“Fuck.” My stomach lurches. At this rate, we are going to be discovered by the guards, and there’s no way I am going to let them get their hands on her. I need to get her to safety. “Don’t push me, Omega. I am already furious with you.”
“Like that’s any different than before.” She tosses her head.
“Yeah, it is.” Blood thuds at my temples. “I trusted you. I knew you’d come to kill me, yet I mated you. Not anymore.”
“Wha…what do you mean? You can’t sever the mating bond.” She rubs the part of her chest over her heart, a mirror to the place in my chest where the cord burns. White noise fills my rib cage, swells my blood and pounds at my pulse points. All of my nerve endings twitch, warning me, tugging at me, telling me not to do it. Don't cause her pain. Don't. “Oh, I will keep the bond, for I intend to make your life a living hell.”
Her features go pale.
This is when she'll flee from me, maybe back to Kayden, or perhaps she'll try to run, knowing she’s changed one kind of imprisonment for the other.
Instead, she stomps around me and thumps me in the chest. “If you think that scares me away, think again. Nothing can change what I have been through already. Where every single part of me has been infiltrated by you, taken by you, and still I am here with you.”
“That’s what I don’t understand.” I shake my head, the rainwater bouncing off me, off her, filling the silence.
“Neither do I.” Her mouth turns down at the side. Her green eyes shine…with tears?
My chest tightens, and my guts lurch. The fuck? Why am I reacting to her misery? I wanted to upset her, cause her to be angry and afraid. Instead, all of those emotions are backfiring on me.
A shout sounds in the distance.
I stiffen. “We've gotta leave.”
“No.” She folds her arms behind her back.
“Really?” I set my jaw.
I was insane to have come to her rescue. I was wrong to think my attachment to her is temporary. I am giving her a chance to speak, to have a say in how the future unfolds for her, and fuck me if that isn’t acting out of character.
Obviously, I am losing my edge, my ability to think in coherent terms. Since I mated her, I have forgotten my goal, my past, what I am. All I know is her, and I am not going to let her order me around or defy me again.
No way.
I haul her and throw her up over my shoulder. She struggles—of course she does.
I slap her butt.
She goes still then wriggles with renewed force, kicking out and catching me in the side.
“Keep quiet. Do you want to attract Kayden’s attention? I can promise you his treatment of you is going to be far worse than mine.”
“Let me down, or I’ll yell and attract the attention of the guards,” she hisses at me.
“You won’t.” I chuckle.
Why would she want to stay back with Kayden, the man who kept her family captive, who put her up to the mission of infiltrating me? Nah, she knows she is better off with me. She knows it.
She throws her head back and screams.
19
Lucy
I didn’t mean to do that, scream and draw attention to us, but this alpha, his sheer arrogance riles me up again.
Everything I’d decided earlier, to put right the way I’d betrayed him, to behave like a normal omega, all of that goes right out the window.
His big body freezes under me, and his muscles coil. Dense clouds of anger roll off him. I swallow. He’s going to punish me for this.
Probably spank my butt again, or drop me, leave me, and get the hell out of here. He does none of that. He chuckles. A deep, sexy sound that seems to swell from his very core. It’s as potent as his purrs. No, even more.
This is Zeus giving in to that sense of humor I knew he had hidden inside him. I’d sensed it, felt it, just never thought he’d show it. Not now. Not when we are facing his nemesis. His half brother who reacted so like him. For a second, my heart aches at the rift between these two. Both alphas, so similar, yet so different. One of whom is mine, and the other…he doesn’t mean to hurt Zeus. He doesn’t. Just as Zeus wants an excuse to settle their differences.
I cannot explain this flash of insight that sweeps over me except to say that perhaps my instinct and ability to foresee, which my mother had always maintained I had, chose this moment to reveal itself.
He lowers me to the ground, making sure to slide me down every single inch of his body.
I feel those hard planes of his chest, the taut muscles of his stomach, the rigid length of his shaft, all of it sets my insides humming with lust. Then I am standing, and he bends enough to peer into my eyes.
“You’ve been a bad omega.”
His voice is stern. His eyes gleam.
Yeah, the alpha’s eyes actually shine with a light that promises I haven’t heard the last of this.
His lips turn up in a smirk. “I promise I am going to punish you for that, but for now, we need to get out of here, okay?”
Those indigo eyes of his draw me in, circles of blue and violet and turquoise, and the entire range of blues in between flare. All dwarfed by those long lashes that should make him look absurdly feminine. But all it does is emphasize his sheer masculine presence.
My heart lurches with a strange warmth.
Why am I so drawn to him, even as we are trying to escape a man who is out to get him, and me, and my family?
I stiffen. “My clan.”
“We’ll get them out, provided you cooperate.”
I swallow and bite my lower lip.
He frowns, and his gaze searches mine. “Will. You. Cooperate with me?” His nostrils fare.
The intensity of his gaze sears me.
A growl spools from his throat, and despite myself, my thighs clench, and moisture creeps down my core. I nod. “Y…yeah.”
“I didn’t hear you, Omega.” He draws himself up to his full height.
I jut out my chin. “I’m ready to leave with you.”
He holds out his hand.
I slip my palm into his much bigger one, and he takes off, yanking me along. He sets a blistering pace. My muscles burn as I try to keep up. My heart pounds, my throat is dry, but everything inside me glories at the fact that he’s holding my hand.
We are doing this together, and every pore in my skin opens and revels in being near this alpha.
The sheer vitality and energy that crackles from him is a testament to what he truly is. A full-grown, in-his-prime alpha, who is lethal, dangerous, and all mine. Mine. I almost stumble at the realization. His grip tightens on my hand, and I straighten. Then we are moving, fast, through the trees.
I hear the footsteps crashing through the undergrowth behind us the same time he does.
He increases his speed and pulls me along.
My lungs scream. I try to draw in oxygen, and my feet slap on the stones with every step I take. The skin on my soles bursts open, and I wince but don’t stop.
My thighs burn, my stomach spasms, but I force my legs to move. I will keep pace with him. I must. It’s the only way to earn his respect. Show him that I can match his speed.
We run until we hit the beach. He doesn’t stop, keeps going, wading into the waves. The seawater burns the cuts on my feet, and a scream boils up before I can stop it.
He doesn’t slow down, though I sense the tension in his body ratchet up. The stress coils in his muscles.
Half turning, in a move that takes my breath away, he snatches me up and swings me over his shoulders then jumps over the first wave and the next. A third wave crashes over us, and he loses his grip on me. I crash into the water.
The blue-green waves close over me, filling my mouth, my ears, burning my eyes. Then I am pulled under, only to be hauled up by a firm grip under my armpits.
My head clears the water, and I take in big gulps of breath. My lungs scream; my throat hurts. I squeeze the arms holding me. “Alpha.”
“That’s right, Omega.”
“Zeus.” I crack my eyelids open.
“Wrong guess.”
20
Zeus
Kayden holds her up in front of him, his hands gripping her shoulders. How dare he touch her? The water streams over her hair, down her neck, plastering her dress to her chest, and all I can think is that she looks like a goddess. And he has his hands all over my property.
Anger tightens my chest.
I take a step forward, and a wave crashes in between us. I lose sight of both of them.
My heart slams against my ribcage. My throat goes dry. Where are they? A second, then another, and he resurfaces, and he’s still holding her close to him.
Primal rage heats my blood, thundering in my veins. “Let her go.”
“The mighty Zeus felled by an omega.”
“Don’t talk about her.”
I keep my gaze off her eyes. Off those burning green eyes that mirror the turmoil of the sea around us.
Lightning crashes above us, and the wind picks up speed, sending another spill of water flowing over me.
I keep my feet pressed into the shallow seabed, feel the sand flake and fall away from behind my heels. A heavy weight pushes down on my cheat. My ribcage constricts and I can't breathe. The mating cord slams against the barrier I have placed on it, and my throat closes.
He takes a step back, dragging her along.
Needles of ice pierce my flesh. “What do you want, Kayden?”
“A question you’ve never bothered to ask before, bro.”
Half bro. But whatever, I don’t correct him.
When I had killed Golan, Kayden had challenged me for the title of the General. I had defeated him in front of the entire Council of my alphas. Then instead of killing Kayden, I had let him go. The only person he hates more than me is my father. Well, we have that in common.
I raise my arm and fling aside the gun I’d been holding on to, and the one on my back. Both are waterproof, and they can still be used, but I don’t let on about that.
“What’s this? The new, improved version of Zeus who wants to take the time for a tête-à-tête? Fancy.” He bares his teeth.
The expression on his face is defiant and angry.
I see the similarities between us, everything that had been facing me for so long, and I had blindly missed it.
He’s as much a victim of circumstances as I am.
As much a man misled by emotion, by fate, by the accident of birth.
He has his hands on the one thing that matters more to me than anything else, and I cannot let him hurt her. Not even if I have to die for her… The thought sweeps through me, and my insides churn, then still.
A strange sense of peace descends over me. There, in the middle of the stormy sea, as the omega I’d chosen for my mate is held hostage by my half brother, as his team of alphas stomp up the beach and line the water’s edge, as I hear them raise their rifles and cock them… The sound reaches me over the wailing of the wind, and I push it aside.
“Let her go.” I widen my stance.
“What will you give in exchange?”
“Me.” I raise my chin.
“Not enough.”
“What else do you want?” I prop my hands on my hips.
“Your title, your seat of power.” One side of his lips draws up. “That you’ll bow to me, accept me as leader of the joined states of England and Scotland.”
“Never,” I growl.
His hands curl around her neck, and his forearms ripples as he squeezes.
She gasps, and her head flies back and slams against his chest
The pulse pounds at my temple; the blood roars in my ears.
“Let her go.” I take a step forward.
Only for him to bring his other arm around her neck, and I know what that means. One twist and he could snap her spinal cord.
Red haze fills my sight. Everything in me bursts into a hot, melting mass of flames then blanks out.
A cold fist squeezes my heart.
I draw the numbness over me like armor. “Don’t you want to hear what I have to say?”
“I’m all ears, big brother. Tell me.”
“We fight, you and me”—I thump my chest—”one on one.”
“If I win?”
“You get my power, my Council, and my omega, all of it.” I firm my jaw.
“If you win?” He drums his fingers on his chest.
“I keep the omega.”
“Only the omega?” He frowns. “You don’t want anything else?”
“Just her.”
He tilts his head. “You expect me to believe that you’d walk away from everything you fought so hard for, and all for her?”
“I won it all overnight. I’ll lose it again…or not.” I raise my shoulders, then let them fall. “Easy come, easy go, little half brother.”
His gaze widens. Realization dawns on his face.
My palms grow cold. Bloody fucking hell. Did I just blurt that out? The terms I suggested sound too good to be true. He’s never going to believe that by winning I’d give up everything. Whatever happened to the alpha who had plotted and planned and muscled his way to claim the role of General of London? He’s fucked that’s what he is. My stomach rolls. I’ve given myself away.
I’ve revealed what I value more than power, more than wealth.
He’d guessed that I had feelings for her, but I’ve given away exactly how much she means to me. I’ve conceded the most important bargaining point to him, that I would give up not just my life but my life’s purpose for her.
My breath catches. I wipe all the emotions from my face.
Wouldn’t do to give away that I’ve realized my mistake as well. I hold his gaze and wait.
In his arms, her features are frozen. She’s wondering if I have gone crazy. And maybe I have. Or maybe for the first time I am following what I want. Fighting for the one thing that makes me feel alive—her.
“Well?” I kick back on my heels, and my stance is casual. Inside, my stomach hurts, and my blood roars. Everything in me wants to step forward and snatch my omega from Kayden.
He releases her so suddenly that she stumbles.
She breaks through the water and goes under with a cry, but I don’t move. Don’t want to show how much it hurts me not to go to her right now and pull her up. But she’s strong, my omega. She can fight this. She has to survive for me. Please. She surfaces the next instant and lurches, half swimming, half standing, the water coming to her neck. Her face is pale, but she’s fine. Still alive and breathing. Her anxious gaze holds mine.
Kayden smiles.
It lights up his entire face, turns those features far more beautiful than mine into the face of a fallen angel. “Challenge accepted.”
21
Lucy
I stare not understanding exactly what’s happening between the two of them. I feel helpless, caught in a game, and I have no clue what the rules are. Who are these players?
It’s as if everything I have lived so far is a lie.
The only truth is the harsh sting of the wound at my shoulder where he bit me again. The saltwater pours over it, and it burns.
I shudder and try to hold my own against the next wave that crashes over me. I sway and almost fall again. Neither of them notices.
Zeus turns and plunges through the water. The lash of the waves doesn’t slow him down.
His hair is drenched, and his fatigues cling to him. He holds his arms at his sides, looking every inch the true warrior he is.
Kayden follows him.
Whatever is transpiring between the two of them right now is not about me. It’s an old conflict, something that had taken place before I had stumbled into Kayden’s stronghold. Before I’d agreed to his half-baked plan of—no, he’d planned it all down to the very end.
He’d counted on Zeus wanting me for himself, on using me as a bargaining chip to get to him.
He’s using me to hurt Zeus.
I don’t understand why they
are setting everything else aside to fight here, the two of them. Is it just macho alphas and their ego that demands they fight it out?
Or maybe I don’t want to accept what’s staring me in the face. Kayden’s trying to distract Zeus. But that can’t be right. It was Zeus who’d proposed this one-on-one fight, right?
Another wave slaps into me from behind, pushing me closer to the shore. I wade through the water, then, reaching the beach, drag my weary body, clad in the long white tunic, forward.
Footsteps thud on the sand, and Kayden’s team runs up to form a wide circle around the two of them, including me in it.
The alpha closest to me lifts his head and sniffs in my direction. Another next to him stiffens.
Of course they can scent me. The remnants of the mating with Zeus still clings to me, despite the dunking I took in the seawater. The first alpha male who’d seen me snarls and takes a step forward.
Zeus growls and puts himself between me and the man. “Call your men off, Kayden. Ask them to step back, give a wide enough berth for my omega.”
“Not your omega…yet.” Kayden shifts his weight from foot to foot as he surveys Zeus.
Zeus folds his arms in front of him. “If you want to fight me, then do as I tell you.”
Kayden angles his head.
Zeus leans forward on the balls of his feet. “You will not get this opportunity again. Everything you’ve always wanted in your grasp, here.” He draws himself up to his considerable height.
Kayden’s lips draw up in a lazy smile. “Don’t go getting your pants in a bunch, brother.” He raises his arm. “Step away.”
The alphas hesitate.
All their eyes are on me. The wind flattens the tunic against my curves. It also brings with it that deeper, danker scent of alpha arousal. The need to rut me, to hurt me. All of it emanates from them.
Goosebumps snap on my skin.
I want to moan in terror and hide myself behind Zeus’s broad back. But that would show that I am weak and defenseless. And I am not that.
Omega I may be, but I am also a skilled warrior, and I will not let these alphas put me down. I bite down on my lower lip and the pain cleaves a path through the fear in my head.
Claimed by the Alpha Page 10
