The Relic

by Addison Cain

  And in the years since, there wasn’t any place she wandered by that wasn’t awful. Might as well pick one and plant her flag. Give up on her life as a vagrant. Live where sewage collected on the streets and everyone was sick from dirty water and improper hygiene. Try to make things better.

  But, if they didn’t get moving, she was going to die on that long, stone bridge, never knowing air conditioning again. John would probably take her stuff and die a mile or two up the path. Another traveler would loot his corpse. Just as she had looted bodies for years and pretended not to cry.

  There wasn’t any moisture for tears now. No point in regrets. But still, that kernel of anger festered, because her perfect future had been stolen by power-mongering boneheads. And six years of living a hard life had not broken her as quickly as it had the others.

  Which was unfair.

  Why care anymore? Why keep looking for a good place and good people?

  “Do you see that?” John, wasting precious energy, waved his arm toward a portion of the lake obscured by dead trees.

  “Yup, it’s water.”

  “I didn’t think the stories were real, but I’ll be damned. They even got power!”

  Electricity was only in City, and even there it was hard to come by, spotty, and cost more than just a cock in the cunt. Anal. That’s what it cost.

  Yet, a glitter broke through the copse of decaying trees. Electric light. Which meant water.

  Which meant survival.

  Already making a mental list of the crap in her pack, trying to scrounge up any idea of what to trade for a full canteen. Shamefully daydreaming of air conditioning and a soft bed.

  Knowing full well that an ocean liner had no business in a freshwater lake. That electricity didn’t exist in the no man’s land on her map. And that she’d gone too long without hydration and was hallucinating.

  “Wait.” The word was dry, so dry that even though she tried to stop him, John had already begun to run toward the shore. Splashing through sludge, having left his valuables right there on the shore, he dove in, swimming toward the enormous, shining boat.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Who uses electricity when the sun is up? That awful gut feeling that kept her as safe as one might be in this new world clenched so hard it stole her breath. This wasn’t a good place. This wasn’t a good place if no one knew about it and no map she’d seen marked a moored, massive ship large enough to hold thousands.

  But there were people on the landing, coming out at John’s hollering. There was a red-carpeted gangplank leading up to the upper levels, welcoming passengers as if they were about to take Eugenia’s dreamed-of cruise to the Bahamas.

  There would be water. Filtration systems that pumped out water she could actually drink.

  “John, come back!” But he ignored her, swimming on.

  And she could see those few gathered outside were armed. Men pointing right at her as if to say, “Collect that.”

  Because this was a bad place.

  And thanks to John, they had seen her.

  Options were limited. Swim across the lake and face whatever might be found on her terms. Or, wait for the party already boarding a dinghy to come chase her down in the woods.

  She didn’t have the strength to run. She didn’t have the strength to swim.

  But no way on God’s dead earth was she going to stand on the shore and be collected.

  Potentially drowning in that lake would be better than dying under strangers, chased down by the men earnestly slicing oars through water to reach her.

  Men who didn’t call out a greeting. Men who looked large and well fed.

  And don’t forget those guns. Big ones.

  Considering it was so fucking hot, why not take a final swim?

  Let them see she was not afraid. That she never buckled. That she was smarter than leading them on a merry chase through dead woods.

  And that was that.

  Off went the hat, the backpack with her precious volumes, the outer layers that would come between her filthy skin and cool, murky water. In she went, swimming for the ship. Knowing she’d never make it.

  But she did.

  The human condition wouldn’t let her sink. Delirious, the body fought the mind and she cut through the water like a fish. Fingers reached the bobbing gangplank, having somehow passed the boat, somehow passed John, who splashed in her wake.

  A stranger’s firm hands pulled her from the lake, where she fell immediately to her back, staring up at a sun so blinding she couldn’t make out the shadowed faces standing over her.

  “Well, aren’t you a pretty one?” Someone was pawing at her face, turning her chin and brushing wet, red curls off her cheek.

  Trying to swat off the attention was almost more effort than her exhausted muscles might put forth. “Hands off the goods.”

  “And bossy to boot.”

  The sounds of her companion being pulled from the water, of his sputtering and coughing, were ignored. Eugenia, still blinded by the sun but doing her damnedest to point her eyes in the direction of the dark figure hovering closest, muttered, “Mister, just tell me one thing. You got air conditioning on this ship?”

  A masculine chuckle was the only answer supplied.

  Her companion coughed, then sucked in a breath to say, “Brought the girl for sale. As you can see, she’s a beauty. A great ride too.”

  John. Fucking puppy-eyed John.

  How dare he! After she’d hunted for him, shared resources... allowed him to travel with her and glimpse the precious map.

  Even though someone held a canteen to her lips, even when clean water warmed by the sun splashed her tongue and was gulped. Right then, right when that water hit her gut, she knew it. John had been planning to sell her all along. That’s why the pussy kept pushing for City. That’s why he suggested the shortcut when his whining never won her.

  His voice was coming closer. John crawled near where she guzzled. “Do we have a deal for the girl?”

  “No.” Authoritative, definite.

  Maybe there was a God.

  Or maybe there was just nothing but evil. “A slave can’t sell a slave. You want water, boy. You work for it. If you don’t work, you get tossed over with the rest who failed to pull their weight.”

  In raggedy underclothes, head pounding, muscles noodley, Eugenia found the strength to lean up on an elbow and spit every drop of life-saving water in her mouth at the traitor. “Pig!”

  The same man who had deemed her a slave at first glance ordered, “Get her off the ramp before that creamy skin burns. Take her to the women on Level 15—in the air conditioning. Have them clean her up and keep her alive. This siren’s too valuable to let die.”

  Fighting with the little strength she had, biting, hoarse screams, and pathetic flopping did nothing to keep her from being shouldered like a knapsack.

  It wasn’t a short walk, but she didn’t give up, powerless to move her arms more than a sorry swing but sharp with her tongue. She threatened the stranger’s life, swore she’d tear off his cock if he put it anywhere near her. His mother. His family. Creative in her expletives until a door opened and cool air blasted her back.

  There really was air conditioning on that boat! One taste of it on her skin and she went from spitting hellcat to sobbing wreck.

  The trivial thing she’d craved most from the life stolen when the bombs fell was just as divine as she remembered.

  “Hey, Joan, here’s a new one. Captain wants her cleaned up and kept alive. Level 15.”

  “Well”—a woman spoke, a no-nonsense, middle-aged voice—“won’t that just get the men frothing at the mouth? And just look at all that red hair.”

  “Temper to match. She’s a biter.” Hefting Eugenia down against something soft and forgotten, the bruiser who dragged her into air-conditioned hell warned Joan, “Watch yourself.”

  “Yeah, I heard you. Now go. No men are allowed up here until the bell.”

  Ready for more?

&nbs
p; Read SWALLOW IT DOWN now!

  BORN TO BE BOUND

  Alpha’s Claim, Book One

  * * *

  She watched him bolt the door with a rod so thick it dwarfed her ankle, trapping her, cornering the Omega for mating. Unsure if Shepherd had heard, she used her feet to scoot away from the male until her back hit the wall, and tried again. "Food… we can't go out... hunted, forced. They're killing us." Her blown pupils looked up at the intimidating male and pleaded for him to understand. "You are the Alpha in Thólos, you hold control... we have no one else to ask."

  "So you foolishly walked into a room full of feral males to ask for food?" He was mocking her, his eyes mean, even as he grinned.

  The horror of the day, the sexual frustration of her heat, made Claire belligerently raise her head and meet his eyes. "If we don't get food, I'm dead anyway."

  Seeing the female grimace through another cramping wave, Shepherd growled, an instinctual reaction to a breeding Omega. The noise shot right between her legs, full of the promise of everything she needed. His second, louder grumbled noise sang inside her, and a wave of warm slick drenched the floor below her swollen sex, saturating the air to entice him.

  She could not take it. "Please don't make that noise."

  "You are fighting your cycle," he grunted low and abrasive, beginning to pace, watching her all the while.

  Shaking her head back and forth, Claire began to murmur, "I've lived a life of celibacy."

  Celibacy? That was unheard of... a rumored story. Omegas could not fight the urge to mate. That was why the Alphas fought for them and forced a pair-bond to keep them for themselves. The smell alone drove any Alpha into a rut.

  He growled again and the muscles of her sex clenched so hard she whined and curled up on the floor.

  It was hard enough to make it through estrous locked in a room alone until the cycle broke, but his damn noise and the smell invading past the rotting stickiness of her clothing was breaking her insides apart.

  The degrading way he spoke made her open her eyes to see the beast standing still, his massive erection apparent despite layers of clothing. "How long does your heat typically last, Omega?"

  Shivering, suddenly loving the sound of that lyrical rasp, she clenched her fists at her sides instead of beckoning him nearer. "Four days, sometimes a week."

  "And you have been through them all in seclusion instead of submitting to an Alpha to break them?"

  "Yes."

  He was making her angry, furious even, with his stupid questions. Every part of her was screaming out that he should be stroking her and easing the need. That it was his job! With her hand still pressed over her nose and mouth, her muffled, broken explanation came as a jumbled, angry rant, Claire hissing, "I choose."

  He just laughed, a cruel, coarse sound.

  Omegas had become exceptionally rare since the plagues and the following Reformation Wars a century prior. That made them a valuable commodity which Alphas in power took as if it was their due. And in a city brimming with aggressive Alphas like Thólos, she'd been trapped in a life of feigning existence as a Beta just to live unmolested, spent a small fortune on heat-suppressants, and locked herself away with the other few celibates she knew when estrous came. Hidden in plain sight before Shepherd's army sprung out of the Undercroft and the government was slaughtered, their corpses left strung up from the Citadel like trophies.

  Claire had been forced into hiding the very next day, when the unrest inspired the lower echelons of population to challenge for dominance. Where there had been order, suddenly all Thólos knew was anarchy. Those awful men just took any Omega they could find; killing mates and children in order to keep the women—to breed them or fuck until they died.

  "What is your name?"

  She opened her eyes, elated he was listening. "Claire."

  "How many of you are there, little one?"

  Trying to focus on a spot on the wall instead of the large male and where his beautiful engorged dick was challenging the zipper of his trousers, she turned her head to where her body craved to nest, staring with hunger at the collection of colorful blankets, pillows—a bed where everything must be saturated by his scent.

  An extended growl warned, "You are losing your impressive focus, little one. How many?"

  Her voice broke. "Less than a hundred... We lose more every day."

  "You have not eaten. You're hungry." It was not a question, but spoken with such a low vibration that his hunger for her was apparent.

  "Yesss." It was almost a whine. She was so near to pleading, and it wasn't going to be for food.

  The prolonged answering growl of the beast compelled a gush of slick to wet her so badly, she was left sitting in a slippery puddle. Doubling over, frustrated and needy, she sobbed, "Please don't make that noise," and immediately the growl changed pitch. Shepherd began to purr for her.

  There was something so infinitely soothing in that low rumble that she sighed audibly and did not bolt at his slow, measured approach. She watched him with such attention, her huge, dilated pupils a clear mark that she was so very close to falling completely into estrous.

  Even when Shepherd crouched down low, he towered over her, all bulging muscle and musky sweat. She tried to say the words, "Only instincts..." but jumbled them so badly their meaning was lost.

  Starting with the scarf, he unwound the items that tainted her beautiful pheromones, purring and stroking every time she whimpered or shifted nervously. When he pulled her forward to take away the reeking cloak, her eyes drew level with his confined erection. Claire's uncovered nose sniffed automatically at the place where his trousers bulged. In that moment all she wanted, all that she had ever wanted, was to be fucked, knotted, and bred by that male.

  Only instincts...

  Shepherd pressed his face to her neck and sucked in a long breath, groaning as his cock jumped and began to leak to please her. He had gone into the rut, there was no changing that fact, and with it came a powerful need to see the female filled with seed, to soothe what was driving her to rub against her hand in such a frenzy.

  The words were almost lost in her breath, "You need to lock me in a room for a few days..."

  A feral grin spread. "You are locked in a room, little one, with the Alpha who killed ten men and two of his sworn Followers to bring you here." He stroked her hair, petting her because something inside told him his hands could calm her. "It's too late now. Your defiant celibacy is over. Either you submit willingly to me where I will rut you through your heat, or you may leave out that door where my men will, no doubt, mount you in the halls once they smell you."

  * * *

  Read BORN TO BE BOUND now!

  Addison Cain

  USA TODAY bestselling author and Amazon Top 25 bestselling author, Addison Cain’s dark romance and smoldering paranormal suspense will leave you breathless.

  Obsessed antiheroes, heroines who stand fierce, heart-wrenching forbidden love, and a hint of violence in a kiss awaits.

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