Annette returned the affection with restrained dignity.
The Beta did not complain at the crushing hold of a desperate Omega, at the comfort Brenya sought and—unpracticed in the sport—tried to return.
She didn’t complain or coo; she didn’t pet or push away. Annette allowed unladylike clinging, gently patting a very troubled young woman’s back as Brenya struggled to find words.
Annette even spoke first. “It’s so good to see you, Brenya.”
Unsure, Brenya puzzled out if that might be true. How could this feeling be good? Was that what good was supposed to be in Central? Was it a frantic mishmash of bangs and pings colliding within the cage of her ribs? Was it the awkward inability to steady her breath as she clung to someone who had been horribly mistreated?
Was good that small spark of relief despite all the wrong?
Was it that little flicker that began to burn brighter despite the ugliness of her day?
Seeing Annette felt… maybe like hope.
A lot like despair, because she might never get to see her again. Because Alpha arms could reach in at any moment and tear them apart.
As if she knew just what to do, the Beta rocked her gently—like the wind that had blown Brenya’s body back and forth against the Dome after she had fallen. Tangled in those ropes, no matter the pain or the hopelessness of that situation, there had been white flowers and fresh air, and that gentle sway in the breeze.
All of it had smelled sweet.
Annette smelled sweet, and it wasn’t just the poison of Beta pharmaceuticals.
A few more seconds in her arms and Brenya had her answer. “Yes, Annette. It is good to see you.”
At that, the Beta began to gently pull away, setting her attention to the little marks of blood blooming on the lace circling Brenya’s neck. “Estrous went well?”
“No.” It could not have gone more wrong or felt more degrading. No part of Brenya was capable of comprehending how anyone would desire such a thing. “It was awful. Jacques did things. I’m… ashamed.”
With a gentle squeeze of Brenya’s hand, Annette said, “You tried to escape, and you were punished. It was the Commodore’s duty to correct you. The Beta women of Central know it is best to accept Alpha authority. I have told you this, Brenya. We all must work within the confines of our station and situation. Running will never solve any problem, it only creates more. Promise me you won’t do it again.”
“There is nowhere to go, Annette. I know that now.”
How horrible it was to admit that certainty aloud. Even if Ambassador Havel had lied about the state of Thólos, to leave would start a war that Jacques had stated he could not win. An Alpha, an arrogant, haughty, egotistical Alpha with all the power, had admitted to her that he would lose and her people would suffer. Feeling his consciousness intermeshed with hers, she knew the male had not lied.
“Not every situation will be easy to swallow. The role of wife is the most unrewarding and perilous assignment under the Dome. We must find our joy in motherhood.”
“Swallow?” A particularly odd choice of words, considering.
Annette had swallowed Beta rations without question. She had been cast aside and reduced to a simple cot tucked mostly out of sight in her child’s light-drenched nursery. The Beta’s sleeping place pointedly unadorned, with nothing but a thin blanket, a small pillow—half hidden behind a screen. A sad corner that paled in comparison to the grandeur of the glittering nursery with its cheerful ivory walls and clean, perfect furnishings.
Yet, which of them was more miserable?
Not the drugged Beta who had accepted the poison and even told Brenya not to interfere when she’d spoken up before the Alphas in power.
Brenya was hanging on by a thread, and Annette was… surviving.
In the confines of her station and new situation.
“You’re at a disadvantage, Brenya. I had an entire lifetime of training to assume the role of wife.” The Beta untangled herself from Brenya’s arms, gesturing for her guest to take a seat at the table. “And while the training was rigorous, I had a loving mother to guide me. You were farmed and indoctrinated to work without question. Your duty was folded into you in an environment designed and administered almost without flaw. I doubt you even realize you are now the most powerful female in Bernard Dome.”
Brenya moved toward the chair Annette had prepared for her. Wincing at the soft pillow when there would be no comfortable position, considering the part of her body Jacques had just invaded, she fought her skirts so her legs were not strangled.
“Don’t let them see that you are in pain. Everyone will take note.” With perfectly manicured nails on soft hands that had never seen hard labor, Annette lifted a silver teapot. Steaming mahogany-colored liquid filled each cup, the movement of the hostess practiced, effortless, and… lacking her stolen luster. “Have your tailors slit your skirts until you learn how to properly arrange them. And smile. You don’t have to mean it.”
Stiff, Brenya offered Annette the very smile the sweet Beta had taught Brenya only weeks before. It faded as quickly as it came, an unsustainable lie.
Their eyes met as Annette passed her the saucer and cup, their gazes held. On a blink, Annette spilled a single tear. One she ignored as if it had never happened. And then she smiled, her dazzling, practiced smile… and it almost felt real.
“Your tea will get cold, Brenya.”
So the Omega sipped, finding the hot beverage overly sweet.
“You taste honey.” Annette took a delicate draw from her cup. “An extra spoonful should always be added for when the Alphas are rough.”
Rough was not near enough to describe what Centrist Alphas were.
Brenya took another, deeper swallow.
“This blend was specially prepared to soothe your aches and lighten your spirits. Rosehip, turmeric, ginger… my mother’s recipe. She made it for me the morning after my wedding night.”
“What is a wedding night?”
“It’s when the transfer of your ownership moves from your parents to your husband. It’s the moment past the contracts and negotiations and physical pleasure, where you bear the true weight of an Alpha for the first time. Tradition demands that the following morning, there is a breakfast only married women might attend. Usually, it’s a pleasant affair of comfort, congratulations, advice, and sweet stories.”
“And when it’s unusual?”
Another practiced smile, this time accompanied by a small plate of square foodstuffs. “When it’s unusual, extra honey is added to the tea. Occasionally, a ranking male relative might petition parliament for marital negotiations on behalf of their kin. This is a miniscule proceeding, filed once, and usually forgotten. In Central, it is bad manners to formally interfere with another’s wife so long as the marriage contracts are upheld.”
Brenya had been taught her whole life that Bernard Dome was a society of equality and freedom, where all who lived under the glass worked in harmony for the greater good. Tens of millions of citizens believed that lie, they even enjoyed their ignorance. It seemed, despite their current circumstances, Annette’s life had been far uglier… and would get uglier still.
Her friend felt almost nothing. Brenya felt entirely too much.
And there was nothing to be done for it but sip tea and drink in the moment before it was gone forever. “I don’t know what it means to be the most powerful woman in Bernard Dome.”
Because surely she was powerless.
Annette set down her empty cup. “It means, sweet Brenya, that you can have as much honey as you want.”
“Annette… I’m sorry.”
Blue eyes as pretty as the sky outside the Dome did not glitter with amusement, playfulness, or energy for life. They did not glitter at all. “I understand now why you begged for Beta rations. Honey only goes so far.”
Throat bobbing from a nervous swallow, Brenya set down her too sweet tea, silently agreeing that the honey would never be enough. “Annette, everything you’re saying to me, he will hear. I’m sure he’s even watching.”
“The Commodore? Of course he is watching. He sent the honey.”
It was hard to even speak his name. “Ancil, Annette. Your husband.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Ancil is not watching. There is nothing in this room of worth to him.” A feminine wave gestured toward the two silent Beta attendants, in their matching dresses and pinafores. “Not that they won’t report to him later. But if he has any questions, they will center on your behavior today, not mine.”
Failing to glance at the attendants, Brenya drank in the blue eyes of her friend. Eyes that seemed much wiser than she had ever shown herself to be. “And what will they say?”
“That, though you acknowledged estrous, you have failed to mention your new pair-bond. That you appeared emotionally unstable. That you ate and drank all that you were given. That you squirmed in your seat and picked at your cuticles. This will please him. He will not want you to outshine his new Omega. Lucia’s performance in a social situation would have been flawless.”
It wasn’t flippant. It wasn’t rude. It wasn’t bitter. Annette was simply matter of fact.
Brenya had missed the honesty of Beta conversation, so much so that the soft smile on her mouth was genuine. “Then they can tell him that I didn’t mention the pair-bond, because I didn’t come here to talk about Jacques. Jacques talks about himself enough.”
Reaching for the teapot to refill their cups, Annette offered a simple “I know why the Commodore fell in love with you.”
“I don’t understand what ‘in love’ is supposed to mean, but whatever it is you felt for Ancil, that is not what the Commodore feels for me.” Eyes going out of focus, Brenya stared into the middle distance, poorly trying to explain the horror in her chest, the gnawing, unwelcome savagery, the endless intrusion. “It’s a hunger that will never be satisfied. And it will keep eating me until I am dead. It has no consideration for my life. I don’t really exist to it. I’m just the trough where it feeds. And it hurts, Annette, far more than falling from the Dome did.”
“And to think, I desired to be an Omega more than anything else in the world.” There it was, another brief flash of grief that no amount of Beta rations would ever fully quell. “Maybe Ancil would have loved me back if I was.”
“I’ll love you instead.” Just as she loved the Dome and the good people laboring within it. “I’ll love you, even if he never lets me see you again.”
“The Commodore won’t.” There was no emotion in Annette as she confirmed what Brenya felt echo as true through the pair-bond. “You made a grave mistake when you walked through the door. You forgot that you were here to hold my baby.”
A wash of cold dread chilled Brenya to the bone. She stumbled for an explanation, because he was watching, and he was calculating, and she had poorly tried to manipulate and failed. She made herself look at the child in the cradle. One conveniently positioned right beside her. Rosy, chubby cheeks, the tiny nose, and puckered lips. “Your son… is asleep.”
“Yes, sedated so he wouldn’t cry in your arms.” Looking down at her child, Annette reached out a hand to gently rock his cradle. “The tiny thing cries constantly, since he’s been denied my breast. I can’t risk it, you see.”
Because of the Beta rations.
Staring down at her son, Annette smiled. “I told you, wives find our purpose in our children. I have never seen anything more perfect than my son.”
Brenya couldn’t follow where this conversation had gone. “Jacques told me that your parents held important positions and—”
Still rocking the cradle, Annette confirmed what Jacques had said. “They have very important positions, positions that could petition parliament and be heard. Which is precisely why I have forbidden them from entering this room. Neither my mother nor father may touch my son. Because I know what they will say.” The cradle continued to sway, Annette’s focus completely on her sleeping child.
Something was very wrong here, Brenya wishing she understood the nuisance of conversation. “What will they say, Annette?”
“To forget. To allow my son to slip away. They would make promises that my marriage contract might be dissolved and a new husband provided. Yet Ancil would never bear an unwanted complication to restrict his Omega’s offspring’s legacy. If I leave this room, my son will die.”
This is what Annette had been trying to convey from the beginning, but Brenya was too stunted to understand. And now that she’d had to say it straight, there would be so many consequences for everyone who had sipped honey-laced tea. “So you are working within the confines of our station and situation, which is why you ate the Beta rations and told me not to interfere.”
“His name is Matthieu, and I refuse to forget him.”
