never challenged ended up hurting innocent individuals. Omegas knew this firsthand, and groups for Omega rights had waged huge uphill battles only to fail again and again.
I didn’t know what to think anymore except I knew in my heart that Misha was being wronged.
In the next weeks we’d see if the little freedoms I planned to give him backfired or not. It was a risk, but for his life, I felt it was worth it.
Chapter Five
Misha
I automatically placed my hands behind my back and waited for the cuffs. When they didn’t come, I turned to see the two guards watching me, waiting to see what I would do.
There were two guards this time, not one as was the usual routine.
I had been in my same routine for so long, I’d forgotten for those few seconds of exiting my room that King Geo had granted me freedom to walk the hall unencumbered.
Out here in the corridor I could hear the screams and thumpings a lot louder. I heard Cedric pounding at his walls and pictured his poor little fists bloody and raw. I wished I could go to him, but the rule was I could move about the colony but I was not allowed to see other Sylphs, only the staff, the doctors, and the other workers. And hopefully Geo himself.
I heard one guard whisper to the other, “I still think this is a mistake.”
I pretended not to hear.
I was allowed to walk the entire floor unencumbered, though the two guards trailed me at every instant.
The floor wasn’t huge. There was one long corridor and two veering off in the middle left to right, forming a plus sign. The screams up and down those corridors were normal. I’d always heard them. But today I felt apart, distant, not one of them anymore, and so they wrapped about me in a distinctly eerie atmosphere.
The elevators were right by the nurses’ station. The stairs were to the right of that. Usually, when I was taken to my one hour a day exercise, we used the elevator.
Today I went to the elevator and I myself pushed thedownbutton. We all took it downstairs to the yard.
The guards opened the door to the fenced-in area and this time they left it open. They did not lock me in. They did not accompany me, either. They simply stood chatting outside my view and let me do as I pleased.
It had started to rain, so I finished working out fast and sat against the side of the wall under the roof overhang, letting the mist wash my face. The beauty of the world, all grays mixed with the wet green of the lawn and the green sea I could see beyond it encompassed me. The blacktop before me shone like polished onyx. I felt like I was encased in a jewel, a prince under a spell waiting and waiting.
When I had enough of the cold air and damp, I moved through the door on my own, watching the guards glance up as I entered.
I ran my hand over my hair, shoving the raindrops off, tossing the wet curls. They said nothing to me but I could scent and feel their undivided interest: metallic, warm, melting.
