The Drowned Fear No Sea

3

Ray was watching. Through half-lowered lashes, he took in what this alpha had done to the gang. But he didn’t feel joy. You can’t feel joy after listening to your friend’s screams for what felt like forever. Still, Ray knew — the gang had gotten exactly what they deserved.

Blood had sprayed all the way to the ceiling. Betas and omegas lay broken like vicious dolls. The air reeked of blood and s**t from torn intestines.

His stomach lurched into his throat. Now Ray did squeeze his eyes shut and instinctively bury his face in the alpha’s dark hair. The alpha also smelled of blood, but differently. He was a predator, not a scavenger.

“I need to…” Ray mumbled weakly, trying to figure out how to say he needed to use the toilet.

“Hold it a little longer,” the alpha said flatly. “This place is going to blow soon.” He wasn’t planning to cut him any slack.

The alpha moved with supernatural agility, racing along the walkways and gangplanks of the floating house, leaping over gaps and pontoons without slowing, not steadying Ray at all as they went. Ray clung to his unexpected rescuer like a monkey and stayed silent. Right now, it didn’t matter to him what happened next. And even though those primitive atavisms — voice timbre, pheromones — didn’t affect him much, there was something like calm in the fact that the beast had decided to take care of him.

This alpha was bigger than any man Ray had ever seen. At a normal height for his nineteen years, maybe a bit above average, he looked like a twelve-year-old next to him. The alpha carried him as if he weighed nothing, perched on his shoulder.

The alpha jumped into a large boat, shook a squeaking Ray onto the stern, started the motor in three practiced motions, and pushed it to full throttle. The boat shot into a channel formed between two leaning towers of a business center. And then the gang’s nest went up in flames — almost silently, with a sharp pop that stabbed pain into Ray’s eardrums. The floating house burned with green fire, its glow reflecting in the dark, foul-smelling water.

Ray only now realized it was night. A cheese-slice moon was lost in a web of clouds, the green glow stabbed at his eyes, and in the inky blackness he could no longer make out the rotting teeth of high-rises gnawing uselessly at the damp air.

The alpha killed the engine and took up an oar. He didn’t need a flashlight — his eyes, flickering red, saw just fine. Ray hugged his own shoulders, shivering from the cold.

“What now, alpha?” It was the best question he could come up with.

“Treatment,” the alpha growled low. “I told you.”

“What’s your name?” Ray asked quietly.

“Call me Zen,” the alpha ordered. “If you’re not afraid to. You got family on the high bank?”

“No. My parents lived on the low bank. I lost them during the flood, when I went for an overnight trip to the high bank. Tried to find them but couldn’t. They wouldn’t let me back because someone stole my documents. I didn’t stay in the floating refugee camp.”

Ray sighed. His entire life after the flood fit into five sentences. Months of fear, hunger, wandering, scavenging strangers’ belongings for food.

The alpha stayed silent. He was unlikely to be impressed by a sad story — the flooded territories were full of the miserable. Victims and monsters balanced each other well, and the latter destroyed the former.

While Ray wondered how much longer he could hold out before wetting Zen’s boat, the alpha steered through a shattered panoramic window into an abandoned building, roughly at the third floor. He stopped by a concrete staircase that led both down, into the water, and up.

Zen tied the mooring line to still-solid railings and said, “Up.”

Ray tried to stand but nearly toppled into the water. Zen caught him at the last moment and threw him over his shoulder.

“What a helpless little goat,” he smirked, carrying him upward.

Ray’s joggers were all holes, and now he could feel the alpha’s week-old stubble scratching his thigh. Alphas ran hotter than normal men, and dangling limp over his shoulder, Ray warmed up quickly.

Zen bounded onto the roof, set Ray on his feet, and lit a small flashlight. All around were construction trailers. They must have been finishing the site when the high water came.

“In the left one there’s a hole in the floor. Do your business there, got it? And back quick.” Zen’s voice was calm and cold — no doubt in his mind Ray would obey.

Ray badly needed the toilet. He darted into the trailer and squeaked. Someone had moved a bottomless stall right onto the glass roof of an atrium and smashed one of the big panes. Somewhere down below, in the darkness under the glass, water splashed.

He edged along the wall to the hole, clung to the metal frame, and relieved himself with his eyes shut. Almost ran back.

Zen had already built a fire between two other trailers, angled so the flames wouldn’t be seen from afar.

“Strip and throw your rags into the fire!” he ordered.

“You’re annoying,” Ray giggled — maybe the alcohol hadn’t completely worn off.

“Little beta,” the alpha’s voice suddenly turned deceptively smooth. A shiver of goosebumps raced down Ray’s spine from that tone alone. “We’ve got less than a day to take the medicine. Otherwise I die quick, and you die slow. Clothes off, now!”

Ray stripped to the skin. Zen helped with the tight bindings — slicing them off with the blades of his fearsome glove. While the remnants of his clothes burned, Zen led him to an improvised shower — a rainwater tank behind a plastic curtain.

He didn’t touch Ray unnecessarily, didn’t linger on his body, but Ray was sure — he was reacting.

Alphas, like omegas, needed s*x daily. Prolonged abstinence led to breakdowns; m**********n didn’t help. Many male alphas knotted their partners daily too — not pulling out in time, or simply not wanting to. Jess had told him that, and she always avoided alphas. So Ray knew he was walking a thin edge — in the power of something half-human, half-beast.

When he came out, Zen tossed him a blanket and told him to wait by the fire. He returned without his cloak or weapons, in different shoes.

“Put them for disinfecting,” he said for no reason.

He shook out a pre-loaded syringe filled with something sharply yellow.

“Going in your thigh,” he warned. “Hold on to something and don’t scream.”

Ray grabbed a rusty pipe and stuck a bare leg out from under the blanket. Zen’s big hand wrapped around his thigh — he was that much smaller than him — and then Zen froze. His nostrils flared in an oddly comical way. He looked up at Ray with a hungry, strange gaze.

“You… smell good,” he almost growled, then plunged the needle into Ray’s leg.

Ray yelped at the pain. The medicine was thick and vile, like molten wax being poured under his skin. When the plunger stopped halfway, Zen yanked the syringe out, making Ray cry quietly. He swapped needles and injected the rest into his own shoulder.

“Strong stuff,” he warned. “Rare. Might cause fever. But the odds are good.”

“Thanks?…” Ray murmured uncertainly, wondering what the strange alpha wanted next.

Zen lowered his head again, sniffing him. A golden sheen glazed his eyes. Suddenly, he scooped Ray up, carried him to the nearest trailer, tossed him inside like a sack, and slammed the door.

“Listen close, little goat,” he growled. “There’s a bolt. Slide it!”

Ray obeyed faster than he could think.

“Good,” Zen said, settling near a small open window — too small for an alpha to fit through. “I need to get used to your scent. Right now you smell like prey. Like a rightful prize.”

“And what do I do?” Ray asked miserably.

“Put on my clothes,” Zen instructed. “They’re in the locker. Lie in my bed. You’ll smell like an alpha, and I’ll calm down. Talk to me.”

Ray opened the flimsy doors of the wall niche. Dark sweaters and track jackets hung neatly on hooks, with rolled T-shirts stacked below. Army neat.

“Where’s your gang? Or pack?” he asked, pulling on a long-sleeved shirt that fit him like a dress.

“What did you get in biology class?” Zen chuckled without malice, like a giant cat.

“B, I think…” Ray said.

“I wouldn’t have given you more than a C,” the alpha teased.

“You a schoolteacher?”

“Do I look like one?” Zen laughed. “There are two kinds of alphas, silly. Some are pack leaders, others loners. I’m the latter.”

“And this your den?” Ray kept searching, but found nothing valuable besides clothes and spare blankets — and in the corner, a crate of bottled fresh water.

“Water’s good?”

“Yeah, drink all you want… unless you’re scared to pass me later on the way to the toilet,” Zen laughed again, sounding almost high. “A nest, little goat, is what omegas make during mating. Alphas have dens, lairs. So yeah — I dragged you into one of my hideouts, instead of killing you right away.”

“If I’m a little goat, you’re the big bad wolf with the snapping teeth,” Ray shot back, drinking half a bottle and curling up in his bed.

“Exactly,” Zen said, almost pleased. “And if you keep smelling like that, I’ll be begging you to unlock that door soon. Don’t you dare.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Ray said, rolling on the hard cot.

He had to keep talking, keep Zen distracted — like a drowsy driver.

“You got water?” he asked, clearing his throat.

“Yes, thanks,” Zen replied instantly, either pacing the trailer or sitting under the window.

“And then what?”

“Then, if you don’t get sick, I’ll send you to the high bank. I’ve got connections,” Zen said.

“For nothing?” Ray frowned.

“You couldn’t even give me a blowjob! Your cheeks would pop like a greedy hamster’s! And you’ve got nothing worth taking! Live, little goat. Find a girl, have kids. Be glad you survived,” Zen laughed.

Ray blushed and chuckled. The “hamster” image was too funny.

“Am I still prey to you?” he asked.

“Still,” Zen confirmed, inhaling deeply. “But I can control myself. Let’s see your wrists.”

Ray got off the cot and pushed his hands through the window. He squeaked when the alpha’s huge hand grabbed both wrists.

“Fool,” Zen said without malice. “At least assess the situation. I told you — never trust a call. Always look before you stick your nose out. And remember, when I’m in rut my pupils will dilate and swallow the iris, glowing like coals. See glowing eyes — run.”

“They were glowing in your boat,” Ray said nervously — his hands still caught.

“That was just the light. Believe me, you’ll know rut when you see it,” Zen “reassured” him.

Then he bent quickly and ran a hot, wet tongue over the wounds on Ray’s wrists. Ray moaned — the sensation was a mix of pain and tenderness. Then the alpha shoved something into his hands and let go.

“A stun gun,” Zen said. “Very strong. Works even on me. If that bolt doesn’t hold, or tomorrow I change my mind about not f*****g betas.”

“Even on you?” Ray stepped back, pressed the button, and saw a small, crackling bolt of lightning.

“I’m the child of two alphas,” Zen sighed. “Everything they say about alphas, I’ve got double. Now go to sleep. Food tomorrow, or you’ll puke.”