“I come here same as you. Accident.”
There was little point in explaining to her the mission that had sent him to another sector and required a dangerous journey over the Forbidden Zone. He did not have the words in her language to describe it, and she wouldn’t understand even if he did.
“Was it the Sotiri?”
That wasn’t a word he recognized. “No.”
“Then how—”
But her words cut off in a gasp as he lightly stroked the sensitive bud hidden in the coils of hair covering her sex. A visible shiver worked its way down her body, but she didn’t move away from. He wondered if she understood the impulse that kept her beneath him, a practical stranger even after all this, and subsumed any urge to escape.
“You are Omega.” His thumb edged around the pouting lips as her hips shifted, although she did not pull away. “You understand that word? This is what it means.”
She didn't follow the words because he spoke them in his own language, but he planned to show her the truth without the need for speech.
Castor attributed her apparent ignorance to the fact that this must be her first heat cycle. Perhaps her elders had not prepared her sufficiently for what might come once her dynamic had established itself.
If she could speak his language, he would have explained that the mindless animals stalking the forest around this cabin were the perfect embodiment of what it meant to be an Alpha. And that she writhed and begged under the hand of a stranger, despite whatever morals or values she’d held before, because she was an Omega.
Whether or not she’d understood it before, the lesson would be learned now.
They were both broken things, cursed by nature with urges that overwhelmed their humanity. Neither of them should have ever existed.
"You are Omega."
Aura spoke again as she caught the breath she’d been holding. “You speak like the Sotiri.”
She had referred to them many times before, but Castor still did not know who they were. He could infer that these Sotiri had brought her here, but that was not a term that referenced any group he recognized as inhabiting this planet. The girl had said she’d come from space, as improbable as that seemed. Perhaps these Sotiri were an alien race previously unknown to him.
But why would they bring her here?
Castor couldn’t dwell on these impossible questions, not with the squirming and defiant Omega underneath him who responded to his touch like no woman he'd ever had before. The need to possess her overwhelmed any other consideration.
A roar came from outside along with the crash of heavy bodies against the walls. The Alphas outside were growing restless. They would not be safe here indefinitely. Eventually, the ferals would arrive in large enough numbers to overcome their defenses.
But he was as affected by the scent of fertile Omega as the mindless men outside. His gaze flicked over her body in a way that was frankly assessing, nose tilted upwards to scent the air around her.
His hand slipped from between her thighs to roam across her body, spreading the sweet scent of her slick across her skin as she gasped and mewled. The other hand pushed into her tangled hair, using it to force her head to the side so that it faced him. He wondered if it was possible to get lost in her dark eyes.
This girl was much too thin for his tastes, but that was easily remedied. In every other way, Aura was perfect. From the cascade of coiled black hair messily arranged like a halo around her head to the delicate features that scrunched in unwilling pleasure: she seemed made just for him.
Her skin was smooth and Castor explored with interest, using the time to get control of himself. He refused to be like the men outside who completely succumbed to the beast lurking within them. He could control the terrible urges whispering through his mind, even with a begging Omega beneath his hands.
“What have they done to me?” she whispered, tears shining in her wide eyes.
Instead of answering, he lowered his head and captured a peaked nipple between his lips. He felt the urge to use his teeth on the tender flesh but resisted it as her moans filled his ears.
His mouth traced a path along her skin, each new spot softer and more delicious on his tongue than the last. He had been with women before but this was something different. Her body was like a drug and he had become hopelessly addicted.
The bend where her neck met her shoulder was the most tantalizing spot. Here he used teeth, nipping at the skin until it drew harsh gasps from her throat. Part of him hoped to frighten her as punishment for the disrespectful way she’d spoken to him, but that wasn’t the effect he had on her.
Aura’s hands pushed into his hair, gripping the strands near to the scalp and pulling hard. But she wasn’t trying to shove him away, instead her grip on him urged him closer and forced more tantalizing flesh against his mouth.
And when he lifted his head to stare into her eyes, she responded by kissing him. Her lips pressed so sweetly against his that it would have seemed almost innocent if not for the lustful response of her body.
To his surprise, she deepened the kiss and moaned into his mouth like a woman starving for sensation. She didn't look old enough to have had her first heat cycle, but she certainly acted like someone who was fully-grown. He could only assume that the squalid conditions of wherever she'd come from accounted for her small size.
She pulled away to stare at him, lips swollen and eyes clouded with desire. He wondered if she might come to her senses and attempt to shove him away. But her frantic hands pulled him closer, moving over his shoulders and then wrapping around his neck to urge him down onto the furs with her.
Castor distantly wondered what magic this was. There was no haze of estrous to account for her desperate desire or his primal response. He told himself that being trapped in the Forbidden Zone, where every moment was a question of survival, made it so much easier to ignore the civilized parts of their minds. The parts that would never fall into bed with a stranger and cautioned restraint in the face of maddening desire.
The part that had flown out of the nearest window the moment that he laid eyes on her.
He allowed himself to be pulled fully on the bed of furs and into her nest. That was the only thing to call it at this point as she had made the space her own. The girl could leave this cabin and never return but these furs would still be suffused with her delicious scent even after a dozen years had passed.
When he looked back into her face, Castor found her staring up at him with frank curiosity. She no longer seemed to fear him, at least not at that moment when desire overcame her restraint. He wondered what would become of her when they returned to civilization. Her origins were still unclear because he found her story of a mysterious space station impossible to believe. But he would find a way to return her to wherever it was she came from and be rid of the madness she inspired in him.
Why did that thought fill him with such a sense of loss?
But he had her for now. Castor moved over the prostrate girl who laid back on the furs and simply watched him, the perfect symbol of submission. His head bent over the curve of her hip as his lips pressed softly into the skin.
When he shifted more fully between her spread thighs, he could stare up the line of her body to her face. A touch of fear entered her eyes as he bared his teeth in a dark smile, followed by dreadful anticipation as if she had guessed what he planned to do next.
Aura’s hands had moved over her hips and flattened as she tried to conceal her sex. It was the first time that she had attempted to hide from him. The soft growl that trickled from between his lips was enough for her to hastily return her hands to her sides.
Castor rewarded her with a soft rumbling purr from deep in his chest, the sound enough to send a noticeable tremble through her limbs. He had not made that sound in years prior to meeting her, but it seemed to come innately when he was in her presence.
And he wondered what else would come naturally between them.
Her fingers balled into fists i
n the furs on either side of her hips as his mouth descended to gently blow air along her most sensitive flesh. He inhaled deeply with his nose mere centimeters from the apex of her thighs, enjoying the overwhelming scent that seemed to flit through his nostrils and curl straight up to hijack his mind.
Castor rolled his eyes up to watch her face as his mouth descended on her cunt.
Hands rose to dig into his scalp as she pushed them into his hair. Though the grip of her nails was painful, he didn't correct the action because she clearly did not intend to control his movements. Instead, she acted out of instinct and clung to the only port in the storm he created within her body.
His tongue lapped at her like he was sampling a tray of desserts, not lingering on any one spot overly long as she writhed beneath him. Memory was hazy from the midst of the rut during her estrous, but he had a distinct memory of forcing himself through her most intimate barrier when he had entered her for the first time. Aura had been untouched before him and had likely never experienced a man’s mouth on her flesh.
It had been a collection of firsts for them both.
Castor amused himself by listening to the different sounds she produced with each movement of his tongue. Low-pitched groans accompanied thrusts into her liquid core but then she responded with sharp gasps as the tip of his tongue tripped over the tiny bud of her clit. And when he used one thick finger to push deep inside of her and twisted it to tease at the bumpy flesh just inside her entrance, she whimpered in a surrender so sweet it was like music to his ears.
He growled again so that more slick spilled from her nether lips and he could lap at the sticky mess it made on her thighs. She gasped his name and he responded by doubling his assault on her sensitive flesh until Aura came completely undone and her body spasmed through orgasm.
Rising above her limp body as she recovered her senses, Castor regarded the Omega with a satisfaction that surprised him. His father had kept a harem of Omegas for as long as Castor had memory, but he had never understood what the fuss was all about. Unmated Omegas had been offered to him by the dozens over the years, most from political families wanting a connection to the Crown or others just hoping to curry favor. But he had never imagined that it could be like this.
“Are all Omegas on your station like you?”
Aura eyed him curiously. For a moment, Castor assumed that he had chosen the wrong words and she did not understand. But then she shook her head in a sharp negative.
“I’d never heard that word before the Sotiri took me away. There are no such thing as Omegas where I come from.”
Chapter Nine
Aura watched from the bed of furs as Castor paced around the room like a caged animal, seemingly unconcerned with his own nudity. She had difficulty tearing her eyes away from the overly large member that swung against his thigh as he strode back and forth across the room. Even as he insisted that she repeat what she had said for the fourth time.
“The Sotiri arrived at the Citadel weeks ago,” she said, fighting off a wave of bone-deep exhaustion. It had to have been at least a day since she had last slept. “No one knows where they come from but they hand out rations and are repairing some damage that’s been done to the station. I don’t know what their plans are.”
“No violence?”
“Not that I ever saw.” Aura didn’t want to talk about the Citadel, not now that the chances of ever returning there seemed so remote. And even though she recognized that Castor's anger was not directed at her, that didn’t make it easier to tolerate. “I don’t understand why you’re asking.”
The groans and bellows from the Alphas outside had lessened, but his gaze was locked on the nearest view-hole, expression contemplative. “Why bring you here?”
“I was sick, feverish, they said that they could help me.”
His body froze as the pacing momentarily ceased. He glared down at her with narrowed eyes. “How?”
Sparks of pain burned behind her eyelids as Aura fought to stay upright. At that moment, all she wanted to do was pass out. “What do you mean, how?”
“How you sick?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Sotiri give you something?”
“Only rations. And they’ve provided them dozens of times.” Aura struggled to remember what had occurred before they spirited her off of the station. Exhaustion and trauma had robbed her of memory. “The night before I came here, the rations I had were different from the others. Sort of shiny and more brightly colored. But it tasted the same.”
He seemed to accept her confused explanation but the strained expression did not ease from his face. Her desire for sleep momentarily fled as she watched him go to the window and stare through the view-hole, expression brooding.
Castor stood in profile as the bit of daylight peeking through the edges of the boards covering the window set his face aglow. Everything about him seemed golden as if he was literally suffused with light. All that marred his beauty was the memory of what she had allowed him to do to her.
Because Aura barely recognized herself. The woman who had been trapped here with this beast of a man and twisted by his desires was not really her. Something had been done to warp her mind and force her to accept the unacceptable. But the stirring that caught in her belly as he turned back to face her could not be denied.
“Did the Sotiri do this to me?”
Cerulean eyes flashed as he stared down at her. His gaze moved over her body, starting with the matted hair that hung like a curtain around her face then drifted downward, lingering on the pointed jut of her hips as she sat cross-legged on the furs.
Then he grunted, shaking his head as if to clear it, and turned away without bothering to answer.
Aura found it difficult to hide her frustration with this mercurial male. One moment, he was crawling all over her and compelling her to mate with him. And then in the next, he acted as if she were the most annoying creature that he had ever encountered. The constant flip back and forth was making her head spin.
And it couldn’t just be the language barrier as he appeared to understand most of what she said when he was paying attention. Perhaps he didn’t find her worthy of any additional explanations.
Ire rose within her but was quickly tamped down. She had an overwhelming desire to pick up the nearby basin and chuck it at his head. But there was a good chance that he would just force her back down onto the furs and have his way with her again if she acted on the urge.
She had never thought that joining with a man could be pleasurable. Auntie Nona had filled her head with horrible tales of tearing pain and bruising pressure that would only result in growing big with a child that would likely kill her as it forced itself into the world.
But he also used the pleasure that he could work on her body against her, quieting her anger and stilling her complaints until she was too out of her mind for protest. He was somehow the best and worst thing about being trapped in this terrible place.
So Aura watched him pace as the confusing swirl of emotions whirled through her. His movements did not seem to have any real intent behind them as his frustration apparently took a physical form. She stared down at the furs covering her lap, waiting for him to decide what he was going to do.
Castor surprised her by abruptly turning to glare down at her. His expression had changed, filled now with obvious intent.
He said a jumble of words that were too rushed for her to understand.
At her confused expression, he grunted in frustration and then gestured to his own features as he repeated himself. The last word “Sotiri” was spoken like a question. And she realized that he was asking what they looked like.
“They always wore masks.” She made a gesture over her face when he appeared confused. “I never saw any of their faces. And they wore these white uniforms, brighter than anything I’d ever seen before.”
With their language barrier, she could never be completely sure if he understood what she was saying. But his gaze on her was alert, h
is pacing again halted as he stared down at her.
“White?”
Aura pointed at the faded basin that had likely been a very different color when it was created. “Like this. Only brighter.”
That fact clearly meant something to him. Although as always, he didn’t share his thoughts with her. But something moved behind his eyes, an obvious recognition.
“You know who they are.”
It wasn’t a question.
Castor grunted instead of answering. But instead of returning to the pacing, his movements became purposeful. He moved to the chest and removed piles of leather and fur that had been fashioned into rudimentary garments. They all smelled of him, she could tell that even from across the room.
He tossed them at her and they landed with a thump in her lap.
“What is this?”
His lip curled. “Dress.”
Unable to stop herself, she held the pile up to her nose and deeply inhaled, allowing the scent of him to briefly overwhelm her senses. He wanted to ensure that she smelled like him, but the question was why. “What are you doing?”
Castor hefted more leather garments and tossed them at her. “This will hide scent of you. Wear it.”
“But why?”
He clearly didn’t appreciate her questions, but she sensed that he tried for patience, despite the exasperated expression on his face. “We must leave.”
At his words, a streak of fear moved through her. They couldn’t leave. There were monsters out there. “That’s crazy, why would we leave? You still have food, I saw it.”
Without responding, he pointed at the covered window. The planks of wood were bowed in places from where heavy force had been applied against them, fine cracks showing where there had been none before. The barrier wouldn’t last forever.
But the thought of leaving the safety of this cabin filled her with a terrible dread. As much as she had to tiptoe around this Alpha and his mercurial moods, the men outside represented a true nightmare. They would kill her and tear her apart, not necessarily even in that order. Only a death wish would send her out there.
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