by Susan Hayes
She wasn’t with her mother. She’d been taken.
Off the bed before she could register where she was, she tried to run, only for her leg to fold underneath her, dropping her to the floor in an undignified sprawl. A large pair of boots appeared in her field of vision.
“I numbed your leg to treat your wound,” a deep voice said.
An alpha. She gasped and scrambled backward until her shoulders hit the side of the bed. Then she looked up. An alpha towered over her, tall and broad-shouldered, a dark expression on his face as he looked down at her.
“Is there a reason you keep winding up on the floor, little one? Do you have a balance issue I need to know about?”
“No. I... wait. When was I on the floor before now?” The question was fueled by fear, not curiosity.
“Last night when I tried to treat your wound. You fell off the bed.” The big man crouched down beside her. “I am A’rath. Your alpha. What is your name?”
Her alpha? Oh. Hell. No. What had happened last night? Where was she? Even ruined, it was the most beautiful place she’d ever seen.
So was he. And that was the most unsettling thing of all. The man in front of her was tall and golden skinned with a mop of unruly dark curls and a jaw shadowed by several days of beard growth. He was clean and didn’t stink like the other alphas she’d met. And he was... being nice.
She had to be dreaming. Nice alphas didn’t exist.
Without looking away from him, she reached down. A new dressing wrapped her leg, but the only part of her clothing that had been touched was where he’d cut away her pant leg.
She narrowed her eyes. “You only treated my wound?”
As soon as she said the words, she knew he had. There was no way an alpha had taken her, knotted her, and she would be in any fit state to have a conversation. She probably wouldn’t even be conscious.
Reaching up, she boosted herself to sit on the edge of the bed. Whatever he’d done, her injured leg was numb from the knee down. “Why would you do this? Why would you help me?”
“Name,” he reminded her as he got to his feet. He wasn’t as big as some of his kind, but he was big enough to tower over her. “I want your name. As for why, I told you already. You are my omega. Mine to care for and protect.” He shrugged. “That is how this works.”
“Your omega?”
“Mine.” He folded his arms across his powerful chest. “Name.”
“Savannah.” There was no harm in giving him that much information.
“Savannah,” he repeated, rolling the name off his tongue with satisfaction. “How are you feeling, Savannah?”
“I can’t walk properly,” she said, frowning as she tried to rotate her ankle. “And I’m not your omega.”
He growled at that and took a step closer. She reared back, pulling her legs up to try and scoot across the bed. But he snapped a hand out, catching her trailing ankle in a firm grip.
“What was that?”
“I am not your omega.” She threw caution to the wind. “I’m not an omega at all.”
“Do not lie to me.” He kept hold of her uninjured leg and leaned in, making a show of inhaling deeply. “I know what you are.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“I am not.”
She’d run low on blockers weeks ago. That’s how the alphas had found her in the first place. She and her mother had been sharing what little they had until they could find more. Even the last traces of the meds were out of her system now. There was no hiding what she was, but at least she’d tried.
“I’m sick. Dying. You don’t want to breed with me.”
His finger stroked over her leg and his eyes darkened. “You’ll recover.”
She’d die before she gave herself to one of them. She knew what life was like for omegas. She’d seen it. “I don’t want this.”
“You don’t have a say in this. You are mine.”
“You keep saying that. You know repetition doesn’t make something true. Right?”
Darkness filled his eyes and the corner of his lips quirked.
“I am alpha. When I say you are mine, it means you are mine.” He yanked on her uninjured leg suddenly and hauled her half under him. “You’ve been mine since the moment I scented you in the ruins.”
She managed nothing more than a small squeak before she found herself under him, hands curled around his upper arms as she tried to push him away. This close he smelled so good, a clean, masculine scent that made her inhale and want to get closer to him. The men she knew all smelled of stale sweat and grease or dirt from the fields. And, she realized as she looked up at him, none of them were as handsome as this alien. He was gorgeous, with dark curls falling over his eyes, dark stubble over his chiseled jaw, and sinful lips.
“Nope. So not yours. I’m sick.” She forced a cough. “See? And I smell bad. You don’t want me. I’m weak and I won’t breed well. I’m not good at it anyway.”
His eyes filled with darkness, swallowing up the color and the white. She caught her breath, recognizing the signs of the beast. This was it. He would tear into her now and she wouldn’t survive. Her fingertips wandered down to the mercy on her thigh, only to remember it wasn’t there.
“You’re not good at it?” he demanded with a vicious snarl, leaning in. “With who? I’ll xarthing tear him apart. Limb from limb.”
She caught her breath but kept her wits about her. She knew what she had to do. Her hand snaked out to the sheath he’d hidden her mercy in, and with nimble fingers she pulled it free. With a quick, practiced motion, she aimed for her inner thigh.
“No!” he snarled, blocking her movement with his forearm.
A wordless shriek of fear and frustration tore from her lungs as he denied her the only choice she had left—the final escape.
The blade bit into his flesh so cleanly it could have been a surgical cut. Only he wasn’t her intended target. A’rath snarled and tightened his grip. His fangs lengthened and she caught the telltale pattern of markings starting to appear along the sides of his neck. The beast was almost free.
“Please. Let me die. I don’t want this.”
“No.” He tore the knife from her hand. “You are not going to die. Not by your hand or anyone else’s.”
“Please don’t do this,” she begged, tears sliding down the sides of her cheeks. “I can’t do this... please. Just kill me.”
“What?” He looked at her, ignoring the blood pouring from his cut arm, his gaze locked onto her face. The markings faded from his neck as the color returned to his eyes.
She’d asked him to kill her.
She might have well asked for the moon and stars. No true alpha would kill their omega. They were to be protected and cherished, especially one as unique as her. She still had her wits and her mind was as sharp as the blade she carried.
His gaze dropped to his injured arm. It was a clean cut, but it was bleeding heavily. Too heavily. “What was on that blade?”
“Poison,” she threw the word at him like a challenge. “I’ve killed you. Better kill me while you still can.”
Human poisons didn’t worry him. Even if they did, he could hear the forced bravado in her words. “Do not lie to me.”
“Fine. It’s something to make wounds bleed longer and faster.”
He looked at the knife again. He hadn’t taken the time to really look at it until now. The blade itself was small and curved, little more than a viciously sharp hook. Almost as if it were meant for...
Xarth.
He’d seen them before, with female bodies left out in the wilderness.
“What is this? Why do you have it?” he demanded, anger dropping his voice to a low growl.
“It’s not meant to be a weapon,” her voice was soft and a little sad, her gaze still on the blade as if she was thinking of trying to grab it again. “It’s to give us a way to escape our suffering.”
“What suffering?”
“Of being what we are. Omegas. Breeding slaves.”
/> “You are more than that! You are the future of our race.”
She laughed bitterly. “We didn’t ask for that. Or the pain that comes with what we are. Even if we aren’t claimed, there’s pain. As omegas get older the curse gets worse. It weakens us. It’s agony. Some can’t cope and give themselves up. The rest walk into the wilderness.” Reaching down, she traced a short line across her inner thigh. “They don’t come back.”
Fury of a kind he’d never known before boiled up inside him. Not the heat of battle or the raw red of anger, but a terrible cold that turned his blood to ice in his veins.
“You.” He stopped and had to force himself to say the next word. “You kill yourselves rather than be claimed? How many! How long? What curse?”
He wanted to shake the answers out of her. He needed to cradle her close and make her swear to him she’d never do such a thing.
She tried to move back but he wouldn’t let her. “Talk.”
“Being an omega is a curse.”
Each of her soft words hit him hard.
“Even if we aren’t found and claimed, once or twice a year all choice and rational thought is removed. The pain and craving...”
She shuddered and closed her eyes.
“It drives some mad. The older we get, the harder it is to cope with. Like it’s eating us from the inside out. How long?” Her lips curved in a bitter, haunted smile. “Ever since you changed us.”
“That’s not right. Twice? Pain?” The ice receded, leaving a pit of acid churning in his gut. “You would take your own life rather than submit to my claim?”
She lay beneath him, no fight left. The tracks of tears that rolled down the side of her cheeks accused him. He frowned. She seemed... smaller... like this, and she had been tiny enough to begin with. The need to protect her washed over him, but a core of rage remained. And it demanded answers.
“Answer me, omega,” he snarled, the rough edge of frustration and command in his voice.
“Twice,” she confirmed. “For my mother and me, it comes twice a year, and it hurts. The time is coming when my mother won’t be able to fight it any longer. I wanted to be with her until then... but if I can’t, at least I can join her in death. We can both be at peace, which is more than you and your kind have ever offered us.”
Omegas who went into heat twice a year. A mother and daughter who were both omegas.
He sorted through the information and tried to file it away for later consideration. For the moment, his focus was on her. She’d rather die than be with an alpha. What had the xarthing L’crav clan done to these females?
He fixed his gaze on hers. “I can offer you more than that, shar’ai. Food. Comfort. Protection. You will have it all. I am A’rath of the H’thor, Master at Arms to the Lord Overseer himself, and you are my omega.”
She hadn’t moved, watching him with wary eyes. He hated the fear in her eyes and in her scent. It stank, acrid to his sensitive sense of smell, and he wanted it gone. Wanted it off her skin. Carefully he levered himself up, every cell in his body protesting at the distance. He should be buried balls deep in her, claiming her and making her his as his nature demanded... but he couldn’t, not while she was scared—no, more than scared. For all her smart mouth, she was terrified of him.
“You will not kill yourself.” He sank the blade into the nearest wall with an idle flick of his wrist, making sure it was out of his little female’s reach. “You will eat. And bathe. You may choose which you will do first.”
Fire sparkled in her eyes as she glared up at him—rebellion, pure and simple. It took his breath away at the same time it confounded him. She was omega. He could tell by her scent. More, she was his omega, but even terrified she was defying him. She shouldn’t be able to defy him. Not after so much time in his company. His pheromones should already be working on her and ensuring her compliance.
Omegas obeyed their alphas. This was the way it had always been. He should want her compliance, so why wasn’t he forcing her to obey? Why did he relish the challenge in her eyes?
He needed to talk to Rett. His brother had more insight into these humans than anyone else. But that would wait. For now, his focus was on Savannah. “Choose.”
“You’d let me bathe alone?”
“No. You cannot walk. How would you manage to bathe without help? I am your alpha. I will care for you.”
She narrowed her eyes, her lips pressed together until they almost disappeared. Then she rubbed a hand over her dirt-stained arm. “I would love to be clean. But...”
Her gaze flicked to him and he read the wariness in her expression. She didn’t want to disrobe in front of him, which was ridiculous. He could take what he wanted any time he wanted, as was his right as her alpha. But the idea of her willing submission was more enthralling.
“Then I will make it so.” He flashed her a wicked smile as an idea struck him. “I will even agree to be blindfolded this one time.”
“You will?” The hope in her eyes was better than any drug he’d ever sampled.
“I will. For a price.”
The hope vanished and her face lapsed into a neutral mask. “What price?”
“A kiss. Your lips on mine. I want to taste you, little one. That’s all.”
For now.
She watched him for long moments, studying his expression. He held his breath as she assessed him, fascinated by the way her thoughts showed in her eyes like quicksilver. She should never play varka. She would lose the clothes off her back.
“Just a kiss. A single kiss, nothing else?” she asked and he knew he had her.
“Just a kiss, shar’ai. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Silence stretched out between them—a pause that would have driven him insane, but for one thing. His father had taught him that a good hunter did not chase. Instead, a good hunter waited for his prey.
“Alright.”
Her agreement felt like a major victory. “Good.”
He raised his voice to one of command. “System. Run a bath. Hot but not scalding. Low light.”
“Affirmative.” He hated the default voice that came with these systems. It was sexless and empty. He wanted it to be female. Soft and welcoming. Like hers.
“You can just do that? Say a thing and it gets done?” A hint of wonder was in her tone.
“I can. And once we are home at Zabor T’ah, you will have access to these systems, too. You will have every comfort imaginable.”
Savannah tensed. “This isn’t your home?”
“No. This is a... safe place. That’s all.”
It was where he met with his brother to receive reports on the human rebels. A’rett managed to pass as a human beta and sent along what information he could.
Pushing upright, he offered her his hand, ignoring the blood sheathing his wrist. It had stopped bleeding now, his physiology more robust than a Terran’s, and the wound would seal over soon.
“Do not make me chase you, little one,” he warned when she hesitated. “You already have one victory. Do not try for another.”
Her gaze flicked to his outstretched hand, and he saw the moment she made her decision. Slowly she reached up and slid her slender fingers into his hand, the brush of her skin against his the softest touch he’d ever felt. Folding her hand in a strong grip, he pulled her upright with little effort. She was too light, even for her delicate frame. She would eat after she’d bathed.
Pulling her up against him, he savored the little sound of surprise as he reached into a pocket with his free hand to give her a scrap of fabric.
Her lips almost curved into a confused smile. “Do I want to know why you have a blindfold?”
“I had thought that fabric would be softer than rope if I needed to restrain you.”
“You were going to...” she trailed off, her eyes on the bit of fabric still dangling from his fingers.
“If necessary, yes.” He lowered his head slightly. “But it will also act as a blindfold. If you place it on me now, I will take yo
u to the bathing chamber.”
Her confusion deepened. “But you won’t be able to see the way if I do that.”
“I don’t need my eyes to navigate this place. I am a warrior.” He was one of the best in Lord Tane’s service. He could hold his ground stripped of all his senses. It was part of his training.
Very gently she took the blindfold and placed it over his eyes. Her touch was light and unsure, but he remained still, supporting her with one arm as she reached up to tie the blindfold in place. When it was done, she made a small noise of surprise.
“You let me do that.”
“I said I would. I am a male of honor. And now, I will have payment.”
She froze, and he would have given anything to be able to see her expression at the moment. Instead, he let his imagination fill in the look of wariness on her pretty face. And maybe, now that he couldn’t see her, perhaps interest? He wanted there to be interest. It would make their life together much easier if she found him appealing as a male. And why shouldn’t she? He was her alpha. She should desire him above all others. It was encoded in her very being.
Then she moved, leaning forward, and he felt the whisper of her breath against his lips. Every muscle in his body tensed, waiting for that moment when her lips touched his and she kissed him. She would not want to stop at one—omegas never did—not once they had tasted their alphas.
There. The softest brush, like that of a butterfly’s wing, gone before he could truly register it. A growl bubbled up from the center of his chest, and he wanted to howl in frustration. His hand tightened on her waist and she stiffened.
“You said just a kiss. That was a kiss.”
“Just,” he bit out.
“The price you asked for was paid in full.”
He caught a hint of laughter in her voice. It was enough to ease his frustration. If it made her happy to make him wait, he could wait a little longer.
“Arms around my neck, little one. Your bath awaits.” He would see to her needs and then it would be time she saw to his.
3
He was right. He didn’t need to see to navigate his home. Savannah’s eyes widened as he scooped her up and carried her into the bathroom as though he could see perfectly. But he couldn’t. She lifted her hand to wave it in front of his eyes and he didn’t so much as flinch.
