I leap through the air and throw myself at him.
I don’t care that I am unarmed and he holds a sword. That he probably said all that just to provoke me. All I know is that it's time to put an end to this confrontation.
I slam into what feels like a brick wall. The shock judders through me. My ribcage screams in protest. The muscles of my legs spasm before my feet find purchase.
The man is more powerfully built than I had anticipated.
He slides a few steps back, that’s all the force of my impact had on him—and wraps his massive arms around my shoulders in a parody of a fucking hug.
I growl and kick his leg out from under him. His gaze widens in surprise, and he lets go and staggers back.
I punch my fist into his side, his shoulder, his face, then whack it straight into his groin.
The breath rushes out of him, and he charges at me again.
I step aside, and he staggers past, then swivels around with such speed that I blink. I hadn’t been expecting that, not from a man of his massive girth.
He brings his joined fists up and sweeps them up and toward my chin.
My neck snaps back. I am sure my head has been taken off my body, and my spine screams in pain as white and red sparks sweep through me. I feel the rush of air then the hard surface of the sand as I crash into the ground. I try to move, but every part of me feels weighed down.
Pain tears through my brain, my neck, down my back, and black bleeds into the edge of my conscious mind. The great Zeus sobbing like a baby. Fuck.
Harald’s grinning face comes into view. He raises those massive sledgehammer-like arms again. “Goodbye, asshole.”
There’s a scream, and then someone slams into him from behind. Pale arms squeeze around his neck, and shapely legs dig into his waist.
“Lucia.” I hear someone call out her name and realize it’s me.
Terror screams through my insides, twists my guts, and my breath catches in my chest.
I try to rise again and manage to sit up. The world swings around me.
Harald laughs and arches his back. He shakes himself, and she goes flying through the air, hitting the sand and rolling until she comes to a stop. She doesn’t move.
A roar rips out of me. Red fills my head, clearing out everything else. Pushing away the sickness that bubbles up my throat, I stagger to my feet and charge him, throwing everything I have into the move. I turn at the last minute to angle my body and smash my shoulder into his chest.
He topples over and hits the ground. Sand spews up from the impact, raining down on us. I leap on him and bring all the weight of my body to bear as I grip my thighs around his waist, swinging down my fists on his chest.
There’s a howl from the man, and then blood spews forth from his ribs and his side, bathing me in a hot, steamy, frothing mess. My skin crawls.
I grab his shaggy head and smash it down, again and again.
He screams, and his shoulders lock. Then with a litheness I had not been expecting, he lunges his legs up and hooks his ankles over my shoulders. His weight pins me down.
The breath burns in my chest, but I refuse to let go of him.
Sweat pours down my back. I bring my thumbs down over his eyes and press them into his skull.
He screams. For a big man, the sound is full of fear and almost feminine in its panic. The strange confluence tears at my nerve endings. The pores on my skin pop. His grip around my neck loosens. He brings his arms up and pounds me in the side again.
Each slam of his fist resembles that of a hammer smashing into me.
My side howls in pain, and I refuse to loosen my grip. He rears up with his entire body and shakes me with such force that I find myself flung off. Fuck. This beast really is a monster. Anger pounds through me. Everything is forgotten; what little bit of humanity the mating cord had bled into me fizzles out. I lock away every part of me that is reminiscent of the man I could be.
Then punch my fists against my chest and roar out my challenge again.
The berserker staggers toward me, blood streaming from his eyes. One eyeball is grotesquely pressed in.
There is a flash of silver through the air, and he holds up his hand to grab the sword one of his followers has thrown him. He charges toward me.
Kayden steps between us, and the sword goes through him. It juts out from his back and scrapes the skin on my chest.
Harald stares, his gaze so wide it should be comical, but it isn’t. All I can think is that Kayden is my brother, and he sacrificed himself for me. It doesn’t seem right. It can’t be. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t.
Harald flexes his shoulders and reaches for his sword.
Kayden kicks him hard in the chest with enough force for Harald to grunt and stumble a few steps back.
“Take your omega and go,” he pants over his shoulder.
“If you think I am leaving you behind…you thought wrong.” I hear the words and know it’s true.
The fucker took my omega and used her as bait to get to me, and yet…he never really hurt her.
Anger curls my nerves, but my pulse thuds in my temples and insists I cannot leave my half brother, my sibling, here at the mercy of this berserker. He is going to be taught a lesson, all right, but it’s going to be me to do it. He took what was mine, and he’ll be shown never to do that again. I’ll use my own methods to punish him.
I step in front of Kayden and head butt the marauder.
The impact sweeps through my skull, and I am sure my teeth have all but loosened. My bones rattle, but I also hear the satisfying crunch as his ribcage gives. He screams and staggers back, blood welling up from his mouth, dripping from his nose.
I stand there panting when Kayden stumbles up next to me, his shoulder next to mine. He seizes the sword by the blade and pulls it out from where its stuck in his side. Blood gushes out, and his features whiten. But the fucker doesn’t scream, not a peep. That has to hurt. My half brother is much braver than I gave him credit for. He moves the sword, its pommel facing toward me. I grab it and heave it up, then swipe it down.
Just as Harald steps back and holds up his arm in defense.
The sword cuts straight through his forearm.
He screams. His hairy arm goes swirling through the air and lands on the ground. I bring the sword up again. More berserkers run up from behind Harald and surround him.
“Coward,” I growl. “Come out and fight me.”
Harald’s features twist. “I am not as stupid as you, Alpha General. You think with your heart, and you follow your dick.”
“I didn’t stay to have a bloody conversation, asshole.”
“I know when to retreat. This round is yours, but the fight belongs to me. I promise you that.”
There’s a howl, and then Ethan closes in from the right, Sol from the left, and Mace and Liam yell as they fling themselves on Harald’s men.
I look over the fighting men to where Harald staggers away to the beach. He walks to the water, three-fourths the man he was, then dives in. The fucker manages to swim, without the use of one hand. The saltwater must completely ravage his wounds and turn his entire body into a seething, burning mass. Yet the berserker gives no sign of it. He strikes out using his legs and his remaining arm. Fucking hell. The pulse thuds at my temple. He is the most dangerous enemy I have ever encountered.
More lethal than Golan, more powerful than Kayden, more cunning than any of the scumbags I’d encountered in the East End, and far more politically astute than my Council ever will be.
I am going to need every bit of power, and strength, and resources, and luck, lots of luck to get this man. Before he…regroups his forces and takes revenge.
“Zeus.” Her moan bleeds into the air.
I turn to find my omega trying to sit up.
She’s alive, thank fuck. My heart fills with a strange emotion, something I don’t want to put a name to. I am almost getting used to the fact that she is always going to draw a very different reaction from me.
Well, different than what I had expected. Something more than lust, more than the need to take…I want to…give, to share, to be with her. This is so not what I fucking expected.
I stride to her, and squatting down, lift her in my arms.
Her body trembles and she feels so fragile, so fucking delicate. The breeze blows over us, and she shivers.
I hunch over her, to protect her from the wind and shield her from the sight of the other alphas. I need to get her the hell away from here and take care of her: my omega. I peer into her face.
“Kayden.” She nods to where he lies on the ground, bleeding out.
“He’s alive.” I scowl at her. Why is she talking about that fucker when I am right here standing in front of her, holding her in my arms?
“He saved your life.”
“You put yours at risk.” I clench my jaw so hard that pain slides down my neck.
She juts out her lower lip and my heart pounds. My left shoulder screams. But having her so close to me provokes the muscle between my legs to throb with a very different kind of pain. “Do that again, and I’ll put you over my knees and spank you.”
Color rushes to her cheeks. The scent of her arousal is heavy in the air.
She doesn’t protest. Her breath hitches.
Adrenaline thrums my blood. My groin hardens.
“I won’t stop, not when you beg me to, not when your pussy is soaking wet, not even when you plead with me to take you.” I pause, lust oozing through my blood. “I will not hold back, Squirrel, not until neither of us can move for days.” My groin hardens. “Not even then…” My voice catches in my throat. My dick strains in my pants, pleading to be let out. I am one sick fuck.
“Promise?”
25
Lucy
I am not sure what made me say that, but his words bring out that base instinct inside of me, the one that only he seems to be able to touch. It’s the inherently omega part of me that responds to the alpha scent of him.
That masculinity, the need to possess that rolls off him as he holds me close to his massive chest. He leans down close enough for me to see the lines that stretch out from his eyes.
For those indigo eyes to shimmer with lust, the sparks of silver in them swirling, ebbing, and flowing.
The heat from his chest slams into me and pins me down. The fine hair on my forearms rise, and tremors race down my skin.
It seems to shake him out of the daze he’s fallen into, for he straightens, then walks over to where Kayden lies on his back, blood pumping out of his chest.
Zeus lowers himself, still holding me close. I can almost convince myself that he doesn’t want to let me go. He cradles me to his chest. A crooning hum bleeds from his lips and the tenderness of his touch envelops me. He holds me like I am the most precious thing in the world. But that’s not true either.
I am only an omega he fucked and claimed, whose body he played like a finely tuned instrument, but that was all.
There is nothing else between us, nothing…not even the mating cord. My heart stutters, and the emptiness where the connection had once been swirls with pain. I gasp, and Zeus looks at me.
“You need to take her back.” Kayden coughs.
“Why did you do it?” Zeus holds his gaze and squats before the other alpha. He cradles me closer, impossibly closer to that broad chest.
“You know why.” Kayden squares his shoulders. His gaze floats to me then back to Zeus. He stays quiet.
“I need to hear it from you,” Zeus growls.
There’s a strange tone to his voice I cannot place. Is the alpha moved by what his half brother had done for him? Does the General actually give a fuck about his surviving blood relationship?
The tendons of his throat move. Color flushes his cheeks.
I still and watch the play of emotions on his face, fascinated and not surprised. I’ve always known that underneath that harsh exterior, that mask he shows to the world, is a man who feels…who knows what the right thing is to do.
“What you have with her”—Kayden jerks his chin at me—”it’s not something I can hope to find. I never meant to hurt you when I took her. It was just—”
“Leverage.” Zeus completes his statement.
I wriggle in his hold. “I am still here, you know.”
Both pairs of eyes look at me, one filled with pain, the other streaked with incredulity and a touch of anger.
Then Zeus changes my position so I am held with my face pressed into his chest.
A low purr draws out of him and flows over me, and I want to tell him it’s not fair that he’s shutting me up in the most basic of ways. I open my mouth, only to inhale another potent blast of that alpha scent…a mix of pheromones, sweat, and blood, and him. Just him. My head whirls, and my heart stutters. My muscles seem to relax against my will. All thoughts go out of me, and I snuggle in closer.
The bastard is soothing me, drugging me to relax, and I… I am too tired to protest.
He keeps up that subvocal hum. The baritone is so soft that I imagine only I can hear it. The vibrations rumble up, and sink into my blood, soothing, comforting...and also arousing. Liquid lust strums at my nerve endings. Moisture pools in my core. I curl my body around him, then brush my hips against the evidence of his hardness.
His muscles jerk under me, but he gives no other sign he’s noticed my casual caress.
There’s a harsh chuckle, then another exhale from Kayden. “I did it to get your attention. Not that this means I forgive you for all your indiscretions.” He grimaces. “I accept it wasn’t right to use the omega against you, but you have to admit you’d have done the same thing if you were in my position.”
Zeus straightens his shoulders. I watch the cords of his neck flex. I raise my fingers to draw my nail over those beautiful sculpted tendons that coil and react when I touch them.
A hum fills the air; this time it’s me.
I am brimming with contentment, mewling tiny noises that ripple up my throat. I should be ashamed, really. After everything, all that chasing and being chased, I am back with the monster, and something inside me insists I don’t want to let go this time.
Warmth flushes my skin, my heart quickens with anticipation, and that draws my attention back to the empty hollow in my chest. “The mating cord.” I think I say it aloud, but he doesn’t respond.
He grazes his cheek over my forehead. “Sleep now, little squirrel, before I put you back in your cage.”
26
Zeus
I carry my sleeping omega up the corridor of my stronghold in London. She’d passed out in my arms and hadn’t stirred once during the journey from Dover.
I am not sure what it is about her that brings out these protective tendencies in me.
She thinks she tempts me to become more human?
She doesn’t know that she touches the base part of me. That primal part that wants to fuck her and hurt her, protect her, cherish her, then claim her, and give her an orgasm like she’s never had before.
I want to knot her to me, so my skin can slide over her and fuse with hers. So I can pull her into me, fold her body into mine until our spirits blend. The thoughts rush through my head until I am no longer sure what I am thinking.
My muscles ache, every part of me hurts, my brain feels like it’s been crushed, and yet I cannot let go of her.
Reaching my suite, I shoulder open the doors, then stalk to the bed and place her on it.
She murmurs and turns over on her side, her fingers under her cheek. Her other hand is hooked around my wrist. And that affects me most. I’d hurt her and pushed her, yet she still trusts me.
She does. I know that.
Which is why I am going to break this last connection between us.
I don’t like what I become when I’m with her. That’s the truth.
And it’s not the fact that I want to take her with a need that is so powerful it goes beyond the physical. Nor is it the fact that every time she dares to look at someone else I a
m filled with the need to possess her all over again.
Normal for an alpha with his omega.
But it’s the intensity with which I want her. I want to feel her flesh over mine, her thighs about my waist, her hair wrapped around my fists as I part her legs and slide into her, and her pussy milks me—all of it disturbs me. But I cannot let go of it, this need inside me that’s writhing for her.
I don’t realize I am on the bed and between her thighs, not until her breast curves under my palm. The nipple springs to attention through the cloth of her tunic and the shirt... my shirt that she's worn over it.
A fierce surge of possession squeezes my chest.
I squeeze her nipple until it pebbles enough to almost tear through the layers. Then, bending down, I take the nipple between my lips.
She moans and arches her back, thrusting her breast into my hand, then moves restlessly. She rubs her skin over mine, trying to get closer.
A growl rumbles up my chest. I hover above her, balancing my weight on my elbows but staying close enough for the vibrations of my chest to stir the air around her. I want her to feel the heat of my body, sense the musk of my arousal, the throbbing of my shaft that pushes against my pants.
Sliding off the bed, I shove off my pants, wincing with every step.
My muscles protest as I bend down and pull the tunic and the shirt up and off her, manipulating her body to give me access.
She moves again, her lips form words, a low groan is drawn out of her, and her forehead furrows. She’s in pain, and I know just how to comfort her.
I crouch above her, then sniff the base of her neck before trailing my finger up the underside of her breast.
She moans again, and I growl. My tone is low, subvocal enough for her to hear me, light enough to roll over her skin. To shift the air around her and ruffle the fine hair of her forearms.
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