Politics lesson II

The second politics class arrived with the inexorable certainty of a storm building on the horizon. Cassia had tried to forget the touch of Decima Aurelius's fingers that first lecture, the burn of those amber eyes looking through her, the shameful flutter her body had betrayed in response to the senator's proximity.

She had failed.

In her dormitory Cassia lay awake replaying that moment. The brush of her fingertips. The whisper of her breath. The way her cunt had throbbed, traitor that it was, hungry for something her mind desperately rejected.

My will, she told herself as she walked to class, her sandals clicking against the marble corridors of the lecture hall. My body. My choice.

The words felt thinner than they had at home, worn smooth by repetition like a river stone.

The classroom was already half-full when she arrived. Cassia chose a seat near the middle, not so close to the dais that she would be in the senator's direct line of sight, not so far back that she appeared afraid. Strategic positioning. Her mother Demetria had taught her that much about politics, about power, about the art of being present without being a target.

Around her, the other students murmured in nervous clusters. Cassia recognized some of them from the first lecture, the trembling omega in the front row who had nearly fainted when Decima looked at her, the confident alpha daughters in their expensive togas who laughed too loudly and watched the door with practiced nonchalance, the quiet ones who kept their eyes down and their mouths shut.

The door opened, and the room fell silent.

Senator Decima Aurelius entered, draped in her usual imperial black and gold adornments. Her golden embroidery tracing the contours of her muscular shoulders and narrow waist. Her hair cascaded down her back in elaborate waves, and her amber eyes swept the room with the casual assessment of a predator counting its prey.

She was, Cassia acknowledged with **** admiration, magnificent in her terror.

"The first lesson," Decima began without preamble, reaching the dais and turning to face them, "was theory. An introduction to concepts you think you understand but do not. Today, we move from theory to practice."

She smiled, thin and cold, and something in Cassia's brain screamed danger.

"Today, you will see what domination truly means. Not the sanitized version your wet-nurses taught you. Not the romantic fantasies of reformist fools who believe power can be gentle." Her gaze flickered to Cassia for the barest moment. "Today, you will watch an omega cede their will."

Shock rippled through the classroom. Students exchanged glances, some nervous, some fascinated, some already calculating what this demonstration might mean for their own futures.

"Senator," one of the alpha daughters near the front spoke up, her voice carefully respectful but edged with uncertainty. "Is that... permitted? Outside of a will duel, I mean."

Decima's smile sharpened. "Permitted? Child, I am the law in this classroom. The Academy granted me authority to educate as I see fit, and I see fit to educate thoroughly." She began to pace along the dais, her sandals clicking in rhythm with Cassia's accelerating heartbeat. "Besides, the student in question has been consented by their parents in writing, and compensation has been arranged."

Compensation. The word hung in the air like a transaction. Like a sale.

Cassia's stomach turned. She knew, intellectually, that will contracts were legal. That poorer families often sold their daughters' wills to wealthy houses in exchange for coin, or that the courts condemned criminals and debtors to temporary beta servitude, that indentured will slavery was woven into the fabric of Futorian society. But she had grown up in her mother Demetria's household, where betas were given choice, not purchased.

She had never seen it happen. Never watched as a futa’s will was stripped away, their autonomy transferred, their very selfhood reduced to property.

She did not want to watch now.

But she also could not look away.

Decima stopped pacing and surveyed the class, her amber eyes moving from face to face with deliberate slowness. Cassia watched her assessment, the way those eyes lingered on the alpha daughters with something like contempt, on the nervous omegas with predatory interest.

Accessing them for weakness, Cassia realized. Looking for the cracks.

When Decima's gaze found her, Cassia's heart seized.

The senator tilted her head, studying Cassia with that same assessing intensity from the first lecture. Those golden eyes seemed to pierce through flesh and bone, through pride and defiance, straight into the trembling, uncertain core of her. Cassia felt her pulse quicken, felt the familiar heat begin to pool between her thighs, felt her cock stir against the fabric of her under-tunic.

No, she commanded her body. No. Not now. Not here.

She held Decima's gaze with every ounce of will she possessed. Her jaw tightened. Her shoulders squared. Her hands, hidden beneath her desk, curled into fists so tight her nails bit into her palms.

My will. My body. My choice.

The mantra helped, barely. Cassia could feel her latent beta side stirring, that shameful, needy part of her that wanted nothing more than to drop to her knees and present herself to this magnificent, terrible woman. She crushed it down with the discipline her mother Demetria had drilled into her.

I am not a beta. I will never be a beta.

Decima's lips curved slightly, as if she had heard Cassia's internal struggle and found it amusing. The moment stretched, agonizing, eternal.

Then, mercifully, those amber eyes moved on.

Cassia exhaled, not realizing she had been holding her breath. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She **** herself to relax her hands, to unclench her jaw, to appear calm and resolved despite the tremor running through her limbs.

The senator's gaze continued its slow circuit of the classroom, lingering here and there on faces that Cassia could not see. And then it stopped.

"Ah," Decima said softly. "There you are."