He doesn’t know what it is, but he knows already that he does not like it.
I sense his will flood down the bond. Sense him pulse reassurance, heat, a lick of fire…enough desire for my nerve endings to flare, to cramp my womb, my core moistening with need. He’s not holding back, Zeus. He’s trying everything possible to change my mind…from what, he can’t know, but it’s as if he’s thrusting the very force of his will, his dominance on me to stop me from what I am doing.
Sweat breaks out on my forehead.
At the same time, moisture laces my core.
My heart pounds so fast I am sure it is going to burst out of my rib cage at any moment.
A breath wheezes out of me; my lungs seem to be unable to take in any more oxygen. Every part of my will resists Zeus’ influence, even as my body insists I go to him. That I am half of him. I am nothing without him.
“No,” I scream and slam my fist on the floor. The skin over my knuckles breaks, and the smell of copper is in the air. I let the pain center me.
“What is it?” Reena’s voice sounds over me. She grips my arms and tries to hold me down.
“Help me,” I gasp out.
The world whirls around me.
My vision wavers. If I don’t see Zeus soon, feel him, scent him, lick him, and draw of him, I am going to be reduced to a blubbering mass of need that nothing and no one can fulfill. This is not what I want. Not to be bonded to someone who feels so close that they are a part of me…even as my mind, my very will, that primal, rational thinking part of me still resists. The fight is going to kill me anyway…if I let it. I didn’t choose how to come into this world, but I am going to choose how to end my life…in a way that benefits those I love the most. My family.
Reena’s face fills my vision. Her chin trembles, and her grip on my arms firms. “Tell me what you need.”
36
Zeus
I race out and onto the streets I’d traversed as a child. The safe house is in the East End of the city. I am sure this is where my father met my mother. Neither of them mentioned it to me, but the thud of my heart, the heavy feeling in my chest, and that sinking hole in my gut confirm to me this is where the two of them had run into each other. This is where my father took her for the first time. For all I know he fucked her in the very house, in the bed where I had lain at night. My gut churns, and leaning over, I puke. I’ve never done this before, been so affected by the thought of my parents, been so tuned in to the plight of my mother.
I cared for my mother, protected her from hoodlums in the neighborhood when I came of age…but had always consciously blocked out all thought of how it could have been for them to be together. How it was for her to have run into him, to be attracted to him, to submit to him knowing all along he was never going to recognize her. A whore from the wrong side of town, who survived the wildness of the streets. She had enough courage to face up to the alpha who wouldn’t let go of her, not until he'd had his fill of her…and yet she hadn’t been able to protect her heart from him.
She’d fallen for my father, the General, had been taken in by his fine clothes, his power, his charisma, and had submitted to him. Golan never gave her the recognition she deserved. He’d never taken her for a mate, not officially.
I realize now that my mother must have begun to affect him, too. He must not have realized how much the mating bond goes both ways. He’d thought with her death he’d be rid of her influence. He hadn’t bargained on how much her death would shorten his lifespan, too. He’d gotten progressively sicker, weaker after her death, and when it came to killing him, I’d eschewed the weapons and used the ways of the street.
The mighty Golan, killed by old-fashioned strangulation. Oh! The irony. I chuckle.
This scent of blood is heavy in the air, and the reek of poverty is all around me. The stench of desperation and helplessness that permeated my childhood clings to my skin, twists my insides. And I have had enough. I need to get out of here.
Pulse pounding in my temples, I swing into the armored car and set off. Sol and Ethan are following me separately. Ethan had insisted on that, and I know he is right. I owe my second a lot, not only for thinking on his feet but also for agreeing to me embarking on this harebrained mission on my own.
He’d known there was no way out.
He’d sensed how much the bond was affecting me.
He’d gleaned how much she meant to me.
And he hadn’t said anything, not made a fuss, not protested. Had stepped up to the role I need of him. To agree, yet watch out for me.
Yeah, he is one smart motherfucker, and I am never going to let him know that. I am never going to share with him how much his actions and that of Sol’s in following us, no questions asked, have made me feel like the lowest heel ever. I had only questioned, resisted, pushed them at every turn. Yet they are loyal to me.
Loyalty. An alien concept, that I still refuse to accept. Unlike her. The only thing I believe in is her.
I am going to get to her and claim her all over again, but it isn’t for the reasons Ethan thinks. It isn’t because I can’t live without her. Not because every cell in my body throbs for her, not because the mating bond yanks me forward, showing me the way, unerring in its direction as it leads me through the twisting alleys, onto the broken expressways of a once proud city, and away from London… Where is she? A few miles of driving, and I smell the sea. She is headed to Dover? Why? Is she planning to leave this city? Take a ship somewhere?
My heart stutters.
My guts twist.
I press my foot on the accelerator, and the vehicle leaps ahead, almost colliding with a slow-moving caravan. I swerve around it and keep going, knowing it is going to take Ethan and Sol longer to catch up in whatever mode of transport they have decided on. Nothing is as fast as my custom-made truck, my one insistence…almost a compulsion, this need for speed and control. And dominance. Everything that had come together in one perfect pattern when I had claimed her. I hadn’t thought then. I had ridden that rush, that feeling when I was inside her when her soft core had clamped its moist heat around me, tugged me in… It had been like coming home.
“Fuck.” I slam the wheel with my fist and step on the accelerator. The tires squeal, and the hated countryside streams by, still green despite the fact that the rains have been failing over the years and the weather has gotten more erratic. Too hot one day, snow the other, an unpredictability that has reduced lifespans and altered genes, all in one generation. Enough for humans to be divided into alphas, betas, and the rarer omegas.
Enough for me to realize that I was meant to be the strongest alpha of them all, from the time I had taken on the beasts who had tried to rape my mother and killed them. Then sealed my future when I had taken over as General of the city.
Enough to be sure that I have to get to this omega before she does something she will regret. I will make her regret it. And I am looking forward to it.
I plan to wrap those glistening strands of her hair around my fist, yank back her head to reveal the expanse of her neck, then sink my teeth into the claiming mark to reaffirm my ownership.
The mating bond screeches with need, and fear pours down it. The heaviness in my chest is so big, so cold, I know she is in danger. I need to get to her.
My chest thrusts forward, and my breath comes in pants. The force inside me grows larger, pushing out, shoving against my rib cage. It propels me forward. To keep going and get to her before it's too late.
I veer off the road, onto the muddy path leading uphill, then that, too, fades. I keep going, through the mud and faded grass, onto the flat plateau that soars up to a cliff.
The wheels churn, and the truck's tires strain for purchase. I brake to a stop and jump out of the vehicle, not caring that the truck begins to roll back. I can’t retrace my steps. I don’t care about what I’ve left behind. My heart stutters, stops, then ratchets up in speed. The mating cord urges me on, farther, faster, keep going. Now.
I reach th
e first peak and then I see her.
Poised ahead, at the top of the second peak of the cliff right ahead. Around her the white chalky surface gleams a dull creamy silver. So like her skin…no, her skin is softer, richer, smoother.
Waves of fear pour down the mating bond, so intense, so strong, that they threaten to overwhelm my senses. My breath comes in heaving pants.
Sweat pours down into my eyes. Still I push forward. When I am not ten feet from her, she turns.
Her long hair gleams with hidden golden highlights, red in the fading sunshine. Suddenly I can’t wait to discover everything about her. Her secrets. Her lies. Her truths. Her fears and innermost desires. I want it all.
She angles her head at me. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I couldn’t stay away.” I slow my steps.
“You should leave.”
“Not without you.” I come to a halt not five feet from her.
“Go.” She raises her chin.
I chuckle, and there’s nothing happy about the sound. It’s twisted, yearning, full of fear and anger. At her. At me. At this damn city that brought me to this place. Facing the woman who is becoming more important to me by the second, who I’d taken without mercy, who I haven’t yet broken, who I know I am going to own, and not only because she is my mate…well, maybe that, too, but really, it’s because I want to.
Because no one can stop me.
She throws her head back and laughs.
No one except her.
My heart stutters.
I know what she is going to do, even before she takes a step back.
Even before she has swiveled to face the open sea.
“No!” I leap toward her, close the distance between us, and grab her hand.
My fingers touch her skin and slide off.
Then she is falling, falling.
I keep going and dive off over the edge of the cliff.
To find out what happens next read CLAIMED BY THE ALPHA, KNOTTED OMEGA 2, HERE
Read an excerpt...
Lucy
When I come to, it’s to the sense of heat enfolding me. I burrow into the warmth, the hard planes of the chest that shift under my cheek. The scent of fresh rainwater on parched earth fills my nose.
That alluring, growing need curls in my belly and my core trembles. Every instinct tells me I am safe.
Safe?
I try to move and find there is a heavy arm around my waist, its weight both brutal and soft.
The friction of his skin over mine sends a tremor of heat down my spine.
Slick pools between my legs. My stomach cramps, and the mating bond in my chest pulses with life. Heat. Life. Energy. My scalp stings, my fingers and toes tingle.
Every part of me prickles like it’s coming back to life. Like I have been asleep for a long time. Like I’d never jumped off the cliff and straight into that blue-green water, hitting the waves, going through and—my eyelids snap open.
I am surrounded by his smooth, honey-brown skin, which is broken by the scars on his throat, the wounds I had marked him with. They bleed into the tattoos on his chest.
I reach out and trace my fingers over those swirls and curves, those colors that are as stark as the monster I’d thought him to be, as poignant as the lost boy I had glimpsed in his eyes in the seconds before I’d jumped off the cliff and into the sea below.
Why had I done that?
Willfully sent myself to a possible death, while deep inside I’d known it wasn’t going to happen that way? That I’d just started living. I’d just met him, and I wasn’t going to let go of him or the future I’d glimpsed.
Had I been testing myself? To see if I was as brave, as fearless as I’d thought myself to be? To test him to see if he’d come after me? And he had.
The thoughts tumble around in my head. There is a fluttering in my stomach, and I push against his chest.
A growl rumbles from him. “You’re awake?”
“Where am I—?” My voice cracks; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
When was the last time I drank water?
Well, if you don’t count the gallons I swallowed as I sank under the waves, eh? A chuckle wheezes out of me.
I feel lightheaded, enough to be able to laugh at this strange scene which might well be from a dream. Except it isn’t. The man-mountain moving under me, his flesh surrounding me, the pulse of need flooding down the bond…all of it tells me I am alive. “Why did you save me?”
He doesn’t reply at once.
Is he considering his words before speaking? Strange. The Zeus who’d taken me like it was his due had never given thought to the feelings of another.
He cups my cheek, and his touch is so gentle, so sweet. “You didn’t leave me a choice, little squirrel.”
My throat closes. That term of endearment…does it mean that he cares for me? Nah. Not possible. So why does it feel like I betrayed him when I ran from him? He took me without giving me a choice, I was right to leave him.
“It won’t work, you know.” His voice reverberates under my cheek, so growly and yet so soothing.
I want to close my eyes, burrow into him, merge with him, and go right back to sleep.
“What?” I swallow, somehow knowing what he is alluding to, but that isn’t possible. He cannot read my thoughts, can he?
“You keep trying to leave, not realizing that I will follow you.”
His words send a wave of need coiling through my womb.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“I will always find you, and claim you.” His jaw tics, and a nerve throbs at his temple. “You are mine to own. To claim. To possess.”
The passion shimmers in the air between us.
The hair on my neck prickles. The flood of raw emotions, of fear and lust and his utter need to take, flows down the bond. My chest hurts. The back of my eyeballs begins to throb.
It’s not like he doesn’t know every inch of my body, or how my flesh responds to him, not like he hasn’t shown me how much he wants to dominate me. He wants to break me.
His gaze narrows; the skin stretches over his cheeks.
My chest grows heavy. There is a ball of emotion inside clawing, waiting to get out. The force of it is bigger than the mating bond, more profound than the physical urge to want him to rut me, more primal than the need to procreate that is inherent in my omega state.
It is real, alive and writhing inside of me, and that scares me.
This need to tell him that I am his.
To respond to that call of his mate, to tell him I am here for him, that he can take me, slake his thirst in me, bury himself inside me, and knot me all over again. And I want it all. So much.
The depth of my emotions washes over me and floods into the bond, sweeping through it.
Under me, his heartbeat increases in speed. Heat pours from his chest, and his muscles go rock-hard. Can he sense what I don’t dare tell him? That I hadn’t meant for it to be this way?
Why is it that he just has to look at me, touch me, hold me, and I will dissolve, shatter into a million pieces, each of which reflects his name? Screams this monster’s status. Alpha. My alpha. Mine.
The mating bond curls inside me, tugging at me, yanking at me, pleading, urging, begging me to accept.
“No.” I yank myself from his hold with such speed that I must have taken him by surprise.
His grip loosens, and I wriggle out from under his grasp. Hitting the hard floor, I push myself to a standing position. The world swings around me. His big body moves. His muscles tense, and he springs up to his feet, arms outstretched to catch me.
My legs tremble, and I punch my toes into the floor for support. “Stay away…” I gasp.
I don’t need to ask him to know that he saved my life.
I lurch to the door and shove it open, stepping onto the fine white sand. There is a beach in front of me, sloping down, ringed with coconut palms, and beyond that the sea, waves, and the blinding sun shining off of it f
or as far as I can see. It should be idyllic but it is not.
It should gladden me that I am away from the smoggy, dirty streets of London, but it doesn’t.
I am here alone with him. My skin puckers.
I stumble forward and onto the beach. My feet sink into the sand. I look down and draw my gaze up the curve of my ankles, to my legs, over my bare thighs, to my stomach. My breasts are bared to the sun.
I am naked.
Heat flushes my cheeks. All this time, in his arms, I didn’t have any clothes on.
Something sounds behind me, and I swing around and flush. Blood rushes to my cheeks, and I know my neck must have turned an interesting shade of scarlet. For the man is naked, too.
He has not a stitch of clothing on.
Not his pants or those massive boots I’ve seen him in. Nope. There’s a vast expanse of honey-brown skin, marked with those tattoos I’d been admiring down to the sculpted planes of his stomach, and below that his shaft, which is already semi-erect.
“Wh…why did you bring me here? Why did you rescue me?” Why am I bothering to ask him this question?
He confirms my fears. “One guess?”
“Uh, because you needed time away, and this is your island retreat?” I swallow.
“Wrong answer.” His stance is patient. He’s waiting, waiting.
“And because I am your…” I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Say it.” His voice is soft.
“Your…” I force myself to open my eyes. “Omega.”
“And?” He takes a step forward.
I hold my place. I will not be scared. I am not going to step back. Not going to show him how afraid I am. That my heart is pounding, my throat is dry, while sweat breaks out on my forehead. “And I need water. I am parched.”
He turns and walks inside the house, then reappears at the door with a bottle of water.
A bottle?
So someone has stocked this place. I lean back and take a better look at it. The structure is rudimentary but seems secure. It must be for Zeus to bring me here. Why is it that I trust this alpha so implicitly with my safety? Was it because he'd jumped into the ocean after me and saved me?
Fated Mates: Paranormal Romance Series Starters Boxset Page 50