Double The Alpha Page 4

  With her arms folded across her chest, Alicia just snorted in response, although it was a very feeble one. “Well, fine, I guess. This community now has two alphas. Where does this leave Mark, then?”

  “Mark and Tom are still my first lieutenants,” Eric said. “Nothing with that has changed. The only thing that has changed is that our community now has a third first lieutenant, in Ryan’s right-hand man, Wade. That’s it.”

  With her arms still folded tightly across her chest, Alicia sniffed a bit. “Well…all right, I guess. But with you and Ryan both being alphas now, Eric…well, where does this leave Ellie?”

  Having been following the back-and-forth conversation with rapt attention, I now looked at Eric. “Yes. That’s a great question. Where does this all leave Ellie?”

  For at least the third time during the conversation, Eric raked a hand through his hair, frowning hard, not meeting my gaze. “You’ll just have to be mated to the both of us now. That’s the new deal. All the women in Ryan’s group are already coupled up and don’t want to be-”

  “Excuse me? Just what in the hell are you talking about?”

  Alicia had spoken, echoing my thoughts. Nonetheless, I basically repeated what she’d just said.

  “Yes, Eric. I’d also like to know. Just what in the hell are you talking about?”

  Frowning so hard he was almost scowling, he seemed to speak to Alicia, glancing at her but not me. “Look. Because of the shortage of women post-virus, some of you women have naturally ‘doubled up’ with men. You know this. You know this has been going on here in Silverfield for months. Since you and Mark were married even before the Chaos, I’ve never asked you-”

  “Because you know my answer would be a definite no. I’m a one-man woman, Eric.”

  “Yes, I know that. I haven’t asked or suggested that any of you women who were already coupled up pre-Chaos, or who were already coupled up before arriving here-”

  “But you would ask Ellie right now? When she thought that she’d be coming here to be paired up with one alpha, and one alpha only?”

  Mirroring Alicia’s pose, I folded my arms across my chest, looking at Eric. “Those are great questions. Maybe you’d like to answer them.”

  He heaved a sigh, avoiding my gaze. “Look. My community is giving yours a lot in return for you coming here. A lot. Now, Ryan has already moved into my house, where I expect you to move in too. If you refuse this arrangement, that’s your choice, and I’ll respect it, and I’ll send you back on your merry way to the impoverished gymnasium community you came from. However, just know that if that’s your choice, I won’t be able to gift your community with the things that I promised in exchange for your willing participation in our deal. I’ll need to save those gifts to offer to some woman who is willing.”

  Suddenly, Alicia grabbed my hand and began marching me away from the group of men, muttering under her breath. “You’re a disgusting pig, Eric. You have no regard for how a female might think in this situation.” Almost as soon as she’d spoken, she abruptly turned to look behind her, still half-dragging me away.

  “I’m sorry for that, Eric…for saying you’re a pig. You’re still our alpha, and I still respect you. But maybe, you can just come to respect how Ellie might feel, having all this just completely sprung on her.” With that, Alicia turned to face forward again, and continued pulling me off by the hand. “Sorry for that little outburst, Ellie, but you know, someone had to say something. All the men in this community…they’re all just so horny that it’s made them all obsessed with the idea of ‘sharing’ women, just so that they can all have a woman to go to bed with. Which is totally fine if the particular woman actually wants to be shared.

  All I know is that that woman isn’t me. Sure, deep, dark fantasies might be one thing, but as for my real life…well, I’m just Mark’s only woman, and he’s just my only man. That’s the way it is. Not to mention that no matter how hot I might find it sexually, I just know that Mark would never allow me to bring another ‘husband’ into our relationship. Sure, it might make things extremely hot in the bedroom, but….”

  Having let go of my hand, Alicia suddenly sighed, glancing over at me while still walking. “Look. I think I’m just really tired after sleeping on that damned hard floor in that damned gross convenience store last night. Now, in my extreme tiredness, I’m probably just babbling. All you need to know is that Mark and I are a married couple, married for nearly a year before the Chaos, and he’s my only man. And that’s just the way it is. As for you and the craziness that Eric has sprung on you, let’s just get you moved into the house, and let’s just get you a hot shower and a hot meal and some fresh clothes and things like that, just so that we can both just take a minute to think about all this. Okay?”

  I said that a hot shower, a hot meal, and some fresh clothes would be amazing, secretly thinking that having Eric and Ryan “share” me in bed might be amazing as well.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A few hours later, I sat up to the island in Eric’s kitchen while Alicia poured me a second glass of iced tea to wash down the delicious plate of lasagna I’d just eaten.

  She glanced up at me with a little smile. “You sure you don’t want any more lasagna? Or any more garlic bread or salad?”

  Taking my glass from her, I said thanks, but no thanks. “I’m totally stuffed. I haven’t eaten so well since before the Chaos. I haven’t had such a nice, hot shower either. In fact, I’m kind of wondering…are we each allowed a hot shower every single day? I’m already looking forward to my next one.”

  Having a seat on a bar stool opposite me, Alicia beamed. “You can take a nice, hot shower whenever the heck you feel like it. You can take several a day if you want. Our solar power makes it so that no house in our community ever runs out of electricity, including electricity to heat the hot water heaters.”

  Just then, Alicia’s friend, Jessie, returned to the house, having left earlier to bring over more stuff for me. Huffing and puffing a little, she came in the kitchen and set a large box on the side of the island. “Here’s some more clothes. Also, some decorative candles and other things for the house, some more toiletries, and even some brand-new jewelry and makeup for you too, Ellie. You’re lucky…some of our men cleaned out an abandoned department store some fifty miles from here about a week ago…and that nice score greatly helped to replenish our supply pantry.”

  After taking a look in the box, I thanked Jessie, smiling. Aside from having to deal with the strange, complicated situation with Eric and Ryan, I was already loving my new life in Silverfield, especially the two new friends I’d already made in Alicia and Jessie.

  However, once I’d finished my iced tea, Alicia said that she and Jessie had better get going. “With all the daily security patrols that our husbands have to take part in, dinnertime is usually the one time of day when we’re certain to get to see them and spend a little time with them.”

  More than a little forlorn, I hid it, saying that I understood. “But will you guys come back and visit me tomorrow?”

  Alicia said that I could count on it. “And as for getting through tonight…like I said earlier, don’t worry. Jessie and I unpacked your first few boxes of clothes in your own bedroom upstairs, meaning, that you don’t have to go into Eric’s bedroom or Ryan’s unless you want to. And you don’t have to let either of them into your room either.

  No matter what questionable decisions he sometimes makes, Eric isn’t some kind of a crazy rapist or anything; and not that I know him very well at all, but I’m just guessing that Ryan isn’t either, and I’m just basing this off what some of the women in his group told Jessie and me while we were bringing over your dinner and all the other stuff. So…just feel free to do whatever you want to do tonight, and sleep wherever you want to sleep, Eric and Ryan be damned. Once you get a good night’s sleep in a real bed, you can figure out all that stuff later.”

  “Well….” I said, a little uncomfortably. “I think I’ve kind of already made up my
mind about the situation with Eric and Ryan.”

  Jessie lifted her dark eyebrows. “You have?”

  I nodded, tucking a strand of long, dark blonde hair behind one ear. “Yeah. I’m just going to be with both of them, I guess, if that’s what they both want. I mean…in a way, I just don’t feel like I really have a choice. My community desperately needs all the things that Eric offered as part of the deal, so I’m going to keep up my end of the bargain. I just can’t see myself doing anything else.”

  Moving the box of clothes and other things she’d brought to one side, Jessie had a seat on a barstool. “Well…that’s fine if you’ve made your choice, but I just want to make sure that you do feel like you’re making a choice, and that you’re doing all this willingly, as a way to help yourself and your community, and maybe get some other benefits that you want in your life.

  Basically, what I’m trying to say is that none of us women here in Silverfield want any other woman to get into any kind of a mating relationship feeling like she’s being forced into it, and feeling that she basically has to submit herself without her full consent or something. Because that…that would not be cool here. However, if you say that you’ve willingly made your choice to help your community and maybe even gain something that you want at the same time…well, that’s totally fine, of course.”

  Alicia sighed quietly. “You may as well just tell her your story, Jessie.”

  With her olive-toned skin flushing pink, Jessie looked at Alicia. “Well, I don’t know if that’s necessary right now. Maybe some other time, but-”

  “All right. Since Jessie is a little shy, I’ll just say it,” Alicia said to me. “Basically, and I’ll leave all very personal details out, but several months ago, Jessie was living in falling-down shack twenty miles from here, nearly starving to death on a diet of crayfish and clover, and fighting off Creepers with an aluminum baseball bat.

  Our men stumbled across her one day and carried her back here for medical care, kicking and screaming, I might add, because Jessie had a life-threatening fever from a badly infected cut on her leg. Once she was all healed up, two men from our community laid claim to her, basically saying that they both wanted to marry her. Jessie didn’t quite know what to think.

  Well, fast forward several months, and I’ll just say that Jessie is now a very, very happily married woman with two husbands. Now, like I told you earlier today, Ellie, this isn’t a situation that I know would ever work for me…but I’m just using Jessie as an example to tell you that some women ultimately decide different things, because that’s what they ultimately decide that they want. And as long as a woman decides that she wants that, of her own free will, then that’s okay with our community, and that’s okay with us women. Do you see what I’m trying to say?”

  I was pretty sure that I did, but when I didn’t respond fast enough, Alicia continued.

  “Basically, what Jessie and I are trying to say is that if you want a two-men-one-woman sort of thing, that’s totally fine. It’s totally accepted here in this weird new world. However, if you’re grossed out by any of this, or if you think that you might end up feeling taken advantage of, or if you think that you might even end up feeling like you were raped on any level because you really didn’t have much of a choice…well, just pump the brakes, and tell me and Jessie.

  We’ll put a stop to things. Now, whether that might entail us lobbying Ryan and Eric to let you pick just one of them or something, I don’t know. I really honestly don’t know what Jessie and I would do. But, at any rate, just know that we look out for all other women here, and even if you were to decide that you want to break the deal and go back home, we’d try to figure out a way that your people would get some kind of a benefit from you traveling here to check things out.

  We’d try to figure out a way that your people would at least be given a month’s worth of food for your trouble or something. This would be the worst-case scenario, though. Like I said, maybe we’d first try to see if we could get Ryan and Eric to agree to let you pick just one of them or something. After all, that would only be fair, since Tom told you back in your community that the deal would be you being mated to one alpha only.”

  With many different thoughts racing through my mind, I felt my face warming a little for some reason; I took a moment or two to carefully choose my words before responding to Alicia, avoiding her eyes while I did so. “I guess all I can say is that even though I do feel a little…maybe I’ll say, ‘hemmed in’ by feeling like I have to uphold my end of the deal, no matter what…well, I’ll also just say that I don’t really want you and Jessie to intercede on my behalf at this point. I guess because…well….”

  With my face becoming even a little hotter for some reason, I paused to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear again before continuing. “I suppose I don’t find the idea of sharing a bed with two men at once to be completely disgusting or anything. So, maybe once I get to know Eric and Ryan a little better, maybe I’d…well, maybe I’d be fully willing to explore the type of relationship where….”

  With my face feeling as if it had burst into actual flames, I swallowed, unable to finish my thought.

  Beside me, Jessie made some strange noise that made me think that she’d stifled a tiny little squeal of excitement or something. And when she spoke, her voice held a tiny, unmistakable hint of excitement as well.

  “You’re right that a two-man-one-woman thing isn’t ‘completely disgusting,’ Ellie. In fact, it’s…well, it’s…simply put, it can be a really good thing. I come from a pretty conservative background, so I didn’t want to come right out with the details about my own life and have you think I’m strange or perverted or something, but…just trust me. If you’re open to the kind of mating union that I have…I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

  Just then, noise coming from the direction of the front door made Jessie, Alicia, and me turn our heads that way, and we soon heard someone call out.

  “Anyone home? It’s Ryan.”

  Even though I couldn’t yet see him, the sound of his deep voice alone made some current of electricity race though my body from my head to my toes.

  Giving me a tiny little wink, Alicia hopped down from her barstool. “Guess we’ll be going now. Good luck, Ellie, and just remember, Jessie and I will meet up with you again tomorrow. We’ll give you the grand tour of Silverfield.”

  I said okay, and before I knew it, she and Jessie had left the kitchen. Knowing that Ryan would probably soon be coming in to say hello, I suddenly felt extremely self-conscious and felt the need to busy myself doing something. So, not knowing what else to do, I hopped off my barstool and began rummaging around in the box Jessie had brought me, quickly pulling out a few long, red taper candles and brass holders. I was working to secure the candles in the holders when Ryan entered the kitchen, making me experience a little rush of electricity again with the sound of his deep voice.

  “So, you’re setting up house?”

  Trying to make one of the candles stay put in its holder, I glanced up at him. “Yes. I guess so.”

  Moving slowly, he made his way over to the island before responding. “Well…I’m glad to see that, but…if you’re staying here, if you’re accepting Eric’s deal…I just want to make sure that you’re truly okay with all this. If you’re not, you can go back to your own community, you know. If you want to, I can’t say that I’ll make sure your community gets everything that Eric promised, but I’ll try to make sure that you all at least get something. Even if it’s just a few flats of canned goods for your trouble in traveling here, or something like that.”

  Having a flash of déjà vu, I glanced up at him again. “I just basically had this same discussion with Jessie and Alicia, and…I think I’m fine accepting Eric’s deal. I want everything he promised for my community, and I don’t want there to be any problems.”

  “So, you’re not upset with Eric, then?”

  Unable to get the stubborn candle to sit upright in its holder, I
glanced up at Eric yet again. “Oh, I didn’t say that I’m not upset with Eric. I was told one thing when Tom came to my community, and then I was told another thing when I came here. So, obviously, Eric changed the terms of the deal on me, which I think is a little underhanded and sneaky. However, at the same time….”

  Feeling increasingly awkward, and not wanting to continue with my thought, I told Ryan to just never mind, then went back to trying to wedge the candle into the holder.

  Silently, making me feel even more awkward, Ryan slowly came around the island to stand beside me before speaking in a low voice. “‘However, at the same time,’ you’re hungry.”

  Surprised and confused, I suddenly looked up at him. “What? No. That’s not what I was going to say at all. I just had the biggest, most delicious dinner I’ve had since the Chaos started.”

  With his green eyes twinkling with clear amusement, he cracked a little smile. “I didn’t mean you’re hungry hungry, like hungry for food. I meant hungry, as in, maybe you’re thinking that you’re a little upset with Eric for changing the terms of the deal; ‘however, at the same time,’ as you said, maybe you’re still willing to go through with the deal, because you’re a little hungry. Maybe a little hungry for some masculine attention, and maybe a little hungry to see what it might be like to have two alphas in your bed.”

  Stunned and embarrassed by his frankness, I went back to my candle and holder, face flaming. “What you just said shows that you can’t read minds, because that isn’t what I was thinking at all. Not in any way, shape, or form. I wasn’t thinking anything even close to what you just said, in fact. And, now look what you’ve done with talking in such a vulgar way around me. You’ve made me mess up fitting this candle in its holder for about the thousandth time.”

  With his fingers firm yet gentle, Ryan pried the candle from my hands. “Here. Let me help.” While I watched him silently, he took the candle over to the sink, where he turned on the hot water and just looked out the window while it warmed up. Once steam was coming off the water, he stuck one end of the candle beneath the flow for a few seconds, just long enough to heat up the wax and make it pliable, and then shut the water off before returning to me at the island. “Now, let’s see if we can slide it in.”