THE ALPHA WITHOUT THE DRAGON

THE ALPHA WITHOUT THE DRAGON
SENECA’S POV

LUCKILY, THERE WERE records from ten years ago.

But the sudden change in weather, the rain pouring down like the heavens were waging war against the earth, left me on the edge. 

Kaelith was still too quiet, almost like he wasn’t present with me.

I rocked from one foot to another, impatiently, arms folded across my chest. I tried to reach for him in the depth where his presence always lingered, but there was nothing reaching back. No growl, no tease, no roll, no comforting heat, no him joking about how I was weak for fidgeting about his lack of presence for a few minutes like an anxious lover.

But he was a part of me. 

He had been a part of me for twelve long years, and now I didn’t know where his extension ended and mine began.

“Where are you?” I gritted inwardly, patience thinning. “Where the fuck are you!”  

Silence. 

Across the table and opposite me, the two doctors perched uneasily on their seats. 

Alistair fiddled nervously with the reports, while Davies sat rigidly at the edge of the seat, one leg bouncing endlessly. 

Raindrops came in through the open windows, wetting the mahogany desk, splattering the floor, and drenching my back that I had close, soaking through my shirt. 

I was the closest to the windows, standing over my office swiveling chair, but I didn’t make a move to shut them.

Then, in a moment of agonizing anticipation, the door to the office opened and Ziarah stepped inside with nothing in her hands. 

Her eyes were troubled.

“Dominus,” she started, “I went through the files as fast as I could, but ten years is a long time, and—”

I interrupted, my voice clipped. “Get straight to the point.”

“There’s no record that has her name.”

My eyebrows shot up. “How so?”

“There’s no record that has the name Riley.”

“Why?”

For the first time in years, Ziarah looked visibly struck, her usually pale face reddened with frustration. “You know how I said a few minutes ago that something felt off ever since the selection game?”

I hummed, tapping my foot against the floor. “What has that got to do with not finding her records?”

Behind the doctors, her eyes glanced fleetingly to the back of their heads, a clear warning that she didn’t want this discussion while they were sitting right there. But the scowl that was probably becoming permanently etched into my face urged her to fucking spew it out.

“Dominus, there is more than one slave named Riley. In the last ten years, with the intake from all around the North, there should have been well over a hundred different girls registered with the name Riley. The records show absolutely zero Rileys.”

The anger coursing through my veins was mine tonight, not Kaelith’s. 

Mine. 

I sent my fist smashing down onto the desk, slamming into a wet stack of loose files, before I could stop myself. 

Water sprayed everywhere.

Davies flinched so hard he nearly fell off his chair.

Alistair, whose seat was pulled closest to the impact site, didn't even bat a lash.

I turned back to Ziarah, the growl rumbling in my throat. “In just a few days we’d be having a mating ritual, and in a few more she’d be carrying my child and—”

“Sir,” Alistair chipped in, his voice trembling but cutting across mine. “Unless there’s some sort of supernatural healing, there’s no way the breeder can carry a child in just a few days.”

I turned on him, my hands clenching into fists. “And is that for you to decide, Doctor? You dare interrupt me?”

“We really need to take care of her properly, Dominus,” Alistair said, his voice now almost drowned out by a deafening rumble of thunder outside, but he refused to back down. “If she isn’t properly healed and cared for, there should be no form of intimacy till she’s in recovery.”

His little friend had the guts to chip in, “Yes, Dominus. Unless there is supernatural healing….”

I was seething, my internal heat spiking, my chest burned. 

I could barely breathe. 

I looked right up at Ziarah, “You said something about how something felt off since the selection game?”

Ziarah nodded. “The selection game and the day after the maids had been selected.”

“What had felt off?”

“I’d been picking faint trails of a human scent all over restricted parts within the estate.”

“Such as?”

“Faint scent trails, almost nonexistent, as if they knew exactly how to mask it.”

“And?”

“The scent was strongest in the file room. I don’t know how. No one had been there for years, as the new intake of slaves had lessened over the years and no records had been taken…”

Davies coughed then—interrupting, almost drowned out by the pattering rain and the occasional low rumble of thunder in the sky. 

But I’d caught it. And I’d caught the sweat layering his forehead through the faint glow of the lamp reaching from the desk. 

He was fidgeting.

That struck me as odd. 

I arched a brow at Ziarah, urging her on, my eyes still fixed on the sweating doctor.

She picked on without hesitation. “It seems someone had messily cleared out all files with the name Riley. Which would have taken weeks. Which would have taken longer…”

With every word, my heart thrummed violently.

“...which would have taken months. But there must be something going on within the estate, Dominus. Someone is looking to clear out her past.”

Overstimulated, befuddled, I reached out to Kaelith again, needing him, mad to the brink, molars grinding as I yelled internally to the emptiness. “WHERE ARE YOU?!”

Right on cue, Dr. Alistair jolted up, eyes blown wide. “Dominus, since you have no record of whether the breeder has suffered any past incidents, and given the severity of the trauma, we would need to take Riley to the city hospital for a surgical procedure.”

“Surgery?” Ziarah and I echoed the word simultaneously.

Alistair rushed his words. “Yes, it’s that complex. There’s no way we could treat her properly right here in her room. We would need to transport her to the city.”

Slowly, I stood from my hunched position over the desk, flexing my muscles. The rain continued its vertical fall into the room, drenching my back, the sound of sizzles now filling the air as every fat drop came in contact with my skin beneath the soaked fabric.

My eyes ping-ponged between the two doctors. “How long will it take for her to recover?”

Alistair gulped, glancing at Davies for support, who only shook harder. “Months? A year?”

My face hardened. “Do you like to escalate issues more than they are, Doctor?”

“No…”

“Do you like to lie, maybe?”

“I… I will never.”

“Then why make matters seem worse?”

“No, Dominus, that’s not what I’m trying to do. We’re trying to help here.”

“By moving my breeder out of my house?”

Davies didn’t move. 

He was shaking too hard to.

I knew something had been up with these two right from the very moment I stepped into the office. 

Now, Davies trembling—despite his burly size and his inability to speak while his partner was actively trying to escalate the situation—was putting the truth right in my face.

These were spies. 

Rebel spies. 

Right in my hands. 

But… let’s play along. 

I stepped around the desk swiftly. 

Davies shrunk in his seat. 

Alistair stumbled a step back.

I spared Ziarah one last glance. “Who did you say referred this doctor—”

“Elindin.”

Now, I inched closer to the doctors, pressing my hand firmly atop Davies’s shoulder. 

His skin burned beneath my touch, the sizzle growing louder. 

But he didn’t move. 

Instead, his teeth sunk into his lower lip.

“You will remain here, Davies. Your partner will gather all the necessary equipment, and right before my very eyes, you will perform the surgery here. You will not leave this estate with my breeder,” I threatened, still halfway talking, still tightening my grip on his shoulder—

When two frantic bangs came against the door behind Ziarah. 

Instantaneously, the sound of a sobbing girl reached us from behind the door. “Do-Dominus, It’s about your breeder…”

Ziarah wasted no time. With a flick of her wrist, she flung the door open. Effortlessly, she tugged the girl into view, a small figure in a maid uniform, sniveling as Ziarah nudged her forward, slamming the door in sync with a deafening thunder boom in the sky.

Davies let out a ragged breath, slumping into his seat. 

Alistair just stared, chest rising and falling rapidly.

My heart propelled violently, hammering against my ribs.

Ziarah glared down at the whimpering maid. “This is Elin.”

I roared, “SPEAK!”

She dropped face first into the floor, trembling after the command. She just sobbed, pathetically, her body shook for a long minute while Ziarah and I exchanged a tense glance over her head. 

Wordlessly, Ziarah took the cue, marched forward and snatched her up violently with her pony tail. 

“Stop weeping, you useless human! And speak before I toss you out the window!” Ziarah yelled, holding the small, oily face beneath the dim light.

Elin’s features scrunched up in pain as she forced out the words. “She wasn’t breathing for a minute… We thought she was dead…”

“We?” Ziarah probed.

The girl skipped the question, frantic now. “She had been burning up, Dominus, burning so hot I couldn’t touch her, and then she went cold, and she stopped breathing. Then she woke up crying… and her wounds… they had all healed…”

Alistair’s jaw dropped. 

Ziarah’s snarl dissolved into a smirk.

I lifted my hand off Davies’s burning shoulder and lunged forward, ignoring the doctors, ignoring Ziarah, focused only on the maid. 

“And? What is she doing now?”

Elin, wincing from the hair pull, finally managed to force the rest of the words out. “She… she’s up, Dominus. She’s demanding to see only you.”