Chapter 8

Lincoln

The girl Hope. Haunted my dreams. Even when I was awake she was all I could see. It was more than her obvious beauty though it was what I had seen in her eyes.

They had been filled with .. well hope.

Which was fitting seeing as it was her name but it caused me to doubt everything I knew because people, especially omegas in her situation shouldn’t have that. Omegas were born and raised knowing they would one day be trained to please the alphas of our society. Most didn’t even make it past their first heat, someone caught their scent and took them. Roughly and against their will. It was the rare few who found happiness.

Omegas pleased the alphas and the betas, which made up the majority of the people left did everything else. I didn’t know which I would rather be.

Neither I realised. I would never change what I was for the life of someone else. I was an alpha. Powerful and strong and I had people who needed me.

People who relied on me to keep them safe from others like Jenkins who would take  from them without mercy.

People like Hope.

I pressed my fingers against the cold glass of the window of my penthouse. Down below the dregs of the earth went about their daily business.  They were nothing but dots. Lower than ants.

My place was here above them. Only I didn’t want to be above Hope. Or I did but only if it meant she was below me in my bed.

This was the year I was meant to take my first companion and up until I had seen her I had been dead set against it. Now I was questioning everything I knew about myself.

In all my years I had never felt the draw of an omega woman as strongly as I did with her. It was her defiance , the way she met my eyes without flinching.

It was the fact she didn’t act like an omega even when she smelled so deliciously like one. And she wasn’t a virgin either.

I had heard that part of her conversation with Jenkins. Hope wasn’t a virgin but she didn’t know about the knot that would form when an Alpha took her. That meant whoever had taken her innocence had been a beta.

My hands closed into fists and I smashed both of them against the fragile glass. Which trembled under my onslaught.

“Alpha.”

Not turning I watched as one of my staff.  One of the ones I had brought with me when I came here entered my office and shut the door behind himself quietly. “What have you found out Deacon?” Turning I forced my fingers to relax.

“She lives in the fifth ward. Her father’s name is Franc.” He glanced down at a piece of paper in his hand. “Franc Oriole. Born and raised in the fifth ward.”

“She was or he was?”

“Him.” He stuttered to a stop. “That’s where things get interesting. He had a wife and daughter.”

“Ok well I know he had a daughter.” Hope was his daughter. Sliding my hands across the wood of my desk I took my seat.

“His wife and daughter died in the outbreak of seventy six.”

My head shot up. “What do you mean she died. Hope is very much alive.”

“My guess would be that Hope isn’t his daughter at all. Not by blood anyway. I did what you asked and asked around and no one can remember seeing her at all until a few years ago.”

Frowning I steepled my fingers under my chin. If she wasn’t Francs daughter and she hadn’t been here her entire life then where the hell had she come from? Omegas disappeared from settlements all the time but they were never seen again. They didn’t just appear somewhere else and go about their lives.

“Do we have any idea where she came from?”

He shook his head. “None. I’ll keep asking around but there is one thing everyone can agree on.”

“And what is that?” I asked evenly.

“That’s she’s strange. She talks funny, and has weird tendencies. But from what they tell me she keeps herself to herself. No boyfriends or girlfriends. No friends at all actually. She looks after her father Franc, and doesn’t complain.”

Franc. The name made me growl out loud. If Hope had no boyfriends then how had she lost her virginity? Unless. My fists slammed into the wood. Unless her adoptive father had taken it from her?

Maybe she was willingly his lover? But I doubted it.

“Is he fucking her?”

For a second Deacon looked uncomfortable. Fidgeting from one foot to another he looked at his hands. “I don’t know alpha. The rumours about Franc aren’t flattering. There’s whispers that he killed his family and blamed it on the sickness but there is no proof. So maybe he is. After all why would he take in a woman he didn’t know. He can barely afford to feed himself.”

I jumped to my feet. “Where in the fifth ward are they? Do you have the address?”

“Of course but you won’t find her there today alpha.”

My head snapped up. “And why is that?”

I had been pretty clear that she wasn’t to go running around the city on her own anymore. If I could smell she was an omega then others would be able to as well and then there was the fact that Jenkins had already touched her. He would have done more if I hadn’t of stopped him. Jenkins was out to prove a point now. If he caught her out and alone he wouldn’t stop until she was a bloody mess on the floor.

“Have you seen her?”

“No alpha. It’s just that today is examination day. She will be at the facility.”

Ahhh, I felt my shoulders relax. I had forgotten. I had been so preoccupied in my thoughts about her and why the hell she didn’t know a thing about what she was that I had forgotten that was today.

“Would you like me to drive you?” He asked , a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Is she someone you -“

“No.” My tone was sharp. A bite to it. “I have told you I won’t take a companion unless I am absolutely forced to. I do not -“

“Forgive me alpha but I have to talk freely. You haven’t taken an omega as a companion in all the years since you came into your power. That was ten years ago. You can’t put it off much longer.”

I could and I would. I enjoyed the company of the women that were literally born to please us but I didn’t want the responsibility of one living in my house. Even if it would have been nice to sink into warm wetness every night.

No, I shook my head. Their pheromones would make getting anything done next to impossible.

“I can put it back another year. But I will take your offer to go to the facility.”

Deacon flashed a knowing smile. “I will prepare the automobile for you. Should I send word a head that you are coming to inspect the red head?”

Inspect the red head? “No. Because that’s not what I am going to do. I won’t take her as my companion.” I said firmly. “I am just going to make sure there are no problems.”

And I added silently. To maybe talk to Hope again. I wanted to know if she had read the book yet.