Till Dawn Do Us Part (New Reign Book 1) Read online

  “I just don't get it.”

  And he wouldn't have either, one hour and twenty six minutes ago, before he glanced down.

  Not a lot animated him anymore. He'd been twenty-six when he'd turned into what he now was, and since, so many years had passed, so many faces had disappeared, places had been burnt to the ground and rebuilt; he had grown relatively indifferent to every pleasure, every distraction.

  Yet here he was, suddenly awake, his eyes greedily following the little thing who nervously shifted from one foot to the next.

  She got him when she moistened her lip.

  “I'm going to be three centuries old this summer,” he reminded him. “Live half so long and you might get me.”

  On that note, the Original Alpha got up. The Drafts were closing up and he had a contract to sign.

  Sterlings

  The phone call had been painful. When she'd bobbed her damn head, she hadn't thought one second about the disappointment she'd hear in the voice of the father she loved.

  “Jim was going to lose, dad,” she told him, careful not to say more.

  There was no reason why anyone would pay attention to what she was up to, but nonetheless, every call was recorded.

  “He was,” her father answered. “I'm just... worried for you, sweet. A First Contract? If he didn't mean you any harm, why the first? The Second does specify that...”

  Her stomach was recoiling when as she asked herself the very same question. Why the first?

  About a half hour after she'd left the stage, an official had brought her a copy of the legal document she had already agreed to. Her signature was nothing more than a formality: her nod, in front of witnesses and camera would be more than enough.

  It was bad. It was really bad.

  The said contract was one sentence long, read as such;

  This is an agreement binding Ruby R. Sterling, born 14/02/274 to Sir Alexander of the house of Thorn, up until the successful conception of Sir Alexander's heir.

  That was it. No time frame, no condition, no get out of jail card. She was bound.

  She wasn't certain she managed one full breath up until the door of the waiting room they'd showed her into opened in front of her owner. Then, she breathed in and out without pain, but the rhythm of her heart was another matter.

  “You look anxious.”

  Wordlessly, she raised the piece of paper.

  “Ah. I never sign anything I don't read and I wasn't in the mood for pages of nonsense.”

  Finding her voice took a few seconds as she found her throat completely dried out when she first tried to formulate the words.

  “This doesn't protect me.”

  “Do you believe you need protection from me?” he asked coldly, yet with an edge in his tone, almost threatening.

  “Yes.”

  He looked down with some surprise.

  “You're smart.”

  “Enough to know you want something from me. People like you don't pick the likes of me.”

  “It's happened year 7, 56 and 101.”

  It was more than the Alpha-Regular thing, though. If a man of his exact description had been seated downstairs, with the rest of the pleb, he wouldn't have chosen her.

  “But you're right. I'd like a child with your eyes,” he answered, strolling closer.

  He bent down towards the seat she'd taken, only to rob the pen in her hand and sign a neat Xander under his name.

  Her eyes. They weren't Fredrica's beautiful sky-blue or Arthur's intriguing amber, but a plain brown. The best thing she could say about them is that she had two.

  Sir Alexander's were a pool of green wonders so he was blatantly lying.

  “You smell delightful,” he told her before straightening his frame.

  Her eyes narrowed as she tried to understand his angle.

  “Wood and vanilla.”

  Tending the fire was her duty at home and she had seen that everything had been in order right after her shower this evening. She'd also baked and had used vanilla and it was creepy as hell that he could tell.

  “Do you need a lift home tonight?”

  “I don't live far.”

  He didn't like that answer: the cold and threatening demeanor he'd managed to shake for a few instants came back, full blast.

  “Do you usually walk at this time?”

  She almost rolled her eyes. Of course she walked. Public transports were scarce as well as expensive at night and private vehicles cost thousands in tax: no one but the Alphas could afford them.

  Well, that wasn't exactly true.

  “If I'm out.”

  Which, admittedly, wasn't very often.

  “I'm taking you.”

  She would have been grateful, had he even attempted to disguise his command as a suggestion; as it was, she glared. She wasn't his until tomorrow. For one night, she was holding on to her free will.

  “I'd rather walk.”

  When he confronted her gaze, she reflected on how strange it felt. It wasn't only the fearsome power his presence conveyed: she was simply foreign to that kind of scrutiny. People didn't meet her eyes. She wondered at it for an instant, and came up blank.

  “What you'd rather do has little bearing to what I decide in regards to your security, Miss Sterling.”

  The ghost of an amused smile played on his lips as he turned his heels and got out.

  “When you're ready,” he told her, before closing the door.

  The way home was spent in a complete, overwhelming and eloquent silence, as she watched the familiar streets pass her by.

  Their city was one of the most beautiful in the continent, hence why so many Alphas resided there. Most of the country was a barren desert, but as they’d built Dome close to an old dam they’d managed to clean up a century ago, they grew trees, molded finer homes, and even had some water fountains here and there. The dark, metallic imposing domes standing proudly at each street corner were still lit up, although they normally went dark much earlier. There were bands playing, street vendors, jugglers. The Winter Solstice was treated as a holiday, a joyous occasion, by those who didn’t have to stand naked on a stage.

  Ruth looked away in disgust.

  “Cars are pretty nice.”

  She said it, because she didn’t think she could take another second of silence. It stressed her out. He stressed her out.

  The vehicle was one of the latest models, a beast of a red speeder, floating over a foot from the ground. Ruth had never travelled in anything other than the slow tram connecting the centre of the City to anywhere she'd ever wished to go. In the tram, every corner, every hill jolted the passengers around; inside the Alpha’s vehicle, she didn't feel any movement.

  “Is it your first time riding one?”

  “No.”

  She left the word hanging rather than explaining herself, and thankfully, the driver stopped right in front of her home just then.

  She didn't know why she didn't push the little green button which most likely would have opened the door. There just seemed to be something left... unfinished. Unsaid.

  The creature was staring ahead, a frown marring the line of his perfect brows.

  Finally, he said, “It's a good house.”

  It wasn't the excessive kind of mansion that could be found three streets up, but the four story townhouse was a far cry from the little grey blocks one mile down, where most Regulars lived.

  “And you're not a servant here.”

  He was gesturing to her clothes: she wore her favorite white wool coat. It was five years old but it had been made to her particular measurements and the quality still stood out.

  Truth was, Ruth could afford a new coat. Fredrica could have given Jim tens of thousands to spare her daughter any discomfort. They could live three streets up.

  The Sterlings just had better things to spend their wealth on.

  “You don't need the money” he told her, confounded.

  He was wondering why she'd chosen him, she realized, with some
amusement.

  Well, that makes two of us.

  “I'm sure I'll find some use for it.”

  To tell the truth, she already had. A lot of questions were still in the air but it had never occurred her to wonder what she would do with the money the Alpha had bought her with.

  “When do you want me?”

  He took a second to reply, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “We’ll have dinner in town tomorrow. I’ll send a car.”

  The Sterlings were expressive, in their own individual ways. When an event managed to disrupt the running of the household, Fredrica painted, Henri played and Ruth ran.

  She'd fully expected to hear the heartbreaking chords of daddy's violin and find mum locked away with a half-finished canvas full of reds and blacks when she walked through the doors, close to one in the morning.

  What she hadn't expected was to be assaulted by a gigantic group hug.

  She couldn't stop the uncharacteristic giggles.

  “Seriously? Guys, it's really not that bad!”

  Henri looked at his daughter as though she'd suddenly sprouted a pair of horns: with astonishment, fear and a distinctive slither of disgust.

  Fredrica was another story.

  “You see?” she told her husband. “I told you she'd be alright.”

  And strangely, she was.

  There was a lot of anxiety behind the cool air she wouldn't shake until she was alone, locked in her rooms, but also something she wasn't likely to admit to, something eager.

  “Fred, he's an Alpha. And he made her sign a...”

  “Dad, he's been perfectly courteous so far. There's no point crying foul before anything actually makes us believe I have anything to fear.”

  There was too much truth behind her words.

  “Also, I will bring in a considerable sum that we weren't counting on. That can go straight towards the foundation.”

  This time, both of her parents recoiled in shock. This surprised her. What did they think their daughter would do with a hundred and twenty thousand a year?

  When Fredrica had sold her latest painting for twice that, just last week, she'd kept twenty five thousand – the upkeep of the entire household for a year – and had sent the rest straight to the Sterling’s Foundation: the hospital and lodgings they ran for the lowtowners who starved, died of cold or sickness every day.

  After the war, the priority of the government hadn't included the homeless, unskilled, unlikely to be of benefit to the society. The fertile women had been given more of a fighting chance, but the rest? They'd left them out to die.

  They hadn't. Somehow, the dump south of the City they called Lowtown, was still crawling with people – starving, sick, miserable people – and the government still ignored their existence.

  The Sterlings couldn't, because Henri, up until the day he'd ran into a girl taken by his beautiful, sad amber eyes, had been one of them.

  Before they'd created the Foundation, there had been no electricity, no running water, no hope in their side of town. Now, things were a bit little better each year.

  “Ruth, darling; the foundation is our work – our passion. This money could buy you a life of your own. A house, maybe.”

  “This money,” she answered, her voice shaking with disbelief, “could have fed my father thirty years ago.”

  And there was nothing else to it, as far as she was concerned.

  Arrangements

  When do you want me, she'd said.

  It had been a decibel short of a whisper, her melodic voice enveloping his mind.

  He'd wanted her then and could think of little else than having her now, spread out in his ridiculously large bed.

  After relieving the pent-up tension with his hand, he sat up and thought of Ruby Ruth Sterling – the person, rather than the pair of lips and the alluring boxed gap between her legs, this time.

  He just couldn't make her out.

  There wasn't a slither of timidity or vulnerability in her deep, tantalizing amber eyes. She didn't shiver or cower, like other Regulars; instead, she'd said exactly what she'd thought of him...

  Just like that, he was rock hard all over again.

  A knock at the main door interrupted his second masturbation. Damn. Punctuality wasn't Juliana's usual MO.

  Juliana had heard of the Draft, that much was obvious.

  She was dressed for battle. The shortest vinyl skirt still compliant to the Laws, a blood red corset – Xander's favorite shade – from the top of which her ample breast was spilling.

  Yet, somehow, his erection, hard as stone one second before, curled up and died.

  It was an unusual reaction to Juliana's idea of seduction: no later than the night before the Drafts, she'd discreetly stroked him up and down at dinner with Lucian and his latest lover, Claire. Xander had lasted until the second course before dragging her to the closest room and taking her on the toilet seat. Sex was the one distraction still able to excite some sort of emotion from him.

  But the idea of fucking Juliana, even as she was, barely dressed, with her trashy transparent heels around his neck, did nothing for him. What the hell was wrong with him?

  Xander worked with facts, science, figures. From the information he'd gathered so far, he could only come to one conclusion: Ruby was a goddamn witch.

  “Thank you for coming on such short notice, Juliana. I have something for you.”

  His father had taught him much; from quantum physics to baseball. One of the most valuable lessons had been to keep a present or two handy whenever he had to say anything starting with “sorry” to a woman.

  The necklace was rather vulgar, but it was the best he could come up with at such short notice and to be entirely honest, it did suite her.

  “Oh, Alexander...”

  “It's a farewell present, Juliana. I've been considering getting a child for a while now,” he effortlessly lied. “Accommodating as he is, I doubt your husband would be happy to lend you for that use.”

  Juliana, like every Alfa female above twenty-five, was married, of course. She'd chosen Arthur for his wealth, rather than his appeal, and the man, providing he could still exert his conjugal rights once a week, was more than happy to ignore his wife's activities.

  “So, it's true. You've chosen a fucking Regular.”

  “Every other woman I know is either married or too young. Besides, our party wants to show that we care about the Regs; I figured getting close to one made sense.”

  The excuse was perfect. It had absolutely nothing to do with what he was thinking when he'd pushed the yellow button indicating his intention to bid, but he would sing that tune every time anyone asked.

  Lucian, true politician, had come up with the perfect line, and Xander was sticking to it.

  Dinner

  After despairing in front of the sparse wardrobe, Ruth gave up, made a call, and walked down towards the mall.

  Rachel met her inside a cafe, a boiling cup of chocolate already waiting for her next to a raisin bun.

  “I'd say I told you so,” her friend said as a greeting of sorts, “but that would be unkind.”

  Rachel had married a month ago to escape the Drafts and upon hearing Ruth's plan, had snorted and told her to say yes to the pianist next door.

  “You're going to lose. They'll bid thousands for you.”

  She had had no reason to believe a word of that but apparently, Rachel had been right.

  “You didn't tell me I'd be chosen by a bloody Alpha,” she mumbled.

  “A very attractive bloody Alpha.”

  Ruth only blushed, unwilling to admit so much out loud.

  “So, how may I be of assistance?”

  “I'm supposed to meet him tonight for dinner and my wardrobe doesn't exactly include evening wear.”

  “Or anything beyond running trousers.”

  That wasn't true. Ruth also had one pair of jeans and one skirt.

  She had been uncomfortable about wasting money on shopping but Fredrica had been adama
nt. “That man is paying ten thousand for your company. Go buy a dress.”

  When Fredrica gave an order, people obeyed, if they weren’t suicidal.

  Her parents had point blank refused to let her donate more than eight of the ten thousands that had hit her account some time overnight, so she had more money than she'd ever had, and a reason to spend it.

  She bought two dresses, one green, one black and, at Rachel’s insistence, some lingerie.

  Ruth wasn't about to ignore her friend's advice, considering what had happened the last time she'd done so.

  “Not even if you'd paid me for it,” she answered when her best friend pointed out the black ensemble from which some valuable pieces seemed to be missing. Like, the back of the panties. Or the part of the cup supposed to cover the nipples.

  “He is paying you for it, Rue.”

  She’d shut it, but dropped the skimpy lingerie back; she wasn’t that daring. But, blushing all the way to the till, she did buy something lacy and sexy, hoping that she wouldn’t look like a total idiot.

  It would be fine. Thousands of women had done the exact same thing each year, for the last two centuries.

  She’d live through it.

  It was with that in mind that she bravely entered the Harrington’s five hours later.

  She was at her very best, her dark locks brushed down her back, lips painted red, wrapped in a dress so clever it invented curves that didn't exist, but still, people stared.

  There were mainly Alphas in the room, another fact that made her completely out of place.

  They were easy to recognize. They stood too stiff, moved too gracefully, talked too low but even amongst them, Sir Alexander stood out.

  He had taken up the best seat of the room, right next to a window overlooking the frozen gardens of the Jewel.

  The hotel was known for its food and its gardens so naturally, he'd take both.

  “Mademoiselle?”