Candescent

by Zoey Ellis

  As he sus­pected, she was al­ready soak­ing wet. She had been ex­cited by the chase as much as he, and it in­fu­ri­ated him fur­ther that she’d had her legs wrap around an­other.

  He drove in to the hilt as she wrig­gled and fought, but he didn’t miss the groan that came from her throat when he was seated all the way in. Pulling back, he ex­haled gruffly as her chan­nel gripped him, cling­ing on and mas­sag­ing him so well. But this wasn’t the time for plea­sure. She had to learn.

  Thorec fucked Ria in long, hard jolts. He didn’t touch her breasts, or her stom­ach, or even ca­ress her hips. Nor did he kiss her or lay his weight on her. He sim­ply fucked her, hold­ing her down on the ground so she couldn’t move.

  Her dis­sat­is­fac­tion rose im­me­di­ately. She wrig­gled and whined and whim­pered, seek­ing com­fort but find­ing none, and even­tu­ally she spread her knees wider and humped up to meet his thrusts. It still wasn’t enough.

  She hissed and fought him for what she wanted, like he knew she would, kick­ing out her legs and at­tempt­ing to lift from the ground.

  “What?” Thorec barked. “What do you need?”

  Ria’s gaze was deadly. “You al­ready know.”

  “Do I? I thought we Al­phas were all in­ter­change­able. I’m giv­ing you ex­actly what you would have got­ten from that Al­pha.”

  Ria snarled, clench­ing down on him, and the burst of plea­sure was so in­tense, he couldn’t breathe for a mo­ment. “If you can’t fuck me like I want, you’re no good to me, Al­pha.”

  Thorec grabbed her hair, a surge of an­noy­ance bound­ing in his chest. “How do you want to fucked, Omega?”

  Ria pressed her lips to­gether, the lin­ger­ing tears in her eyes build­ing. He knew she wouldn’t say it—she couldn’t. Be­cause she didn’t know. Ev­ery­thing be­tween them was so in­nate, so in­stinc­tual, it was im­pos­si­ble to ver­bal­ize all the things he knew to do for her.

  As their eyes re­mained locked, his hand trailed up her stom­ach, then pinched her nip­ple, the wet slam of his thrusts a rhyth­mic melody of his con­trol over her. She keened, try­ing to arch her back, but couldn’t.

  “Please,” she whis­pered, her hips pump­ing up, beg­ging. “Please, do it.”

  Thorec watched her strug­gle, try­ing to de­ter­mine what he needed to do to dom­i­nate her heart. He knew he had her body, but he wanted ev­ery­thing; her heart, her mind, her soul—that was the only way to keep her with him, to stop her wan­der­ing away. Ul­ti­mately he wanted her to bite him—to choose to mate with him and claim him as her Al­pha—but she was lost. And he needed to an­chor her.

  Thorec let out a gruff ex­hale and leaned in to­ward her. “I told you the first time I caught you that you will never win against me, Ria,” he growled as she panted, her eyes wide on him. “I want you in my home as my mate, and that will never change. No mat­ter how many times you try to run from me, I will al­ways win. Ac­cept it.”

  Ria pressed her lips to­gether, nar­row­ing her eyes at him.

  “Ac­cept it!” he bel­lowed, with a hard thrust.

  “Fine,” she snapped, her eyes flash­ing. “I ac­cept it. I will come with you and be a shell of a per­son for you to fuck and breed and waste away into noth­ing.” Her eyes were still filled with tears, and her lip trem­bled, but it was the de­fi­ance in her gaze that Thorec thrived on. Ria would never waste away into noth­ing. She was too strong-willed, too de­ter­mined to be any­one’s meek breeder. And he loved that.

  So he re­warded her well. He kissed her deeply, speed­ing up his thrusts in­side her un­til he was ram­ming her the way she liked, the force of it shunt­ing her across the floor. He grabbed her ass and yanked her even harder up onto his length as she moaned and sighed. Grab­bing her breasts, he laved her hard, lit­tle nip­ples roughly, suck­ing and twist­ing his mouth around them un­til she was cry­ing out, her back arched.

  When she fi­nally came, her whole body seized and shud­dered, and Thorec held her through it, grat­i­fied to watch his Omega in such a beau­ti­ful state, be­fore flip­ping her over, and driv­ing in again.

  By the time they were both spent, sweat and fluid sat­u­rated their cloth­ing and cov­ered ev­ery inch of ex­posed skin. Their min­gled scent per­me­ated the now empty hall­way, and ex­haus­tion ached in Thorec’s joints. Within mo­ments, Ria was asleep in his arms, and as soon as his knot shrunk, he lifted her to take her back home. She might not re­al­ize she had a home with him yet, but she soon would.

  * * *

  Chap­ter Eight

  RIA

  The gen­eral didn’t waste any time tak­ing her back to Ariyon. He also didn’t take any chances leav­ing her unat­tended, pre­fer­ring to keep his hands on her at all times.

  Ria didn’t care.

  She told him she would go back with him, and she would… un­til she fig­ured out what she was go­ing to do.

  Her dis­ap­point­ment in her brother scored her deep. She’d been sure he would un­der­stand how im­por­tant it was for her that the two of them re­unite and find a home to­gether, but he didn’t care about that as much as she did. The Lox was his fam­ily now.

  On re­flec­tion, she wasn’t sure what she ex­pected. They hadn’t spo­ken for so long, and it should have been ob­vi­ous, his life would be changed now. The gen­eral had even told her that Al­phas were trained to be loyal to the Lox to the death. Maybe her in­ten­tions had been child­ish and naive, but peo­ple made sac­ri­fices for their fam­ily all the time. She’d seen it when she trav­eled the Lands. The ded­i­ca­tion Jaythen had to the Lox should not be stronger than his will­ing­ness to re­con­nect with his miss­ing sis­ter, should it? It soured her feel­ings for him that he could so eas­ily sug­gest that she go with the gen­eral in­stead of fig­ure out how they could be a fam­ily. But she had to ac­cept that it wasn’t pos­si­ble—at least not the way she’d en­vis­aged it—and the thought made her hol­low on the in­side.

  She couldn’t bear the thought of trav­el­ing again right now, jump­ing from place to place and see­ing oth­ers live their lives while she had noth­ing. So, she let the gen­eral take her back to Ariyon, and set­tle her in his house, and in his bed.

  Strangely on the way back, he took her to his base where all of his men had gath­ered and in­tro­duced her to them. She barely said any­thing to them, al­though they all greeted her en­thu­si­as­ti­cally.

  For the first few days, she lost her­self in the gen­eral’s at­ten­tions. He kept her in bed, con­stantly sticky with his flu­ids and stretched to break­ing point by his knot. It wasn’t as though she com­plained. In fact, she lost her­self in the rap­tur­ous pres­sure that he of­fered, know­ing that it wouldn’t last for­ever.

  She thought he wouldn’t want her af­ter she’d fool­ishly and emo­tion­ally thrown her­self at an­other Al­pha. She couldn’t be­lieved she’d been so stupid—any­thing could have hap­pened to her. But in­stead of dis­card­ing her, the gen­eral had tor­mented and dom­i­nated her in front of ev­ery­one. And she could say she hated the ex­pe­ri­ence. She was thor­oughly con­fused by him and her re­ac­tion to him.

  Af­ter a week, he fi­nally left the bed­room for the first time, and Ria re­mained in bed for about an hour be­fore be­com­ing rest­less. As she dressed and ex­plored the house, she re­al­ized the gen­eral had left the house en­tirely. Un­cer­tainty gripped her un­til she re­al­ized she was free.

  So, she sad­dled one of the horses in his sta­bles and rode away from the house, ex­plor­ing the farm­lands of Ariyon.

  By mid-af­ter­noon, she’d ended up by one of the ports near the bor­der to Neka, a neigh­bor­ing ter­ri­tory. The Ariyon sea looked beau­ti­ful in the af­ter­noon light, and she sat and watched the waves for a long while.

  “Ex­cuse me, Miss Ria.”

  Ria started at the ap­pear­ance of a small woman with an apron stand­ing next to her. She hadn�
��t even heard her ap­proach.

  “I don’t mean to star­tle you,” the woman said apolo­get­i­cally. “You have been here for quite a while.” She lifted a plate filled with cakes. “Would you like some­thing to eat and drink?”

  Ria smiled at her. “Thank you, but no. I don’t want to cause any trou­ble for you.”

  The woman chuck­led. “It’s no trou­ble at all,” she in­sisted. “We have been wait­ing for you.”

  Ria tilted her head. “Wait­ing for me?”

  “Yes. We baked for the whole week since you ar­rived, hop­ing that you would come this way.”

  Ria stared at the woman, con­fused. “Why?”

  The woman shrugged, grin­ning. “Why not?” She held out a hand to help Ria up. Ria hes­i­tated, look­ing over the woman for a long mo­ment. Her skin was worn, and her strag­gly brown hair was stuffed un­der ma­te­rial wrapped loosely around her head. But her face was open and hon­est and ea­ger, and Ria de­cided to take a chance.

  The woman led her to her house nearby and fed her full of tea and lemon cake while talk­ing about her son’s land, her crops, and the state of trad­ing in Nyek.

  Ria let her talk mostly, com­fort­able to sit and lis­ten, but as the sun­light be­gan to dim, she took her leave, anx­ious not to over­stay her wel­come.

  She wasn’t ready to re­turn to the gen­eral’s house yet, though. So she sat close to the port, watch­ing the boats in the har­bor un­til heavy hooves caught her at­ten­tion.

  She didn’t bother to turn and look, she rec­og­nized the sound and knew whose steed it was. She lis­tened as he ar­rived, dis­mounted, and strode to­ward her, but as he ap­proached, she in­stinc­tively jumped up and ran.

  And he chased.

  The sud­den ex­er­tion was ex­hil­a­rat­ing, and Ria en­joyed the rush of wind against her face and the harsh­ness of her breath in her lungs. The gen­eral let her run for awhile be­fore catch­ing up to her, and when he did, he howled with sat­is­fac­tion as he pushed her to the ground and mounted her.

  It was an in­cred­i­ble ex­pe­ri­ence. His heady scent laced with his sweat made her hum in de­light, and his large hands squeez­ing her thighs sent goose­bumps all over her body. He took her hard and rough, slam­ming so sweetly and ex­pertly into her depths while the chilly night breeze stroked her skin. When he knot­ted her, she was pant­ing, out of breath, claw­ing the ground and whin­ing for more, even though she was ex­hausted. He gath­ered her into his arms and stroked her cheek as he gazed at her, her breath­ing re­turn­ing to nor­mal.

  “Did you have a good day?” he asked, his voice grav­elly and low.

  Ria blinked in sur­prise, re­al­iz­ing bloom­ing. “You let me leave the house.”

  “You’re not a pris­oner.”

  Ria di­gested that for a mo­ment. “The woman here is very nice,” she said, ges­tur­ing back to­ward the build­ing. “She gave me cake.”

  “Did you like it?” the gen­eral asked.

  Ria nod­ded but said no more. It felt strange to be talk­ing to the gen­eral about mun­dane things.

  “You were born in the Ariyon moun­tains.” He said it as a state­ment, but Ria knew he wanted her to con­firm it.

  “Yes”

  “You were taken as a child for the Omega cause.”

  Ria nod­ded, feel­ing numb.

  “You were a spy?”

  “Sort of,” she replied. “I gath­ered sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion for my su­pe­ri­ors, so they could dis­sem­i­nate it to the real spies.”

  Gen­eral Thorec was silent for a long while. “You have been trained to hate the Lox.”

  Ria sighed heav­ily. “The Lox changed ev­ery­thing in the East­ern Lands. It frac­tured the Omega cause. I didn’t have a pur­pose af­ter that hap­pened.”

  “So you trav­eled the Lands?”

  “Yes. But as I said, I couldn’t rec­og­nize the world any­more. I have no place in it.”

  The gen­eral’s thumb brushed her bot­tom lip. “You have a place here with me, Ria. Al­ways.”

  Ria didn’t know what to say to that, so she said noth­ing, en­joy­ing him stroking her face and neck.

  Af­ter his knot shrunk, he took her back to the house to sleep in his arms.

  The next day, she left the house soon af­ter Thorec, and this time rode in the op­po­site di­rec­tion. Pass­ing a few fields, she came across an enor­mous farm­house. She slowed as she passed by, amazed by the size of it, and sev­eral young men and women spilling out of the build­ing waved at her, beck­on­ing for her to stop.

  “Wel­come, Miss Ria,” one of them said as they ap­proached her. “Would you like some cake? I think you’ll en­joy it. We can give you a tour too.”

  Ria stut­tered, un­sure how to an­swer. This was too sim­i­lar to what hap­pened yes­ter­day—it was strange. She tried to de­cline, but the young man’s en­thu­si­asm had in­fected the rest of them, and they were so ex­cited that she agreed and slipped down from her horse.

  She dis­cov­ered that the farm­house build­ing was ac­tu­ally a school where many chil­dren were ed­u­cated on farm­ing, Lox prin­ci­ples, and gen­eral stud­ies about the Lox Em­pire, Al­pha, Beta, Omega dy­nam­ics, and trade law. By the time Ria made her way back out, her head spun with ev­ery­thing she’d dis­cov­ered.

  She set­tled down nearby on one of the fields while her horse grazed and drank. It was so peace­ful in Ariyon. She’d never stopped to con­sider it be­fore, but this was much more prefer­able to the busy, bustling cities she’d been in.

  As dusk ar­rived, so did Gen­eral Thorec, and as he ap­proached, she once again ran from him. She wasn’t sure why she did it. It seemed right to make him chase her if he wanted her. And she couldn’t ig­nore how aroused it made her when he did.

  Of course, he caught up to her and took her bru­tally in the field, her ass high in the air as he worked in and out of her from the be­hind, dry grass scratch­ing her face.

  Af­ter he’d knot­ted her and pulled her into his arms as their pant­ing calmed, the gen­eral asked about her day.

  “I found a school,” Ria said.

  The gen­eral nod­ded. “One of the Lox train­ing cen­ters.”

  Ria was silent for a mo­ment. She’d seen the Lox train­ing cen­ters when she’d trav­eled the Lands but had never been in one. It was dif­fer­ent from what she ex­pected. “I thought they trained Lox war­riors in there.”

  “Dif­fer­ent cen­ters pro­vide dif­fer­ent things in each of the ter­ri­to­ries.”

  Ria nod­ded. “They gave me cake,” she said, watch­ing him sus­pi­ciously.

  The gen­eral just nod­ded. “Did you like it?”

  “Why are peo­ple of­fer­ing me cake?”

  “You liked that par­tic­u­lar type of cake when you were lit­tle.”

  Ria jolted in sur­prise, her eyes widen­ing on him. “How do you know that?”

  “Your brother told me.”

  Ria could do noth­ing but stare at him, her mouth dropped open. How had he man­aged to get in­for­ma­tion from her brother?

  “Your brother isn’t averse to get­ting to know you, Ria,” the gen­eral said, his eyes ex­am­in­ing her face. “Or giv­ing you in­for­ma­tion. He just couldn’t do what you were ask­ing.”

  Ria nod­ded glumly. “It was un­rea­son­able to ask, I sup­pose. I just thought he would be as pas­sion­ate about find­ing me again as I was about him.”

  Gen­eral Thorec was quiet for a long mo­ment. “How did you find out about him.”

  “My su­pe­ri­ors told some of us that we had fam­ily in the Lands. Non-omega sis­ters, broth­ers, and par­ents. It seemed to make sense to find him in­stead of wan­der­ing around aim­lessly. I thought if he could re­mem­ber things about me, it might give me a clue what to do next, or at least a sense of home.”

  The Al­pha nuz­zled her neck as he nod­ded. “Do you know why he calls you Ri­ora?”r />
  “He said that is my full name.” She hes­i­tated. “So you asked him for in­for­ma­tion about me, and he gave it?”

  “Yes.”

  Ria wasn’t sure whether she should be an­noyed about that or not. She went to him for help, but in­stead, he’d helped her Al­pha. She froze at her thought. Her Al­pha. Strangely it didn’t send panic through her like it had when the em­press said it. “So, you told ev­ery­one I like lemon cake?”

  The gen­eral chuck­led, a rough rum­ble in his chest. “The farm­ers are ea­ger for you to like it here.”

  Ria’s brows rose in sur­prise. “Why?”

  The gen­eral brushed his lips along her cheek. “You are the first Omega who is openly liv­ing with an Al­pha out­side of Ashens. They want you to stay.”

  Ria pursed her lips. “Are you not wor­ried I will es­cape or be at­tacked? Let­ting me roam around Ariyon?”

  The gen­eral tight­ened his grip on her. “Do you think I would let you roam around Ariyon if I hadn’t en­sured that you were be­ing pro­tected at all times? Or if I thought you could es­cape? Ev­ery­thing has been made se­cure so you can­not—all ports and bor­ders.”

  Ria had to smile. “That sounds like a chal­lenge.”

  He pressed his mouth to her ear, his hot breath send­ing shiv­ers down her spine. “It is not, lit­tle Ria. The chal­lenge is for you to stay.”

  The pat­tern of Ria’s day re­mained the same for the rest of the week and then ex­tended to sev­eral weeks. It was only when the sea­son changed, bring­ing with it blus­tery winds and smat­ter­ings of icy rain that she re­al­ized she’d been in Ariyon for at least three months. This was the long­est she’d stayed any­where.

  Ev­ery day she con­sid­ered where in the Lands she would go next. She’d been to al­most ev­ery ter­ri­tory and knew what to ex­pect when she got there, but she couldn’t de­cide her next des­ti­na­tion. Even so, she tried not to set­tle where she was, know­ing that within the next month or so, she would leave.