Alpha's Temptation

by Lillian Sable

  But still, she fought him.

  His arms closed around her like a vise until she could barely breathe, much less thrash in his arms. Whimpering words spilled from her lips, prayers to the unseen gods who never answered the pleas of the forgotten. On the station, she would light bits of wax in their names and pray for the safekeeping of her family.

  And she prayed now, for an easy death at the hands of a man clearly bent on killing her.

  “Stop,” Castor barked, in a voice that was anything but soothing. “Not hurting.”

  Not hurting!? It would be funny if she had any energy left for amusement. As it was, he had her pressed so tightly against his chest that she could barely breathe much less laugh.

  Castor did not wait for her to stop struggling and entered the cave, covering her mouth before her sharp scream could rent the still air and attract every feral Alpha for miles around.

  If not for her fear, Aura would have been impressed at how easily he navigated in the oppressive darkness. He came to a stop a few dozen feet inside of the cave, far enough that she could no longer see the pale moonlight at the opening behind them.

  His arms loosened around her and Aura slipped down his body until her feet touched the jagged ground. When he moved away, she grabbed at the hard muscle of his arms, terrified he would leave her. But he only turned to light a torch that was held aloft by a crack in the stone. There was a scratch of flint against the rock and then a small flame set his face aglow.

  She took an involuntary step backward but his arm caught around her, stilling the movement. The torch highlighted his smirk in the low light. Clearly, he found the fact that she considered the dark more frightening than he was amusing.

  The cave descended at a slight angle and then stopped at a set of rudimentary steps that were carved into the stone floor. Castor went first, but she followed closely behind him because that was preferable to staying in a dark cave by herself.

  He held the torch out in front of himself like a weapon. The fire cast every line of his face in stark relief as if he was carved from the stone that surrounded them. She hated that she stared at him, but could not seem to tear her gaze away.

  Aura’s bare foot caught on the next step and she hurtled forward into the black. Her body was fully airborne for a terrifying moment before strong arms surrounded her and she was forced back against the Alpha’s chest.

  “Gravity different on surface.” His voice was hushed but still echoed off of the walls. “You adjust.”

  Was that been why he had been so insistent that she not stray from the furs, so that muscles disused to the increased gravity of a planet’s surface did not collapse underneath her? It didn’t seem possible that this raving madman would have any concern for her aside from as a place to stick his cock.

  He touched her cheek and a shock of heat traveled between them, strong enough to make her gasp.

  Before she could formulate a response, Castor had already started down the stairs. He held her as easily with one arm as he did the torch with his other.

  The steps ended and the narrow stairway opened into a large cavern. She sensed the change in the air before she saw it. Heat rose in a thick cloud around them, briefly obscuring her vision. It was much too hot considering how far they had ventured underground.

  A hot spring lay in the center of the space, tendrils of steam rising off of the water in visible curls. The light gurgle of a buried aquifer sang through the air. Torchlight cut across the water’s surface in strands that shifted and turned.

  Aura had never seen a body of natural water before. The closest thing to it had been the stagnant retention pools that cooled the ship’s engines and always smelled putrid. And it was dangerous to tarry there for long because watering holes always attracted predators, even in outer space. The time something as decadent as a bath would take made the act too dangerous to contemplate.

  And he had brought her here, to the most wondrous thing she had ever seen.

  If he saw the cavalcade of emotions that slipped across her face, Castor did not bother to acknowledge it. He pushed the torch into a break in the wall and started toward the water, Aura still clasped in his arms.

  Chapter Six

  Castor let out a low groan as the heat soaked into tight muscles. He still held Aura tightly in his arms as he pushed through the water to the center of the pool. It was deep enough here that she couldn’t stand on her own.

  He loosened his arms enough that she floated in front of him, only leaving enough support beneath her limp body to keep her head above the water.

  Aura had never felt anything so magnificent in her life. The water wrapped around her like a soft cocoon. She had likely not been this surrounded by heat and warmth since emerging from her own mother’s womb two dozen cycles ago. It was almost as if she was being reborn.

  When she opened her eyes to find him watching her, Aura made a little start of surprise. She had almost forgotten about the frightening man’s presence for a few precious seconds.

  She waited for him to maul her under the water, but he simply held her as his gaze traced her features. As if he could read her life’s story in the whites of her eyes and the slight tremble of her mouth.

  Sweat beaded on her forehead and tracked down the side of her face. His gaze followed the bead of moisture as it dripped down her chin before he returned to meet her watchful eyes.

  Aura tried to fight the deepening sense of relaxation and calm that washed over her. It would be so simple for her to just lie back and float away.

  Sensing her wavering resistance, Castor’s hands drifted lower on her body to trace the smooth contours of her sides. Reaching behind her toward a stone ledge on the side of the pool, he picked up a bar of soap.

  She allowed him to wash her, limbs loose and floating as the heat and his touch overwhelmed her ability to resist. At any moment, she would wake from this fever dream and be back on the Citadel nestled between Kestri and Lida.

  But even her wildest imaginings would not have brought her this. He lowered her further into the water until her toes just barely grazed the bottom.

  Aura could not swim, if just because she had never had the opportunity to learn. She should have been concerned about the possibility of drowning but his supporting arm felt as solid as the ground that barely brushed her feet. The heat rose up her body like a fever that suffused her mind.

  Castor’s gaze was appraising as he supported the tiny Omega on the surface of the water. This was the most relaxed that he’d seen the girl since her heat cycle had broken. He hoped that bathing would wash away the most potent remains of her scent, making it easier for him to engage with her without falling on her body in a mad lust whenever her intoxicating musk filled his nostrils.

  But he wanted her as much at that moment, foggy heat filling the surrounding air, as he ever had.

  She was relaxed enough now to reveal to him how she liked to be touched. When his hands slipped down her hips, and he pressed his nose against the sweetly scented skin of her neck, she let out a soft sound that made his already swelling cock jump to attention.

  He pressed sharp teeth into the gentle curve above her collar bone and growled, sending a low vibration rolling through her body.

  As her eyes slid closed on a low moan, he adjusted her body to enter her with an unhurried stroke. Then he retreated, staying poised at her entrance until the frantic pull of her hands and desperate pleas encouraged him forward. She was a captive to the pleasure he provided and there was no escape from him.

  This mating was slower and more languorous than any of their previous couplings. He deliberately kept her on the narrow edge of pleasure until her eyes rolled back in her head and tiny involuntary noises slipped from her throat.

  The heat of the pool was nothing compared to the fire that raged between them. Castor lifted the fragile girl in his arms, supporting her small amount of weight in the water, but the top of her head barely rose to the level of his chin. His head bent over her neck and brushed i
t with teeth that he barely realized were bared in preparation of biting down.

  He had to fight the overwhelming urge to grip that tantalizing flesh between his teeth and tear into it until the taste of her blood coated his tongue. Until meeting her, he had never been tempted to claim an Omega for himself and always considered the urge a weakness that others refused to overcome.

  Because he had always considered himself civilized, above the petty desires of baser Alphas. Perhaps it was the toll of isolation or the constant fight for survival weighing on him, but he had never been so tempted by instinct in his life.

  But this interlude, as pleasurable as it was, could remain only temporary. Eventually, he would find his way out of the Forbidden Zone or perish in the attempt. The mark would bind them together in a way that was more permanent than death, which made it too terrible to contemplate. So why was he so tempted to claim this stranger? The scars on his back burned like freshly opened wounds as he struggled to maintain control of himself.

  Prince Castor ban Rolan, heir to the throne of Pandora, was not a slave to his impulses.

  He counseled himself to restraint even as he nipped at the fragile skin at the bend of her shoulder, pressing with sharp teeth hard enough to leave reddened marks. The girl made helpless sounds of pleasure in his ear, recognizable even though he could not see her face.

  Aura clung to him like he was her only port in a storm of unrecognizable emotions. She barely knew this man, but that had not stopped her from allowing him into her body in whatever way he pleased. Her fingers moved over his back, tracing the thin pattern of scars decorating his skin.

  Castor thrust sharply into her and Aura’s nails dug into the muscled flesh of his back, drawing a low groan from him. He turned them in a dancing movement and forced her against the stone wall at the edge of the pool. Pointed rocks dug painfully into her back but she was beyond caring about such slight pain. Her perspective had narrowed to only the sensation of his hard flesh moving in and out of her in a punishingly slow rhythm.

  It didn’t take long for her to realize that he deliberately prolonged the encounter. He ignored her desperate hands as they pulled at his shoulders and the breathless mewls escaping her lips as she begged him for what she needed.

  The more frantically she tried to spur him faster, the slower Castor’s movements became. And he laughed when she snarled at him, then caught her hands with one of his and raised them above her head to press against the rough stone when she tried to strike him. His thrusts continued at the same agonizingly slow pace and Aura feverishly wondered if he could keep this up forever.

  She ground down on him but he stilled her movements with a hand that gripped her hip hard enough to bruise. He growled in warning which only clenched her belly in a spasm that sent shocks shooting up her spine.

  Aura looked up into unfathomable eyes, deeper than the pool surrounding them. For a moment, it was as if she were falling into the very depths of his soul and about to lose herself completely. But he seemed similarly caught and did not tear his gaze away as the pace of his thrusts grew more frantic.

  They stared at each other in the heat and the silence. It was difficult to say which of them broke first, perhaps the fever finally consumed them both at the same moment.

  His mouth descended on hers in a movement that was more than possessive. The kiss robbed her of what little breath she had left, but Aura was beyond the need for something as insignificant as oxygen. At that moment, he was what sustained her. She fed off of him like she was starving and he was her first meal in weeks.

  Not only did Aura not resist him but responded more strongly than Castor could have imagined. Her hands pulled against his grip until he released her. Immediately, her arms descended to wrap around his neck and her legs rose to clutch tighter on his hips, binding them together with a grip much stronger than her small body should have been capable of.

  They moved together as the pace intensified, steady strokes becoming dysrhythmic as she writhed underneath him. Their kiss turned savage as he bit at her lips hard enough to draw blood. That small taste was enough to drive him completely wild.

  Castor thrust into her with bruising force, driving her body back against the rock. Her flesh gripped him tight as the beginnings of orgasm pulsed through the walls of her perfect cunt. His knot was already swelling, making it harder to drive in and out of her, but he forced her to take all of him. She screamed into his mouth, the sound a heady mix of pleasure and pain. But the grip of her arms and legs did not loosen around him even as her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Her pussy clamped down tight on his knot, forcing him deep within her and finally stilling the sharp thrusts of his hips.

  The irrepressible force of her flesh around his locked them together. Tantalizing skin pressed close against his mouth as he buried his face in the curve of her neck. Her scent overwhelmed him, luring him to take the next step to cement their connection in that most final way.

  Aura was lost to the sensations and barely on the edge of consciousness. She had no conception of the battle that waged within the man who held her crushed to his chest. Her only thought before she passed out completely was that she never wanted to wake from this dream.

  Castor resisted the terrible urge that suffused his every cell with a herculean effort. The shock-waves of pleasure tripping up his spine were not nearly enough of a distraction from the compulsion.

  His fist descended on the rock near her head, over and over again until the flesh was bruised and bleeding, bone cracking against the solid surface. The pain was enough to bring him back to himself so that he did not force his mark on the nearly unconscious girl in his arms.

  He had to get her to safety, if only to save her from himself.

  Aura snapped awake, overheated and anxious. Hot water still enveloped her, her face just barely above the surface. Surprise made her thrash, tipping her body from where it floated atop the pool. She inhaled a mouthful of the water which left her choking and gasping for air.

  The hands that had been keeping her afloat immediately shifted her upright as she coughed up the water. The burning sensation of fluid in her lungs eventually subsided.

  Her fear receded as she was gathered against a massive chest, the back of her head resting on his shoulder as her legs floated to the top of the water. She could see her toes poking through the surface in the bare light like tiny animals coming up for air.

  That thought made her giggle.

  An answering purr rumbled against her back and his hands came up to skim across her arms, tickling her. She had not thought him capable of playfulness and she sat with that realization for a moment, testing it for truth. Who was this man?

  They both understood that the sense of contentment that had settled over them couldn’t possibly last. Their situation was too precarious and they were complete strangers, despite the multiple times their bodies had joined.

  But neither seemed ready to break the spell as they floated in the dim light. It was impossible to see the edges of the pool from where they drifted in the center. Aura imagined herself in the vastness of space, lost to anything that tied her to reality. The fog and darkness enveloped them like a lover’s embrace, separating them from the savagery of the real world.

  A distant roar echoed off of the cave walls, still far away but close enough to shatter the silence.

  Aura turned in his arms and stared up at Castor’s face with wide eyes. His expression was inscrutable, but she felt them moving through the water as he propelled her toward the cave’s exit.

  “We go.”

  How could she have forgotten, even for a moment, the dangers that lurked in this place? She never should have let him take her away from the relative safety of that cabin.

  Castor did not speak as he carried her out of the pool and mounted the steps that would take them back to the surface. They had lingered overly long at the hot spring because he had enjoyed the rare moment of peace too much to let it go. And now they might pay the price for his dist
raction.

  He had scouted out ahead before bringing the Omega to ensure the area was clear of the other Alphas that roamed this quadrant. But that had been hours ago, plenty of time for one to pick up their scent.

  It wasn’t himself that he feared would be in danger. Even though he was now trapped here, this wasn’t his first foray into the Forbidden Zone. His father had brought him out here for the first time as a child to hunt wild game. Castor knew how to survive in hostile conditions. After only a day, he had found the only hunting blind in this sector and fortified it against the feral Alphas who had lost all grip on sanity and viciously attacked anything that moved, including each other. He could survive out here indefinitely.

  But the girl was something else entirely.

  Whether he wanted it or not, he had established himself as her protector and that job was far from over. She seemed even more fragile in his arms, her weight barely enough to slow his ascent as he took the carved steps two at a time.

  Aura clung to him, fingers locked together at the back of his neck as she hung on for dear life. A fine tremor coursed over her body and he could practically taste her fear.

  But she was smart enough to remain silent as the path ahead of them grew brighter and they finally reached the surface. Though the wild men who lived here had little in the way of true conscious awareness of their actions, they had the heightened senses of the predators they most resembled. Even the smallest sound would reach the ears of an Alpha that was miles away.

  Castor shifted his hold on the tiny Omega so she sat high on his back with her arms locked around his neck, leaving his hands free. His footfalls were nearly silent as he dashed through the forest, placing each step to avoid the crunch of underbrush.

  Aura had locked her legs around his waist, fearful that she would go flying off of his back as the Alpha raced down the path. She might have been impressed by his physical prowess if she were not so focused on searching for any movement in the trees.