Owned by the Alpha

by Laxmi Hariharan

  Truth is, I am not quite sure how to sort my conflicting emotions right now. Fear, disgust at myself that I couldn’t protect her, that while she’s close to death I am alive and waiting…waiting. “Fuck.”

  “You do know that you can speed up her recovery right?” Ethan mutters.

  He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to.

  I know what I must do. What I want to do. Every second since I met her has been leading up to this. This is the time to show that I am a true alpha, that I protect what’s mine, even if it means baring my true self.

  I press my fingertips against the transparent barrier that separates me from my omega,

  I can’t see her, but I sense her presence.

  I’m aware of how close she is to me, even now. I hadn’t allowed myself to think of the possibility of how I could help her…maybe because it’s the last barrier that stands between us. Maybe because to reach out to her through the mating bond will mean acknowledging everything inside of me that’s real and decent, that is alive.

  And who am I kidding?

  I’d begun to change from the moment she’d come into my life. Her presence, her essence inside of me, her scent…everything had dragged me from the dark place I’d been, showing up a mirror to myself.

  I confess I’d seen myself for what I was. An alpha torn apart with hate, needing revenge. Someone for whom lives meant nothing, not even my own. Except hers did.

  She and my unborn child, I need them to live.

  I drop into myself, seizing the bond that nestles in my chest, and reach out to her. Images of those green eyes, her cries as I’d taken her, her trembling as I’d marked her. Her moans as I’d knotted her, the exact moment I’d sunk my teeth into her and claimed her over and over again…I bleed all those feelings into the bond.

  I press my forehead to the glass wall and open myself to her.

  My eyes flutter down.

  I sense her presence: a vibrant green that swoops toward me, the golden thread of the mating cord that binds us and...twin violet lights that spark down the bond racing to get to me. They are a combination of us, of my essence and hers, of everything I’d hoped for but could never put into words, could never acknowledge. I swallow and my throat closes. I see them—my family, my flesh and blood. My world. Mine.

  The doors of the infirmary swoosh open, footsteps walk up to me, and there’s a touch on my shoulder. I raise my head and turn to meet the eyes of the doctor.

  17

  Lucy

  The presence of my mate envelops me. I am surrounded by his touch, his heat, that burned pinewood scent of his teases my nostrils, and I moan.

  Every part of me feels like it’s been broken apart and put back together. My eyes flutter open, and I search for him, his gaze, his warmth. I need it. I crave it. A hand grips mine. Wide palm, fingers that are calloused and rough. His thumb rubs circles over my wrist, and I shiver.

  “Alpha.” I train my gaze on his hand.

  I follow the honey-colored forearm over those muscled biceps where the tattoos ebb and flow as if they have a life of their own, up that tanned, beautiful column of his neck to his incredible lips.

  “Lucia.” His lips form my name.

  Hope blooms in my chest.

  His voice is rough, the tone so raw that I flinch. I raise my gaze to his face. Wetness glints on his cheeks.

  “You’re crying?” I breathe out in shock.

  “Only for you.” He leans in close and presses his lips to my forehead.

  The touch is so tender, so filled with that longing, a yearning that I’d have never associated with him. He needs me, as much as I need him, and this is as close as he’s going to get to admitting it. I take in the skin stretched over his cheeks, the pulse that beats at his temples, the bristles that cover his sculpted jaw. I swear he’s lost weight since I last set eyes on him. “Your wounds.” I try to sit up, and he presses me back.

  “I am fine.” His forehead furrows, and the skin around his eyes stretches. “Thanks to you.”

  “Oh.” I sink back against the pillow, then swing my gaze around the room. “This looks like an—”

  “Infirmary,” he fills in for me. “I woke up to find you slumped over me. Your body was so cold, your color so low, I thought you were—”

  “Dead?” I train my gaze on him.

  He swallows, and a pulse flickers to life at the base of his neck.

  “How long have I been out?” I croak.

  “Two days. The doc says you are out of danger. You fucking scared me, Omega.”

  “No more than you did me, when the bullet hit you. You put yourself between me and that…that monster.”

  “It was my right.” He sets his jaw. “I am alpha, I protect. I take care of what is mine." His gaze falls to my stomach.

  I lower my palm to cup my belly. “The baby.” Fear twists my chest. I reach for him, and he grips my arms.

  “They are fine.”

  “They?” I frown.

  His eyes gleam and his lips draw up in a smile that lights up his features. “Twins.”

  I blink. “And you know that, how?”

  His brows draw down, “Trust me on this.”

  “Um.” I gnaw on my lower lip, “Isn’t it a little early in the pregnancy to confirm this?”

  His shoulders stiffen. Is he hiding something from me?

  “The potency of my sperm, Squirrel, it had to happen.” A smirk curves his luscious lips. My throat goes dry. Heat snakes down my spine and all thoughts slip from my mind.

  “No doubt.” I cough.

  He tucks his shoulders back. Pride radiates off of him. Okay, so the sarcasm is lost on him. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop the chuckle from trembling off of my lips.

  He leans over me. This is when he thrusts his face into mine until our noses touch, until his breath sears my cheek and...he pulls back. Eh? Not what I expected.

  “Doesn’t change the fact that you put yourself at risk, despite my instructions to the contrary.” His voice is gruff.

  “I did what was necessary.” I set my jaw.

  “Obstinate omega.” He reaches out to touch me, then seems to change his mind and tucks his hand into his side. What the--? The alpha is showing restraint?

  “When will you learn that you cannot do what you want, at any time you want?”

  “Never.” I raise my chin.

  His lips tighten. Finally a reaction I recognize.

  “You have our children to think of.”

  My shoulders tense and my gaze skitters away. He knows just how to manipulate me with his words “You’re right.” I swallow.

  A breath rushes out of him. "Look at me Lucy." This is when he grips my chin so I have no choice but to look at him. I can imagine the scrape of his knuckles as he feathers them over my jawline, but nope. Nothing.

  I turn to look at him, and he's stays by the side of the bed, maintaining his distance.

  “From now on you stay inside, rest, take care of yourself. I’ll make sure you have enough to keep your mind engaged. Your priority is to ensure that you and the child are safe and content.”

  He presses a kiss to my forehead and gets up from his chair.

  Hang on a moment, he kissed my forehead? Zeus gave me a chaste kiss? He's never done that before. Whatever happened to fitting his lips over mine and thrusting his tongue into my mouth and ravishing me? Even weakened from my ordeal, that is what I still want.

  I snake out my arm and grab his wrist, then for good measure dig my fingernails into his skin.

  He turns and his features form into an expression of polite concern.

  Huh? My heart begins to race. “What are you doing?” I frown at him.

  “Leaving you to recover.”

  “I don’t want to be alone,” I pout, Yeah I am acting childish, but gimme a break. I just found out I am carrying twins and that my alpha, the one who'd bonded me without my consent and who I have since realized is my soulmate, has decided that now is the time to go all well-m
annered on me. "You’re acting weird." I frown.

  He drops his gaze to where I am still clinging to his arm and I let go.

  He steps back, "Explain yourself."

  "I am used to you taking what you want, fucking me until I can't move, rutting me until your cum drools out of my every hole, but this..." I swallow and squeeze my thighs together. Holy hell, just talking about how he'd taken me is arousing me, or maybe it's just my hormones, which seem to go into overdrive whenever this alpha is around, which is responsible for my shooting my mouth off.

  "This?" A vein throbs at his temples.

  "This." I firm my lips. "Your being all well-mannered is confusing me."

  He grimaces. "I am doing what's right for you in this condition."

  "I am pregnant not dying." I curl my fingers into fists.

  "You need time apart to nest and let your body prepare for what is to come." He sets his jaw.

  "If my emotional state is important to you—"

  “It is and you won’t be alone." He angles his body away. Can he not tolerate the sight of me anymore?

  "Mirela will stay with you day and night and attend to your needs.”

  “But…” I swallow. What did I miss? Why is he acting so aloof? Keeping this distance between us?

  I reach out to the mating bond and find the thread leading to him. I sense the shadow of his presence.

  Gone is that fiery, all-powerful essence of his that pounded at the bond and overflowed my chest. It feels like he’s hiding behind a screen. I see the shadow of his presence, feel him, but as if from a distance.

  “Don’t go.” Panic coils in my chest.

  I try to sit up, but my body is too weak to hold me up. My head hurts, my limbs tremble, even my toenails protest. Sleep tugs at the edge of my consciousness.

  He turns around and stalks to the door then pauses. “You have nothing to worry about." He shoots me a glance over his shoulder. "No one will hurt you…especially not me.” He turns and leaves.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, “That’s what I am afraid of.”

  18

  Zeus

  I pace the floor in the war room, looking out of the window. A cold wind blows in from the open panes, and I let it flow over my skin, taking away some of the heat that seems to burn through my veins. Well, I only had myself to blame. I’ve been avoiding her. It's been weeks since I last saw her. Twenty-one days, eight hours and six minutes since I last saw her, but who's counting? Me, the pussy-whipped motherfucker who's hiding from her, is who.

  I can’t face her after what I’ve put her through.

  This should be the time that I spend every second with her, protecting her, cherishing her. Fact is, even now I am tuned in to her thanks to the mating cord.

  The barrier between us is still in place, but that doesn’t mean I can't keep an eye on her. I twist my lips. Okay so I am stalking her. I am all but physically in the same space as her, and alert for any signs that she may be in discomfort; otherwise I am leaving her alone. I have to.

  I was the reason she’d almost died a second time. This time, it’s not just her but the fate of our children at risk. Children… I roll the word over my tongue.

  Father? Am I ready to become one? I’ll be a better one than the loser, Golan, ever was, of course. I set my jaw. I'd mated her hoping for precisely this, and now, faced with the reality of what is to come, a warmth fills my chest. My throat closes and my pulse begins to race.

  Ethan ambles up to stand next to me. “Interesting view?”

  “Huh?”

  “Whatever you are looking at.”

  “The fuck, Second?” I growl and rub the back of my neck. There’s no reason to snap at the man. He’s doing his duty, or whatever it is that seconds-in-command are meant to do.

  Not that I would know.

  I never could be second in anything. “It must be agonizing to live as a beta when everything inside you insists that you are an alpha.”

  Ethan’s muscles coil with tension; he reels away from me as if I’ve struck him a physical blow. “Fuck, Zeus, do you need to continuously throw that in my face?”

  “Hold on there.” I turn on him, hands raised in front of me in an appeasing gesture. I’ll never get used to this either… Me? Actually being conciliatory toward him? “I just meant to empathize, that it must be tough for you to be constantly at war with yourself?”

  “Do me a favor Zeus?” He growls low in his throat.

  I frown.

  “Next time, don’t try to make polite conversation. It has just the opposite effect.” He swings around, then raises his fist and slams it into the wall next to the window.

  A crack blooms up the wall, traveling up to where the light fixtures are. One of them shakes loose then crashes to the table below.

  “Did I interrupt something?” Solomon stands at the entrance to the room. He looks from the light that’s collapsed on the table, to me.

  “Nope.” I swivel away from the window and stalk to the front of the table. “Ethan here is just having a bit of a meltdown.”

  “Ethan?” His gaze widens. He rubs the back of his neck. “You sure it wasn’t you, sir?”

  I peel back my lips. The calm and collected second who never misses a chance to tell the rest of us off? Who could put a monk to shame with the kind of serenity he normally sheds. ”Yeah.” I jerk my chin toward the table. “Sit your ass down, Sol.”

  He moves around the table, seems to debate where to sit, then pulls up a chair in the middle. Wise man. “You’re a diplomat, Sol.”

  “Just being prudent, sir.” He grins at me.

  “Fucker’s gloating because all of the omegas in the harem have been vying to lay with him, given you are no longer in circulation, Alpha,” Ethan bares his teeth.

  “The fuck does that mean?” I roll my shoulders.

  He stalks to the chair at the foot of the table and drops into it. “Word is that you are mated, your omega is pregnant, and you are giving her a wide berth, due to some misplaced sense of celibacy.” His eyes gleam.

  “Celibacy?” I go to pull out a chair, then change my mind and grab it and tip it forward, preferring to stand instead.

  Anything to keep an edge over my men.

  It’s sad that I have to resort to cheap tactics to maintain the power balance with my men. What-fucking-ever. I am a little—okay, a lot—out of sorts, and Ethan is flipping the situation to his own advantage.

  He tips back his chair to balance it on its hind legs. “Am I not right?” He twists his lips. “Sir?”

  Fucker is always saying things as if he has a direct connection to my thinking process.

  He has no idea what a surprise he is in for.

  “Don’t you men have anything else to do, like field exercises for yourself and your men to stay fighting fit, instead of gossiping like omegas?”

  Sol glances at me, his expression pained. “That’s low even for you, sir!”

  “Just for that, all the soldiers, every fucking alpha in the Council, will put in an extra hour of fieldwork every day for the next week.”

  “No way.” Sol’s lips turn down.

  “An additional hour in the morning, too.”

  Ethan sets his chair down with a thump. “Zeus, really—”

  “Two weeks.” I grin and rub the part of my vest over my heart.

  Both their gazes drop there.

  “Something on your mind?” I growl.

  There’s silence.

  Solomon leans forward and places his elbows on the table. “She needs you.”

  I huff out a breath. “It’s better this way. If I am not in her way, I can’t put her in harm. I don’t aggravate her, she doesn’t challenge me, then I don’t have to punish her and—” Fuck if my dick doesn’t throb right now. The thought of all the ways I could punish her fills my mind in graphic detail.

  The mating cord twinges.

  I’ve retreated right back from it, yet, I am always conscious of her presence on the other side of the bond, and som
ehow, she always seems to know when I am thinking of her and she doesn’t make it easy for me. Not at all. It’s like she’s stalking me, too, waiting for me to make a move. Like she’s calling out to me, cajoling me, all without saying anything, and damn if my imagination is not being overactive.

  I release the chair so it falls back with a thump.

  Both of their gazes are fixed on me.

  “So why did the two of you come here anyway?” I fold my arms over my chest.

  Silence.

  Solomon’s lips quirk, and he looks to Ethan.

  My second jerks his chin at me. “You called us here, General.”

  “I did?” I rub the back of my neck. Bloody hell, now I am forgetting what commands I have issued?

  “We assumed you wanted an update on the aftermath of the encounter with Harald?” Sol scratches his chin.

  “Fucker’s dead. So are most of his men.” I step back and pace. “Those who survived are imprisoned and being tortured so we get to know their plans.”

  Ethan drums his fingers on the table. “Well, that’s what we want to talk to you about.”

  “Well, speak up then, man.” The mating cord twinges. The scent of sweet honey spikes the air. I must be delirious, mistaken. Yeah, that’s what it is.

  I turn and widen my stance.

  “Harald’s son is planning to cross the seas and come over with a bigger army.” Ethan stills his movements and leans back in his chair. “Apparently, he sent his father just as a tester to check the waters. If you thought Harald was a maniac, his son is much worse.”

  “Well, bring him on.” I crack my knuckles. “A fight is exactly what I need.”

  “Maybe you need to stay with your omega until she’s given birth.” Ethan’s forehead furrows.

  “She’s in my suite, she’s comfortable, there are omegas attending her around the clock—”

  “You mean Mirela.” Ethan’s features go solid, all emotions wiped from his face.

  “What-fucking-ever her name is,” I roll my shoulders. “Can you spare your omega to help Lucy until she has given birth?”

  He notches up his chin. “Not my omega.” Color flushes his face.