I hear a rumble and realize that a huge door, like a garage door, is opening. Dim, filtered evening light floods in.
Surrounded by various shades of grey goyles, the human women from the other nations walk into our holding room. The goyles quickly shuffle them into cells, made with some futuristic polymer that is transparent, leaving us in clear view.
Given that I live near the facility, I seem to be one of the last women shoved in here, beside the foreigners. I stand, wiping my face and cross my arms under my breasts.
“Hey!” I call angrily. “We’re not animals!”
A guard laughs, “Some of you certainly are. I saw what a mess you made of Thomas, little kitty.”
I snarl. He steps forward, wings spread out behind him. Classic animal behavior: make himself bigger to seem more dangerous.
“Your dick is too small to fucking scare me, you damn bat.”
He slams his baton against the clear material. Unfortunately for me, I jump.
The guard chuckles meanly. “You’ll be stuffed full soon enough, I don’t doubt it.”
The woman next to me meets my eye and shakes her head lightly, obviously telling me to shut the hell up. For once, I listen; sitting on the bare floor and watching the guards.
They are walking up and down the aisles of cages, attaching a flat touch screen to the outside of each cell.
“What the hell are those?” I bark at a different goyle.
Anger is good. Anger is better than tears.Anger got me through the years after Mom and Pa’s death. The years when I had to run our house, and take up the spaces they left in the resistance. I’ve never been more thankful to be an only child; I couldn’t have managed trying to support another person through the exhausting nightmare I slogged through, solely on fury.
The guard ignores me but I yell again, “Where are the women who are to be released? Last year’s women?”
No one answers.
I’ll get through this too, dammit. If having lost everything important to me didn’t kill me, some goyle dick certainly wasn’t going to.
Chapter Six
Archibald
We land in the center of the garrison, several buildings surrounding a grassy square. Ben works in the brick building on the edge of Beech Bluff Government Garrison. I have an office, and attend sessions in the stately pillared building in front of me.
My bonded stand slightly behind me, on either side. My bond mates are strong alphas and I trust them with my life. I shake the tiny drops of condensation off my wings before folding them in. The sky is dimming and the moon is full.
A scientist whose name escapes me paces up, nodding politely to me and dropping his eyes—as he should as a beta—before slapping Ben on the back in a familiar manner. Ben scowls at him silently as the gargoyle laughs.
“I’d have thought you’d be in a better mood,” he chuckles kindly.
“What number did we end up, Erik?” Ben asks, face shuttered.
I look at Ben harder as some thought escapes me.
The scientist smiles, tilting his tall horns down to speak quietly to Ben, “Number one. Put these on your shirts, please,” he directs as he hands us each a small white button screen.
I see both Ben and Theo relax slightly.Shit, do they have a specific woman in mind?
Ben edges closer and Theo and I both lean in as we walk slowly towards the facility.
“The women are in rooms and their information is displayed electronically. We’ll be within the space with nine other chimes, but we’ll get first choice. We can have the guards deactivate lights on the screens of the women we know we are not interested in. Then we can wander and activate the screens on any we may want. The next set of chimes won’t be able to view the women until our selections are made.”
I raise an eyebrow as Ben’s hand lands on my forearm. “What is it Ebenezer?”
“We must choose well. We’re the highest ranked chime to be allowed a human female from our treaty program. If this goes poorly...” He trails off. Theo’s face sobers.
