Page 166 of Ruled By The Alpha

Alpha’s Freak Show

by

Raevyn London

Chapter 1

Jacob paused at the grungy flyer in the window. When was the last time a circus came to town?

Alpha’s Freak Show!

In town for one night only. Come see all the freaks!

Special attraction unveiled tonight!

Alphas! Have you ever seen an omega up close?

Come tonight to live your alpha dream!

Once-in-a-lifetime treat available for a price!

An omega? Impossible. The only omegas Jacob knew of lived in the palace menagerie. Occasionally the king or his courtiers might let a special gathering get a glimpse of one from a balcony, but seeing a real omega outside of the palace was rare.Extremelyrare.

An unmated omega? That was rarer still. Jacob hadn’t heard of one living outside the menagerie since he was five years old.

Over a hundred years ago, the planet had finally rebelled against humans and their rapacious appetite for more resources, more power, and more wars. All over the world, nature had fought back with volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and unparalleled storms, creating chaos on every continent. After billions of deaths, the collapse of governments, and humanity’s return to the Dark Ages, society had crawled back to a pitiful semblance of what they had once been. Thanks to their ancestors’ knowledge, they’d restored electricity and some infrastructure, but unlike before the Cataclysm, those services were not available to everyone.

Jacob’s grandmother had been an avid collector of rare books. Now a luxury item, books from before the Cataclysm were worth their weight in gold. She’d shared one of her precious tomes with him, filled with images of a time she’d called the Great Depression. Photos from a century before depicting starving families in threadbare clothing resembled the world around him now, Jacob mused as he stood next to the stallion he’d ridden into town from his family’s crumbling plantation.

Another glance at the poster drew a disbelieving snort from him, and he ran a disgusted hand through his chestnut-brown waves. A trip to the barber had been his reason for this trek to town in the first place. His light gray eyes drifted over the words on the poster again as if he could ascertain the validity of the claim with another read.

In another cruel twist of fate, alpha births had declined only slightly while omega births had diminished to levels that rendered them almost nonexistent. A few scientists sponsored by the king theorized that the economic, social, and physical upheaval was to blame. Omegas were delicate. They needed their alphas to be their shelter and support, but given the turmoil in the world, alphas focused more on themselves than omegas. The hypothesis was that with all the unrest, omegas were just not being selected by nature, and the dynamic was dying out because they wouldn’t thrive if they were born.

It was a vicious cycle. Omegas weren’t born because of the chaotic conditions. Lack of omegas caused violence from alphas with no true mates to shelter and protect, perpetuating the unbalanced environment preventing omega births.

Presentation at puberty or monarch-sponsored testing revealed dynamics, and parents who actually wanted children hoped their baby was a beta. Betas were easy. Stable.

Jacob had heard of parents who had child after child, hoping for a rare omega. The Crown immediately elevated parents of omegas. Money, homes, and lives of luxury were all made available for anyone capable of breeding even one omega. But they also lost their newborns; omegas were seized at birth and raised in the palace.

Alpha children destined their parents for a life of tragedy. Alphas without the stabilizing presence of an omega were doomed to be aggressive, reckless, and often violent. Omegas taken to the palace were mated to royals or used as bargaining chips. Since there were no omegas for regular alphas, the hopelessness started early, and many alphas met untimely deaths, either by their own hand, or while committing some act of violence.

Staring at the circus poster, Jacob felt his own hopelessness rising in him. Currently 20 years old, he had fully presented hisdynamic a few years ago. While he sometimes felt like his insides were hollow and he often snapped at betas and fellow alphas, he had yet to descend into the alpha madness. It was insanity in and of itself to know that the best he could hope for was to not go madtoosoon.

He turned away from the barber shop window and took his horse’s reins, adjusting his schedule to include a trip to the bank.

Chapter 2

Arriving early, Jacob snarled when he realized how many other alphas had had the same idea. The line outside the grungy, but colorfully striped tent was already fifteen people deep. He took his place in line, and almost immediately, others queued up behind him. Glancing around the gathered males, Jacob’s predatory instincts caused every muscle in his body to tense in preparation. Alphas were unstable on a good day, but a large group of desperate, horny males?

Over the next two hours, the line continued to grow. Jacob’s concerns over the crowd turned out to be well-founded, as several fights broke out amongst the restless throng that now easily numbered over a hundred. Even bloodied and dirty, the alphas refused to leave. Given that this was a small village whose normal alpha population only reached fifteen, Jacob thought every alpha in in the region had made an appearance.

By the time a short man stepped from behind the curtain to stand at the podium by the tent’s opening, the crowd had swelled even further. Giving a two-fingered salute to a few of his acquaintances farther back in line and ignoring their frantic hand signals about joining him, Jacob turned back to hear what the little man had to say.

“Alphas! My name is Clarence Hovanar. I am the ringmaster of this fine circus. I promise you that tonight, for the right price, you will get to indulge in something that no common alpha has for generations. And for one lucky alpha, I guarantee a life-changing experience!

“I know that you are all anxious to see my newest attraction, but notice, my fine gentlemen—notice that my security team is fully in place and prepared to deal with any… issues.”

Everyone in line glanced around to see that a host of large, burly males had formed outside the tent. While they were huge for betas, the gathered alphas were still larger. What really caused a murmur through the crowd, though, were the ramshackle collection of rifles, knives, and various other hardware they sported.

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