Page 7 of Unsubmissive Omega
Seating myself in front of the mirror, I pulled out the drawer and selected several items. I drew a nice thick line along each eyelid with black. Then alongside it, on my left eyelid I carefully applied a line of blue eyeliner. I placed the applicator down on the counter. Picking up a different applicator, on my right eyelid I applied a line of emerald green. Then I sat back to admiremy work. Perfect. It was rebellion on a small scale, and it was entirely, perfectly, me.
I smiled back at myself, pleased. It was a warning to my new Alpha of what he could expect from me.
Tap-tap-tap.
A soft knock at the door startled me from my contemplation.
“Xander,” Miranda’s concerned voice floated through the locked door. “Your uncle’s waiting.”
“Coming,” I called, hurriedly collecting the last of my things – makeup, a pen, and a couple of trinkets - from my desk. They landed with a clatter in my backpack, the muted slide of the zipper sounding… final, as if closing a chapter on my life. Everything else, from clothes to my precious e-reader, was already packed in my suitcase, as instructed. Although I hadn’t yet met the Alpha, it appeared it was a done deal. I would meet him for the first time in his office –like this was a business transaction!– and my uncle had booked a nearby hotel for the night, apparently confident the deal would go ahead straight away.
Maybe I could tell the Alpha I didn’t want this? But where would that leave me? No money, no education, nowhere to go but back to my uncle’s house and my uncle's threats hanging over me. There was no future in any of that. I would have to go through with it. Maybe afterwards I’d find a way to get out of it.
I slung my backpack over one shoulder and picked up my suitcase. At the door, I took one last look around at the room where I’d spent most of the last ten years. It was familiar and safe, but it was also a prison. I wouldn’t miss it.
“I’m never coming back,” I promised myself.
I opened the door, took a deep breath, and stepped out into my future and the unknown.
It felt surreal walking down the corridor, walking away from the life I’d known. My footsteps were muffled by the carpet, but I felt each one as the fibres crushed beneath my feet and the pictures on the walls passed by, as if in slow-motion. Therewas a buzzing in my head and I felt like I was spinning away in space. The room began to tilt.Fuck!My lungs dragged in a gasp of air as I realized I’d been holding my breath.
I came back to earth with a jolt as I reached the front door where the tapping of my uncle’s leather shoe on the entranceway tiles indicated his impatience.
He scowled.
“I see you’re already trying to cause trouble,” he said, one corner of his upper lip twisting into a sneer. Since I was wearing the fucking suit he’d insisted upon, I guessed it was the eyeliner that he was referring to.
When I didn’t reply, he grabbed me by the shoulder.
“Ow!” I protested, staggering as he turned me around, and propelled me through the kitchen and out to the small storeroom beyond it. The boxes stacked neatly around the walls looked like they contained kitchen supplies. There was no window and the light was dim, but I could make out a wooden door, and a couple more boxes stacked in front of it. Uncle Maxim still had his hand on my shoulder, his weight pressing uncomfortably into my slighter frame. Standing unpleasantly close in the confines of the crowded room, his scent made my nose wrinkle in disgust. How I hated this man!
Keys jingled as they emerged from his pocket. With his foot, he nudged the boxes, scraping them across the floor until they gave access to the door. Fitting a heavy-looking key into the lock, he turned it. The mechanism obliged with a solidclunk, but the door, sticky with disuse, resisted before eventually creaking open to reveal darkness and a set of stairs disappearing down into the gloom. It looked like it might lead to a cellar, but despite all the years I'd lived in this house, I hadn’t been here before, hadn’t even known it existed. The air was cold and smelled stale. I shivered.
I flinched as a softclickbroke the silence and a weak light flickered to life above the stairs. My uncle’s form had a sickly yellow glow as he gestured towards the stairs. I still couldn’t see what lay at the bottom. A prickle of apprehension ran through me. I shook it off. He was about to take me to meet my future Alpha, a meeting he had arranged himself and for his own purposes, so it was unlikely he was going to do anything that would prevent me going.
Cautiously, I began walking down the stairs, my uncle close behind me. The light grew dimmer the further down we went, the weak bulb scarcely emitting enough light to illuminate the room at the bottom. By the time I’d reached the base of the stairs, my eyes had adjusted enough to determine that the tiny cell was a dungeon of sorts.And not a sex dungeon either, I thought snidely, in an attempt to conceal my unease. But I shivered… who knew what actually happened down here? There were metal rings fixed to the walls and floor, approximately the width of human shoulders. A bucket sat in the corner, stained, its dark depths containing something lumpy I didn’t care to investigate too closely. I didn’t want to think about any of this.
“Do you know what this room used to be for?” demanded my uncle.
“Um… a hiding place?” I offered, wondering where this was leading. A small tic twitched over one eye.
“Close, but no. Sometimes servants who stole from their master were chained up in here. Other times, rivals. Sometimes without food or water; sometimes they were flogged. The thick walls and the fact of being underground meant no-one would hear their cries, so they could be held here indefinitely. I dare say, over the centuries a few might never have left here.”
It was hard to tell in the dim light, but there were some patches darker than others on the concrete floor and I wondered if they might be bloodstains. I pushed that dark thought aside.
“Yeah, so. Wh-why are you showing me this?” I asked, trying for unconcerned but unable to suppress my shiver. It was cold down here, and the truth was, I was afraid.
My uncle’s voice seemed to reverberate, as if the very walls were mocking me.
“Just pointing out that it would be…unfortunate…if you were to do anything to prevent this match from proceeding. As far as your new Alpha is concerned, you are enthusiastically consenting to this union. Do you understand?”
Was he seriously threatening me? Would he really lock me up in here if I didn’t go through with the mating? When I thought about it, he could totally get away with it. Because I normally never left my room, and even more rarely, the house, no-one would even notice I was missing. I had no friends. Maybe Miranda would wonder where I was, but she wouldn’t dare ask. I had no intention of derailing things – not yet anyway - but itwas unnerving to think I could disappear so easily, and whatever was done to me here, no-one would ever know. I shuddered. A trickle of sweat dripped from my armpits, the damp shirt uncomfortable under my jacket.
“I understand,” I murmured, defeated. “So, can we go now?”
The man who called himself my uncle, but who would probably willingly lock me in this place to die, turned and stalked up the stairs and I hurried after him, not wanting to spend a minute longer than necessary in this dismal place.
Once the door was shut and locked again, and the boxes kicked back into place, I took one last look. The place was a tomb and I didn’t want it to be mine. There was no way I was going to stuff this up. At least, not until I was free and clear.
