Claimed by the Alpha

by Laxmi Hariharan

  “I am fine,” I growl at him.

  He lowers me back to the bed and grips my shoulders. My limbs twitch. The mating bond tugs at me, and I bend over with a groan. “Fuck,” I try to breathe, but my lungs hurt. The band around my chest tightens and waves of agony crash over me. I drop my chin toward my chest and dry heave. The mating bond thrums, and adrenaline laces my blood. “I have to get to her.”

  Another wave of pain floods my chest, and I almost blackout this time. What the fuck? I am not some bloody weakling, I am the General of this city, and I am going to rescue my mate.

  I grab the frame of the bed and push my feet into the wooden floor for purchase. Sweat pours down my chest in rivulets with the effort.

  My muscles tense, and everything in me feels like it’s fine-tuned to do one thing. “I have to find her.” I hear myself, hear the helplessness in my voice, the anger, and that twisted desire all mixed with pure, unadulterated fear, and I cannot understand it.

  How can I feel so much? Like she is the other half of me. She, an omega I’d met just a few days ago, has distilled her presence into me, and her essence now occupies that very core of me.

  I rub the skin over my chest again, over the bandages, over where the bullet had gone clear through me. Right at the point where the mating cord is embedded into me.

  The void personifies what is left of me.

  Emptiness, a raw, searing wound that grows deeper by the minute, throbs with need, churns with that ache to be with her. The wound seems to ebb and contract, then fills with a surge of fear so strong that my throat closes. My knees crumple, and I sway.

  “You are in no state to leave.” Ethan folds his arms over his chest.

  “Nothing and no one stands between me and her.”

  I hear my own words, and fuck if I don’t sound obsessed. For I am. With her. My fingers tremble; sweat beads my forehead. I need to get to her; instead, I huddle here, helpless. Adrenaline spikes my blood.

  I stagger to my feet. My leg muscles seize and I sway but manage to stay upright. Thank fuck.

  The breath whooshes out of me. My lungs fucking hurt. My limbs twitch. My shoulders bunch. Every part of me screams in agony, but it’s nothing compared to the void in my chest which threatens to grow bigger, until it fills every part of me, until I am one big mass of pain, every molecule of which still wants to go to her and rescue her.

  “If you leave in this condition, you won’t clear this stronghold, let alone infiltrate Kayden’s fort where he’s keeping her.”

  I turn on him so fast he has no time to react. But, of course, Ethan doesn’t blink. He holds my gaze.

  “You know where he’s holding her?”

  “At the Isle of Wight, in a tower that is virtually impenetrable.”

  “It’s a trap.” Another surge of pain blasts through me. It radiates out from the point where the mating bond is coiled in my chest, where it’s now a long, dark hole, a furrow that rips out my guts, leaving only emptiness behind. For that’s still what we are to each other, nothing. “She brought Kayden to me.” The realization punches me with the force of a storm.

  Ethan doesn’t reply. He doesn’t need to; the furrow between his eyebrows say everything.

  “I am sure there’s an explanation to everything—”

  “Stop.” I take a step back and hold up my hand. My voice is soft. Yet anger bubbles up from deep inside. This feels right, this acidic tang of hate that sweeps through my gut, that churns my insides, that eats away at my cells and bathes me in numbness. Welcome, hate, old friend. This I embrace with gratitude. I know how to deal with rage. I know what I need to do. I square my shoulders and straighten my spine.

  “Don’t go, this will not end well if you do.” Ethan’s voice is low and hard.

  “Don’t try to read my thoughts.” I grit my teeth.

  “You forget I’ve studied your behavior and your thinking patterns.”

  I blink. “That’s bizarre, even for you, Second.”

  “It’s the logical approach.” He rubs the back of his neck. “One way to predict your moves, which, to be honest, are not always rational.”

  “What-fucking-ever,” I growl at him. “What are you getting at? Spit it out, and in simple English. In a form that even I, the Bastard of the East End, will understand.”

  Ethan chuckles, and the sound is not kind. “Do I detect a streak of self-pity in the mighty Zeus?”

  “Don’t provoke me.” We are so different, this man and I, and we are synced by something I cannot define.

  He’d turned on the man he’d taken an oath to protect…then he’d helped me save her, and I’ve grown to rely on him.

  Like I’d come to trust her, love her…and look at what had happened. She’d led Kayden straight to me. She’d almost killed me, and…I cannot live without her.

  The mating bond aches and swells and burns in my chest, and… “Enough.” My voice rings through the space.

  Am I telling that to her? To Ethan? To myself? I am not sure. I drop into myself, draw on my instincts, and snap down a barrier on the bond.

  A last pulse, a gasp, and then it stills.

  Silence sweeps through my mind. The darkness crowds in, laced with hate. The need to hurt. Familiar emotions. This I can deal with. This is me. Empty, lifeless, a man who cannot be redeemed.

  I swivel around and stagger to the bath at the far end of the room.

  At the door, I grasp the frame and turn to look at him over my shoulder. “Tell the doctors to pump me up with enough painkillers. They need to get me functional, long enough to get to her.”

  “You sure that’s wise? Why not wait a few days, until you have recovered enough—”

  I stare at him, clamping down on my jaw so hard it hurts.

  The color fades a little from his face.

  He drops his head forward in a gesture of submission, but I am not fooled. Ethan doesn’t bend to anyone; this is temporary. But it will do. Until I get to her, until I show her who is the real alpha in this relationship. She betrayed me once, and I will not let her fool me again. This time, I will bring her back and cage her and keep her. She will be my guilty pleasure, a possession to be taken and touched and then put back.

  I’ll ensure she understands the price of betraying me. No one, no one hurts me and gets away with it. Least of all an omega who has nothing to her name, a princess without a kingdom, a waif who wanted to save her own clan. A woman who smells of honey and sunshine and…I slam my fist into the wall next to the bathroom door. The surface cracks, and the plaster floats down on me.

  My knuckles ache, and I smell blood in the air.

  Pain floods my brain, and it helps me focus. Focus. Just one thing to do. Find her. And show her who is her true master.

  15

  Lucy

  I am numb, so numb, I am sure I’ve drawn into myself, become an empty shell, and floated away, high up in the sky.

  Away from where it hurts, away from the pain that floods my chest. The mating cord has been silent since Zeus fell. Emptiness swells in my ribcage. He can’t be dead. Not my alpha. Not my vital, larger-than-life, dominant mate. He has to be alive. Has to… I grab at my chest. My fingers dig into the bandage that is wrapped over the crook of my shoulder.

  The bullet that went through him grazed the side of my throat. It hurt me, but it almost killed him. “Zeus.” I spring up in the bed and look around, my pulse pounding at my temples, but the room is draped in shadows. I clutch at the space above my left breast, trying to prevent the escape of any lingering vibrations.

  I need to contain the last beats of the mating cord, lock in the thud-thud that beats in tandem with my heart.

  My soul.

  My everything.

  He’s everything to me.

  And I betrayed him.

  A trembling grips me. A pulse of heat drips down the mating bond. He’s trying to block me out, and yet despite everything, he’s helpless in the face of the intensity of our connection. He cannot stop a part of him from r

eaching out to me.

  The scent of him floods my senses, that burned pine and cinnamon of his essence. I draw it in and pull it over myself, positioning it between me and the world.

  The fine hair on my neck rises, and I know I am not alone. But I am not ready to face whoever is watching me.

  For these last few seconds, I want to be alone with the essence of the person who can fulfill me, my alpha, my mate. My all… The mating cord thrums. It’s pleased with my thinking, then a hint of belligerence bleeds through. And hate, mixed with confusion and love, so much love. But I am mistaken—he's an unfeeling monster. It’s not possible for him to love, is it?

  Not possible for him to give himself over completely to who I am. Especially now that I've betrayed him.

  The mating cord pulses in agreement, then cuts out.

  It just shuts down.

  A chasm gapes in the space where it had once been. “No.” I grip my side.

  My heart hammers and a chill rattles my chest. The cord can’t just dissolve.

  Mating bonds between an alpha and omega cannot be broken.

  I am alive, so he must be too.

  The only explanation is that he’s placed a barrier on the bond so I can’t reach him…which means that he knows I betrayed him. I need to get to him and put things right. But how? I straighten my legs. I’ll do what it takes to remedy the wrong I did him.

  “You’re conscious?” Kayden swaggers forward to stand a good five feet from me.

  The arrogance of those flared nostrils, the haughtiness with which he surveys me—that curved nose, that build—he’s so similar to his half brother. The same half brother who no doubt hates me now. The pressure increases at the back of my eyes and I bite down on the inside of my cheek to hold back my tears.

  “What do you want, Kayden?” I infuse my voice with disdain.

  His gaze rakes my features, “Not what you think.”

  “How do you know what I am thinking?” I try to chuckle, and the sound comes out on a gasp. Pain throbs through the wound at the side of my throat, but I can take it. It’s a sign I am alive and here…unlike the emptiness that permeates my chest, filling it with nothingness.

  “You’re an omega in an alpha’s domain. Of course, you’d think I want to rut you, but I don’t take what belongs to another.” His gaze falls on the claiming marks on my throat. The marks are still visible around the space where he’d shot me and where the bandage had been wrapped.

  The way he looks at the wound, realization sinks in.

  “You shot me over the claiming marks on purpose?” I grip my fingers together to stop myself from attacking him again. That’s not going to help me, not right now.

  “You could say it was a healthy coincidence.”

  Oh, the conceit of this man. “You half brothers talk the same. Did you two have the same teacher?”

  His features tighten. “I am nothing like him. I am alive, and he’s—”

  My skin prickles. “He’s not dead.” I gasp out the words, rushing them out before he can say anything else.

  Kayden angles his head, and his gaze narrows. “So, you do have feelings for him.” He purses his lips and a smile tugs at the corners. “Apparently my plan worked, all too well.”

  “I…I don’t understand.” I wring my fingers. “Why did you bring me here?” I swallow.

  “I have something bigger in mind for you. If it was Zeus’s death I'd wanted, I’d have killed him already. No, this is more—much bigger. I need him to acknowledge his bond for you. I need to lure him here where I can barter him to the Vikings.”

  “You wouldn’t.” I stare at him in horror.

  The Vikings are merciless, the worst of the alphas.

  They are berserkers with no emotion, nothing to distract from the sheer blood craziness that takes them, and they go on killing rampages when that happens. They want power, land, and omegas.

  Fear grips me. I force the words out, despite the lump in my throat. “You are going to trade me to them?” I hate that he can hear the tremor in my voice.

  “Not you. They want my half brother. And I’d have taken him if his second hadn’t intruded.” He inhales, then releases his breath with a whoosh. “No, this is better. You are bait, and one a wounded alpha will covet, now that you are bonded to him.”

  I firm my resolve and meet his gaze. “Barter me instead.”

  “They want more.” He rubs the back of his neck. “You are taken. They seek virgin omegas to mate with and breed—”

  “You are going to barter my clan? You promised to protect them.”

  For a moment, he looks uncertain. “I am sorry, truly.” He sets his jaw. “If I don’t do as the Vikings say they will destroy my city and kill my people.” He clenches his fingers into fists.

  My palms sweat. “You’d give up your own half brother?”

  “I’d do anything to save my clan, you of all people must understand that.” His shoulders sag, then he squares them.

  I swallow and look away. He’s right. Hadn’t I betrayed my own mate to save my kin? There is a sinking feeling in my stomach. My insides roil.

  “It’s not something I take lightly.” He shifts his weight from foot to foot. “I came to this conclusion after much deliberation. If there was any other way, I’d take it.”

  “I will not let you hurt those I love.” Rage pounds at my temples. Adrenaline spikes my blood. I stumble to my feet and throw myself at him.

  He steps aside, and I lurch forward, toward the floor.

  He catches me and shoves me back on the bed. It’s not a gentle push, but he could have used more force.. I sit up.

  He props pillows behind my back, then moves away, putting space between us.

  It’s clear to him that I am bonded.

  That I belong to another.

  Of course, he can scent another alpha on me, but it’s not that. “You don’t want to hurt me.”

  “Smart omega.” His gaze sweeps over my features. “I don’t want to taint you in any way that might distract Zeus from his purpose—of reclaiming you, taking you away.”

  The horror of what he’s saying sinks in. But there’s also a fierce sense of rightness, of inevitability. That come what may, he’ll always return to me, as I will find my way to him. And this time, I will not let him down. I need to find a way to help him. I must. I draw myself up to my full height and meet Kayden’s gaze.

  “You lie.”

  He stiffens. His chest rises and falls, and he folds his arms over his chest. The dominance pours off of him, and those features so similar to Zeus's harden.

  But he isn’t Zeus.

  He doesn’t have my alpha’s eyes. Or his chin. Or that breadth of his chest that urges me to fling myself at him and ask him to cover my body with his.

  “Explain, Omega.” His voice is a whiplash.

  My heart hammers, but I hold his gaze. “You’re not a monster, and neither is Zeus. You think you want to hurt him. You think you are going to give him up to the Vikings. But you are not.”

  He growls, and the sound eddies over my skin and settles in my belly. The unmistakable masculine power of an alpha tugs at my nerves and my chest hurts.

  His nostrils flare, and his gaze narrows. He takes a step forward. “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

  My pulse races. My guts twist. I want so much to cower, to fling my arms over my head and hide; instead, I grip the bedclothes and clench my teeth “I do.”

  “Only an omega would believe in the goodness that lurks under the skin of a beast, and that’s not—”

  “True. It’s true.” It has to be. Doesn’t he understand I have to believe it to survive? I need to hold on to that kernel of possibility I sense here, what my intuition tells me is possible. I have to give it a chance.

  My words seem to cut through the haze in his head, for he takes another step forward, and another, until he’s standing above me. He’s not as tall as Zeus, but Kayden is tall enough, mean enough, and bigger than many alphas I have met. Icy tendrils of fear have me questioning myself.

  He growls and tosses his head.

  “You don’t scare me.” I clench my fists at my sides.

  He blinks, then chuckles.

  I stare.

  “I can see why Zeus is so taken with you. I guess I made the right choice by sending you to him, after all. Who knew I’d figured out his taste before he could, eh?” He straightens, and turning, stalks to the door.

  “Wait,” I call after him.

  He pauses, then shoots me a look over his shoulder. “No more questions. I have told you everything I can. Rest, recover. It won’t be long before Zeus arrives, and you don’t want to keep him waiting, Omega.”

  16

  Zeus

  I move back, far enough from the wall to be able to take the measure of it. Then running up to it, I scale it, my fingers and toes catching the dents, tiny grooves in the wall of the castle, before getting to the top. I vault over it and drop to the ground almost twenty feet down.

  Hitting the muddy earth, I roll to break my fall, then spring back on my feet, and begin to run.

  I tuck my arms into my sides, lengthen my strides, and my breathing grows deeper. All the lessons I learned while racing through the alleys of the East End, evading those who hunted me, come to the fore.

  My body adjusts to the pace and I race through the forest that surrounds Kayden’s safe house in the Isle of Wight.

  Crazy, the height of stupidity, Ethan had called it. I have come here on my own, not fully recovered from the bullet the bastard pumped into me. And here I am, being led by my dick as I attempt to single-handedly break through one of the most guarded outposts in the entire continent. Well, boo-fucking-hoo. There hasn’t been a single stronghold I couldn’t infiltrate so far… and I plan to do just that. I am going to spear that omega’s cunt once I get to her.

  Footsteps crunch through the fallen leaves near me, and I drop to a crouch. I shuffle behind the trunk of an ancient oak tree.

  Soldiers walk by, clad in armor, carrying large swords and armed with organic fitted guns. Interesting. Guns are normally confined to top rank alphas, bullets being relatively difficult to come by. Which means someone is funding Kayden, probably the same people who put him up to trying to trap me.

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