by Zoey Ellis
The Alpha, Jaythen, lowered his sword an inch. “You are true mates with the general?” he asked, surprised.
Ria hesitated and then shook her head. “We can’t be. You don’t know anything about me, General Thorec.”
“Don’t I?” He couldn’t help but smirk. “I know what you taste like when you’re about to come, Ria. I know the sound you make when you lick my—”
“You don’t know anything that matters!” she shouted. She glared at him, furious, but her skin reddened the way it did whenever he complimented her.
Jaythen made a face of disgust. “I don’t want to hear that.”
“Then fucking leave!” Thorec ordered. “This is between me and my Omega.”
Jaythen stilled for a moment, then sheathed his sword.
“No, don’t go!” she gasped, gripping his arm. “What are you doing?”
Jaythen turned to face her and grasped her by the shoulders. “Are you true mates with the general, Riora?”
Thorec growled as she began to shake her head, but then she stopped.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t think so.”
“Don’t you want to find out?”
Thorec stilled. He wasn’t expecting him to say that. What was going on here?
Tears formed in Ria’s beautiful brown eyes as she looked up at the Alpha, and Thorec could hardly bear the sight of them. “You’re the only one who can help me figure out who I am, Jaythen,” she said. “You just need to make a decision to help.”
“I can tell you as much as I know, but I don’t think it will help you, Riora,” the Alpha said, his voice soft. “I was only twelve; there’s nothing I can tell you that will be useful now.”
“What are you talking about?” Thorec demanded, inching farther into the room.
“You don’t know that!” Ria cried, her eyes wide on Jaythen. “We just need a bit of time, and you might remember things that would be useful to me.”
“To what end?” The Alpha released her dropping his hands. “Are you even a servant in the palace, or did you use your skills to find a way in?” His gaze turned wary. “If you want to know more about yourself, you should look at that behavior first.”
Ria’s face dropped and she stepped back in surprise. “I did what I had to do to find you, Jaythen. We are supposed to stick together; that’s what family does.”
“We can try—I definitely want to try.” The Alpha lifted his shoulders. “I am a Lox Warrior, Riora. I live under a strict structure of training, rules, and protocol. If you stay in Ashens we can keep in touch, if you want that, but I can’t drop everything. I can’t leave the Lox.”
“But you’ve been discharged,” Ria said. “There’s nothing keeping you here.”
“That is not what it seems,” the Alpha replied sharply. “And if I leave now I’ll never be able to address it.”
At his words, Ria’s shoulder’s sagged, and she shook her head as she turned away from him, clearly disappointed.
Thorec dropped his daggers, his eyes flicking between them as he observed them both. They were family? They did indeed have the same dark hair and tanned skin.
Jaythen glanced at him. “Your best chance right now is with the general,” he said to Ria. “You shouldn’t balk at the idea of your true mate. It is a blessing—”
“I know, I know.” Ria tried to snap at him, but a sob escaped her. “I should just give up everything I’ve tried to do for the last couple of years and be with a man who says I’m his at first taste.”
Thorec growled. He sheathed his daggers and approached them, addressing the Alpha first. “You do not lay claim to this female.” It was supposed to be a question, but it came out as an order.
“Female?” Ria’s tear-filled eyes hardened, and it was a beautiful sight. “That is not my name.”
“I have no idea what your name is,” Thorec shot at her. “You seem to have more than one.” He turned to the Alpha, still waiting for an answer.
“No,” Jaythen said firmly. “She is my sister.”
A gust of relief relaxed Thorec… somewhat.
“If I was, you wouldn’t abandon me for the Lox,” Ria said bitterly. “You would come with me and help me figure out who I am.”
“Come with you to wander the Lands?” Jaythen shook his head in disbelief. “That’s not the way to build a home, Ria.”
Realization hit Thorec. Ria said she’d been trained for a purpose, a cause. Her brother suggested she’d used her “skills” to find him... as though she’d had specialized training to infiltrate a building. Suddenly several things slid into place. Ria had been taken from her family when she was young, and she’d traveled all over the Lands but didn’t feel like she had a home. She was trying to learn who she’d been before she was taken, but who could possibly revert back to who they were when they were so young?
Before he could put anything into words, Ria shot past him with a burst of energy that seemed to come from nowhere. She grabbed the door frame and used it as an anchor to propel herself into the corridor.
Thorec bellowed out a curse. “Stay here,” he ordered Jaythen, as he ran out of the room after her.
He chased her through the quiet, darkened corridors of the palace, and while he gained on her the longer they ran, Thorec made no real effort to catch up with her immediately. He took pleasure watching her run in front of him, her body at exertion as she tried to escape him; it made him hard. And anyway, there was no magic she could use in the palace to escape that easily. So he took his time gaining on her, enjoying her attempt to flee, and anticipating the moment he would have her back in his arms.
But as he followed her around a corner that led them into a fairly busy hallway, all amusement fled.
Ria ran straight to where several Alphas were gathered, and jumped on to one of them, wrapping her arms and legs around his torso. The Alpha stepped back, barking out in surprise, automatically bringing his hands to her back.
Thorec couldn’t help the growl that escaped him, pulling a dagger from its sheath as he approached. To his utter horror, Ria peppered the Alpha’s face with small kisses, covering him with hard pecks as she clung to him tightly.
“Ria!” he roared, unable to believe what he was seeing.
The Alpha she clung to dropped his hand from her back when he saw Thorec approaching, holding his palms up in surrender, but as Thorec arrived, he could see Ria whispering into the Alpha’s ear.
A blinding, hot ugliness hurtled through Thorec. He lunged forward and ripped Ria from the Alpha’s body, wrapping his arm around her waist and dragging her off him, roaring as anger pounded through his veins. Sheathing his dagger, he turned her in his arms, forcing her head up so she was forced to look up to him. “How dare you kiss another Alpha,” Thorec bellowed.
“What does it matter?” Ria spat at him. “If he had found me first, you wouldn’t even be here claiming to be my mate. All you Alphas are interchangeable. You all say the same thing regardless of if it’s true or not. As soon as I get the chance I am leaving. You will never find me!”
Thorec gripped her hard, incensed at her attitude. She had challenged every inch of his worth to her, and he couldn’t allow it to stand. The instinct to claim her, to prove that he was the only one worthy of her swept through him in a jagged onslaught of arousal. He tore through her tunic, ripping down the length of it until it fell from her.
Ria gasped as he pushed her onto the floor. “What are you doing?”
“You haven’t yet learned,” Thorec said, his voice dangerously low. Pinning her to the ground, he tore her panties away and unbuckled himself.
“Learned what?” She fought to move his hands from her but he was too strong. “Everyone is watching us, General!”
“Good!” he thundered. Shifting her into position underneath him, he pressed into her tight heat.
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 aro
und 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. R
ia 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.”