Page 12 of The Runaway
Dante looked at him quizzically. “When it was first discovered you were an omega, you would have been sent to stay at a church or a monastery with a group of other omegas. To be taught how to behave. Don’t look alphas in the eye. Don’t talk back. What to expect from a heat. All that stuff. At the school I went to, they had lessons on how to cook and clean, and how to look after yourself if you ended up being used for breeding. Didn’t you learn any of that?”
Connor simply gaped at him. “They have wholeschoolsfor this shit?”
“You were never sent to one?” Dante looked aghast.
“No. Never.”
“Good God.” His frown deepened. “Where did you grow up?”
“On a farm north-east of Paris.”
“What was it like?”
“I don’t know. All right, I guess.” Dante made a noise of frustration, and Connor realised he wasn’t answering his questions very well. “What do you want to know? To me, it was just the place where I lived. Is that supposed to be different from everywhere else?”
“How many people lived on the estate?” Dante asked.
Connor thought about that. “About… a hundred and twenty, give or take.”
Dante’s jaw dropped. “A hundred and… How on earth…? Was it owned by nobility?”
“No. Why would it be?”
“I’ve never seen an estate that could afford to have that many people on it that wasn’t owned by someone extremely wealthy. What did they farm?”
“A bit of this and that. Wheat. Apples. Chickens. Mostly, though, they were farming babies…”
CHAPTER SIX
Twelve Years Ago – Laurent Baby Farm
Connor watched as an omega woman, her belly swollen with her latest pregnancy, waddled into the sleeping quarters and collapsed on the bed. She pressed a hand to her groin, letting out a low moan. He’d seen her dragged away by one of the alphas an hour or so ago, likely to be mated, and from the looks of it, she was now feeling the aching aftereffects of yet another careless alpha.
“Fucking cunts,” Jackelyn said from her seat on the bed beside him, watching the woman with a sneer. “A hundred fucking omegas here and they have to mate with the ones who are about to pop. Those assholes are never going to do that to me again.”
“How do you know that?” Connor said, still naïve to the ways of the world at the age of just fourteen. There were thirty omegas sleeping in this bunkhouse, and there were two more similar bunk rooms in other parts of the property. Roughly half of the omegas were pregnant at any given time. “You had your heat two weeks ago, so you’ll be pregnant now. So when you get as big as that, they’ll want to mate with you, too”
Jackelyn laughed. She was a lean, tough woman, just eighteen years old, though she had the confidence of a woman twice that age. “Not too fucking likely,” she said, to his blunt statement. “I found some pennyroyal growing in the forest. Made some tea, and hey presto, no more fucking baby.”
Connor stared at her in shock. “You aborted it? But… what about when they find out? You’ll get in trouble. They’ll beat you. Or sell you.”
“No, they won’t.” Jackelyn shot him a grin. “They’re not going to find out.” She’d already had one baby, just seventeen when the child had been born. And apparently, she’d decided that once was enough. “You gotta learn to watch what really goes on around here, not just listen to the betas spouting their bullshit rules. There’s too many omegas here. Most of the betas don’t have a fucking clue who’s who. So long as they get a couple of dozen babies every year, they don’t give a shit who’s pumping them out. So it’s easy. I just join the work crews in the morning, go about ploughing the fields, and so long as I’m seen to be working, no one will care. It’s not like they keep a record of any of this.”
“They don’t?”
“No. Most of the betas can’t even read. Not like you, eh, Connor? You finished reading that letter I gave you?”
Connor nodded. “Two days ago. There were some words I didn’t understand, but I got most of it.”
“Good boy. I’ll get you another one in a few days. Remember, knowing how to read is your ticket out of here. It’ll double your price if you ever get sold.”
Connor nodded again. He wasn’t sure why reading was so important, but Jackelyn knew far more about the world than he did.
“Here,” Jackelyn said, reaching under the bed. “I got you some bread. Don’t show the others. Just curl up in bed and eat it under the covers. Otherwise someone will just take it from you.”
Connor took the bread and shoved it inside his shirt. But he didn’t get in bed to eat it right away. “What does pennyroyal look like?”
“I’ll show you next time we go out to pick mushrooms. It smells a bit like mint, but it’s different. But you have to be careful with it. Too much and it’ll make you sick.” She looked at him with a snarl on her face, though Connor knew it wasn’t aimed at him. “I pity you, kid. In another couple of years, they’ll figure out what gender you are. I’d fucking well hope I was a beta, if I was you. Now eat up. You’re too skinny for a kid your age.”