by Addison Cain
Morgaine was so very tempted to scream at him, to strike him, but her tongue grew fat and all that came were silent, angry tears.
Rising from his crouch, he offered her a hand. “Step from the tub.”
Not only did she balk at the thought of touching him, the thought of him seeing her bared breasts and mound was more than she could handle. She shook her head and shrank further away.
“It was not a request, Morgaine. Get up so that you might be dried.”
She swallowed, eyes showing every ounce of her trepidation and humiliation. “It is not right for you to ask such a thing or look at me this way.”
“Because you are naked?”
Nodding, she added the other cause for concern. “And you are purring. It’s only done when a male is... interested. I don’t want to—”
He finished the sentence for her. “You don’t want to be mounted.”
Before this horrid day, she’d never heard sex described that way. Mounted, climbed over, held down—her mind filling with images of what happened to the Omega on the wall... the writhing bodies... the screams.
If he tried to do such a thing, she would die.
He extended his hand even further. “I have not been given clearance to penetrate you today.”
If Corporal Esin thought to offer reassurance, he’d failed. Morgaine did not know what was hidden in his statement, but it certainly was not a comforting thing to hear. “Today?”
“There is much that must be explained, and I refuse to have this conversation while you are dripping wet and shivering. Come out of the tub or I will climb in and get you.”
What dignity was there in being dragged out like a child? None. There was none.
Breaking her eyes from his, she turned her face to the wall, covered her breasts with her arm, her mound with her free hand, and tried not to cringe when he put his hands on her body to help her manage the steps.
After pulling her to stand atop an absorbent mat, he produced fabric softer than the finest weave her mother had ever produced. Starting with her cheeks, blotting the tears, Esin wielded his huge hands deftly and with caution... until he reached her breasts.
She refused to budge her arm.
So much stronger than her, he took a solid grip of her wrist, and forced her shield from her chest.
Every muscle in her body went stiff. The arm he held shook, her breath grew shallow, and she was moments away from screaming for help.
Purring all the louder, his eyes tracked over the swell of a generous bosom. “You are a pretty one, renegade.”
Towel forgotten, he measured the weight of her right breast. His fingers pawed and explored, a determined thumb swirling her nipple.
Seeing that pink flesh grow tight, his breath caught, voice husky from excitement. “Tell me, has another male touched you this way?”
There had been caresses from boys in the village, a few stolen kisses, but none would have dared to grab her breasts. The fact a stranger was doing it now, that he still held her captive by one arm, was mortifying. “You mean without permission?”
The corner of his lip ticked upward. He was not at all ashamed. “Upon your initial examination your hymen was found partly ruptured before it was removed for your future comfort—”
She abandoned boring a hole in the wall with her eyes, slack-jawed. “What?”
“Here.” He moved the towel to her mound, tapping where she pressed her legs together as if to block his view. “Your hymen.”
She knew what a hymen was, and could not believe that some stranger had examined her close enough between her legs to see it.
Face turning red with a blend of fury and embarrassment, trying to think up something worthy to shriek, Morgaine was silenced by the Alpha’s next probe. “Have you touched yourself there? Slipped your fingers into your body? Did you use a tool to stimulate yourself? Or was it a Beta’s attentions that damaged the membrane?”
“That is none of your business!”
“Actually, it is very much my business.”
This was not to be borne. Degraded, Morgaine sneered and tried her damnedest to appear as undesirable as possible. “I have lain with many of the boys in my village.”
Her answer amused him, Esin grinning. “Boys? Not men?”
“Uhh.” Awkward in her reply, Morgaine fumbled. “I meant men. Lots of men.”
“And you are lying.” Chuckling, he ogled her body, tracing the embarrassed flush on her breasts. “You have never been with a boy or a man... let alone many of them. It was your own fingers that did the damage. Either that, or your age thinned it in preparation of your first estrous.”
Of course she had explored that part of her body in the dark, but only a few times when her mother was out of their small one-roomed dwelling. And this brute had the gall to laugh at her? “How would you feel if I asked you intimate questions about your body?”
Eyes instantly smoldering, Esin licked his lips. “You can ask me anything. Anything you want.” He drew closer, the towel falling from his hands so he might grip the nip of her waist. “Ask to see my body. Ask to touch me.”
He pulled her flush and began to rub his body over chill-prickled flesh. Hard muscle and foreign fabric… the smell of a male, Morgaine could not push it off, evade, or even find the words to complain.
“Right now I am hard and eager to be inside you.” He groaned at her ear. “I know you can smell it. You’ve been sniffing the air since I walked into the room. Just as I can smell you. My arousal makes you nervous, virgin renegade.”
Hearing him speak so, hands to his stomach in an attempt to push away, she couldn’t help but see that between his hips, fabric tented with a clear outline of an erection far bigger than any she’d seen in Esmeralda’s mauling.
“There is only one way to overcome fear.” Voice low and promising, he swore, “The instant I am granted permission to fuck you, I swear I will knot you so hard you’ll adore only me. I will pump my seed into your belly while you come. I will be the one to show you what it is to be mated by an Alpha.”
Intensely uncomfortable, unsure what he was speaking of, but very sure its nature was unwelcome, Morgaine began to struggle all the harder.
A rough growl shot from his lips.
The resulting twinge between her legs, and Morgaine froze in abject horror. A tiny stream began to leak from her body, slowly making its way down her thigh.
Nostrils flaring, he sucked in a breath, dragging her closer by her imprisoned wrist. Settling a heavy arm around her back, Esin held her pinned, and panted, “I’m allowed to touch you.”
Groaning with the effort, Morgaine tried and failed to shift him. “Please… let go.”
The way his eyes ate her up, victorious and greedy, was nothing to his ravenous words. “Spread your legs for me and I will lick your sweet little cunt. Give me a taste and I’ll let you come.”
Morgaine shrieked when his fingers began to travel downward. “Stop!”
“Then you will touch me.” Too rough, he forced her flared fingers down his torso until that hard, prodding growth he’d been smashing against her belly was flush to her palm. He closed her fingers around his erection and forced them up and down. On it went, the man making filthy groans, using her hand for his pleasure. “You feel that hard Alpha cock? You want to feel it throbbing inside you?”
Even with the fabric between them, Morgaine could feel the shape of his organ and thought she might retch. “I don’t want to. Let go of me, you savage.”
“Yes, you do. I can smell it.” The man ignored her complaints, her flailing, and the tears, answering instead with a roar. Rocking his hips into her hand, the fabric under her palm grew wet. The male drew his lips back from his teeth, hissing.
He brought those teeth to her shoulder, growled like a feral wolf, and was just about to bite the terrified woman before a voice boomed from across the room. “That is enough, Corporal Esin. Step away from the Omega. Now.”
Her assailant froze, not in fear, but in ange
r. Morgaine could see it in Esin’s eyes, the thoughts of outright challenge, the temptation to violence at the intrusion.
More hot fluid splashed against her hand, having soaked through to drip and squish between her fingers.
Sergeant Uriel barked a reminder when it seemed Esin refused to obey. “Your claim would be forfeit should you break code. Collect yourself and heed orders.”
Esin took a deep, unsteady breath. Looking down between their bodies, he luxuriated in the sight of her trapped hand on his dick and let out a groan. “May I rub it into her skin?”
What? Morgaine shook her head no, but the question had not been for her.
“You may not.”
Capitulating, Esin gave Morgaine a lusty onceover before daring to press a kiss to her forehead. “Next time I will get my taste.” He released her wrist, stepped back, and reluctantly obeyed his superior. “My apologies, Sergeant. She just smells so good.”
With one last, expectant smile, Esin picked up the discarded towel and walked away.
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BORN TO BE BOUND: ALPHA’S CLAIM BOOK 1
She had made it this far... wide eyes peered through the narrow slit between wool cap and layer upon layer of dingy muffler wrapped around the lower half of her face. No one seemed to be paying much attention as she passed, ignoring the creature in the stinking, oversized coat when it hesitated at the bottom of broad stairs and looked up at Thólos Citadel. Clutching tighter to the bottle of pills in her pocket, madly gripping her lifeline, she took the first step.
For two days, she had taken one of those priceless pills every four hours like clockwork. Walking into what had once been a restricted area, she should have been saturated in the medication, her metabolism and hormones deceived into complacency. A week's worth of food had been traded so she could make the climb up those steps without being torn to pieces.
She was still mortally afraid.
The roar of the monsters inside—the cheers and heckling as her people were stripped of their dignity, then stripped of their lives—turned her stomach, though the acid feeling may have been a side-effect of the drugs. Already sweating, grateful others had covered her in so many layers to hide what she was, Claire took the smallest of breaths, tried not to gag from the stink of rotting corpse that had seasoned her clothes, and walked into madness.
Crossing the entrance was almost too easy. There was no hand gripping her shoulder to cease her movement, no barking Follower demanding she state her business. In fact, the black hole seemed only too willing to suck her in. Over the threshold, the air was ripe with the scent of men; a pungent mixture of aggressive Alpha and some of the more violent Betas who had come to snarl and yip at whoever was that day's entertainment.
Birth titles littered the ground, parchment showing tread marks where uncaring boots had trampled what had once signified a life. A tally of names that had been stricken from the books. The scraps of paper were tossed away to mix with discarded flyers, wanted signs, and garbage.
The deeper she went, the more packed each chamber grew, filled by a horde borne of citizens and the castoff Undercroft scum set free the day terror breached Thólos. They were thugs who had taken up the banner of the Dome's conqueror, men with the power to do as they pleased. Men encouraged to do whatever they pleased. Evil men.
She had to be quick, knowing that if the jostling mob discovered what she was under the stinking filth wrapped around her, she'd die horribly, and all the others would be left to starve. One foot after another, back pressed against the wall, eyes darting to and fro, Claire skirted the crowd and prayed to remain unnoticed.
The male Claire sought had a reputation for standing where any could reach him. Where all could see who held power, so challengers could be killed—if rumors held true—with his bare hands.
One could not have missed him if they tried.
The villain who had the audacity to call himself 'The Shepherd' was massive, the largest Alpha she had ever seen. And not only that… the Da'rin markings. Whatever they were, they swirled over sun-darkened skin as if an extension of his wrongness—animalistic, unnatural. The intricacy of the patterns drew the eye straight to muscled arms, warning all who looked that the bearer was treacherous—not to be trusted.
Before her city had fallen, to bear those shifting black marks above ground had been highly illegal—the punishment: execution. He was a convict of the Undercroft, the one who'd liberated the castoffs, and he was the monster responsible for the suffering of her people and for the corpses piling in the streets of Thólos.
Claire swallowed, creeping nearer, choosing to look instead at the armored Follower Shepherd nodded at; a Da'rin marked Beta, from the look of him. It was that man whose sharp blue eyes caught her creeping nearer. Though diminutive was a gentle way to describe Claire, from his expression, the Beta found her to be nothing... less than nothing. He looked away, dismissing her approach.
Gripping those pills, her talisman against evil, Claire walked straight up to the two conversing conquerors. Seeking the giant Alpha's attention, she fought for the words. "I need to speak with you, please."
Shepherd didn't even look at her, blatantly ignoring the swathed female in her stinking clothes.
"It's very important," she tried a little louder, the sincerity in her eyes, the desperation and overwhelming fear apparent.
How many times had this happened in her life? The total disregard, the blatant rejection...
Claire released a frustrated sigh and clutched her pills even tighter. Standing like a tree, a small sapling in a forest of redwoods, she waited and watched him. There was no way she was leaving until she'd spoken with the only person who might be able to save them. He wanted to be a leader, he wanted to rule... well, they needed food. Pride had only lasted so long. Deep down she knew it would not keep them alive, so she'd come to Shepherd to ask for help.
Eyes trained on the man, on the largest in the room—maybe in the world—she waited for hours. It was hard to ignore what was taking place around her. The weeping of the once mighty reduced to sniveling wretches, dragged in to be held accountable. Claire was unsure what they were being held accountable for. All she knew was that everyone unfortunate enough to be hauled to the Citadel was executed, regardless of begging, bribery, bloodlines... nothing mattered to the mob. Not even guilt.
It grew dark. Claire remained, drawing in those same tiny breaths, holding her ground when all she wanted was to run screaming. Pretend she had not just heard a stranger be sentenced to have his skin peeled off so the world could see what he was made of underneath. It had grown so late, her sad bravery seemed pointless. Not once had those silver eyes turned towards her. Not once.
Claire had hoped her determination would draw Shepherd to at least glance her way as his follower had, giving her a chance to plead her case. Yet the longer she waited, the more her heart began to beat erratically. For a moment, she felt she might vomit from the smell—not just of her clothes, but of all the Alphas raging in the room—and drew out her pills. With the quickest speed she could manage, she opened the lid of the bottle and pinched a little blue tablet between her forefinger and thumb. Her gloved pinky hooked the dirty muffler, pulling it down just enough to get that pill between her lips. Once it hit her tongue, Claire fought to create enough saliva to swallow.
It was jagged passing down her esophagus, made her cringe, then groan when the feeling of it hitting a hollow stomach almost made the precious pharmaceutical come right back up. Her fingers quickly readjusted the wool to cover as much of her skin as possible, pulling the reeking smell back over her nose and mouth... but then everything went wrong.
The very air altered and a shot of instinctual fear was the precursor of her greatest nightmare. It was Shepherd, suddenly unnaturally still. She could hear the bones crack in his neck as he turned his s
kull a few more degrees in her direction.
Sweating profusely, feeling so ill, Claire spoke the instant she felt his attention. "I must speak to you."
He had killed so many people. Even through the fabric around her face, she could smell him; more potent than the others, for certain. But the look in his eyes was far more frightening than the Da'rin marking. Hard, unforgiving mercury seemed to see right through her, shredding away her disguise. Shoulders drooping, Claire felt a rush, a burning scratch in her stomach that turned into painful cramping, total terror left in its wake.
Everything had been for nothing.
Sucking in a ragged breath, swaying as if her legs could not decide which way to run, Claire whispered under her breath, "No... no, no, this can't be happening."
Somehow, all the preparations, the pills, had not been enough. There were too many Alphas, too much of their scent in the air, and she had gone directly into heat. Already she could feel the slick gathering between her legs, the smell of it, of something so laced with pheromones that it would not be masked by the horrid stench she'd purposely dressed in. All those hours she'd thought it had been lack of food, the stink of rotting things, and the weight of the cloak… she'd stood there in the wolves' den like an idiot while the signs had been building: nausea, racing heart, fever... and the biggest wolf of all was staring straight at her.
Claire finally had his attention, and now it was worthless.
She was already becoming delirious, panicked, her voice cracking and accusing all at once. "I just needed to speak with you. I only needed a minute."
That urge—the one she had fought her whole life—was making her tremble and prepare to flee, but there was already a commotion all around. She tried to hold her breath as Alphas sniffed the air like bloodhounds. Shepherd countered her mincing retreat, facing her full on, staring at her with the wide, focused eyes of a predator.
It was his attention—the attention she had needed to save her kind—that drew other eyes in the room. More of that damn fluid began to drip down her legs, saturating the fabric of her clothing, signaling that a rare Omega had appeared out of the blue, and that she was broadcasting a heat cycle.
