Her Broken Alpha

by Isoellen

  They were standing that way when one of his guards knocked on the wall.

  Naya almost sprung away from her mate, feeling guilty for her display of affection. He growled low at her and pulled her closer.

  There was no door. The guard, Alreck she had learned, moved into the room. "Alpha. Seta asks to speak with you."

  "No."

  "Sir?"

  "I will meet with him in the pit in two hours. He can speak to me then."

  "Yes, Alpha." With a deferential nod, Alreck left.

  Naya shivered. "What if something happens to you?"

  "Nothing will happen to me." He bent his head over hers, still holding her close. His smell oozed arrogant confidence.

  "Someone could be planning a betrayal. They might try something devious."

  She could feel his smile against her head. It made her want to smack him. He would be fighting, risking his life. Shouldn't he take this seriously?

  "Devious?" he said into her hair. "I am sure of it. Poison on a blade, a gun in the audience—it would not be the first time. But I am stronger than ever. Do not worry, little breeder. I will be fine."

  "Poison?" Her voice climbed.

  He laughed.

  She hit him across the chest. She couldn't help it. The fool could die from poison. He needed to stop laughing, right now.

  "Fierce little breeder, settle now. All will be well."

  "You are one man. How are you going to protect yourself from the spectators?"

  "You mated a monster, Naya, not a man." He moved both his hands to her neck, holding her gently, firmly, and tipped her head back to make her meet his black eyes. "And you gave me your blessing. I can't lose. Not in the pit. They might try to get to you when I'm fighting as a distraction, though. You need to pay close attention to our bond, you hear me? It will tell you what to do."

  "How? How can you know that? I can feel you, but—"

  "Treasure, close your eyes. Now."

  She did.

  He took a step back. "Keep your eyes closed. Take a breath."

  She obeyed, but her breathing was shortened by her irritation. What was this silly game? They needed to talk about what they would do if he was betrayed while fighting for his life with an unworthy opponent, not play Blind Man’s Bluff.

  "Take another breath. Count to ten. Eyes closed now. I want you to do what the bond tells you and find me."

  She growled.

  "Naya." Her name was a warning. She knew she was entertaining him with her poor attitude, but couldn't help herself. There was no point to this child's game right now.

  She took a breath, long and loud, and counted to ten. When she said the last number, it echoed in an empty room.

  He'd left.

  Keeping her eyes closed was difficult. It went against all her natural impulses. But tucking her chin down, hands outstretched, she took small, shuffling steps forward.

  The open doorway was here. She passed through and made her way down the main hall. She took a right, smelling the quiet drones—Sara, Tee, and the girls—who were watching her as she passed them.

  Eyes closed, determined to do this, she followed her instinct. It led her back to the office.

  Eyes still closed, her hands found Monster standing near the windows. She'd gone right to him. He didn't say anything.

  She felt up his shoulders, reaching as high as she could, and then tugged at him until he was bending down. Eyes still closed, she kissed him. Hard. He was the breath to her being and his taste the only water she ever wanted to drink. Opening her mouth, Naya gave him her tongue.

  She wanted to crawl up him and into his body where it was hot and safe and amazing.

  He kissed her back, a hand in her hair. She heard her name spoken in her head while his mouth was on her.

  She gasped and leaned back to look at him.

  He smiled at her, a huge grin that changed his face from its normally sharp angles to an expression of mischief.

  "You have given me a full bond, Naya. A true bond. Trust it."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Naya

  A grotesque testimony to alpha violence, the fighting pit was housed on the bottom floor of a building originally constructed to hold a peaceful atrium court.

  Ringed with balconies, the structure had seven stories of former beauty turned rundown and ugly. Naya recognized the design immediately. It matched her father's scribe's house.

  The roof of this building was missing, lost in the Restitution War that had put the Sectors under breed control. There was no garden here, as the original design had intended—just an imposing barbed cage with two grappling breed-men inside.

  Flickering light from torches and battery-powered mirror-lamps created moody shadows everywhere.

  On the first floor with Monster, Naya could look up at the filled balconies above. The place was packed with drunken, lowlife breeds. They smelled wild and hostile, more untrustworthy males than she had ever seen in her life.

  It wasn't just that they were in Sector 2 with its awful reputation. She could smell their taint like a sickness, sour and wrong.

  But the most dangerous alpha of them all was at her side.

  The fighting men on the center platform were bare-chested and wore the same odd garment the Monster had put on before they came here. Made of leather, it looked like a pleated skirt hanging in eight panels that went to his knees, fastened around his waist with a set of ties.

  He called it a kilt, explaining that it was a tradition from the Un. Just a step above naked, it was the way alphas had fought one another in a challenge since the beginning of time.

  It fit tight around his thick waist, just hiding the deep V-shaped cut of his lower abdominals. His scars, the rough hair on his chest, and the hills and valleys of his upper body muscles were all on display.

  She had not wanted him to leave their chamber wearing that. He’d laughed at her and said there would be no other females at the pits. It was too dangerous for them.

  She hadn't even questioned why he would bring her to this terrible place. It hadn’t even occurred to Naya to stay behind while he was fighting for his position as top alpha.

  Monster, worried someone might try to get to her while he fought and he’d be too far away to help, had told her she would attend the fight with him. This mate of hers wouldn’t leave her behind or tuck her away in his tower like the princess he teased her about being.

  There was only one entrance in and out of the metal structure surrounding the platform below. Ringed by open space, with raucous spectators above, Monster would be at a strategic disadvantage when he was in the cage.

  Enemies could incapacitate him, or just lock him in while they attacked her outside the cage. A threat to her could bring him to his knees, and everyone would know it the moment they saw her.

  He could protect her better inside the cage with him. Inside the kill zone. It was audacious. Dangerous.

  Monster, who had let her walk in on her own two feet, picked her up and swung her into the cradle of his arms, angling her face into his neck where his scent and a sense of renewed safety saturated her senses.

  "Better?" he asked.

  She nodded, giving the strong column of his neck a kiss. The rumble of his purr vibrated through her entire body. She wished they had been able to finish what they’d started with similar kissing earlier, but the drones had brought food.

  Monster had insisted she eat. She'd rather snack on him.

  Imagining it in her head as she wrapped her arms around him tight, she blocked out the building full of males. There was only this one man to her.

  Naya couldn't get enough of him.

  "Baby, after the fights," he said, "I'll give you whatever you want. All night long. But stop thinking those thoughts. You are distracting me."

  He shook her in his arms, forcing her to pay attention. She squealed and giggled, letting even more explicit images fill her head.

  "Treasure,” he growled, "are you trying to help my enemies take me
to my knees?" His mouth curved in a wicked grin as he dropped her legs so that their bodies were flush, letting her feel what she did to him.

  She forgot where they were, what they were doing. He made her head spin and her body drip.

  "Let's not. Let's just go back home." She wrapped her arms as tight as she could around his neck. It was a long reach; she couldn't even get her hands into his hair.

  As if they were alone, her mouth found the muscles of his chest. He tasted so good. This half-naked male was hers, and it was impossible to resist indulging in him. Having sex with him would be so much better than going into that ugly, evil-looking cage.

  There was yelling from the crowd and a masculine roar from nearby. She didn't look to see who had won the current fight, but kept her face pressed against her alpha. If something happened to Monster, the men in this building would kill each other to get at her. Then they would tear her apart.

  If something happened to him, she was done. Life over. Either way, she would only leave here alive if she was in Monster's arms.

  Behind them someone spoke, the voice directed toward Monster.

  "One of your challengers is missing, and I've had another man declare."

  "Who is missing?"

  "Seta."

  "And who has challenged me?"

  "Wouldn't give a name. Older guy. More scars than you."

  Monster grunted, unfazed. There was no tension in his muscles. This was no big deal to him.

  "How many before me?"

  "One more."

  Monster grunted again. There was a whole wealth of words in that noise. His confidence was that of the biggest, meanest predator in the room, taking all of Naya's focus.

  She clung to him, pressing her belly against him as his hardening shaft pushed aside the panels of his kilt. He tightened his grasp on her neck and lowered her arms to his waist. A glance up at his face revealed that he was scanning the crowd.

  She knew they had men here. He'd spoken with both Nixon and Alreck before walking from the tower. His men had separated before they entered the building, fanned out. Her monster did not want any of his rivals to see him walking around with guards as if he couldn't take care of himself and his mate. While his men wore both armor and weapons, he had nothing to defend himself but his claws.

  Energetic readiness, a spring of coiled patience, hummed from him to her. She could feel it. He was not anxious, not afraid, but mindful—alert. In her world, dominant alphas fought challenges with words or deadly subterfuge targeted to weaken the opponent. Someone kidnapping her in her own home on the eve of her bonding ceremony, from her father's house under his very nose, had weakened her father in the eyes of his peers.

  Naya was sure of it.

  If he couldn't protect his own child, how could he protect the financial interests of his clients? The loss of his daughter had shamed him before the world. If Crispin's father, Corre, had any wisdom, this would not be his only strike. Corre had probably shamed her family in other ways as well.

  All of it bloodless, but effective.

  With others’ respect and confidence in her father weakened, it would force him into retirement, or worse—a humiliating discharge. Once an alpha lost his standing as Master, it was almost impossible to win it back. Her father and mother would not just lose their standing in the community; they'd likely become dependent on their children to support their loss of income.

  Naya had barely thought about what must be happening at home before now. Pressed up against the wall of Monster's body, her mind addled, she'd thought only of the changes in her own life.

  He'd told her she couldn't talk to them, but she realized now that losing her would have affected them in more ways than she'd considered—socially, financially. She had to let them know that she had survived, and that she had also bonded the second-born son of King Rhineholth.

  There was another roar from the crowd in response to what was happening in the cage. Naya looked over and saw a male lifting his arms in triumph over the prone body of his opponent.

  As her gaze shifted away from the brutal scene, it caught on the seething glare of a familiar face. Through the bars and wires of the cage, across the room, a man stood watching them.

  Mac.

  She didn't know him well, but Naya knew it was him. He and the alpha next to him were shirtless and wearing fighting kilts like Monster. They stood amongst a group of males who seemed connected, all of them watching her and Monster with concentrated animosity.

  Mac had not come to the challenge alone. Whatever his relationship to these men before, Monster now had a greater number of enemies to face than expected.

  Nothing in Monster's behavior indicated he had noticed them, but Naya was sure he must have.

  There was some shuffling in the cage as the winner was announced. "Alpha Dale has taken down Rook the Plow, who suffers from a broken arm and collar bone! If you bet on The Plow, you had better be ready to dig out your credits—it's going to be some time before he goes farming again. If you bet on young Dale, your credits have doubled!"

  There were cheers of triumph mixed with growls of disgust from the audience. In the eerie, shifting light, the men in the balconies looked like hungry ghouls as they shook their fists and jeered at those in the cage beneath them.

  Monster leaned down to speak into her ear. "You will go in with me. Stay in the corner. I want you nearby."

  Naya shivered. This place smelled of stinking, rotten men. But pressed up against Monster, she could only smell him. She did not want to have to go in that metal box of death.

  He picked her up. She gripped his waist with her legs automatically, and they moved as one toward the challenge area.

  Men around them catcalled and sneered. She heard the word, "pussy" shouted derogatorily as they passed.

  Monster's right arm shot out into the crowd while the left held her tight against him. Then he swiped his claws, a lethal show of force.

  A hot spray of blood soaked the clothing on her back before she’d even registered what had happened.

  A body crumpled beside them, and the rest of the crowd quieted as they stepped back.

  At the door of the cage, a red coated claw tipped her chin back so Monster could pin her with his black gaze. He didn't try to talk, and she knew he'd become the real monster—all teeth and thick tongue. But he continued to purr for her anyway. His eyes searched hers, questioning.

  She’d met him in blood, Naya reminded herself. She had accepted him. She'd deal with this. Maybe she’d throw up a little when he wasn't looking, but she would find a way.

  Dressed in a weird patchwork outfit with a bright red tie around his neck, the male who directed things introduced Monster and his first challenger to the crowd.

  "And now we have the Mad Monster of the tower, come to defend his throne. He has challenged Berendal, Slumlord and Master of the North Pit. Berendal offers a champion in his stead!"

  Monster set Naya down in his corner. As she skimmed the crowd behind them, she saw Alreck and what she assumed was another of Monster's men on patrol.

  Monster met her eyes, and though he said nothing, she felt and envisioned a hundred beautiful things through their bond all at once. The flood of love was so pure and overwhelming that she almost collapsed under its weight.

  Then Monster was roaring, a great, resounding sound as he moved to the center of the ring.

  It was bigger inside than it looked from outside. Its fluid-stained floor had an odd bounce and give under her feet. It was not what she would’ve called soft, but it wasn't concrete either.

  In contrast, the unforgiving bars of the construct were wrapped with jagged wire, and she had to be careful not to press back against them.

  "Keep your eyes on our alpha, Lady," Alreck shouted from somewhere behind her in the crowd

  Though her heart was beating in her throat and her stomach was rolling, Naya focused on her bond and her alpha. She wouldn't lower herself by distracting him with waves of overwhelming emotion.
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br />   The sweaty musk of breed pheromones scented the air, a pollution of feral male emotion causing her eyes to tear. This place, this event, and these people were so far beyond her experience she could not process them. But for her husband-mate, Naya would try.

  Monster was not playing games. There was no preening or grandstanding. He wanted these challenges resolved.

  Berendal's champion rolled into the cage, an ugly, smashed-faced alpha with a bulging upper body and comparably thin legs. Half a foot shorter than Monster with bloodshot brown eyes glazed over by drugs, he sneered at her Alpha. He answered Monster's roar with one of his own, flashing the dangerous points of incisors.

  His left hand was clenched in a fist and Naya thought she saw something there, pointed and prickly.

  She didn't know what the rules of the cage were. Was that a weapon? Monster was on the other man in a flash, taking advantage his distraction with the cheering spectators above.

  Berendal's man was a fool. He should never have taken his eyes off the predator before him.

  The stranger jerked back just in time to avoid the beastly slash of claws to his jugular, but he couldn't defend against the sweep of Monsters leg that followed.

  He fell with a jarring thud that reverberated through Naya’s body. The floor shook when his two-hundred-plus pounds collided with it.

  Monster moved like lightening, following the alpha down. All she could see was her alpha's body hunched over his opponent.

  Bloodcurdling screams echoed from the floor as her mate tore away from the now-unmoving body. When he turned to look her way, the blood of his kill painted his face.

  She closed her eyes and drew on the bond for strength. Gulping down the bile in her throat, she swayed for a different reason.

  Biologically programmed to be attracted to the strongest alpha, arousal bloomed like fire in her belly. Monster had fought for them, and he’d won.

  Her Monster kicked the lump of flesh that had been a man and roared, "Berendal!"

  The crowd took it up, chanting the name in a deafening barrage.

  The man's champion had failed. Now the monster wanted the man himself.

  There was scuffling outside the cage, bodies pushing and shoving. The crowd continued its raucous call. "Berendal! Berendal!"