Her heart thudded, despite the cordial greeting. “Honor to the brave…and Commander Qalin,” she parroted, deepening her voice.
It was the right thing to say, because he responded more informally, “Kianiko. I am Perce.”
“Kianiko. I am An—” She caught herself in time. “I am An
jot
.”
Perce eyed her dusty, battered carryall. “You appear as though you have been traveling for a while.”
“Since before the last trey moon,” she said.
“Then you have seen much.”
He didn’t know the half of it. “I have.”
“I wonder if you have news of a dangerous female fugitive we seek.”
Anika flicked her gaze to the huddle of females. Either they were resigned to their fate or they were too terrified to express curiosity. She shivered. Had she ever been so docile? So complacent? So unquestioning? What crimes could they have committed?
Remember, you are alpha.
Though her knees trembled, she lifted her chin and said in a bold tone, “Are
all
these females fugitives?”
Perce shook his head. “None, as far as I know, but as we seek the female called Anika, I am under orders to conscript unclaimed females for breeding.”
The mention of her name startled her, but more unnerving was that so many of her gender had been taken into custody. Commander Dak had abolished the Breeder Containment Facility. It did not make sense he would reverse his actions.
“By whose orders?” she asked.
“Commander Qalin.”
“Alpha Qalin?” She cocked her head and frowned. “Have I strayed in my journey? Am I not in Commander Dak’s province?”
“Nay,” Perce shook his head and grinned. “This is Alpha Qalin’s now—the Commander has seized Dak’s province as his own.”
In her avoidance of people, Anika had been cut off from town heralds, but how could something so cataclysmic have happened without her knowledge? An eddy of ramifications spun. Dak would not have surrendered. Never. No Commander would have. The war among the Alphas was a fight to the death.
“I did not hear the village bells peal,” she said weakly.
“When Dak’s province fell to Commander Qalin, so did Dak’s status. No bells would ring to announce the death of a nobody.”
“And what of Alpha Marlix? Commander Ilian?” The band binding her chest tightened.
Dak was dead
.
Could Marlix and Ilian hold out?
“They have not fallen yet. But Alpha Qalin’s victory is assured. The brave and honorable shall reap their rewards.”
Anika wanted to sink to her knees and weep in despair. The alliance was losing! Without Dak, Marlix and Ilian would find it more difficult to fight the relentless force of Qalin-Artom.
Without Dak, how would Omra and their two offspring, Miri and Berik, survive?
“H-have you heard what had happened to Alp-
Dak’s
breeder and his two offspring?”
Perce shrugged. “I have not heard, but I assume if they’d been captured, the females were delivered to Alpha Qalin’s domicile for breeding, and the males were executed.”
Little Berik with his innocent toothless grin was dead?
“But he is a child. A baby!”
“One does not allow the heirs of the fallen to survive, lest they seek vengeance.” He gave her a queer look.
Anika balled her fists, hatred for Qalin overshadowing all care, all fear. Before she could decide what to do, the alpha unclipped his PCD, tapped into it, and turned the screen toward her. “This is the female who is wanted for crimes against Parseon.”
Anika stared at her own face—her cheekbones, her chin, the jut of her nose, the curve of her brows, the shape of her mouth. Despite her new eye color and hair length, she still resembled the female on the PCD. She peeked at Perce. No recognition there.
The only other difference was her uniform. Alpha gray instead of breeder beige. Pants and a shirt instead of a shift. A
uniform
couldn’t be all that mattered. Could it?
Alphas were born, not nurtured—although testing later verified superiority. If genetics determined alphaness, should not one be able to differentiate between alpha and beta instantly? And male from female? Yet, here she stood, a
female
juxtaposed to her holographic likeness and
the male who was searching for her
couldn’t see it.
Were there males passing as alphas who perhaps were not alphas? Could it be alphaness was not innate, and the designation was arbitrary? Urazi had been deemed beta—yet his brawn and strength far outmatched this puny alpha who stood before her.
Could Protocol have promulgated untruths? If no natural difference existed between alphas and betas, then perhaps the teaching that females were an inferior gender suitable only for breeding also was in error. Anika lifted her head and glanced at the females in the nearest conveyance. Not a one met her gaze. They assumed she was alpha also.
Because of the uniform.
How far could she carry the ruse?
In for a gilia, in for a
dekagilia.
She adopted the haughty expression Marlix wore on so many occasions. “What crime has the female committed?” She stared down at the male who barely came to her nose.
I am taller than he!
Emboldened, Anika eyed him in a way she would never have dared in female dress.
“She is the sibling of Commander Qalin’s sworn enemy, and she killed one of his subcommanders.”
Anika considered further challenging him to explain how a member of the inferior sex could get the better of a subcommander, but held her tongue. She would not allow the headiness of her newfound power to result in brashness. Danger—as the warrant on the PCD indicated—swirled around her. She’d already slipped once, better not to provoke any new suspicion by appearing to have undue sympathy for the female gender.
“So you have not seen the female called Anika?” Perce persisted in his inquiry.
If she claimed she had—and misdirected him—she would be subjected to interrogation as he attempted to gather all the facts. Increased scrutiny would not be prudent. “No.” She shook her head. “But I will maintain vigilance as I continue in my travels.”
“To where do you journey?”
“I go where my feet take me,” Anika answered.
Perce squinted at the third conveyance driven by sole beta male. “Perhaps I could convince you to enter into the service of Commander Qalin and help deliver these breeders. We are short one driver.”
When porcine mammals take wing
. No way would she participate in the conscription of her gender. And she was hunted for crimes against Parseon! Only a fool would ride on the draft of a dragnet.
Anika started to decline the offer, until Omra’s image intruded. Omra, whom she’d met at the Breeder Containment Facility before she’d been bought by Commander Dak and before her own purchase by Jergan. Omra whose protection had ended with the death of her Alpha. Who’d become a prisoner of war, subject to the whims of a brutal ruler. Was she at Qalin’s domicile? Had he used her? Abused her? Mostly likely, he had. He would take great pleasure in tormenting the breeder of his former rival. It would be sport to him.
If Anika traveled with the convoy to Qalin’s headquarters, perhaps she could find Omra and Miri.
But then what? Rescue them? How? She may have fooled this alpha—and the other males aboard the conveyances, but someone of discernment might become wise. She could not walk out with Omra in custody, even if she could pass for a male.
Could she?
But maybe she might be safer within Qalin’s milieu. She’d had as much inkling that Grogan had been a subcommander as she’d had that the entire Resistance was a front for Qalin. How foolish and naïve she’d been! She shuddered to ponder what might have happened if Urazi had not intervened. However, if he had not killed Grogan, she would not be on the run for a crime she hadn’t committed.
No, I’d be on the run for treason against
my
Alpha.
If Grogan hadn’t killed her first. Urazi had defended her.
She did not blame him for her situation.
She flicked her gaze to the PCD. Marlix wanted her home. Ilian wanted to breed with her. Qalin wanted her…dead. Alone and on foot, she could not elude capture for much longer anyway. Marlix, one of the most strategic and astute males she’d ever met, often had counseled the best place to hide was under the searcher’s nose. Hadn’t he abducted Tara from the Terran Bazaar within Dak’s province and hidden at Dak’s Enclave? Qalin would never think to search for her within his own abode.
Hiding in an enemy’s stronghold seemed crazy.
So crazy it might work. Anika took a breath. “It would be an honor to serve the Commander.”
“Excellent! You shall drive that transport.” He pointed the third conveyance occupied by the lone beta. “Luka shall assist you,” he said and hopped aboard his vehicle.
Faking a confident stroll, Anika ambled to her transport, conscious of Perce watching her from his seat. She faced no qualms about her ability to drive a beast-drawn conveyance. Females were relegated to the back of the conveyance with the cargo and small livestock such as domesticated fowl and small bovine mammals, but at the Enclave, traditional customs had relaxed, so she often had driven a vehicle to get around.
The caged females avoided her as she passed, except for a bold one who peeked from beneath a veil of hair. But when Anika made eye contact, the breeder ducked her head.
I scared her. Me!
No, not me. The uniform
. Males held such authority the sight of their uniform evoked respect—fear. The captured breeders were doing their best to hide in plain sight. Had any of them resisted custody?
Her feet felt leaden by complicity. She was going to deliver members of her gender to Qalin—and for what? To save herself? To possibly free Omra and Miri?
What alternative do I have?
Rejecting Perce’s invitation would not change the females’ fate.
Anjot
would remain roadside while the convoy rolled on to its destination. Omra and Miri would be doomed, and eventually
Anika
would end up caged.
But if I save myself, perhaps I can save some of them.
The fine hairs on her nape prickled, and she pivoted to find the one female who had peeked at her staring at her again. Anika wondered if her unusual boldness extended beyond stolen glances. Had
she
resisted capture?
Anika shoved a foot in the boarding stirrup and hopped on. The beta handed her the reins, which she gripped firmly on the left side freeing the right to wield the quirt.
“You are Luka?” she asked.
“Yes, alpha.”
“I am Anjot.”
A sharp whistle split the air and, with a jangle of bridles, the lead conveyance rolled, followed by the second. Anika clicked her tongue at the beasts, snapped the quirt, and her conveyance jerked forward.
Chapter Ten
“I know you from somewhere.”
Anika shook the tent post, found it sturdier than her legs, and pivoted, willing herself not to recoil from the alpha’s swollen, misshapen face. His right eye had all but disappeared in the puffiness, and his left had narrowed to size of pebble.
“You are mistaken,” she stated with ersatz confidence. Perce had commandeered the male’s shelter in the name of Alpha Qalin, but, until this moment, she’d given their host little due other than to cringe at the sight of his infected, disfiguring wound.
While the betas gathered firewood, the alphas had secured the females, manacling them ankle to ankle with heavy chains. Anika could not bring herself to assist, so she’d moved away under the pretense of checking the sturdiness of the shelter she would share with her traveling companions.
She had not expected the male whose camp it was to follow her.
“I never forget a face,” he said.
She forced an examination of
his
face. A raw abscess zigzagged across his reddened, bloated cheek—as if he had been sliced open by a knife. While right side had suffered the most damage, the infection had spread to the left, causing immense swelling so that his head appeared too large for his body. He lumbered gingerly, keeping his neck and head still. Perhaps they
had
passed each other on the street—no telling what he might have looked like before the injury had occurred. The degree of infection indicated it had happened a while ago, perhaps a month or two—
Surely he wasn’t—
Before arriving at the guerilla base, she’d stumbled across a couple of alphas. Within minutes of meeting, one of them had robbed her and attempted to use her until the slash of Ramon’s pocket dagger deterred him. Leaving the alpha bleeding, his cheek ripped open, she’d fled.
Let it not be so
.
But if it were, it would not serve her to jog his memory by continuing to give him time for scrutiny. Casually, she shifted her gaze away from his and scanned the camp, as if inspecting it.
If this was the same place, it had changed. Before it had consisted of one lean-to hut constructed of salvaged scraps. It since had been expanded, converted into a makeshift hostel with several dwelling units. She tilted her head, her eyes riveting on a sign used as roofing material for the largest hut. TERRAN BAZAAR.
She
had
been here—had inflicted the damage to his face. Her stomach dropped to the toes of Tara’s boots. How much longer would it be before the alpha remembered? And where was his camp mate? If the two conferred, the likelihood of exposure increased. Wishing she could shrink away, Anika stared at the ground—then realized her cowardly posture put her in more danger. She was behaving like a typical female. An alpha wouldn’t try to hide. He would spit at the face of danger. She lifted her chin and met his good eye. “Perhaps we have passed on the roadside.”
“I do not think that is it.” His lips barely moved in his bloated face.
Anika shrugged. “Do you reside here alone?” She clung to the hope that she was mistaken. Perhaps he was a stranger, a wanderer who had appropriated the others’ camp. Perhaps more than one Terran Bazaar sign existed. But if he was who she feared—when he remembered, he would kill her. If by some infinitesimal chance he did not, she would end up in a cage with the other females.