I will not let any child of mine grow up in the shadow of the man who is so confused he doesn’t even know himself.
I must not let him near me again.
The mating cord pulses against my rib cage, insisting that I am wrong. But I shove it aside.
“Kayden.” I push back on the bed and this time sit up without any help. “Why are you here?”
“Isn’t that obvious? You want the safety of the omegas. I want this city.”
“Isn’t there any other way but to kill Zeus?” The moment the words are out, I know it’s a mistake.
Kayden’s features form into a mask. He’s so good at hiding his emotions; his face is inscrutable. Unlike Zeus, who as much as he tries to keep his feelings under control, I can always sense them lying there under the surface. Waiting for me, calling to me, aching…for me. The mating cord whines and shivers. A shudder runs down my body.
“You are bonded to him.” Kayden angles his head. “You care for him.”
My breath catches in my chest. I want to deny it, but from the silence in the room, the way that Kayden stares at me, the way Reena moves away from me, her nostrils flaring as she sniffs me, the realization that Kayden is right dawns on her face, and I know it’s too late.
“So it is him? He is the alpha you are bonded to.” Reena wrings her fingers together, and in this moment it’s clear she is much more omega than alpha.
“Are you going to give me up to him?” I glance from Reena to Kayden.
His lips peel back in a smile. “Give you up? Hell no.” He stalks to the seat and slides back into it, legs parted, chest planes wide, hands gripping the arms of the chair and dwarfing it. “You are bait, sweetheart. The alpha is hunting his mate, and when he gets to you, guess who will be waiting for him?”
34
Zeus
I wake up with my heart pounding. Sweat drips down my back so my vest is stuck to it. There is a feeling of impending darkness, of something so heavy in my chest that it seems to get larger by the minute.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stay there, panting. My heart stutters, and I rub my chest.
The beats are erratic. There is a sense of impending gloom. Of something coming at me, something more sinister than anything I’ve faced before. I hang my head forward, grip my knees, and will myself to breathe. One breath, two breaths, slowly, in and out. Focus, I must focus. The mating cord in my chest strains and a groan rips out of me.
My scalp prickles and I wipe my damp palms on the sheet covering the bed. I know it’s her emotions I am feeling. She’s afraid.
When I’d taken her, I had only meant to bind her to me. My only thought had been to ensure that I had someone who belonged to me. Not to the city, not to my men…not to the sense of duty that despite everything I do, I carry with me.
Perhaps I am my father’s son more than I’d known. Perhaps hidden somewhere inside is this need to do right by the city, and I don’t understand where it is coming from.
This sudden attack of conscience that’s forcing me awake in the middle of the night.
This need to keep my omega safe.
My Lucia…it is because of her that I am being tainted. Her thoughts, her emotions, her idealistic need to do good by all, it's dripping into me. Creeping in my subconscious. The mating cord binds her to me, but it also ties me to her. It’s influencing me in ways I cannot begin to understand.
Fear shudders down my spine, and helplessness…and mixed with it is this urgency. Is she trying to get to me, to warn me away?
My shoulders bunch.
I raise my head, firm my thighs, and push myself up on my feet. I walk out of the door of the bedroom in the warehouse that I’ve kept in the city. Another relic of my father’s days. He’d kept this house incognito in order to be able to go about the city without being recognized.
One of the traditions that I decided to continue.
I stagger into the living room to find Ethan walking in from the other room.
Solomon, who’s been keeping watch in a chair by the window, rises to his feet. “What are the two of you doing up? It’s only four a.m.” He yawns and scratches his chin.
“I need to go to her.” I strive to keep my voice low, but it comes out harsh. I shake my head. I have to find a way to control myself. Whatever is happening to me, there’s an easy explanation for it. It’s normal, isn’t it, when an omega is bonded to an alpha, to be aware of her emotions, to perhaps also want to take care of her?
I squeeze the bridge of my nose. Where are these thoughts coming from?
“You okay?” Ethan’s voice cuts through the thoughts swirling around in my head.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I snarl out, angrier with myself for feeling this vulnerable.
It’s as if the mating cord is burrowing inside my soul and ripping out all the layers I’ve built over the years. It’s laying my emotions bare, making me feel naked and exposed, and I don’t like it. Not one bit.
Walking to the table next to the surveillance equipment that Sol had been monitoring, I pick up the bottle of water and drink from it.
It does nothing to soothe the sick feeling twisting my stomach.
Pouring the rest of the water over my head, I then drop the bottle back on the table. “What’s the latest? Have any of the soldiers seen anything?”
The mating cord throbs and a wave of terror engulfs me. My skin seems to burn, and there’s a ball of emotion in my chest so huge that I cannot breathe.
I stumble to the window, and grabbing the sill, I shove open the pane and lean out.
It’s a security risk to do that. Anyone could recognize me…which is not the issue. My own citizens aren’t exactly filled with love for me. Not like I've done much to deserve their respect either. And fuck…there I go, playing the violin again.
I’ve never, in all these years, thought of their needs even once, about what I can do for them.
My father had done his version of the right thing. He'd flung my mother back to the East End of the city, the gutters where she’d come from.
He could have kept her, taken care of her and his son, but he hadn’t cared. Not for her, not for any of the omegas. He’d only cared about his precious city…well, for the parts that are filled with the upper classes, the rich and wealthy who live in the districts closest to the palace. He’d made sure they had everything they needed. He’d turned his back on the poor. And me?
I’d gone a step further.
I’d wanted to punish the ruling classes but I’d ended up doing my worst by both the rich and the poor. It didn’t matter what your class, or your status or indeed where you lived. I was an asshole to everyone alike. Everyone except her. With her, I cannot keep up this charade; it has always been nothing but a front.
Just, I’ve never wanted to own up to it. I cannot let her do this to me.
Being near her, in her, having her essence mixing with mine is changing me from the inside out. It’s making me…more empathetic, wanting to do good for my people, but this stinking city has given me nothing but fear and pain and a start in life that I’ll never be able to live down. I cannot allow myself to develop a conscience, not now.
I cannot let myself care for my people.
Cannot let the man I really am come to the surface. The one who feels duty-bound to do right by his city.
The one who wants to use his power to change the flawed system that my father had so callously imposed.
I’ve come too far.
Planned too long.
Lost too much.
Too much to let one omega sweep in and upset all my plans, to change me, mold me into a version who is half me…the real me who is a responsible, conscientious leader who wants to protect his people.
The kind who, no doubt, the fucking history books will love to sing about…no, that isn’t me.
I am a monster, an illegitimate bastard who took great pleasure in using his power for one thing. The downfall of the bloodline that had given birth to him and g
iven him nothing else. Nothing. This city is going to Hell. And I am going to be responsible for it. That’s how I want the future to remember me.
And I intend to live up to my reputation.
Starting with her.
I am going to find her and teach her a lesson, the kind that will ensure she never dares face up to me, never dares run away from me again. The little princess of royal blood is going to be broken completely by the most nefarious bastard in all the land. Me!
The mating cord in my chest thrums and pushes against my chest, warning me I am wrong. Telling me not to do this. Pleading with me to reconsider. Nah. No way can a simple bond do that. So what if it links me to her?
So what if I am using the connection to find her. It is only a means to chain her to me. To bond her to me for now. Forever. So no one else can have her. No one except me. That’s all it means.
That. Is. It.
I turn to Ethan. “It’s time to move.”
35
Lucy
I walk to the window and look out over the grimy city.
The buildings are all low, a relic of the past when government laws decreed that no construction would be tall enough to block the view of the parliament building from anywhere.
The same structure that the monster now uses as his base.
The same monster who had taken me, rutted me and broke my heat cycle. A trickle of slick dampens my core. I squeeze my thighs together.
He is still a monster.
He may have not fucked me against my will, still, he had taken advantage in the midst of a heat cycle when I had been desperate for any alpha’s touch.
No, not any alpha…but him.
I push the thought away.
He hadn’t given me a choice. He hadn’t restrained himself. But then…I hadn’t wanted him to either. So why are my thoughts still on him?
Why does every part of me want to go to him, to feel his touch on me, his wide palm gripping my hips as he brings me closer and lowers me down on his shaft, and again… A moan is torn out of me. There has to be a way out. I can rip the bond from my chest, break this connection so he won’t be drawn to me as I am to him.
So I won’t imagine that he is already somewhere in this city, getting closer, closer, closer to me.
Wanting me, missing me, yearning for me as much as I am for him.
The mating cord thrums and gnaws at me, tugs at my nerves and stretches, pushes into my chest.
My spine curves and my eyelids fly open.
My breath is coming out in gasps, and my heart is racing. Fast, so fast. My chest thrusts out, and I feel like I am being pushed forward to the tips of my feet, yanked out of my body. My very soul is fluttering inside, slamming against my skin as if my very essence wants to pour itself through the cord to him. Him. No! I curl my fingers into a fist and slam it on the wall. Pain flutters over my skin, but the wall doesn’t crack.
Of course not.
Physically I am still an omega.
Still weak.
I may be fast on my feet, quick with my thoughts, know how to use my intelligence and my beauty to seduce, but I’ll never be as powerful as an alpha. Did I really think I could break out of here? Out of the prison that another alpha had imposed on me?
It isn’t fair that omegas have to always depend on someone else; wherever you turn, there is always someone bigger, more powerful, one step ahead of you. Someone strong enough to do the things you want to do. To reach the heights you want. Who takes what you need. I always feel like I am lacking, as if I am secondary, and the world would rather I give in, roll over, and submit…except when I am with him.
Oh, make no mistake, he wants me to submit to him…and I want him to make me. A shudder of fear laced with desire tightens my stomach. Can he sense that I am I thinking of him? Am I drawing more attention to myself? Calling him to me? I stand there yearning for him, hating myself for it, yet unable to stop the shudder of pleasure that runs down to my core. My stomach cramps in anticipation, yearning for that deep, rich fullness that only an alpha, only he can fill.
That feeling of utter completion that I’d felt only once when he’d covered my body with his and slammed into me again and again; that feeling of oneness as he’d bitten me and the pain had swept through me, pushing away all other thoughts except that it was me…and him…and I was his. Irrevocably, completely, fully his.
He is the monster; I am his victim. And yet he owns me, and not against my will. And that is the sad truth. Only with Zeus do I feel like I am something, that I am at the center of his world.
The city may hate him or love him. Either way, they want a piece of him.
Yet with him…I am his world.
He may deny it, may not acknowledge it, perhaps abhor the idea, but the fact that he wanted me, needed me…enough to have mated me.
The mating bond tugs and whines in my chest, yanking me forward with such force that my spine curves again.
My chest thrusts out, and my spine curves. A force that I cannot see urges me to keep going. I fling open the windowpane, shove my leg over the sill, and begin to slide forward to the muddy ground three floors below. All the time my gaze is still on the palace in the distance, across the river.
The site of my mating.
By knotting me, had he bound me not only to his body but also to his soul, to that very place where he had taken my virginity? And what will I do when I find him again? Ask him to take me back? To forgive me, and then what? I sit here, legs dangling, thoughts buzzing in my head, my vision narrowing, focusing. My thighs firm, my shoulders bunch, and I lean forward when arms grab me around my waist and yank me back. No, no, no. I fight against the restraints, rake my nails over the barriers that hold me back. I push, wriggle, bring down my head and bite, and kick out.
“Let me go, please.” I hyperventilate.
“No.” Reena’s voice whips through my ears.
The strength in her grasp digs into my waist, and the ground recedes.
Another strong pull and I fall back into the room, to the floor. I hit my side and the breath whooshes out of me. All thoughts spill from my mind. Pain shudders through me, and I focus on that. The mating cord writhes in my chest and I hate the damned thing. Loathe it.
How can something unseen control me like that?
I am not a coward. I’ve never thought of taking my life no matter how rough things were in the past. And I hadn’t meant to put myself in danger, not like that, and yet when I’d seen his palace, all that had mattered was that I get out of there and go to him and find him…and he wasn’t even there.
The cord pushes me to get to my feet. The hair on the back of my neck rises. Every instinct tells me to get out of here and find him. I don’t question how, but I know where I must go. It’s the only way out.
If I want to salvage anything of myself, if I want to retain my own identity, then I need to put enough of a distance between us. I must slam down a barrier that separates me from him before his essence bleeds through me and mingles with my thoughts and I don’t know who he is and who I am; before we become the kind of bonded pair that not even death can part, I know what I have to do.
I stop struggling and let my body go lax. My shoulders hunch, and I let my muscles loosen.
Reena exhales a breath. She pulls her arms from around me and moves away, pushing herself to sit. “What were you thinking?”
Her voice is disturbed and angry, and yet I also hear genuine concern. She is Kayden’s sister, a man I now know I can’t trust, and yet Reena is like him but also not.
She’s the one who asked him not to hurt me, who tried to hold him back. And Kayden, it seems, respected her wishes and left right after that meeting. I haven’t seen him since. Is that good? Or bad? Where is he? What is he scheming about now? I am not quite sure, to be honest.
I am relieved that he isn’t around. It seems wrong to be in the presence of any other male, any other alpha except the one who is my own.
Except he isn’t...my own.
The mating cord shudders and cringes inside my chest. I rub the skin over it. It shouldn’t hurt so much to think of him.
To feel him flow through my blood as if his essence is already inside and mingling with mine. It should scare me to realize that I am sensing his thoughts, that I am seeing him more clearly than anyone else has. A deep loneliness bleeds down the bond, and uncertainty, and fear…so much fear. About his past, his future, about losing me. I shouldn’t feel it. I don’t want to feel it. It’s not right. I shouldn’t feel this close to a man, a monster who took me when I was at my most vulnerable, the one who bonded me before I had a say in the matter. He used my heat cycle, my need to be physically rutted through the cycle against me…a man who used my vulnerability to claim me?
Can I trust him?
Can I allow myself to see the sliver of genuine goodness I sensed somewhere deep inside him?
More than that… It is a strength, a passion, a fierce will to follow his heart, to do what is right. Except what he feels is right is not always right for the world. And I am the only one who can see it, feel it, sense it deeper than he ever has. What am I going to do about it?
Should I allow myself to draw him out, let Kayden capture him? Do I have a choice? If I don’t, Kayden will kill my clan. Yet, if I lead Kayden to Zeus, if I allow Zeus to walk into the trap, Kayden will kill him, and as one half of a mated pair, my days will be numbered. Either way, only one thing is certain—I am going to die.
A calm descends over me.
That is right. A peace, an end to this existence which has become so twisted and convoluted, so entwined with the life of another who I have no desire to call my own. To whom I am becoming more attached with every passing moment.
If I kill myself first…? It is only a matter of time before Zeus dies, too.
Kayden will get what he wants. And my clan will be safe.
The more I think about it, the more I know this is the only way out. The mating cord curls on itself and anguish pours from it. Fear pounds through it, slamming into the presence at the other end, and I know Zeus can sense I have decided on a course of action.
Fated Mates: Paranormal Romance Series Starters Boxset Page 49