by Addison Cain
Staring up at a man who could exercise remarkable kindness, Claire whispered, “You need a haircut.”
And they laughed.
Because he had seen the tufts of black hair she had left all over their bathroom floor.
Slate gray, iron gray, the gray of a freshly polished silver, the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen—he who stood amongst the social gathering, dressed like a regular man, asked, “Are you ready?”
Heart pounding so hard it hurt, Claire swallowed down another sip of sweetness, quoting Sun Tzu, “Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?”
“Yes, Claire.” Stroking his hand down her spine as he turned her toward the sparkling courtyard, he said, “That is why I fear you above all others.”
“You’re not funny.”
“You think I am funny.”
Smirking, she took another step over cobblestones and moved nearer where other couples were engaged in their own conversations. Then it sank bone-deep. Shepherd won every war he’d ever waged.
Thólos fell. It ate itself just like he’d wanted it to. Greth now belonged to him.
What would he have done to this place if he had found no Omega mate in Thólos?
What would he have done to the world had they never met?
If Svana had...
He certainly would not have filled courtyards with happy people and the sweet smell of freshly baked things. There wouldn’t be pink drinks. The man didn’t care if the air were chilled or balmy, if the music were vibrant or morose. He would never care for the taste of good food unless she held up her fork and offered him a bite from her plate.
Shepherd craved only her.
Moreover, the villain would never deny it.
Patient, utterly still, Shepherd allowed Claire to stare at him in full understanding, purring as if he knew she finally realized her place in the world. Yet the almost unbearable weight of his silver eyes said, “You love me, and there is no undoing it. I love you so fiercely you will never be free of me.”
“Shepherd…” Swallowing, her mouth suddenly dry, Claire tried to find the words. “The responsibility of containing you is more than I can handle right now.”
Unmoved, he offered a simple smile.
Where other breathing humans could see.
Gulping at her drink, Claire gawked at him over her glass.
“The woman in the striped dress,” Shepherd began. “Her name is Regina. The man speaking to her is Phillipe. After his arrest five years ago, she was locked in a brothel frequented by powerful men. When Thólos fell, he climbed free of the Undercroft, found her, and then went on a rampage to kill every man whose name was on the books for having rented his mate.”
Green eyes observed the distant couple, who spoke with smiles, sipping their drinks. They looked happy.
He looked every bit the jaded, scarred, and marked Follower. A killer. Yet it seemed it was she who offered comfort by leading the interaction, by gently touching his arm.
As if being here was difficult for him and necessary for her. Like Shepherd, he didn’t want his mate out of his immediate eye line, but wanted to give her this.
A simple movie with others. An opportunity for... normal.
For a woman who had suffered what Claire had only known for one horrendous day.
Nearer a planter blooming with red poppies and vaulted by a pretty fruit tree, a reticent female stared anywhere but at the decidedly unattractive face of the Alpha at her side.
Claire asked, “Who is that?”
“Guadalupe. Newly mated and frightened.” Shepherd put an arm around Claire so they might observe together. “I have known him for twenty years. You will not find a better man.”
That remained to be seen.
As if he could read her thoughts, Shepherd added, “Peter is madly in love. Has been from the first time he saw her in the market. He courted, offered, and won.”
“Won?”
“Her bond.” Said with such innocence it was clearly pure bullshit.
Warning him with a tone that brooked no refusal, she growled, “Shepherd….”
“Ask her yourself if you desire the details.”
Now, he was starting to piss her off. “I can smell her fear from here.”
“She can smell yours as well.”
The nest she had built for him, she was going to rip it apart herself once they got home. “You think it’s funny to parade rape in front of me?”
“I think you should get to know Peter before you judge him by his face.” After audibly cracking his neck, Shepherd added, “And if you are feeling magnanimous, you should get to know Guadalupe as well.”
There was no reason to keep her voice down. “You are trying to pin the problems of your inept Followers on me!”
Shepherd, patient and gentle, cuddled her closer. “I am trying to entice you to teach me what is to be done when watching a film. I have never seen one in a public setting before.”
Instant guilt, laced with extreme suspicion. “Honey, if you want a normal experience, don’t title the mission Project Baker.”
“Noted.”
“I can’t help your Followers,” she added, just to make sure he understood that she was going to return home when this was done and burrow.
“Guadalupe has studied horticulture her whole life. She is coming to plan the new layout for the orange trees I have prepared for your garden.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Shush. The movie is starting.”
22
Bernard Dome
Fingertips to the windowsill, Brenya explored the red-stained wood. There were pock marks from age, telltale signs of who had lived in such a strange room before. Notches where there had been frustration or force or even accidental brushes with something that indented the wood forever. New marks she could account for.
“You are to escort me to Beta Sector today, Brenya. I would like a tour and full accounting of Palo Corps.”
Nodding, her eyes still on the view, Brenya replied, “Yes, Commodore.”
As if he had not been tripping her up with weeks’ worth of difficult scenarios, Jules Havel called from where he worked. “There is an update on the state of Annette. She has transitioned out of quarantine with her son and taken a residence. She has been tasked with educating the population on the culture of Bernard Dome.”
“An Ambassador?” They were giving her friend an important position? Strange warmth moved through Brenya’s chest at the idea of Annette hosting tea to new people. “She will be an excellent Ambassador.”
Jules added further information. “George is still suffering withdrawal. There is no further update on his status.”
There was no jealousy in his voice when it came to the name George. No ripple in the emptiness inside the Beta.
Brenya had no idea what to make of this new Commodore. Found herself frustrated more with his distance than his demands.
Turning to look at the man who chose to work from bed most mornings, using her hair as a shield as if he would not notice her attention, she found the sight growing familiar. Pillows at his back, an unusual COMscreen propped on his lap, he lounged, focused on his work.
Very little that he did made sense.
From that first night in this bed.
The clinical way he had observed and tended her naked flesh. The questions, the strange manipulations down her spine. That he had ordered her to bed, and when she had obeyed, a man who had promised her that Bernard Dome would know no mercy pulled the covers up under her chin and told her in a softer voice to sleep.
After slipping off his coat, he had joined her—trousers on, shirt on—and made no move to touch her as she stared at the carved wooden canopy above.
The cool sheets felt so different from the soppy mess she had left when Lucia had yanked her from her bed. They were smooth, even stiff. A bit musty even.
Red Consumption in Bernard Dome. A Red Room to sleep in. Ancil’s red blood still on the floor.
&nb
sp; The man shifted, turning to his side to stare at her as the sun began to rise, yet still, in no places did their bodies touch.
Adrenalin fading, she shivered, even her teeth began to chatter.
Annette, her baby, and George were in the air on their way to a new home. Ancil was dead. The very Beta she had wronged and tried to save only hours ago was lying next to her naked body, staring….
All her focus had been spent on one task, and it had been achieved. It felt like her sorry grip was beginning to slip, and Brenya was about to fall down the side of the Dome again.
The hiccup came first, surprised her so much her hand flew up to cover her mouth. And then another, and another, until she was heaving from the effort of holding back.
The ugliest of cries broke free, one that had been growing inside her from the day Jacques Bernard had torn her in half. Brenya didn’t even understand when she had sat up to brace her elbows on bent knees, to hold her skull in place as the mess inside came out.
“Are you familiar with the concept of shock?”
Yes, she was. It was a common response to physical trauma. Yet even when she had fallen from the Dome, it had not manifested with so much noise.
The man moved a pillow, tucking it to her side. Then another, all the while saying, “I was given a report on your behaviors, yet thought it would be best to observe them for myself before concurring with an outside perspective and a dossier I had less than ten minutes to read. It is obvious that you have not been guided on how to be an Omega. Your dynamic was manipulated instead by a boy who lacks control and experience.”
Another pillow, the very one he had been sleeping on, was added to the pile that grew around her and between them.
“You do not understand the difference between a nest and a bed, nor were proper nesting materials made available to you.” The blanket was doubled over, Jules left with none, once it was folded over the circle of pillows. “It never occurred to you to ask me for them tonight.”
Slipping back against the softness, teeth chattering and unable to breathe through her nose, Brenya sank into the strange cocoon as if it might actually keep the Beta male away from her.
It didn’t even matter that the pressure against her stitches was uncomfortable and that everything smelled musty and unused.
The mattress shifted in such a way she knew, even buried under the bedding and unable to see, that he had moved away.
The offer was as stony as every other word she had ever heard the man speak. “Considering that I am your husband, it is appropriate for me to offer a purr.”
“No.” Purrs were unsettling in their ability to make mental switches short. Enough synapses were firing in her brain.
“Sleep. We can talk more after you have had a chance to rest and collect yourself.”
He didn’t seem like the sort of man who talked, but so long as he continued not to touch her, she would agree.
Sleep did come. It seemed like it never would, but it did.
Groggy and stiff, she woke to a bladder near bursting—still contained in the pillow construction.
The sun was in the exact same place in the morning sky it had been when she shut her eyes. But the Beta had moved from the bed. Lashes crusted, Brenya rubbed the sand away, blinking to see him making use of one of the many available plush chairs, working. Flipping through whatever data filled his COMscreen.
Without looking up, he acknowledged that he knew she was both awake and in need. “The bathroom is behind the panel to your right.”
Unsure how to slip from the bed without disturbing the circle of pillows, Brenya crept over them, toe pointed to find the floor.
The Beta did not look up.
“Clothing is on the counter. When you return, there is a pitcher of water waiting by the table with flowers. It will help with your headache. You’re not hungry, but you should eat as well.”
Jacques had never talked to her this way, in suggestions that did not linger with threat should she decide to refuse them.
Panel was literal, and not in a maintenance sense. One of the red-stained, shining portions of the wall had parted open like a door. It was a door, on hidden hinges that clicked shut when she tested it. And clicked again with a firmer push.
Swinging open, it displayed a bathing area. There was no sunken tub like the one in Jacques' rooms. This one was above a tiled floor and had clawed feet like those of a gryphon. The windows were high atop the walls, small, and made from colored glass. The sun cast light like a prison over a large mirror surrounded in golden depictions of the Gods in their cherubic forms. That mirror, in turn, cast the light back to the opposite wall.
Calculating the angle of refraction was quick and comfortable. Marveling at the hidden details all over the room so distracting she almost forgot her body's needs.
First, the toilet, then a shower… both moments done without any interruption. Not that Brenya did not watch the strange door, waiting for the Beta to intrude.
But he didn’t.
And as he said, there were clothes. Loose-fitting trousers that cinched with a simple string at her belly, and a shirt. Jules' shirt from the smell of it.
Nothing chafed, though it was breezy and unfamiliar. Most of her was modestly covered aside from where the shirt parted at her throat.
She used his comb.
Brushed her teeth with the second, waiting toothbrush.
When all was done, she studied her cheek in the mirror. The yellow of iodine had faded between sleep and bathing, the skin pink and outlined on one side by a reddened scar and the other by ordinary bruises.
The patch on her neck had been removed before bathing, and Lucia had been right. With the abscess drained, there was finally a normal scab.
And every morning, it looked a little better.
He never touched her, though they shared space many hours of the day. The closest he came was his day-old shirt on her back each morning, and the bed they shared each night.
Though even that had become something that no longer looked like any bed she’d ever seen. It started with little additions he’d placed here or there. More blankets, extra pillows in a variety of colors beyond the red of the room.
Nothing was white.
The man only wore black. No embellishment, no embroidery, a stark opposite of what Brenya had seen in Central. Imagining him standing before Parliament in such pristine starkness, it was easy to see that the other men would look even more foolish beside the Beta who had taken power.
Brenya never left the room.
The first time he had, she had followed procedure upon his return. Arms around his neck after he entered, she’d asked which chair he might find most comfortable. When she had reached for the fastenings of his trousers, though he was obviously hard, he had taken her wrists and pulled her hands away.
He did not look pleased as he demanded, “What are you doing?”
What was she doing? Embarrassed and oddly insulted, she had given no answer. After all, she had clearly asked him that first night not to use her mouth while she had stitches… and he had not.
Throwing off her touch, the Beta walked away. “Go for a walk.”
“I’m sorry. A walk?”
“Leave the room, Brenya. Walk anywhere you want. You have your own guards waiting to escort you.”
“Anywhere I want?” It was a trick. It had to be a trick. The one and only walk she had taken since coming to Central had almost started a riot.
It was like he could read her mind. “Standard protocols have been put in place to move unmasked male populations away from areas Omegas want to stroll from noon until four. As you are my wife, and as I trust you not to abuse your people’s schedules, I expect that you will do your best not to inconvenience those who are working should you wish to leave the grounds at other hours.” Back to her, his voice barked a stiff, “Areas can be suggested for you to tour. No one will touch or bother you.”
She did not want to go.
Life had been somewhat palatable
in the Red Room. The food had been simple, the hours had been quiet, and there had been no buzzing pliarator or bruising grip.
“Get out!”
Her skin might have been left behind she ran so fast. Throwing open the door, dressed only in his shirt and another pair of plain drawstring pants, she found the guards—biosuits, armed, reliant on canistered air—waiting.
“Greetings, Mrs. Havel.”
Before she might untie her tongue and form some kind of reply, a shot of pleasure spiked right between her legs. On a gasp, she put her weight against the door at her back and felt an uncorked wave of slick go right down her leg.
Lightning struck her spine, a tiny pool growing at her feet as electricity spread from leaking, empty cunt to every extremity.
Seconds away from blinding orgasm, fighting the urge to reach into her pants and ferociously rub her throbbing clitoris, Brenya pointed at a door across the hall. “What is in there?”
“Every room in this quadrant of the Palace is vacant.”
Perfect. She ran the short distance, throwing the door closed and locking it before any of the men might see her fall to her knees. The scream of her climax was trapped, Brenya having bit down on her forearm until she tasted blood.
Dazed when it was over, finding herself sprawled on hands and knees—fully presenting—she rolled to her back and panted at the ceiling.
Projections of this very fresco were available in the museums. The story of the Red Consumption and the lovers torn apart. Cloaked Death pulled naked women from their reaching men. Women from women. Men from men. No love had been spared.
Famous poets summed up this work, long dead yet still remembered.
And it was right here, in a vacant room where all the furnishings were draped to protect from dust and light.
Aftershocks still quivered between her thighs, her confusion blending with relief… and also humiliation. She knew she should not have left that room.
One look at Alpha guards and this is what became of her?
No wonder Jacques thought she enjoyed his attention.
A light knock came to the door. “Madame, the Commodore has suggested you return to your room and rest. He says you will not be disturbed for the remainder of the day.”