“Rico, can you come and get me, please? I’m at Harper’s.” I asked my mom’s head bodyguard over the phone. He replied that he'd be right over. “Thank you, Rico. I’ll wait at the end of the drive.”

I made my way to the end of the drive and sat on a small brick wall near the gates. I was more angry than upset by that point. My cell buzzed, so I took it out of my purse. I saw it was a text from Jaxon, and didn’t want to deal with it, so I shoved the phone back into my purse. As I did, I felt the auction ticket and pulled it out. I scanned over the ticket. Maybe it's not such a bad idea? Maybe an Alpha will be good for me? At the very least, I could make him kick Jaxon's ass. The thought of Jaxon being pummeled by an enormous Alpha, brought a smile to my face.

‘Beep, beep.’ A craft horn blared, snapping me out of my thoughts. He'd arrived quicker than I expected. Maybe he was close by?

“You getting in, Miss Mountford?” Rico asked politely while standing at the open door of the craft. I replied with a smiling nod and gradually made my way over to the craft. I held onto Rico's outstretched hand as he helped me into the craft, then sat down and buckled up, while I waited for him to get into the driver’s seat.

“So where to, Miss Mountford?”

“The slave auction please, Rico?” I replied casually.

He turned in his seat and stared at me like I’d just lost my mind.

“Are you sure? Your mother won’t be happy about that.”

“My mother won’t find out. Will she, Ric?”

He turned around and mumbled,

“No, Miss.”

And with that, he started the craft engine and pulled away. We made it to the auction in record time, and without saying a single word, I got out of the craft to join the busy crowd outside. There were so many aliens and different species in the city. As one of the only humanoids around, I stood out in the crowd. I got a few stink-eyed looks, but mostly the visitors were respectful. After showing my ticket, I entered the auction house, and I expected it to be quieter inside, but it wasn’t. I could barely hear myself think over the wild and drunken talking. It even drowned out the mellow music that played throughout the halls.

I followed my hostess through the hallway and into a giant room where the auction was being held. She scanned my ticket again, then led me through the room and towards a secluded booth nestled in the corner. I ordered my drink and got myself comfortable. The room was still loud, but a lot quieter than in the halls or outside. The hostess brought over my drink, a tall glass of cherry flavored liquor with carbonated water, and my bidding tablet. You could bid for the slaves via that or by the old-fashioned way of shoving your hand in the air. I decided I’d stay out of sight and inspect each slave as they popped up on my tablet's screen.

They had just finished the alien species auction and were preparing to move onto the humanoid Beta auction. I didn’t need a Beta. I had enough useless ones around me already, so I just scanned through the Alpha section on my tablet, to see what was coming up later in the night. By the time the Alpha auction was about to start, I’d already had four more drinks and had read through at least ten Alpha's statistic pages thoroughly. I had my eye on a couple, but none really screamed out ‘this is the one'.

I wanted to buy an Alpha tonight. One, because I wanted to show Jax that I could do better than him, and two, I wanted to prove to my mother that an Alpha would be a better mate than Jax or any other Beta man, but I didn’t want to rush my decision and pick the wrong one. My mother would never let me live it down if I bought a narcissistic asshole home. Yeah, I knew that any Alpha slave would be a challenge, especially for a Beta like me, but by this point I couldn’t give fewer fucks.

Sipping on the cherry magic that was my sixth drink, I sat there slightly tipsy, eyeing up the fourth Alpha. He was one of my picks, but I preferred Alpha number eight. Number four marched onto the stage in all his pumped-up gorgeousness. He knew he was attractive, and as much as I admired his confidence, he oozed arrogance, and when he flexed his pecks, I almost vomited my cherry-flavored drink all over myself. Complete A-hole.

I let number four go to an old lady sat a few feet away from me. She seemed so excited when she won, and I should have felt sorry for the Alpha, but with his attitude, I thought he deserved everything she had planned for him. When I saw her lick her crinkly old lips, I snorted with laughter. A shudder of disgust for the unlikely couple made its way down my back as I watched the guards take the Alpha off stage. The old lady stood up and excitedly made her way over to where they did the hand over.

I watched the next three Alphas get on to the stage and quickly sell. There were more women here than usual, and I could smell that a lot of them were coming into heat. That would explain why the Beta and Alpha men were more obnoxious and rowdier than usual. Alpha number eight was up, and I knew he was the one I wanted to bid on. He was stunning. Dark hair, with a set of hazel-green eyes that made his chiseled face even more handsome. He had pale skin that covered a body of rippling muscle. He was definitely the best of the bunch. He had not a scar or mark on him, which showed that he'd been very well looked after. Glancing around the room, I could tell that a lot of women would be bidding on this guy. The men weren’t too bothered, because they needed workers, not pretty boys. So, the women were my competition.

I held my hand up, ushering the hostess over. I needed another drink, and although I could have pressed the button on the tablet, I didn’t want to come off of the Alpha bidding screen. I wanted a new drink and to order something different I would’ve had to close the tab for a few seconds, and it was seconds that I didn’t have if I wanted to buy that Alpha. The hostess came over and took my new order for a green ale and shot of apple vodka. I didn’t even bother to look at her when I ordered, which I knew was rude, but I was entirely focused on beating all the women who were erratically bidding.

I monitored the price of my Alpha as it rapidly escalated. One thousand credits, two... Ten... Fifty thousand, it was going up quicker than I'd anticipated. I put in a maximum bid of two hundred thousand credits. The money wasn’t an issue. For that price, I could have bought him a hundred times over, but if my mom was right, and all Alpha's were abusive assholes, there was no way I wanted to waste more than that on him. I sat back and watched the screen as the bidding slowed down, but it was too close to my bid of two hundred thousand than I cared for.

“Fuck it.” I muttered aloud while typing in five hundred thousand. Mom's going to kill me, I thought as my finger hovered over the bid button.

I sipped my green nectar drink as I watched the bidding, waiting for just the right time to increase my bid. The women in the room were determined to have him, and it made me chuckle knowing they could never afford to outbid me.

“Dahlia!” My mom screamed from across the room. I slammed my drink onto the table, spilling most of its contents over my hand.

“Shit,” I mumbled while wiping the luminous green liquid on my dress, then cursed in my head when I saw the stain it had left behind. “That’s gonna be a bitch to get out,” I whined aloud to myself as I hurried over to my mom. “What the hell are you doing here?” I snapped in a raised whisper while peering behind her at her bodyguards.

My eyes landed on a shifty-looking Rico, and when his eyes finally glanced over to mine, I scowled right at him and he hastily looked away. I will definitely have it out with him later, I thought while looking back at my mom. I placed my hands on my hips, opened my eyes as wide as they would go, and wiggled my head at her. “Well? Why are you here?”

“I’m just here to stop you making the biggest mistake of your life. Can’t you see that I’m only trying to keep you safe?” She replied in a sweet and loving tone.

“You don’t understand Momma, I need this. I can’t explain it, I just think an Alpha would make me feel whole...” she went to interrupt me, but I placed my hand up to silence her. “Look, I know what Daddy did to us was horrendous, but I’m certain that not all Alpha’s are like him.” I finished my speech trying to sound as sympathetic to her situation as I could, but it didn’t work. She furrowed her brow and let rip.

“You silly girl! You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Even if there was a kind and loving Alpha out there, do you really think you’d find him amongst this bunch of psychotic slaves?” She scoffed once she finished her rant, and I couldn’t help but get angry.

She wanted me to settle for a Beta. She wanted me to settle, rather than go after what, or who I wanted. She had no idea how I felt, and I was about to tell her for the first time in my life.

“No, Mother. You don’t understand what you’re talking about. You always knew that you were an Omega. You chose my father, not the other way around. Our whole lives were your fault. You chose an abusive asshole, and you then chose to stay with him. This is all your fault.”

By the end of my rant, I was screeching. If I didn’t screech, I knew I’d burst into tears, and there was no way I was letting her see that vulnerable side of me. She stood in front of me with her mouth wide open, not knowing how to react, so I continued,

“You were so wrapped up in wanting me to settle down with a Beta, and guess what, I did.” Her eyes widened at my confession, but I just continued, not allowing her to interrupt. “Jaxon.” She smiled, and that made my anger boil over. “Don’t smile, it isn’t a good thing. I just caught him fucking Harper less than three hours ago.”

“What!? How could he be so cruel?” My mom asked while placing a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. As my anger built, I slapped it away and snapped back,

“I don’t know, Mother. Maybe he’s an Alpha in disguise?”

“Don’t be so stupid, Dahlia. He’s an idiot for sure, but maybe you two can talk things over? Maybe it was an accident?”

Is she seriously trying to defend him right now? What the hell is wrong with her? She’s delusional.

“A fucking accident? Oh yeah, he just slipped over and fell into my best friend's vagina while they were both naked, huh?” I screamed at her sarcastically.

“Don’t be so vulgar, Dahlia. Now come home, you’re embarrassing yourself and making a scene,” she demanded in a hushed whisper.

I glanced around the room, and sure enough, a few people were staring at us, but I didn’t care in the slightest. I glared at one guy. He was sat at a table just scowling at me. He was enormous, and I don’t just mean his stupidly bulging muscles, no, I mean his height too, he must have been almost my height, and he was sitting down. I knew I had unusual colored eyes for a human, but with all the aliens we had here now, my eyes didn’t stand out all that much. His were purple, with white pupils. My eyes scanned up to his strange hair. The neon orange color made it almost look like it had engulfed his head in flames.

I suppose he was an attractive man, in a weird overly symmetrical kinda way, but by the look he was giving me, I guessed he wasn’t staring because of my breathtakingly good looks. I poked my tongue out at him then rolled my eyes while focusing back on my mom. The booze had well and truly caught up with me, and I had a new-found sense of confidence, or stupidity, I was too drunk to tell by that point.

“I don’t give a crap about making a scene, Mother. I can't believe you just insinuated that I forget that Jaxon was fucking my best friend, and what? Take him back?”

“Dahlia, that’s enough! You’re drunk. Let’s go home, I’ll call Jaxon and he can sort you out,” she snapped while grabbing my arm tightly.

“Get the hell off me. You’re just as bad as Daddy was!” I regretted the words as soon as they left my lips, but I couldn’t take them back and I couldn’t stop the hand that was currently flying toward my face.

‘Slap!’

After her hand struck my face, it quickly retracted to cover up her mouth as she gasped. Even in the dimly lit room I could see the tears welling up in her eyes. My hand covered my warm and stinging cheek, as I tried to comprehend what had just happened. In all my life, not once had my mother hit me. My dad had hit me more than once, and done a lot worse than that too, but my mom never laid a hand on me.

“Dahlia... I’m...” she stretched out her hand, moving it towards the one I had resting by my side. I snatched it away, raising it high into the air and out of her reach.

“Sold! To the young lady in the red dress.”

My eyes grew wide, along with my mom’s. I peeked down at my outfit, red dress, then up to my extremely stretched out arm. Damn it! My mom and I gradually turned around as people began to clap and cheer. I didn’t know why they were making such a fuss. They only usually did that if someone spent a record number of credits. Oh man, how much did I spend? And who the hell did I just buy? The last time I looked we were on Mr. Hunktastic, number eight. I hoped to the Gods that it was still him up on that stage, and not the disgusting pervert-looking number nine. I nervously scanned over towards the stage and gasped when I saw a gigantic guy standing there chained up to four guards.

“You stupid girl. What have you done?” My mom’s voice floated through the air, and for once I completely agreed with her. I gulped heavily as my eyes took in the magnificence of the Alpha I’d just bought.

“Holy Crap!”