The Alpha's Breeder

04

Move, Omega!” Alessia hardly had time to weather the sudden shouldering of a body and she stumbled back as a result, blinking rapidly from her nebulous thoughts. 

She absentmindedly rubbed at the sore spot on her shoulder, her other hand rising to press nimble fingers on her lips which still tingled from the kiss that happened three days ago. Though she was not eidetic, the memory of it was vivid beneath her eyelids. 

Circe leaning into her.

 Their lips landing was the clumsiness of youth just learning the art of intimacy. She tasted like freshly pressed wine and the sweet grape Alessia had fed her moments before.

She pulled away at some point, Alessia was not quite sure because her eyes had remained open throughout and gazed with a sort of bemused expression. And then it hit her— the realization of what had just happened battered through her core with a burst of adrenaline that sent her fleeing the terrace, deaf to the calls of Circe over her shoulder.

“Ten… twenty… twenty-five.” Alessia’s attention snapped up past the counter and towards a small door where an old woman bent at the waist hobbled forward with a small sack of coins in one hand. The pouch landed with a thump on the table, the coins inside tinkling enticingly. 

Alessia reached into her knapsack and produced the captured hare. The feathered tail of her arrow stuck out from its neck now angled awkwardly. She would have haggled for a higher price had it been another time, but the weight on her chest felt heavy and her body felt like it had all of the strength of a newspaper left out in the rain. Non-existent. Blurry. Disintegrating at the seams. 

“Next time bring in something larger,” the woman spat into her metallic cup then smacked her lips, briefly revealing yellow teeth that had a mere passing nod with a toothbrush. “Heard the borders will soon be closed for security reasons. So if you’re gonna go hunting, do it now.”

Alessia dragged her downcast eyes from the pouch in hand and towards the woman with a sort of distracted look. “Oh.” She uttered while slipping the pouch into her pocket. After a final nod at the old hag, she walked out of the store and began to wonder about the streets. 

The autumn weather had brought with it a sense of foreboding darkness. The air was grey and everything paled away into the murk. Wolves passed her by with ardent eyes that flickered to the shawl that had slowly come undone from her head as a white curl loosely swayed by her temple. Alessia did not bother to hide it.

She turned a corner and began to meander away from the town center, past open stalls and bleating sellers that held up fistfuls of fine clothes, jewelry, perfumes— items that had her fingertips prickling with the urge to swipe at them. The urge to steal was almost overwhelming, for her body desired a quick dopamine rush to numb the guilt that pricked her skin, unclench the fist that reached past the dome of her rib cage, and clutched her heart.

She needed a distraction from the Arctic blue eyes that held insurmountable fear and regret as she pulled away, the flushed lips still glimmering with their saliva parting to say something — anything.

Alessia.

She had called for her, begged her to return, yet she did not.

She had been a coward and ran away with her tail tucked between instead of facing her friend of eight years. 

“No.” Alessia kicked a stone from the footpath then raked a frustrated hand through her curls, gripping it at the roots. “No no no—“ The frustration dissolved into anger, that anger molded to confusion as her emotions were cast up in a whirlwind that wrecked everything within and left her crouched on the ground, rocking back and forth while holding her head.

How had I not seen this?

The feelings that Circe held for her passed the borders of friendship to something… romantic.

Has it always been that way?

Alessia stopped rocking and stared at the gravel beneath her, she smelled the soft ash blowing in loose swirls all around.

A soft epiphany came upon her in that quiet moment; one where she saw Circe perched only the bed gazing at her sleeping form, the slow ready smiles that curled at her lips like the steady shifting of an Indian summer towards autumn, and her hands — delicate and petal-veined and never wrong. Always holding, squeezing, slotting between hers readily like they belonged there.

“She loves me,” Alessia whispered the realization to no one but herself. Her head tilted up at the segments of road winding down the hills and into the bustling city. Traces of standing smoke curled from chimneys. Pups squealed and dashed about leaping at one another.

Circe had loved her for gods know how long, and Alessia had been oblivious to the magnitude of it.

The knowledge was a novelty and she didn’t know what to do with it. But one thing was clear to the thief, and she began to rise while dusting off debris from her outfit.

“Talk,” that’s what they always did when friction formed between. Talk it out. Discuss the problem, peel the layers until the rotten core has been exposed, and deal with it. “Talk.” Alessia took a shortcut through the woods, her feet pounding rhythmically as she jogged, her heart matching each footfall.

“You absolute fool.” She wanted to knock herself unconscious for even daring to run away. If she felt this terrible, Circe must have been worse and the mere thought of it churned bile up her throat.

I’m sorry. She would scale that damn wall and fall on her f*****g knees if it would guarantee forgiveness. They could work through it. Even if she could never reciprocate such intimate feelings, they could always work through it. That’s what makes this friendship so special.

The bond of a princess and a thief.

An Alpha’s daughter and Omega.

The titles meant to set their worlds apart simmered to nothing before them for in each other’s eyes they were just that — Circe and Alessia.

Her jog broke into a desperate run as the woods cleared and a familiar twenty-foot wall came to view. Almost preternaturally, her eyes flickered about the stones searching for the small space when a ripple of shouts disrupted the cool air. Skidding to a half, Alessia ducked behind a tree with her shoulder blades pressed to the prickly pines.

“Circe!” Male voices shouted from the opposite side of the walls.

Alessia peered around the bark tentatively. In her burst of adrenaline, she had failed to hear the tolling of warning bells from the palace’s top floor, the golden bell swayed densely back and forth as its ball clung inside. She recognized that sound - it symbolized danger.

“Circe!”

Alessia suddenly felt cold as her mind raced with thoughts of the princess. Her eyes flickered over the wall and towards Circe’s bedroom window where three guards stood among wolves, lifting her garments to their noses for quick whiffs of her scent.

She was missing.

Alessia was poleaxed by the revelation. Rooted on the spot, her eyes and ears sharpened in time to hear the palace gates lifting as guards and wolves slid out as if from a torn package. They carried weapons that glimmered silver and faces tight with focused anxiety for the princess’ wellbeing.

The sacrifice was in two days and Circe had disappeared. 

If she was not found, the whole pack would be substituted at the Lycan King’s altar. 

It took her a moment to recover from the reeling shock before taking off in the direction from whence she came. Crashing past the trees, a string of nerves tightened in her ribs.

Circe had never pulled such a stunt.

Where would she have gone?

Alessia arrived at the capital before the guards who had begun to comb through the thick woodlands. The people were still peacefully wandering about and fulfilling their daily duties, oblivious to the impending doom just darkening in the distance. Overhead the sky began to darken with rolling clouds as the heady scent of rain billowed her curls and clothes about.

“Woah there, thief-” Alessia nearly crashed into Damen who was stepping out of an alley, a cigarette still perched between his bloody lips. He looked beaten but not as terrible as the bodies stuck in the alley like driftwood after the flood.

“Damen-” Her hands clutched at his forearms, wild eyes darting about, “where is she?”

Damen’s dark brows furrowed, “Where is wh-”

“Circe, damnit! Where is the princess?”

An odd expression came upon his face, “I thought she was with you.”

“What?” Alessia faltered, “you saw her?”

“Yeah, she came here around an hour ago searching for you.” He carded a hand through his unruly hair, “she looked pretty desperate to me, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so afraid… she looked so hot and-”

Searching for you. Alessia took an unconscious step back as though the words had hit her. She blinked at Damen, at the floor, at her hands. Circe had escaped to find her.

Because their friendship meant so much more than safety and comfort.

A soft breeze shifted her dark curls, and above them, foliage moved like an awning black silk. “What did you tell her?”

“Nothing,” he gestured at the maimed victims in the alley behind him, “as you can tell, I was pretty busy. Didn’t she find you?” Alessia could not speak, could not breathe. Damen saw the shift in her face, and it seemed to affect his confidence. “Less…” he began and her distraught eyes lifted to him. His face blanched.

The city had been notified as they exited the alleyway- the marketplace and town squares were emptying quickly, the merchants withdrawing their haggles and items, shoppers glancing at each other with tight anxious expressions. No one was angered by the disappearance of the next sacrificial lamb for trepidation took precedence, snarling like static in the pits of their bellies. 

If she was not found-

Alessia led Damen as they trotted in the mud between rows of closely packed cubicles with heads of slaughtered vampires staked, their skins glimmering in the paling light. 

A rumble of thunder echoed above, and moments later a drop of cold water fell on Alessia’s cheek.

“Where could she have gone?” The streets were fairly safe, but not everyone would have the courtesy of respecting a wandering princess. They checked each stall that was still open then picked their way through the dwindling crowd, the lame beggars dressed in layers of tattered rags, the vendors with rugs on their shoulders, the cloth merchants and butchers closing shop for the day.

She found no sign of Circe.

Standing there amidst the crowd of bustling bodies, Alessia felt a rope slowly wind around her throat and carefully draw itself taut.

“Less!” Her head snapped to the left, eyes squinting at Damen who stood beside a fruit vendor. She approached them inwardly praying for some kind of breakthrough before it was too late. 

I shouldn’t have run away.

The old man was loading his mule with crates of sheepskin, he wore a powder blue turban. He paused to look at her for a long time with milky cataract eyes before replying. “I might have seen her.”

Alessia felt a rush of something cold - relief? “Which way did she go?”

He eyed her up and down, searching, inwardly calculating something.

Alessia was suddenly conscious of the coin pouch in her pocket. She hesitated at that moment - a human reflex of selfishness - unable to stop her mind from calculating the coins and realizing that it may take another week to catch anything worth money with the borders closing.

Circe.

“How much?” It was Damen’s voice that drew her out of a stupor, he was already reaching into the pockets of his coat, drawing out a fistful of pennies. “I only have this.”

The merchant counted it with his eyes then shrugged.

“We need to find her, it’s the princess.”

Alessia reached into her pocket and withdrew the coin pouch, tossing it at him without a thought. “That’s twenty-five silver coins, you can count it later!” She snapped as he untied the string and peered greedily at the coins. Alessia was already reaching for the dagger sheathed at her waist when Damen’s hand closed around her wrist, he shook his head subtly.

“She went down that way with some boys.”

“Boys?”

The man nodded and began to load his cart once more, “Some three boys.”

Frustration began to leak into her voice, “What did they look like?” 

A shrug, “tall, fat, sunburned faces.”

Her stomach hollowed out as a drum at the descriptions. She knew those boys. The same large ones that had idled in the alley when she walked by with Circe. The ones that had eyed the princess with open want, like a starved man just served a golden dish. 

“Fuck.” Damen whispered knowingly. 

Without a second glance, Alessia took off in the supposed direction, turning a deaf ear to Damen’s calls. Her feet pounded on the pavement, the flicker of her quickening pulse drawing something acrid up her throat and into her mouth. 

Please be safe.

The sky opened with a sigh and rain began to pelt down on the earth, drumming on her head as she breezed past the bodies, stumbling over polished stones. 

She skidded to a halt at the entrance of the dark alleyway, her wild eyes bolting with a harrowing figure that stood ahead. He was keeping a watch out. Alessia’s mind blurred over with a fog of red as she stepped forward.

Where is she? The words had lodged in her throat like a hot bone. She could not breathe as her hand reached past her coat and curled around the dagger.

“Get the f**k out of here, mutt.” The boy pushed off the wall when she did not stop. His shoulders sloped nonchalantly.

The breadth of Alessia’s shoulders drew taut, her feet paced forward with one single desire - blood. 

The adrenaline surged through her so powerfully, she shifted on the spot. The feet that pounded the earth switched to paws within a fraction of a second as she dove straight for the enemy. Her wolf moved in a blur of darkness, lips pulled back in a snarl as her teeth bared themselves at the enemy. 

The man was large and had it been another day when her veins had not thrummed like a live wire to protect her only friend, Alessia would have lost the battle. 

She slammed into him, claws ripping at his clothes, his flesh. He grunted and fell backward. The back of his head bounced on the pavement with a sickening crack and she took the opportunity to sink her canines into his neck. 

A burst of copper evaded her mouth. Alessia clamped her jaw shut until she felt the lining of his trachea wedged between her canines. With a vicious yank, she ripped his throat out and spat it to the side. The man blinked owlishly up at her, his hand rose to the gaping hole now spurting blood onto her fur and ground. He choked and gurgled for a moment as his lips parted to speak nothing whistling sounds of air. 

Her wolf began onwards only to shift back to allow her to squeeze through a small opening that led into the next labyrinth of an alley. 

“Circe!” Alessia cried into the rain. “Circe!” 

The rain pelted on her nude body, the gravel dug into the bare soles of her feet. She turned into an alley and backed away at its emptiness. 

“Circe!” 

Lightning flashed hot and white above, briefly brightening the maze of darkness horribly.

Pain spread across her chest like a fog and wrapped its hands around her vocal cords, making them tremble like a leaf in winter. Heat crept behind her eyes, across the bridge of her nose. She could no longer tell the rain from tears. 

“Circe, please!” 

“... Lessie?” 

Alessia skidded to a halt then whirled around and rushed back to the alley where that quiet voice called out to her. She did not know what awaited her at the end of the tunnel.

As she drew to a stop by the alley’s mouth, Alessia’s breath cluttered at the sight before her.

My fault.

Havoc of scrap and rubble littered the alley. Worn bicycle tires, bottles with peeled labels, ripped up magazines, yellowed newspapers, all scattered amid a pile of bricks and slabs of cement. Strewn over one of the garbage piles is Circe’s ripped coat, above the coat, are pieces of her dress.

Circe stood a short distance from her. The pale skin of her shoulders was bruised blue by the hands of another. Hands that held her to the sewer floor like the handlebars of a bicycle.

My fault.

Her delicate throat an angry red from the fingers that wrapped and squeezed, silencing her cries drowned out by the roar of rain and rhythmic grunts above.

My fault.

The moment their eyes met, a look of pained relief came upon the princess’ face for she had found her friend. She dragged a wrist across her face, wiped snot and tears. 

Alessia tried to speak but no sound left, she tasted the salt of her tears and rain.

My fault.

They stood there in silence, in the fading light and clouding darkness. For once, she was grateful for the dark shadows that congealed the pain contorting her face, the guilt that wrecked her features into something indecipherable.

Circe began to say something and her voice cracked. She closed her mouth, opened it, and closed it again.

My fault.

A drop of blood fell from between her legs and stained the alleyway.