Corrupted (Alpha's Claim 5)

The myriad of buttons that ran down the back of her dress were undone with hurried expertise, freeing Brenya of another hated dress with the finesse of a man who must have done so for other women many times. Usually, he just rent her clothing from neck to navel. Usually, the Alpha was more concerned with licking cream from her nipples as dessert than he was with treating her clothing with respect.

The man liked to break things, he liked the noises she made when he uncovered flesh in the most violent of ways.

He liked to hold her down in the nest and pour sweet things on skin. He liked to lap and suck and leave marks with his teeth.

But at her statement of illness, she had been offered a reprieve.

Instead of fucking her, again, he pressed her back to the mattress and thought to touch in a way that seemed as if he practiced intimacy. The strokes of his large, warm hands were long. His purr was masculine and determined.

Lulled into a quiet place, cautious that he would alter his intention and use her like he did his napkin at dinner, Brenya floated in mental stillness.

He believed her asleep.

Brenya encouraged this by retreating to that emptiness where she could hide uninvited, eyes closed and breath soft. And a miracle was delivered.

Shifting his weight off the bed as if trying not to wake her, Jacques went to his dressing room. Moments later, he had quietly abandoned the room.

Opening her eyes to blissful solitude, Brenya invaded another man’s emotionless void further. Leaning on the wrongness of Jules to hide what she intended to do.

She slipped from an unsatisfying arrangement of blankets and pillows, bare feet landing on a soft rug.

If smiles were something natural in Central, Brenya would have smiled to see that Jacques had left his day's clothing on the floor beside the bed. The vanity of the Alpha was so extreme he donned fresh things to confront what made Brenya sick.

Obsessive as he was, there was no other logical alternative for his behavior.

Jacques' abandoned shirt became hers, the only piece of utilitarian clothing that had touched her skin in ages.

Just like the sloppy leavings of his apparel on the ground, the male had forgotten to lock the door to his private balcony. He had not considered that a golden fork was priceless beyond its polished glitter as one twirled their pasta in the bowl of a matching golden spoon.

The unused knife was almost as exciting.

Priceless china and crystal goblets were abandoned for the simplicity of dumping leftovers atop the starched napkin Jacques had told her was to be laid in the lap and used to dab the mouth should a sauce turn rogue.

Foolish.

Fabric of this nature, with its tight weave and stiffness, was much better knotted up at the corners. Brenya made a tool from a frivolous thing. Just as she took the stolen shirt on her back and wound the tails that hung almost to her feet into a sling.

Careless if Central’s fancy cuisine was mushed into one soggy mass, Brenya tucked the pack in her makeshift pouch and snatched up the only tools she would have for what had to be done.

Just as she would have bit down on any tool when her hands needed to be free during maintenance, she pinched the golden necks of her utensils between her teeth.

Hands braced on the wide balustrade, she took a steadying breath, then stepped out onto the ledge.

All of this having been done so quickly, unit 17C would have outshined her class in efficiency and received a red ribbon of excellence. All of it done with her mind on the plane of emotionless function so familiar, so missed, that she dared not enjoy the splendor of freedom from feeling.

Standing, Brenya towered over Central, the updraft sending her hair into disarray. Her city was at her feet, her people going about their lives, oblivious to Central’s machinations and their Commodore’s flaws.

Exactly how it needed to remain.

Yet Jacques already had a head start.

Fortunately, the palace was intricately embellished with cavorting depictions of the Gods, complicated architectural details offering footholds aplenty. She didn’t even need a rope.

Gold utensils in her teeth and a bag of leftover food stowed in her stolen shirt, she braced her weight on her left foot for leverage… and ascended.

Hands and feet moving from one unlikely grip to another, Brenya moved in a horizontal line, tracking the path Jacques would have had to make to leave his apartments.

At the third window, she glimpsed Jacques moving down a corridor. He would soon be out of her sight. All she needed was a single access panel. Having stood on this balcony, uninterrupted while Jacques stared at her, Brenya knew exactly where to go.

Hand burning with the familiar exercise of holding up her entire body weight, she dangled by a single hand and slipped the knife from her teeth. With the perfect pressure and leverage, the panel popped in.