Merricks Book - The 12 Sectors - Redeeming Her Alpha (authors rough cut)

Chapter 1

ZINNKINDNESS IS OVERRATED

Zinn held still for her half-brother Petar to shove the wood they'd gathered into the basket strapped to her back. They'd worked out a system between them since his assignment of gathering kindling.

Her bad arm, hurt in a fall as a youngling, made the simplest of daily tasks difficult. She was thankful to have the seven-year-old's help and gave him a smile. With one side of Zinn's body useless and the other side constantly aching from doing all the extra work, gathering wood was harder than she liked to say.

"Quit moving. Bend down a little," Petar commanded in his big-man voice.

The boy was getting tall, but his voice still had a few years before it deepened, and his orders always came squeaked, a mouse pretending to be a wolf.

"Yes, sir. As you say, sir," Zinn chirped.

"For a short omega, you're too tall," Petar griped. It wasn't a real gripe; he'd been practicing one-upping and teasing her whenever they were in private. He had a way to go yet before he could match Zinn's sarcasm.

He'd be taller than her before he reached twelve years old—if the elders were to let him stay in the warren for that long. But they wouldn't. Petar was an alpha. Neither he nor Zinn could pretend away the nature he'd been born with. Although they shared a sire, the warren elders forbade claiming males as family members. Zinn didn't know how to save him from what the others would do.

Hair a shade darker than Zinn's grew in a mop of curls on top of his head, without any break in the brown. Although, some of that might be dirt, since their cold water baths never washed more off than the top layer. They shared slanted eyebrows others said made them appear sour-faced, set over dark, wildwood-green and brown-speckled eyes. Their sire's eyes.

"Hold still, quit squirming." The force he used to fill her basket almost shoved her to her knees.

He was too strong. Growing too fast.

"Let me finish this. Get to your own." She brushed at her tears as if moss had gotten into her eyes. Focused on the task, he didn't seem to notice the slushy, sad sound mucking up her voice.

The day was coming when the elders would decide Petar was no longer a child, but an adolescent, with all the potential bite of a dreaded enemy alpha and send him away.

They'd do it before he could stand up for himself, while they could still carry him away if they had to, while making a big noisy show in the warren's main room. Hetete would point out all the dangers of his behavior (there were none). Bastete would tell of his ominous strength. The oldest among them would dramatically retell their shared history, reminding all the women of the warren why alphas couldn't be trusted. Even little boy alphas who hadn't fully presented.

Then the sirrah would take him down to the valley where his own kind, the other alphas, could find him. At least, that was what the elders said they did. It was a badly kept secret that the sirrah themselves would make certain male children never returned from that journey.

It hadn't always been this way. Once, young males, like Petar, received a celebration at their birth. They weren't shoved off to the side and declared unacceptable before the sirrah and later taken away from the group. Mombie had shared stories with Zinn about living with alphas—the days when families built villages and survived in the wild lands together. It was all her mother had known before the attack that sent her people away from the valley. She insisted that gentle alphas existed.

"It's almost full," Petar said, ignoring Zinn's request. He was not a destructive, horrible boy like the elders said. He wasn't. How could that ever be true when he was determined to always do the right thing?