Red's Mate

by Carolyn Faulkner

  "You can touch me, little one," he encouraged, leaning further over her to make it easier for her to do just that and relieving himself of his chest plate as an invitation. "You can touch me all you like."

  Her hands nearly burned his skin, but he loved every second of it, although it seemed that she was not just content with that, but pulled him down to kiss him, too, both the kisses themselves and the idea that she wanted them making him swell two more sizes within her.

  It was a night of firsts—first heat, first time she'd touched or kissed him voluntarily, and the first time he'd taken her while lying between her legs, bearded face to translucent skin. And it was extraordinary. He wasn't sure why he hadn't done this before, except that he had wanted to impress on her in one of the most blatant ways possible what the dynamic of their relationship was.

  But it seemed that her heat was going to advance that considerably, along with affecting a distinct change in her demeanor towards being bred.

  And when it happened for her—more quickly than it ever had—when the violent culmination overtook her, she clung to him in the midst of it, and he loved it. His little omega tore his own orgasm from him and then proceeded to milk him bone dry while he held her and kissed her, playing with her pretty breasts as she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on, moaning and clenching and clamping herself around him, her eyes rarely leaving his as he both soothed and incited her to even greater heights.

  She collapsed in his arms before the knot he knew she usually hated had entirely gone away, although her body still recognized its presence within her and was reluctant to let him go.

  He had her more times that evening—and within the next five days—than he had in all of the time they'd been together. It was if she was in physical pain if he wasn't a part of her body, preferably—or, at the very least, right next to her. And he was at least as eager for her as she was for him.

  When they weren't mating or eating, they talked, a new intimacy created between them by the intensity of her heat. It was mostly him, at first, but she joined in, and he found he liked her agile mind. He told her what it had been like to grow up in what passed for a city, trained from very early on to be what he had become, after being raised by his father and grandfather. Both of their omega wives had died in childbirth, including his mother, whom he never really knew.

  The frequency with which that loss happened was one of the reasons why the city-state had begun studying omega pregnancies and the fertility of both sexes. They couldn't afford to lose such precious women, so the word had gone out to their subsidiaries, on campaigns like he was, that they were to procure as many medical books in general as they could, but that those involving women's reproductive health, in particular, were the most highly prized.

  As a result, their breeding doctors had amassed a considerable library of medical knowledge based on science, whereas, unfortunately, superstition, hearsay and old wives' tales dominated the philosophies about pregnancy in the few surviving regions.

  Curious about her, Ciaran asked, "Did you always live in that tiny village?"

  Ebby shrugged. "I was found and brought there, so I guess the answer is yes."

  "And who taught you to fight, my fierce little warrior?" he teased, drawing her tightly to him.

  She knew he was teasing her, but she answered truthfully, nonetheless. "That was Loddi. She was strong and hard and big, like you, and she taught me by beating the crap out of me every single day. It was her method of teaching me what I needed to know. A lot of the scars I've earned are from her. She believed in learning by doing, even if you ended up wounded out of it, as I often did."

  His protective instincts rose to the fore, making him stiffen and growl at the idea of her being deliberately put in so much danger, but then, she had lived that way all her life. What he really shuddered at was the possibility that she might have fallen into any hands other than his own, and he knew he owed a great debt to the woman who had done her best to try to teach her to protect herself.

  "Is she gone?" He was afraid that he already knew the answer. No one but Ebby had survived that raid.

  She paused before answering him, still unable to collect herself, voice full of sorrow and tears. "Killed in front of me. She was the last one they took down before your men captured me. She died defending me."

  Ebby was amazed to hear him say this, but he was entirely sincere. "I'm sorry about that. She sounds like a wonderful woman, and I'm glad you know how to defend yourself, although you will have no need of doing so ever again. Anyone who wishes to hurt you would have to get through me first."

  It was during those short breaks—before she got restless and either turned to him again or pressed her bottom to him in a true spirit of complete supplication and submission that he could not resist—that he realized just what a gem he'd stumbled on when they began to talk about books.

  "You read?" There, he couldn't succeed in keeping the incredulity out of his tone.

  "I do. Loddi and one of the older women in particular, Gatu, loved to read. They found out when I was very young that I could remember every story that I was told. Once they taught me to read, I could see every page in my mind, as if I was holding the book in front of me, and recite from memory anything I had read. So, I was given every book they found—not that they really found many." Still a little shy with him, she peeped up at him from where her head was resting on his broad chest. "While you held me cruelly captive, that was what I did."

  He gave her a bit of a warning look at her teasing, asking, "What did you do?"

  "I read the books I had in my head. I'd be glad to read them to you any time you'd like."

  Ciaran grinned. "None of them had anything in them about Alphas and omegas, though, I'd bet."

  "No, they didn't," she blushed.

  "What did they tell you about Alphas?"

  He felt her stiffen against his side. "To be afraid of them. That if I allowed myself to be captured, my fate would not be a good one. I could be killed outright—that would be the most merciful thing. Or I could be sold to the highest bidder, or just flat out raped, and that once an Alpha had had me, I would lose myself and simply become a breeder for him."

  Ciaran cringed inwardly at what she must think of where she'd ended up, but he could hardly apologize for it, so he said nothing. And knowing that what he so fervently wanted was what she had dreaded all her life—and probably still did now—brought back his concerns that he might lose her, somehow, either by her own hand or someone else's.

  And so, he did the only thing he could do—he took her again, being deliberately rough and demanding and unrelenting, knowing that it was the only way to strengthen the bond he'd created between them.

  And—far from cringing away from him, she met him stroke for stroke, devastating him as thoroughly as he did her.

  Chapter 7

  Because of her heat, Ciaran had had to pass most of his duties on to his legate, Kavan, who, luckily, was more than capable of taking over. He asked not to be disturbed, and the younger man respected that, only providing him with the daily reports every morning to keep him up to speed. They were becoming more and more disturbing, to the point where he wasn't sure he was going to be able to remain cloistered with her for much longer.

  Luckily, her symptoms abated shortly after that, and although she didn't seem very happy about the idea of him leaving her, even though it was only for a short time, he watched her square her shoulders and lift her chin as tears trickled slowly down her cheeks.

  "I understand, Sir."

  Her distress caused an annoying pain in his chest that he didn't appreciate. Still, his tone was gently gruff. "I will send Dolar to you, little one, and I won't be too long, I promise," he reassured, enjoying the idea that she seemed to want him around now.

  She nodded sadly. He cupped her between the legs, kissed her hard on the mouth, and left, just as a large group of men marched up to his door, headed by Kavan, who looked as if he was going to drag him out of there. />
  Although the long days of having her brain flooded by such a desperate need for him had left her weepy and needy—her mind in a sexual haze—while she was alone, Ebby did everything she could to try to extricate herself from the miasma she was drowning in.

  Having him inside her, pumping her full of his seed was the most satisfying thing she'd ever experienced in her life. But the essence of her heat was that the bone deep satisfaction only lasted a very short amount of time. While she was with him, she had been absolutely incapable of thinking about anything else. She was ashamed to admit the depths to which she had sunk, but it was the truth.

  Now that the addiction had eased off considerably and was just down to the dull roar with which she was somewhat more familiar, she began to exercise her mind again, breathing a huge sigh of relief when it did return to her.

  Dolar had become a friend and was a good companion to her. After her heat, he was the person she spent the most time with, but he couldn't give her what she still needed, and if she wasn't very careful to keep her thinking where she wanted it to be, she was very restless, always having to remind herself not to put her hands where they didn't belong.

  And it was his deep, bass voice saying it in that awful, chiding tone he had that meant she was probably going to be punished.

  Usually when they got together, she told the young man a story or two, or he tried to teach her some strange game he wanted her to play with him, involving a board with alternately colored black and white squares and weird mismatched pieces that stood on them in a very particular order, with lots of little, ridiculous rules about where and how they could move on it.

  It didn't much interest her, especially now, but she thought it might help her focus her attention away from her Alpha.

  "C'mon—just one game?" he pleaded.

  "Oh, all right." She perked up and offered, "But, in exchange, you have to tell me what's going on around the camp."

  That suited him just fine. He moved a piece that looked like a metal race car one square forward. "Well, we've been having a bit of trouble with a group we haven't quite been able to put down yet, but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. It doesn't help that we're down a lot of men because…"

  He didn't finish his sentence, not wanting to hurt her, but Ebby got the gist.

  "Other than that, there's not much going on—some fights amongst us, but not people you would know. Most of the talk is still about you. Everyone is dying to see you because, well, no one but the few of us has."

  Ebby snorted. "He's not likely to allow that." She moved a small, green piece that was egg shaped with one eye, a mouth, two arms and two feet.

  "Not there," Dolar corrected.

  Ebby frowned. She'd had entirely too much of being corrected.

  She sighed and tried again.

  "Not there."

  Giving up, she put it back and reached for one of the pieces in her front row—a tiny white square with a strange nub on the top—and moved it one square, copying him.

  "I know that. He's right to be very careful of you. Although I don't know if he realizes it, but the rumor is that the longer the two of you are bonded, the more likely it is that other Alphas will be able to behave themselves around you." He was staring down at the board—contemplating it much too closely, considering his opponent's lack of interest in the game—when he said that, so Dolar didn't see how intrigued she was by it.

  Trying to sound casual and not let on just how excited she was, Ebby asked, "How long is it supposed to take, do you know?" The excitement that was coursing through her body at what he'd said helped clear the cobwebs from her mind.

  He placed a token that looked like a soldier holding a gun, although he was green, up two squares and over one. "I don't think I've ever heard that there was a particular amount of time, and I doubt he'd be willing to attempt it if he wasn't absolutely certain. He's not about to risk your safety now that he has you."

  "Very true."

  He might not be willing to risk it, but she most certainly was, and she played by far the worst game she ever had because all she could think about was that she might have a better chance than she'd thought of regaining her freedom, and that it might—perhaps—not be quite the death sentence it seemed to be anymore.

  When the opportunity to test that theory presented itself, though, it was not in the manner she had anticipated in the least. It had been several weeks since her last heat. He'd been at her as much as he could be, but the truth was that he was spending less and less time with her, and she had a feeling that the battle with the gang Dolar had mentioned wasn't going very well. Even when he was with her, he was preoccupied.

  One afternoon, while she was lying on his bed, she heard a huge commotion outside. Everyone seemed to be running past the tent on all sides in a very non-military manner, much more like they were fleeing for their lives at a full gallop, going and coming from varying directions. And in the distance, she could hear the same types of noises she had heard the day she'd been captured—horses whinnying, the occasional engine, guns, out and out screams and what sounded like war cries.

  She knocked on the door, calling for Dolar and Edan, who were her guards today, but she didn't hear anything from the other side besides the cacophony that seemed to be drawing closer every second she waited.

  On the hunch that what she thought was happening was true, she gathered together the things she had been carefully collecting towards the day she would take her leave of this place, hiding the rucksack beneath the huge robe she'd found early on, donning sandals of his that she had cut down incredibly but had made wearable, and turned the knob of the door for the first time.

  It had been months since she'd been outside, and it took her eyes a minute—that she wasn't at all sure she had—to adjust to the glaring sun. Unfortunately, that was just long enough for one of the Omega Teams to descend on her. "Colonel Ciaran has sent us to fetch you and take you to safety," their leader said.

  But Ebby had other ideas and began to run away from them as fast as she could.

  For a long moment, the squad stood there, watching her. The colonel hadn't said anything about what to do if she didn't obey them. Their leader had been amazed that he had been thinking enough to issue the order that he had, considering that he, as usual, was right in the midst of the fighting. The gates had been breached in a surprise attack, and he was shoulder to shoulder with his men, which was one of the reasons why he was so successful. He didn't consider himself above doing anything that would accomplish their goal, even that which the lowliest of his soldiers would do.

  It was a comment on how badly things were going, or the Omega Team commander had no doubt that he would never have considered exposing her like this. Although the colonel certainly knew that they would each give their life for her, if necessary, too.

  "Get her!" he commanded, leading them after her, himself.

  But she'd been given enough of a lead that they had lost her. "Fan out and fucking find her!" He sensed a hesitation in his men, snorting in disgust at them and finally saying the words he knew would get them to obey him, "Who wants to be the one to have to tell our commanding officer that we lost his omega?"

  Suddenly, he was talking to himself and separating proved to be the right thing to do. The leader—Paulus—and his partner found her purely by chance, though, and did so only because they saw someone in a black cloak running away from a large crowd of men who were giving chase. Because they were able to keep their heads—unlike the Alphas who were after her—they zig zagged through the maze of tents and small buildings to head her off and pull her away from the men, squeezing off two shots quickly in the air as a signal to the others in the squad that they had found her.

  The rest of them rendezvoused with the two of them who were holding their thoroughly uncooperative target just outside the gates of the camp, but the hordes who had caught the scent of her were hot on their tails. Dolar used a ladder, binoculars and a series of mirrors that were hidden around the camp
to track where the crowd of men were in the warren of the regular soldiers' living area while they holed up near the latrines, which were, by necessity, a good bit away from the camp itself. As he was keeping track of them, the most surprising thing he noticed about the rapidly growing, mindless mass of men was that there weren't very many of their men in it.

  They might have lost a lot of men in acquiring her a while ago, but that meant the men who were their own soldiers were able to better resist her allure, whereas the vast majority of the invaders' men weren't, he explained to his men.

  Considering the reality of the situation, Ebby realized that she would have to abandon her hope of leaving. She wasn't much fond of the idea of dying, either, apparently, when it came down to it. As a result, she had been listening closely to what Paulus said, and she knew she could be of help.

  She knew what they should do.

  "I have an idea."

  She laid out what she wanted to do, and everyone contributed an idea that seemed to enhance the possibility that her wild notion might succeed—except Paulus.

  "Stop listening to her!" he yelled, ignoring Ebby completely, as if she didn't exist. "Do you all want to be killed?" he snorted. "Killed—that would be too good a word for us if our colonel found out that we had risked her life like that!"

  "Dead by his hands, dead by theirs—dead is dead," the youngest of them said as he shrugged. "If the camp is overrun, then the colonel is no more. I don't know about you, but I'd rather die doing something rather than hiding here. We're all here sworn to protect her, and this seems to me to have the best hope of all—or most—of us coming out of this alive. We might even save the whole camp, if it works." He looked directly at her when he said, "In any case, I would rather be dead me than live you.

  Ebby, whose throat had gone dry at the stark truth of his words, rose to stand in the middle of the group. "We need to move as quickly as we can."