Page 68 of Ruled By The Alpha

Imogen

One year later…

Entering my office, Aiden handed over a battered data tablet—one of the last few we had—and the images glitched through its cracked screen. "I've finally got an upload of the last pictures," he said.

Leaning back into my worn leather chair, I crossed my boots on the desk and watched the low-grade video with an ever deepening scowl. "Our men?"

"Taken, from what we can infer. There were no bodies when Cooper and his crew went through to check."

The potential death or kidnap of our people was bad enough, but the fallout for our whole community was worse. "We needed those supplies."

"Yeah," Aiden replied, raking a hand through his dirty blond hair. With stubble in danger of becoming a beard, he was pretty with only one eye. With a black leather patch over the empty socket, coupled with a long leather duster he lived in, and the arsenal of weapons distributed about his person, he had a roguish, futuristic pirate vibe.

"Things are going to get tight."

He was right. The chemical supplies that just got ripped off were antiviral medication, and the only barrier stopping the remaining betas in our community from turning into alphas or omegas. Given the natural aggression among alphas andthe smaller proportion of omegas who revealed when the virus latched on, the last thing we needed was an entire compound full of newly changed alphas and their rampant hormones tearing the place up.

I saw it happen in the community I lived in before I came here, and I swore I'd never let it happen to me, that I'd be a different leader, and that I'd keep my people safe. We'd been trying to set up a lab here, but the antiviral drugs were proving hard to create without the proper equipment, despite two doctors in the field coming into our fold a month ago.

We needed to find them the equipment so we could make the drugs for ourselves.

"Do we know who it was?"

"Rowan's name is being tossed around, but his name is against everything at the moment. Mostly scared people talking to make themselves feel even worse. It's not Rowan's style to rip you off. He might be a ruthless bastard, but he's got a hardon for you." He shrugged his big shoulders. "My money is on Grimm's Law. Last I heard, they've been stirring up trouble for Rowan. We've got our own problems and are running out of a lot of basics. The antiviral chems are almost gone…"

Aiden knew he was dismissed, but he still dropped his ass on the threadbare couch opposite me, planted his big boots on the low table before it, and folded his arms. "You won't always find a way out," he said, lips tugging up in a smirk.

"Do you want me to fail?"

"Hell-fucking-no." His smile dropped in an instant. "Just thinking you'd have ruled the world by now if you'd been an alpha. Mind like yours in a different body. All the things you could do."

"I don't want to be an alpha," I said. "Too much testosterone coursing through the veins confuses the mind."

He huffed out a breath. "Omegas are no different. If I get my dick out, you'll be a puddle of slick."

"Then don't get it out," I said, pulling a face.

He laughed, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "Might help loosen up a miracle, because we fucking need one, that's for sure."

And we did.

I was intimate with Aiden, as I was intimate with all my lieutenants. Because it kept them in line, but also because I was an omega, and I needed it as much as they did. I didn't fool myself into thinking it was more than a transaction, until my futuristic pirate, Aiden… and Cooper, the former special forces badass I'd taken to my bed.

I'd pulled us out of so many fucking scrapes, but I wasn't infallible, nor did I have a magic wand up my sleeve. Rowan's promise, or threat as Aiden preferred to call it, was still waiting on the sidelines. He hadn't pushed it since that fateful night we first met, and I was grateful he'd left us alone. Both Aiden and Cooper had been close to him once, and still wouldn't tell me the damn details.

I switched the data tablet off, took out the old-fashioned paper map from my top drawer and spread it over my worn mahogany desk that had more dents and chips than smooth surface. It went perfectly with the flaky cream paint on the walls.

Nice stuff? I remembered a world where there was nice stuff. Before everything got screwed up.

I stared at the map, eyes shifting to the location of an old bunker to the south. Our recon team said there might be undisturbed stores, maybe even meds. If there were, we could find antibiotics, probably antiviral, given that the government stockpiled them just before the collapse. We had to cross biker turf and a couple of prepper communities to get to it…

"I've seen that look before," Aiden said. "What are you scheming in that pretty head?"

"That bunker north of Havoc," I said. "Might be worth a look, given our situation."

He huffed out a breath. "Cooper won’t like it."

I grinned. "Cooper's not here, is he?"

---