Page 18 of Ruthless Alpha
That was obvious enough. All the females in the laundry were tall, slim, and muscular. Xander had said they could all fight, hadn’t he? If that were true, it was hardly surprising that figures like mine were a rarity, especially on an island where fresh food had to be shipped in from elsewhere.
“Wheredothey make girls like you?” piped up one of the laundresses, and I cringed.
“Arbor,” I confessed, and several jaws dropped.
“Well, shit,” said another female, even taller than the others, with a mane of red hair.
“Did the Alpha reallybuyyou on Tritica?” demanded another.
“No,” I said. “It was Telaxis.”
“Well,shit,” the redhead said again, but a little of the hostility had gone out of her expression. I didn’t want their pity, but I’d take it if it meant they’d leave me in peace.
I scuttled to the corner of the room, slowly unfolding and refolding the items in the baskets, trying to find something that would show off my body. I could still feel the other women casting me sidelong glances from time to time, but I did my best to ignore it as I sorted through the piles of dull, utilitarian clothing. There was nothing in any of the baskets, but surely this wasn’t all the spare clothing on the whole island.
“Um, Lenise,” I ventured. “I was wondering if—if maybe—”
“If what, girl?” Lenise barked back at me, not looking up from the stubborn grass stain she was scrubbing out of a pair of sweatpants. “Spit it out.”
“I was wondering if you had anything a little more, um, sensual?”
I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. Every eye was once again on me, and this time the looks ranged from amused to horrified to strangely hostile.
“And what might you want that for?” Lenise—whose expression was firmly in the category ofamused—said, dropping the sweatpants to place a hand on her cocked hip.
“Isn’t it obvious?” came a voice from the back of the room. Lenise ignored it.
“How old are you, anyway?”
“Eighteen,” I told her. There was a moment of tense silence before the redhead barked out a laugh.
“That’s why he got sick of you, Gina—he likes them young.” She shoved the woman working next to her, only to receive a crude hand gesture in return.
“Fuck off,” said Gina. Her voice was low and husky, her skin a rich tan, with a river of dark brown hair braided down her back. Her features were fierce and sharp, attractive in a way that was more intimidating than inviting. She was exactly the kind of female I’d imagined Xander preferring, but trying to picture the two of them together made something ugly twist in my stomach. My wolf growled, and I had to concentrate hard to keep the sound from rumbling up into my throat.
“The Alpha, he—” I started to ask, but the redhead cut me off with another laugh.
“What, you think he’s some kind of monk?”
“Thank God he isn’t,” Gina said. “Pretty sure he’s the only male on this island who doesn’t think his knot is enough to get the job done.”
“And who asks before he tries it,” another laundress added, and there was a chorus of hums in agreement.
“You trying to take him out of circulation, Miss Arbor?” said the redhead, her expression suddenly serious. “You’ll have every unmated female on this island out for your blood.”
“I don’t—I’m not—” I protested, and her expression split back into a grin.
“We’re kidding,” she said. “Mostly.”
“Still a dangerous undertaking,” Gina advised with a smirk. “He’s gonna split you in two, honey.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, but if Gina was going to answer me, she was cut off by Lenise.
“Aha! That’s the one I was looking for,” she exclaimed, grabbing a scrap of baby blue fabric from the bottom of a basket. “Remember when Fiona was late with her second boy, and her tits were the size of watermelons and she was hot all the time?”
The women nodded sagely.
“She was walking around like it was high summer in the snow,” said a stocky woman with salt and pepper hair.
