“Wh…what?” She blinks.
“I am going to fuck you now.”
22
Chloe
“What the—?” I stare at him. Another wave of heat flushes over my skin, and I pant. “Wh…what do you mean?”
His lips twist; a nerve tics at his jaw. “Where you are concerned, I have no self-control.” He kicks his hips forward, and his dick slams right inside, glancing off of my pelvic bone.
“Ow.”
Pain sparks at my nerve endings. He crams every millimeter of my channel. The rough ridges of his shaft scrape over my sensitive walls, and I frown.
He braces himself on his elbows, the muscles of his biceps bulging and trembling as they hold up his weight. He’s keeping most of his bulk off of me, but the position of his hips on mine, his dick throbbing inside of me is enough to restrain me.
The strength of his dominance pins me down. The scent of him, the thrumming purrs that reverberate up his chest, the overabundance of testosterone in the air crowds in and sends me over the edge.
I clutch his shoulders, and his muscles flex against my fingers.
I throw back my head, and he leans down to nip the exposed skin of my throat.
The breath slides out of me, my heart hammers, and my pulse pounds, a beat picked up by the sensitized flesh between my legs.
“Fuck…” his big body twitches.
Sweat coats his beautiful shoulders, and I have this insane desire to lean up and lick it. No. I don’t want to do that. I will not participate in this brutal fucking of my body…so why do I enjoy it so much?
I squeeze my eyes shut to block out the sight of those gorgeous golden eyes. That stern countenance, those cruel lips. He is my nemesis. My master. The conductor of the orchestra that is the finely tuned nerves of my body, all of which flare, pop, and open for him. Liquid lust spikes my blood. My toes curl.
Then he begins to move. He pumps his hips, kicks forward, shoving his dick inside my poor channel, again and again. Each time he pounds against the sensitive inner muscles, sending out ever-widening whorls of heat, lust…pure sensation. This is what it must be like to be completely alive. To be taken and used like I am the last omega on Earth. And he is the only alpha who can do this. The other half of me. My captor who completes me.
It's thrilling and terrifying at the same time.
The tendons of my throat move, and he sweeps his gaze down my flushed countenance. He watches me, studies my every reaction, searching my features. Every cry I stifle, every moan that slips out, every broken hitch of my breath is taken and stored away in a corner of his mind. I have no doubt he will use it against me. Even as he kicks his hips forward, he plunges his dick to the furthest extent inside of me. His knot blooms at the base of my channel, locking into place. His face hardens; his eyes glare at me. Is he still angry with me? What is he waiting for? What does he want from me?
His dick throbs inside, pushing, shoving, yearning for more, more than I can give him. More than what I want from him. Who is taking from whom? It doesn’t matter anymore. He thrusts his hips again, and his dick locks behind my pelvic bone. And still, he doesn’t come. He waits and watches and studies my face. Then, balancing his weight on one elbow, he brings his other hand down, slips it between our sweating bodies, and thrums my clit. Goosebumps pop on my skin, my chest heaves, and white heat radiates out from where we are connected, swooping up to writhe in my chest. Swirling, twining, it shoots out, up my shoulders, behind my eyelids to my crown.
“Come.”
His growl whips over me, and all of my brain cells fire at once. My womb contracts, slick gushes out to bathe his dick, and I explode. I throw my head back and open my mouth, and he closes his over mine, absorbing my screams as I hear his hoarse shout, as if it’s inside of me. His body shudders, his flanks flex, and then he shoots hot streams of cum inside of me.
My breath wheezes in and out and a chill sweeps down my body. All of my bones seem to rattle at once, and my teeth chatter. His dick throbs, and I realize he’s still inside of me. Without disengaging, he flips positions so I lie on his chest. He brings my palms down to slide them between our bodies. The warmth of him…it’s better than a furnace. It’s living, breathing heat, different from the sauna cloying inside of me. It sinks into my blood, heats my skin. He rubs his palms over mine, cupping them in his. He closes his thighs around my feet—yeah, that’s how much shorter than him I am.
I melt into his chest, my skin fusing with his. His deep purrs encircle my shoulders. He locks his arms around me, then tucks my head under his chin.
“Sleep,” he commands, and I don’t resist.
There’s a touch against my forehead. Did he kiss me? Nah. The tenderness in that touch, that affection, all of it is an illusion. A ploy to get me to trust him, and that I will not do.
The blackness tugs at the edge of my subconscious, when something niggling at the back of my mind comes to the fore. “Wait.” I mumble. My eyelids close, “You called me Cara. What does that mean?”
23
Kayden
“Cara.” I whisper. “It means beloved.”
An alpha's instinct cannot be tamed, least of all by rational thought. It's why I had used the endearment without conscious thought. It's also what my father used to call my mother, before she was taken.
When had my feelings toward this tiny omega begun to change? When had she become more than a hostage? She's no longer only a pawn in this transaction between me and Zeus?
Her breathing deepens, and I clasp her over my chest. She snuggles in. Her softness curves into my hard planes; her hips fit into the hard angles of my waist. Her fingers are curled against my breastbone. I slide a finger through them, and she clutches at it.
A low hum of contentment rolls in her throat.
An answering purr rumbles from mine. Her skin glows with my ministrations. She's content, flushed with sex, and replete with my cum. Her body is spent from the orgasms I wrung from her. The high of endorphins from the knotting will ensure that she sleeps for a while longer.
I play my fingers down the ridges of her spine. Small. Delicate. So trusting. So fucking gorgeous.
I'd seen her and known she was my mate.
It's why I had claimed her on the terrace of the Omega harem.
It's what I had been trying to deny ever since.
I was wrong to expose her to my alphas, to allow them to touch her, to fill their gazes with her curves, her scent infusing the space and driving them to want her.
I made a mistake and I intend to make it up to her. I intend to give her so much pleasure that she’ll forget the pain I’ve inflicted on her so far—the emotional pain, that is. On the physical level…my demands go beyond a normal alpha-omega coupling. This was an initiation, meant to ease her into the heat cycle. Until she comes out of it, I will stay with her. Feed her and bathe her. Fuck her and rut her until her estrus breaks.
I will make sure she wants for nothing during this time.
And if it means I intend to use pain to push her over the edge of pleasure, I can be forgiven, right? The gratification from the experience will more than compensate for any gaps in my ministrations.
She mutters under her breath, and I increase the pace of my purring. Rolling out the vocals, the subtle tones, the hums, the lows of the vibes, twirling it around her and cocooning her in a space where she can float, content. Uninterrupted.
When her breathing deepens, I move her to my side. My knot loosens, and I slide out my dick. Moisture gushes out from her sweet channel. Scooping up a mixture of our combined cum, I rub it in over her pussy, her hips, across the curves of her stomach, her breasts, covering as much of her as I can get to, pausing only to smear some over her lips. I pull up an arm and tie her wrist to the headboard. I make sure the tether is long enough for her to sleep and move around the bed if needed, without restriction. Then, rolling off of the bed, I shrug into my discarded fatigues. Not bothering with a shirt or socks, I unbolt the door, closing and locking it
behind me. I cross the kitchen floor, closing the door behind me there, too. Can’t have any of my team coming too close.
Dom looks up from the chair in the corner. He marks his space in the book he’s reading and snaps it shut.
“This place is going to be off-limits for a while, I take it?”
He waits as I cross the room and drop into the chair next to him. “I need food, clothes for her.” Not that I am going to let her wear clothes, of course, but it never hurts to be prepared.
“The kitchen’s stocked. I took the precaution to get these.” Dom bends and picks up the bag I hadn’t noticed. “I had Lisa pack some clothes for her.”
“How’s she doing?” I take the bag.
“She’s turning eighteen in a few months.” His jaw flexes. Lisa’s his daughter, and one of the reasons he’s perhaps overly protective about omegas, in general. Doesn’t help being the father to a breeder, and finding that overnight, she has blossomed into the kind of woman that every alpha in the square mile around her wants to rut.
“We need to find a way out of here and back into the city. If she goes into heat here in the wild, with nothing but me as protection between her and the rest…” His big palm clenches around the book.
My gaze drops down, and his clasp loosens. He smooths out the cover then sets it aside.
“It was my fault that the others turned on her.” I jut my chin toward the kitchen door and the woman who is in my bedroom.
“Does your omega have a name?”
I peer at him. “Huh?”
“A name? She has one, right?”
I dig my fingers into my hair. “I…ah.” I crack my neck. “You trying to tell me something, Second?”
“Only that you haven’t the first idea how to treat omegas. Don’t let what happened between your father and mother blind you to the possibilities of how it could be with a mate.”
“And how do you know that? How do you really know what transpired between them? Other than her being raped and him taking her back, and then the two of them never getting over the incident. It would have been better if they’d lived separately than do what they did to each other. They destroyed each other slowly with words over many years. Better if he had broken off the mating bond. At least I wouldn’t have had to watch each of them die slowly.” My lips twist. By the time Golan had come for her that second time she'd been ready to give up her life. Is that why she'd sacrificed herself? To save me?
Only her death had been in vain, for Golan hadn't stopped there. The things he'd done to me afterwards...perhaps it was a relief that she'd been gone by then.
Dom doesn't know about it.
No one does.
“They stayed together for you.” Dom places his elbows on his thighs and steeples his fingers.
“I would have been better off if they had stopped pretending and tried to be truthful about the fact that whatever had been between them was over the day Golan raped my mother.”
“The way you are pretending now?”
“The fuck does that mean?” Springing up to my feet, I pace. “If it’s about her—”
“The omega who you kidnapped and who’s name you haven't even bothered to find out?”
“I didn’t—” I clamp my jaw shut. I did take her. I did knot her. And, yeah, it was against her will. Oh, she enjoyed it, too…but I hadn’t exactly given her a choice to back away, had I? I wouldn’t have listened if she had said ‘No’ either. I am an alpha male, I take. That’s what I do, right?
“What if one day someone does that to my daughter? I’d…I’d…” His voice breaks.
I swivel around to look at him. “I won’t let that happen. I can’t pretend to understand what it means to have someone depend on me. But I took an oath to protect my country and its constituents, and that includes my clan.”
“And yet you agreed to barter the omegas who came to this country to seek protection from the Vikings.”
“I had my reasons.” I clench my fists at my sides.
He frowns; his gaze narrows.
Why do I owe an explanation to him? Why do I owe him anything? The man annoys me with his holier-than-thou attitude. He is cautious, more seasoned…everything I am not. It’s why I need him. I may be arrogant enough to strategize. I can pull off the most audacious plans. I am cocky enough to try to bring Zeus to his knees. Assured enough to do everything in my power to take my country back from him…but I am also egotistical enough to not want to lose everything with one mistake. I am not my father. It’s why I keep Dom around. Much as he drives me up the wall and frustrates me, I need Dom as a natural speed breaker. Someone who forces me to think things through…that’s when I allow him enough knowledge of what I am up to.
“I didn’t share the entire plan with you.”
His chest rises and falls. He squints, but he stays silent.
“I had promised the omegas to the Vikings only because I was buying time.”
“You had no intention of handing them over?”
“No.” I drum my fingers on my chest. “I used it to play Ethan against Zeus, but that plan backfired.”
“Something I’d have told you in advance if you had thought to confide in me.”
“I wasn't sure who among my council I could trust.”
“Hence the test earlier?"
He nods toward the table in the center of the room. The one where I had asked her to climb on naked. Had exposed her to the eyes of my fellow clan members. Had tempted them to get a reaction from them. I had tested them, yes, but I hadn’t realized that it had been a test of my intentions. One way of finding out what I felt for her. I had claimed her, but refused to acknowledge it…until that moment when another man had had his hands all over her.
“I made a mistake.”
My voice comes out gravelly, my tone unsteady. The fuck? It's the first time I have admitted aloud to him that I was wrong, about anything.
He leans back in his chair. "You hurt her. She may never forgive you for what you did."
I clench my fists and turn away from him. A dull thud beats behind my eyeballs. He's right. Fuck the man, but he is. I can try to make it up to her, but doesn't change what I did to her.
I swivel around to face him. A flicker of something… an understanding? — laces his features.
“I don’t need your empathy.” I growl.
“Not getting any from me, Kayden.” One side of his lips quirks. “I’ve been there, you know.”
“Huh?”
“I had Lisa when I turned eighteen. The physical attraction between me and her omega mother was the most overwhelming thing I had ever experienced. I carried Daria home, locked her up and knotted her." He swallows. "When I found out she was pregnant, I claimed her. It seemed the right thing to do…except…she was all wrong for me.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “Is there a point to this, old man?” I toss my head. “Hearing about your personal life is all well and good, not that it’s not interesting…not, actually.” I pretend to yawn. “But if you came here hoping to come around to the fact that I am doing something wrong here in your usual convoluted Dom way, I can tell you for free that it’s all wrong.”
His gaze sparks, and he leans forward. The overhead light glances off his bald head, “First, I am only ten years older than you.”
He rises to his feet and slams his palms on his waist. The muscles strain against the sleeves of his T-shirt.
“So you are in good shape for someone…your age.” I smirk.
Color floods his cheeks. “I can outrun you, take you down in a fight anytime, fuck an omega for days at a time—”
“When was the last time you bedded a woman?”
His jaw tics.
“That’s what I thought.” I tilt my head. “All that celibacy shit is screwing with your mind. It makes you horny and brings you in here to live life vicariously.”
“Fuck you.” He closes the distance between us, his fist raised.
“Go ahead.” I glare at him, voice so
ft.
He’s a few millimeters shorter than me; his shoulders are broad. The tendons of his neck flex. His chest heaves. I stay silent, arms by my sides.
He may be an alpha male. Stronger than most men in my clan. But where I am concerned, he is my second.
We stare at each other, unblinking. Tension rolls off of his shoulders. The hair on my nape hardens. Then he lowers his arm, blinks, and looks away.
A breath whooshes from his chest. “I don’t want to fight you, Kayden. We’ve had our differences in the past—”
“Something I respect you for.”
His gaze flicks back to my face; his forehead furrows. “A second compliment in the space of less than ten minutes. You’re losing your touch at being a dickhead.”
“Yeah.” I crack my neck. “You came here to impart some goddamned wisdom, no doubt." My jaw firms. "Have your say, before I lose my patience.”
“Do right by her.” He jerks his thumb toward the kitchen door.
“If not?”
He bares his teeth. “You will. You may have given in to your base instincts where she is concerned, and not that I blame you for it…it’s reassuring actually, shows you are in touch with your emotions. Don’t get me wrong, I am not condoning you for what you did either, but it shows that you are human, something a leader needs to be to stay connected with his people. You’ll do what is best for both of you. Trust yourself, Kayden.” He stabs a finger at me. “Stop fighting your true nature. It’s okay to make mistakes. That’s how we all learn.”
He swivels on his feet and stalks toward the door.
“That’s it?” I frown. “No long-winded lecture on doing my duty, staying true to the heritage of my father…?”
He stops at the door, then shoots me a glance over his shoulder. “Nah, you were right. I was beginning to sound past my prime. Fuck that.” His features crinkle, and he tosses his head. “You have your faults…many of them. Doesn’t make you a monster.”
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