by Nora Ash
It was the first time I’d begged not for an end to his brutal assault, but for him to be harder, rougher. My blood crackled with the rapture only he could give me, and I knew I needed everything he had. I’d been empty so long, the hollow void eating me up from the inside out, and this—being filled, reclaimed by my mate—that was the only thing that mattered now. Even if it broke my pelvis in half.
He wrung two orgasms from me in rapid succession, each one relaxing my pussy just a little more, making it a little easier to take his unrelenting thrusts. But, when that first swell at the bottom of his already grotesquely thick shaft began to stretch me, panic set in as memories of what came next bloomed in my mind.
“Shit!” I grunted, biting down on a whimper when my tortured opening gaped wide to accommodate the beginning of his knot. “Don’t!”
He didn’t listen—and couldn’t have stopped that powerful instinct to knot even if he’d wanted to. Every cell in his body was hardwired to ensure I took the cursed thing, and when I clawed at the bark to pull myself away and kicked to push him back, he snarled at my disobedience and clamped his teeth around the back of my neck.
He bit down hard on his own claiming mark, ensuring I stayed put. I whined as trigger points made my body go lax and my will disappeared in a fog of endorphins. My hands fell limply in front of me, the claw marks I’d carved into the trunk the only reminder of my attempted rebellion.
Zach’s body was hot against my back, pressing me down as he curved around me, keeping his teeth in my flesh while he continued to fuck my weeping pussy with short, hard thrusts that drove the still-swelling knot in and out of my trembling body.
Soon it began to catch in my yawning opening, and just as I thought the agony of it popping in and out would split me apart, he forced it in one last time.
I mewled in protest when he drove his hips forward with all his strength, forcing the horrifically swollen knot past my pelvic bone. The burn of it pulsed through my pelvis and deep in my bones, flickering through my entire body in one long, shuddering spasm. And then… relief.
I gasped at the flood of ecstasy when he finally seated his knot exactly where we fit together, and screamed when he pulled back just enough to grind my G-spot. My pelvis clamped down tight in protest, every muscle in my core tightening around his thick invasion—and I came.
As agonizing as it was to take his knot, nothing—nothing—compared to the pleasure that followed. The physicality of it, of my helplessly gaping pussy milking his cock in hard spasms until his seed bathed my cervix… it was pure bliss exploding through every blood vessel, capturing my brain and forcing pleasure into every cell. But the best part— the very best part of feeling his knot spreading me apart in ways I’d never have surrendered to voluntarily—was feeling him inside of me, around me, swallowing me up, erasing everything I’d been before he entered me, until all that was left were the parts of me that surrounded his brutal knot. The only things I sensed were my taut tissues and cramping muscles and my bones aching from being wrenched apart, excruciating orgasms thundering through me in one long, continuous roar...
And him.
I would never be alone again, never be whole without him. It was more than the bond tying us together; it was how much he belonged there, how perfectly he fit even though he shouldn’t have. How achingly, horrendously empty I’d be without him inside of me.
Chapter 8
Zach
The sun set and rose several times while they stayed in the woodland. He didn’t know how long—there was nothing in his world to indicate the passing of time before then.
His days were spent sleeping, eating, sucking in greedy lungfuls of fresh air, rutting his mate, and keeping the other males away from her. Not that they tried to interfere—they seemed to accept his claim, and distantly, he knew they were safer in a group of strong alphas than alone. So he let them live, so long as they kept to the other side of the camp from his female.
Slowly, he started noticing the sun’s trajectory above the trees. Soon after, he noticed a pattern with his mate. She would encourage him to mount her shortly after sunrise and shortly after sunset, and then, when he was content and docile, she would prick him with that hated needle. It took a few days before he realized she was purposely cajoling him with the sweet draw of her pussy.
The sharp jolt of realization made him stare at her as she fiddled with the needle she’d just pricked him with. She was still naked from their coupling, hair messy and nippes swollen from where he’d sucked on them. She liked it when they faced each other, and he’d increasingly allowed her to turn her front to him before he entered her, finding her breasts and the display of pleasure on her beautiful face enticing enough to suppress his instincts telling him to always mount her from behind.
With a force of will only made possible from how recently he’d emptied his balls in her snatch, he dragged his attention back from her soft body and the pleasures of fucking her. He didn’t want to get jabbed with a needle. It went against every painful memory still caught up in the darkness surrounding his mind… and yet, he let her, because she petted and talked gently at him when he allowed it, and his body was light with pleasure from their recent matings.
He wanted to rut her from behind, but he wanted to see her face when she took him in, and wanted to suck on her nipples to make her cunt flutter on his cock.
He wanted to bring her her meals like an alpha should, but when he tried to hunt, she pleaded with him to stay with her. And he wanted her by his side more than he needed to provide his own kills for her.
She made him want those things.
She knew exactly what she was doing—and she was manipulating him!
His growl made her jerk her head up, eyes wide with concern.
“Zach? What’s wrong?”
Zach.
His name was Zach. He blinked, the growl cutting off as he stared at her pink lips. She’d spoken to him many times, a steady stream of words usually falling from those luscious lips when she was around him. He hadn’t understood any of them, but found the sound of her voice pleasant enough to listen to.
It wasn’t until that moment when he remembered that that word belonged to him, that Zach was his name, that he realized he was supposed to understand. And respond.
Gently, he touched a hand to her soft mouth, tried to recall the shape it had taken as she said his name.
“Zach?” she asked again, a frown marring her pretty face now. “Are you okay?”
She lifted her hand to pull up his eyelids and spoke some more words that he didn’t fully grasp, but he got the sense from them that she was concerned whether he was having a negative reaction to what she’d injected him with.
Gently, he closed his fingers around her wrist and pulled her hand to his chest where their connection hummed like it always did after he’d rutted her. It took more effort than he’d thought to make his tongue curl in the right way.
“Zach,” he said. It came out hesitant, with the start of the word sounding sharper than it had when she said it.
His mate stilled in his grasp, her eyes widening with shock. And then, without warning, she burst into tears.
Zach rumbled in concern, reaching for her to try and make the crying stop. It pulled on something deep in his gut, unsettling him in the worst of ways. But despite her open-mouthed sobbing, she was smiling.
“You speak!” she wailed. “Oh, Zach, you speak! It’s really working.” She didn’t resist his pull when he wrapped his arms around her, and to his astonishment, she used the new closeness to place wet kisses on his cheeks and mouth as she laughed and cried and hugged him.
He didn’t always understand his female, and this whole crying-while-laughing thing was a new, disturbing development—but the bond in his chest hummed with her happiness, and that was all he needed.
“Scared.”
She looked up at him from where she crouched by the riverside, empty bottle in one hand. “Yes.”
“Why?” he demanded, fr
owning at the unpleasant tones reverberating through their bond. Her anxiety had been increasing ever since Jerome had announced it was time to leave.
“I’m scared we’ll get caught. That they’ll take you away from me again,” she said softly. “Or that our friends will get hurt.”
“I… will protect,” he ground out, irritable that his limited vocabulary made it hard to convey to his mate that she needed to stop being afraid, that there was no need so long as he was with her.
She smiled a sad little smile that didn’t make him feel nearly as good as her smiles usually did. “I know.”
“Then why?” he asked, his frustration deepening. The bond had been out of tune all day, and it set him on edge. She’d even cried when he rutted her—an experience he was wholly displeased with. Gasping and sobbing from taking his knot, that was perfectly fine. Good, even.
Crying, while their bond whined agonizingly in his chest? Not fine. Not good.
“I want you to see something,” she said, voice gentle. Leaving the unfilled water bottle by the side of the river, she stood up and grasped his hand lightly in hers.
He allowed her to lead him into the woods in the opposite direction of the camp. She kept walking until they came to a small clearing, where she finally stopped in front of an oblong mound of upturned soil. The afternoon sun reflected off a smooth river stone set on on end of the mound.
“We buried Beau here. He gave his life to free you. Each one of the men here have given up their lives to flee across the border to an uncertain future. They are willing to die for us—and I think, before we’re finally free, more of them will. Or…” She breathed in deeply. “Or it could be one of us. And if that happens, if you die… then I can’t go on. I can’t go through losing you again. I won’t survive it. There is… so much pain and death around us, and I don’t want you to make me any promises you might not be able to keep.
“But I want you to know… I wouldn’t have made a different choice, even if I’d known everything that would follow. I would still have tried to save you.” She looked up at him. “I get it now. I understand this mate thing. You didn’t claim me because you were lonely. You claimed me because for whatever reason, we belong together. I am proud of that. I am proud of being yours, even if you never fully recover what they took from you.
“These men… they have given everything for you because of who you are. Because of your honor, your integrity—everything you were. They’d never tell you that. They’re stupid alphas who’d never show another male their emotions. But I can tell you that for them. They love you. And I think, once upon a time, you loved them too.
“There is so much death in our world, but… we have been blessed too. I want you to remember that; we will suffer and we will hurt, and we might even die. Don’t promise me the impossible—just find a way out of the darkness and share the glimmers of light with me.”
Zach stared at the grave as his mate’s words penetrated through the fog like a spoon parting thick molasses.
He remembered then. His brothers in arms. The many battles. The final deed that had sealed his fate.
He remembered the man he’d once been. Honorable. Strong.
Whole.
Chapter 9
Lillian
The first three nights of driving toward the border were uneventful, even if we were all on edge every time we left whatever remote bit of woodland we’d hidden in during the daylight hours. But the farther we got from SilverCorp’s compound, the easier it became to breathe.
I’d almost started to believe we’d truly escaped the horrors of Dr. Axell’s lab when the attack came.
* * *
We were less than thirty miles out from the Canadian border, four nights after we’d left the camp by the river, when Jerome glanced into the rearview mirror and cursed.
“What’s the matter?” I asked as Zach made a questioning noise, straightening in his seat.
“That van’s been following us for the past hour,” Jerome growled.
“Could just be headed for the border too,” I said, twisting to look behind us.
“Doubt it,” Jerome growled. “Fuck. All right—we’re gonna have to take care of this before we get to the border. Barnes, you capable of shooting a gun?”
Zach grunted in affirmation, and Jerome pulled out his phone to call the rest of our group driving ahead of us.
“Larry?” he said the second the line connected. “We’ve got company. White van behind us—from the size of it, I’m guessing they’ve got a team of six to eight fighters in there. Look for a side road up ahead—something that’ll give us some cover. We need the advantage, and we’re running out of mileage before they pincer us in at border control.”
I couldn’t hear what Larry said, but Jerome made a few noises of agreement and hung up. “All right—Barnes, grab my spare gun. It’s under my seat. Once we pull over, get the girl out of the car and use it as cover. We’ll be drawing their attention while the guys circle back around on foot and get them from behind. You with me?”
“Yes.” It was a rough sound, more of a grunt than a word, but Zach’s eyes reflected a grim determination as he nodded at his old friend in the rearview mirror. Despite everything he’d been through, despite everything he’d lost—this was who he was and would always be. A warrior.
Eric pulled the car ahead of us down a dark side road nearly two miles later. In our headlights, I could make out thick vegetation on each side of the narrow road, and my pulse quickened in anticipation of what came next.
Despite knowing what was about to happen, I still wasn’t prepared when Jerome yanked on the steering wheel, throwing the Jeep around so it blocked the road, brakes screeching.
I gasped when my seatbelt bit into my throat and chest, locking me in place, but the next moment Zach slammed his hand down on the release mechanism, grabbed me by the arm, and kicked out the passenger side door. We landed on the pavement just as the van’s doors flew open and a salvo of gunfire blasted through the night.
Zach draped his body over mine, smashing my face into the ground but also shielding me. His muscles worked above me, and then shots rang from right above my head as he returned fire. On the other end of the Jeep, Jerome backed him up with his own gun.
It felt like an eternity before a surprised howl penetrated the night, followed by more gunfire on the other side of the white van. The rest of our group had arrived.
The bullets stopped pelting our Jeep when our attackers turned to the ambush.
“Stay,” Zach growled, and then the heavy pressure of his body lifted off me, letting the cool night air surround me instead. I pushed up onto my knees and peered around the Jeep just in time to see my mate arrive at the black-clad men. The white van’s headlights illuminated his strong body as he leapt into the air like a panther and came down hard on the other side, a battle roar ringing through the night.
My heart clenched in terror at the thought of one of the many bullets finding its way into his flesh, but our bond hummed with nothing but excitement and battle lust. He was born for this.
More guns fired, but they mixed with screams of agony.
He moved like a whirlwind of destruction, tearing through the enemy with speed and strength that should’ve been impossible for a human man—even an alpha as powerful as he. For the first time, I saw why SilverCorp was so adamant that their sick experiment be completed. They’d wanted a super soldier, a weapon unlike any other. And in my mate, they’d created it.
He was too strong, too fast for them, pinned down by gunfire as they were. I stared open-mouthed as he ripped, tore, and shredded his way through them, human remains scattering around him like the mangled leftovers from a gruesome hurricane. It took less than ten minutes before silence spread over the deserted road, the only sounds Zach’s rough, panting breath and the thunder of my own blood in my ears.
“Anyone hit?” Jerome asked.
Murmurs of denial came from around the back of the van.
“Anyone lef
t alive?” he added.
Silence was the only response.
“Fucking hell, Barnes,” Eric murmured from a few yards away. “I’ve seen cleaner butchering from a fucking hyena.”
“Don’t go near him,” Jerome warned just as my mate turned to Eric with a snarl, canines bared. The battle lust still pulsed hotly in our bond.
“Shit, calm down, we’re on the same team,” Eric said, quickly taking a few steps back, hands raised. Zach only hunkered down in response, eyes glued to the other man’s throat.
“Zach!” I scrambled to my feet and stepped around the Jeep. “Zach, it’s over.”
The feral alpha whipped around, nostrils flaring as he stared at me.
“Hey, it’s okay. You did so, so well, big guy. You’ve taken out all of them—these men are our friends. Remember?” I kept my voice deliberately gentle and soft as I walked toward him, hands out.
He growled, but the sound was much less aggressive now. Some of the fire in our bond eased and he came toward me, throwing the gun to the ground with a clatter.
“I’m okay,” I said when he reached for me, skimming his hands over my body to check for injuries. “You protected me well—all of you.”
Another growl, more of a grunt this time, as he buried his nose in my hair and began scenting me.
I caught Jerome’s gaze under Zach’s armpit and flushed when he averted his eyes. Even without the hardness rising against my stomach, it was pretty obvious what Zach’s battle lust was transforming into, and while the SEALs had definitely overheard us in intimate moments before, they’d always been kind enough to pretend like they hadn’t. Not really an option in the middle of a deserted road, surrounded by bullet-riddled vehicles and mauled bodies.
“Zach—Zach!” I called, patting at his chest to get his attention, but gently enough to not trigger his urge to show me who was the dominant party in our relationship. “We can’t—we have to keep moving. There could be more of them coming. We need to get away.”