I found her eyes as tears welled. “It’s me?” she breathed. “You weren’t lying?”
I could only shake my head.
“I’m yours? Your omega mate.”
“You’re mine,” I declared. “And I’m going to show you so much more before the night is over.”
Chapter Twelve
Tavia
Omega instinct told me not to trust Dagger, to question everything. But in this moment, with his hand caressing my jaw, and the taste of that incredible kiss still on my lips, I was desperate for more than relief of my heat. I wanted so badly to let my guard down, to not have to fight so hard anymore, even if it was just for a moment.
I would let myself get lost in the fantasy that I belonged to him. Give him a chance to make good on his promises that he’d keep me safe. He brought my senses back. That wasn’t an accident. That couldn’t happen unless…
I’d let myself trust him. Even if it was just for tonight.
A wolf bayed, too close. We had sent our betas away, leaving only Charolet and Cassian to guard the vehicle. That might have been enough if we’d made it back to the bunker. In the middle of the desert, there was no telling what would happen tonight.
“Kiss me again,” I whispered.
Dagger’s eyes sparkled in those last moments before he closed them. He sighed against my lips, and this time, I let him in. His heart pounded against my palms as he deepened the kiss. But it wasn’t enough. The heat rose to an unbearable level inside me and I thrashed below him, desperate for everything he had to give.
He understood. Tearing his mouth away from mine, he moved to my neck, sucking hard on the throbbing skin, drinking the dew that was the only thing that had kept me sane. Taking my nape in his big hand, he lifted me just enough to push my jacket off my shoulders, leaving nothing between us.
Dagger rolled back to his knees, and I followed him. My heat had gone beyond need. If my alpha didn’t get inside me right fucking now, I’d die.
He pushed me back down to the platform, the muscles in his forearm tense. “You have to stay down,” he growled. “I can’t risk anyone seeing you.”
“But Cassian and Charolet are out there…” If anyone got too close, they’d know it wasn’t Charolet in heat. They’d keep looking until they could satisfy their lust.
Dagger shook his head. “They can take care of themselves. Until they need us, it’s just you and me.” He eased his grip. “So many nights I’ve dreamed of you fighting by my side and then waking up in my bed. Sometimes it was the only thing that got me through battle, that someday I’d have the chance to show you how I really felt about you.”
My heart did a funny thing in my chest when it skipped a beat. “Did you ever question Adalai, I mean His Majesty?”
Dagger smirked, then took a moment to think about his answer. “I made suggestions, but Adalai was dead set on following his father’s laws to the letter. It never made sense to me, because his mother was an omega.”
I had so many more questions for him, but they’d have to wait. Night was falling on the desert. The problem would soon switch from them seeing me to us not being able to see them. Dagger drew ragged breaths. In the twilight, the ripped skin on his bicep glowed with wet blood. I’d done that to him. Ripped him open and made him bleed. At one time, that would’ve been punishable by death, for an omega to harm an alpha.
Everything had been punishable by death, and yet, I was still here, with King Adalai’s right hand man. Even though he was disgraced now, it was still something I never dared dream of before my sister changed everything.
I pressed my lips together to suppress a whine.
“Someday you’ll dream of me too, Tavia,” he wiped the hair that had escaped my braid away from my face. “I wanted it to be different for us the first time we were together, but the most important thing right now is breaking your heat and getting you back to Luxoria. Someday, I’ll have the chance to show you what it’s really like to be my mate.”
My wolf writhed inside me, threatening to break through my skin if Dagger didn’t rut me right this very second. If I shifted, I’d be in more danger. The wolves could drag me back to the human keep…
Or were they the good guys now?
I cried out, so many thoughts raced through my head and I couldn’t put them into words. I needed Dagger to act.
He nodded, like he knew what I was thinking, and tore his gaze away from me to survey the endless desert that surrounded us as he freed himself from his leather pants. His cock sprang out, hard and ready. I whined as the heat rose to an intolerable level.
He dragged his gaze over my body. “You’re beautiful.” He sighed. “I wish I’d told you before now. All that time. Wasted.”
Another howl ripped through the approaching night and Dagger’s hand flew over my mouth. With his other, he pressed me to the platform, anchoring me.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe. If you’ve never believed a word out of my mouth before now, everything changes tonight. I’ll set this desert on fire before I let one wolf lay a paw on you.”
I tried to talk against his palm, and he moved it away when I whined. He had to know how much I hated that, even if it was for my own good. “Dagger...please...I need…”
“I know.” He looked over his shoulder again, like he was convinced we had company.
“I want to go slow with you, because you deserve that. You deserve better than the bed of a dirty military truck on a hot desert night. But right now, you need my cock. You need relief from the heat that threatens to burn us both alive.”
I nodded and whined behind his hand. He kissed me again, and this time, he didn’t need an invitation to come inside. I let him in. I needed him inside me, in every possible way.
His hands ran down my body, grasping my breasts only for a moment. “I can’t wait to take the time to lavish you with the attention you deserve.” He squeezed my nipple between his fingers, and I thrashed below him. The sensation sent my wolf to the very edge.
Spreading my legs wide, I offered myself to him. I wanted this. I wanted him.
He cupped my mound, sending sensation rocketing through my body. I was afraid to open my eyes, afraid I’d see fur where my skin should be. Each breath was more ragged, pulled out of me by his fingers circling my clit. No one had ever bothered to take even this little bit of time with me before. Even in my heat-raddled state, it meant something.
Dagger’s other hand was on his cock, pumping his thick shaft. I moaned, and he nodded, lining it up with my opening and driving it inside me. Once he was all the way in, his gaze met mine. His face was almost lost to the shadows, and that would’ve been a shame, because when he let his guard down and forgot about all the rules that had almost ruined our lives, the ones that had made us enemies, he was truly beautiful. Still hard and fierce, but for the first time, I really saw him.
My wolf stirred inside, silently claiming him.
He was the first thing I could truly call mine.
Rocking his hips back, he thrust hard over and over. I’d lost all control over my body, but I couldn’t cry out. The wolves were too close.
A moan escaped and Dagger lowered his head to my ear. “I know,” he grunted with effort. “I know my omega wants to scream.”
His cock swelled inside me, and my muscles pulsed around it, trapping his bulging knot inside me. Sweat ran down Dagger’s face as his head fell back and he sprayed his seed where it was needed most. There was so much, I thought it would never stop. Pressing my lips together, I whined as my body rolled off the truck floor, giving everything over to my orgasm.
The heat broke and Dagger fell on top of me, wrapping his arms around my body and smothering me in kisses. He was saying something, but I couldn’t make out the words. I feared I was losing my senses again. I knew this break in the heat was only temporary. Zelene’s didn’t break for four days, even after she’d been with Adalai multiple times. How would we do that? Maybe that was what he was trying to tell me. That
it would be all right.
His cock was still swollen inside me. It belonged there. The only sound in the truck was our ragged breathing, punctuated with the occasional kiss.
“Tavia. You still with me?” he asked.
It took me a moment to answer. “Yeah.”
We were locked together at the waist, his knot still tight in my channel, ensuring his seed didn’t escape. He pulled back to stare at me. “You can tell me the truth.”
My body was shaking, and my skin was a weird hot and cold that I’d never experienced before. The first day of the heat was always the most intense and confusing time. When my body forgot how to be human and ran on pure animal instinct.
He pushed my hair away from my face. It felt so good when he did that. So kind and thoughtful. I wasn’t used to it. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I should be okay if we have to travel tomorrow. The heat isn’t as bad on the second day. So as long as we’re not far from the Badlands—”
“Little firecracker.” Dagger shook his head, tipping my chin so we were eye to eye. “I don’t want to hear about war, or what waits for us in the desert tomorrow. I want to know what’s on your mind.”
“That is what’s on my mind.” I strangled a whine as his knot released me and he untangled us. “I don’t know how to talk about me because there’s never been a me. I’ve always been omega. A part of the whole. Someone who keeps the machine running because I didn’t want to see what happened if things got worse.”
He frowned. “That’s not true. You were the one on the front lines, challenging me any time a rule was especially unfair, even though you knew you could be punished for speaking up. You were the one who helped the omegas who couldn’t help themselves. The sick and the weak and the old. Not everyone did that. You did.”
My throat ached realizing just how much he’d been watching me over the years. How much he’d noticed.
How tied his hands had been.
“It’s not over,” I said softly. “Nothing’s changed for most of the omegas. The punishable by death stuff may have gone away, but that kind of fear doesn’t just vanish. Neither does the hunger or the poverty or the sickness. That stuff leaves scars.”
He closed his eyes for a long blink. The scars of the things that happened in the Badlands would linger on his soul. “I asked you what you were thinking, and you told me the truth. What do you want to happen now?”
Good question. Even after Zelene took the crown, life had been a constant state of panic and what-if. In this moment, lying naked with Dagger in the back of the dusty Humvee, time finally slowed down. I wasn’t sure if the humans were a threat, or the royals were a threat, but Dagger…
He was mine. I had to keep reminding myself that.
“I want everyone to feel safe.” Like I did at that moment.
He sighed. “Not what you want for everyone, love. What do you want for you?”
Nobody had ever asked me that question before. It felt selfish to even think about it. I’d always been fighting for something bigger than myself. What did I want?
One thing came to mind. A future where I was truly free, in every way.
“I want you to make good on your promise, that one day I’ll wake up beside you in your bed.”
Chapter Thirteen
Dagger
I stared at Tavia, hardly believing what had come out of her mouth. Did she really want that? To be mine, even when we returned to Luxoria. My mind had been scheming of ways to win her when the heat was over. Because one night with her would never be enough. Not now that my wolf felt what it was like to be one with a mate. It wasn’t like the coupling I’d partaken of in the past. It was different. Permanent. Like I’d been searching for her my entire life and getting it wrong, wrong, wrong. And now, it was just… right. It was so right.
Maybe her inner beast was telling her the same thing. That I was for her. That I could help heal all her hurts.
Damn. If she would trust me that much… if she would commit to me, to a life at my side…
I would forsake everything else in the world and bow at her feet. There’d be no king for me. No kingdom or title. Nothing would keep my loyalty. None except her heart. I’d own that. Worship that. Pledge my life to that.
Everything would be different.
I would fall just as hard as Adalai and wouldn’t even fight it.
A vision of what life could be like flashed before my eyes. Tavia laughing, and not in disdain. Feeding her in our bed after a long night of fucking. Learning all her likes and dislikes. What she was like as a child. Even the Badlands horror stories. All of it. I would even share mine. She didn’t think I knew about suffering, but she was wrong. Together, we would heal all our inner wounds. The invisible ones no one could see.
Yes, my animal purred beneath my skin.
Tavia was my future. She was the unexpected answer to everything I’d been looking for. I’d lost my place in Adalai’s kingdom, but only because my true place was with her.
I opened my mouth to tell her so, but the crease in her brow stopped me.
“What’s that smell?” she asked. “Is something burning?”
Grudgingly, I lifted my head to look out the window. I couldn’t see Charolet or Cassian, but in the not too far off distance heavy smoke drifted up from several small fires.
“Stay down,” I told Tavia as I pulled my pants on. “I’ll go see what’s happening.”
“Charolet.” She lifted her head. “I’ll come too.”
“No. You can’t. If you leave the vehicle, your scent will spread. We can’t risk it.”
“Char could be in danger. I have to help her.”
I slid my palm to the center of her chest and used the heel of it to press her back to the floor. A growl that indicated I was alpha, filled the small space, and her eyes glazed over with fresh desire.
“I will make sure your friend is safe. But you have to stay here, love.” I pressed a hard kiss to her lips. “Do as I say.”
I didn’t wait to see if she’d argue. Sliding out of the truck, I closed the door quickly, trying to keep as much of her scent inside the vehicle as possible. A scan of the canyon told me that Charolet and Cassian were fine. The two of them stood several yards from the vehicle, smack between two of the fires, clearly arguing about something.
“They’re fine,” I yelled through the window to Tavia so she wouldn’t worry. “I’ll be back.”
Stalking across the rocky flat, I was halfway to them when Cassian’s head snapped to me.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he boomed, and Charolet’s angry gaze followed his. “You can’t be out here. You reek of the omega.”
Shit. Tavia’s scent would be all over me after what we’d done.
“The omega has a name,” Charolet huffed as she began walking my way. “What did you do to her? Is she okay?” She stopped in front of me, hands on her hips. Cassian stood behind her, as if she was the barrier between him and Tavia’s scent.
Good thinking.
“I don’t think either of you really want to know what I did to her. Just know that she’s not in pain anymore.”
“That’s not helpful in the least, asshole. ‘Not in pain anymore’ could mean a lot of things. Numb with pleasure. Passed out. Dead. How about you give me some actual information so I don’t lose my goddamn mind out here.”
Cassian shot me a look of exasperation and went to pacing a short path behind Charolet.
“The first one,” I told her. “She’s good. I promise.”
“As if your promise means anything,” she muttered.
“It should. I promised to keep her safe, and I have.”
Charolet scoffed. “You haven’t kept her safe. We have.” She looked at Cassian and gestured to the ring of fires they’d started a ways out from the vehicle.
“The smoke will mask the scent for a while, but not long,” Cassian explained. “It’s not a fix. It’s a bandage.”
“It’s smart,” I said.
I raised an eyebrow at Charolet.
“What? Didn’t you know omegas are resourceful?”
Indeed, I knew. How many times had I marveled at their ability to survive. “Absolutely. Omegas have always been resourceful.” I hid my smile. I was pretty sure Charolet wouldn’t appreciate my amusement.
She scowled, glancing at Cassian. “Well, tell that to him. He thinks I’m stupid.”
“I didn’t say that,” Cassian argued.
“You didn’t have to.”
He ran a hand through his hair, looking worse for the wear. The distance and the smoke were helping him handle Tavia’s scent, but I didn’t miss the way his glance flicked toward the Humvee occasionally.
Charolet didn’t miss it either.
“It’s almost dark. No doubt the wolves will prowl at night.”
Charolet nodded. “We have a plan for that. When the sun sets, I’m going to run with Tavia’s scent-saturated clothes. I’ll head toward the Badlands. That’s where they expect her to go. They’ll follow the scent and you guys can head through the canyon in the morning.”
“I told you, damn it,” Cassian grated. “You’re not going. I am. You need to stay with her, and it’s dangerous for me to be this close anyway.”
“I can shift and go faster.”
Cassian narrowed his gaze. “I’m fast enough, woman. And stealthy too. I’ll be out of the canyon before they catch the faintest whiff.”
She tipped her chin up. “What if you get distracted?”
“By what?” Cassian threw his arms wide. “What would distract me more than being here, so close?”
“I don’t know! What if you like… get distracted by the scent and stop to hump her clothes or something?”
Cassian went stiff at that, his mouth slamming shut, jaw tight with frustration. His eyes narrowed to slits. “If I wanted to hump something that bad, it sure as fuck wouldn’t be a pile of clothes. No matter how sweet they smelled.”
His Defiant Omega (The Royal Omegas Book 2) Page 6