Page 54 of Alpha Hunger

“And you know this how?”

“My sister’s boyfriend’s car broke down there, and I went to fix it. Saw the mayor with my own eyes.”

“A specific location, perhaps?”

“Yeah, dude, at the corner of Belve and Forester, take a right, third house on the left if you’re coming from here.”

“Pray tell me, Beta, what do you do for the household?”

“I’m a chef.”

And a car mechanic. A man of many talents. Today is my lucky day. “Do you know how to make spaghetti with meatballs?”

“Yeah, I can make that.”

“Excellent. Omega, Husband of the Omega, and Chef, stay. The rest of you are fired.” Three people scurry out the house, probably happy they won’t have to work for me. I wouldn’t want to work for me either. Anna is the only person I know who wants to work for me. Even Tamika quit three times. She returned, but still, she had quit. Christy remained after I granted his transfer request far away from my office space.

My Omega is special in more ways than one.

I step out of the house and hear a cat meow in the distance. Dogs remain quiet, birds don’t chirp, and the humans have cleared the streets. The Horde has not patrolled the streets in this fashion since I conquered, and since I conquered this city first, the Horde patrol is all but a history lesson.

Out of the gates, Junior takes off at top speed. Though he’s scented the mayor, if she had left with a skycab, he wouldn’t be able to track her very far. This is why I visited with the household staff first. In my experience, the household staff knows everything even when we think they don’t.

The edge of district three begins right before a bridge to an island, a place where wealthy humans have erected mansions. At this time of afternoon, the streets are normally filled with cars, buses, and the general mayhem of noisy traffic. Today, nothing is on the streets but for a few boxes people have likely dropped as they piled up their cars and tried fleeing. They shall return.

Before anyone realized what was happening, I have seized the city. There is nowhere to go, no place to hide. The ten thousand extra human bodies are here somewhere, waiting, perhaps in ambush. My entire Horde hopes they try to ambush us.

Alphas aren’t made for confined office spaces, and yet we have done just that during peacetime on Earth.Keep the peace,my father, has said to me.Hoard the Omegas. Offer them choices.Ignoring his advice would’ve been stupid, so I made peace.

In the yard of the third house from the corner, five Alphas join me, our hounds’ breathing audible even to human hearing. I’m having a hard time imagining the mayor inside this modest home with an unkempt yard. A couple of black dogs pace along the fence. They don’t bark but watch us. Trained guard dogs.

I’m also having a hard time imagining how the mayor believes the spiked black fence erected around the property would protect her along with her dogs. If the mayor was smart, she’d open the door and kneel before me. I would spare her. Lock her up for certain, but spare her. The other twelve Horde males secure the street. If ten thousand bodies attack us here, we’ll hold until the rest of the Horde joins us.

The majority of the Horde is raiding the city for the location of the small army. I scent the air and find no human sweat or other products of their pores, then stop before a black gate about ten human feet tall. On Regha, we measure in relos, not feet or inches or meters, but I’ve been on Earth long enough to reference their measuring system.

At the gate, I poise my hand over the bell with a camera, then remember the tech is offline. It will take a while to get used to the Silence. We shall persevere. “Hunger at the gates!” I shout.

The Horde chuckles.

When no one answers, the Horde dismounts. As one, we climb the gate in a second, land inside the lawn with a crouch, sprint across the lawn, ignoring the domestic animals trying to bite us. Black dogs with strong jaws bark and run with us, snapping their teeth, but those little canines can’t pierce our armor. I race to a room in the back first, leap, and break the window, landing inside the bedroom.

Shattered glass crashes to the floor.

Silence resumes.

“Hello, hello, you bad little human.” I lift my nose and sniff, separating the smells. Deodorant for men. Fresh-squeezed oranges. Toothpaste. Stinky feet. I look under the bed and find the source of the offensive foot odor. A pair of male leather shoes. I remember the design of these shoes and identify the owner. I walk to the closet and open it. “Any bad humans in here?”

No.

The damp air from the shower carries the smell of shampoo. Rose scented. Melanie smells like roses and lies. I slip into the bathroom. Behind the glass doors, a human form lies sprawled inside the shower. The scent of blood thickens the air. I slide the shower door open, and looky here. Naked and dead Randy Forspar. A hole in his forehead. Quick job with an old gun, one that spits bullets, not a laser beam. I lean my shoulder on the wall. Someone didn’t want him to talk.

Disappointed I won’t have anyone gracing a pole in the Stronghold, I leave the bedroom and head for the kitchen, wondering if Melanie would bring a trusted housekeeper. Even in hiding, I can’t imagine the mayor doing any manual labor.

In the small kitchen, my Horde surrounds the table. As I walk in, they snatch things from the table, rattling off battle sounds. Tarkin takes something from Logoer, and Logoer snarls. Clearly, there is something here worth fighting for. I must know what it is. I push past my second-in-command and glare at the table. A pan with crumbs on it stares back at me. I look up at Tarkin, who’s crunching, chewing, swallowing with a gulp. Eyes wide, he chokes and hits his chest to help the item pass.

I can’t even comprehend what is happening with my males. We are in the middle of a raid. “You stopped to eat?” I ask.

“No,” Tarkin lies, wiping the crumbs off his mouth. His gaze finds the floor.

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