The Golden Line: An Omegaverse Dark Romance (Knotted Book 1)

by Addison Cain

  The commandant answered, short and cold. “She’s nearing her first estrous. Do not account for her age. As I said, she is flawed.”

  Purr increasing in volume, his words soft despite the rasp and ugliness of his language, the foreigner spoke and the translator supplied, “If you use that word again to describe my kor’yr, I will rip out your throat, castrate your children, and see that your mate is defiled.”

  She breathed out, tried to pull away, but her resistance went unheeded. He cupped the back of her head, pressing her cheek to his heart, just as his other arm clamped around her waist.

  Locked tight to a stranger’s body, wrapped in the coarse skin of an unknown animal, frightened, Morgaine whimpered.

  The fingers at her skull drew soft circles even as he held her tighter.

  Purr intensifying, engulfing and abundant, it drowned out all else. She could feel it in each cell and hear it in a way that was too intimate to ignore. His offering was in her and around her, just as an enticing scent filled her lungs with each breath.

  They had doused him in something that smelled appealing, a lie to cover his brutality. But like the purr, it did its work. Muscles loosened, her heart rate normalized, and Morgaine closed her eyes to it all.

  “That’s it, princess. Fear does not suit you.” Warm fingers began to burrow deeper against her scalp, working their way down her neck and back up again until she let out an easy breath. “Come, I will show you what it means to be the kor’yr of Heidron Simin Gralloch.”

  Chapter 13

  The transport ship shook under their feet, Morgaine gawking at the view from the porthole. Outside that window a whole planet glowed, hundreds of other ships hovering above the atmosphere around it.

  Her home world, there, so close all along.

  It looked so big and so small, the swirled green-blue mass indescribable. Beauty like that was enough to keep her head turned away from the frightening male who held her close, twisting the length of her golden hair in his fist like a leash.

  He wanted her attention, broadcasting it with a soft tug at her roots.

  They rape and mutilate their Omegas.

  Esin’s soft spoken warning to Uriel had done its work, just as the savage’s purr was waging war against her fear.

  When she still refused to look away from the view, battle roughened fingers tripped over the front of her throat, a large thumb pushing her jaw until Morgaine was forced to stare upward. His face sat in her view, inches from hers, but still she kept her gaze diverted. The male touched her lower lip with his thumb, pulling it to the side in a sweep, even as a low noise came from his throat.

  Her eyes were on home.

  The fingers on her neck trilled, the grip on her hair tightened. She wasn’t going to get another warning. Little stings against her scalp made her bow back further, to grip his forearm so she would not lose her balance.

  Rape and mutilate.

  Those two things this male would do to her. What was the point in refusing to meet his gaze?

  A shallow breath, and she obeyed.

  His eyes weren’t blue like hers or particularly pretty. They were too murky to be named a single color. One of them was ringed in an ugly bruise. Below, cheekbones were defined but not sharp, hollow cheeks, and a strong jaw.

  Extreme masculinity with nothing soft or gentle.

  Not even his lips could be called soft, though they ever so slightly curled up at the corners the instant her attention was on them.

  He said something to her, a series of low-pitched warbles.

  Not one of the other males on this ship offered a translation, though she glanced around in hope for an explanation.

  Her distraction was exploited. The Heidron put his mouth on hers.

  The attack had been well-coordinated. Her head hit his bicep, his fingers pinching her jaw open so he could steal a taste. Female squeal squelched by a lapping tongue in her mouth, Morgaine found he held her immobile, that he possessed total control.

  With his fingers pinching her cheeks, she could not even bite.

  The male took his time exploring her taste, the edges of her teeth, swallowing down her nervous pants, careless that others openly watched.

  Skin prickling from a creeping flush, Morgaine sagged and let him do what he wished. Nips on her lips kept them parted, an undulating tongue teased. It wasn’t like the teeth shattering kisses Esin had forced on her mouth.

  This male conquered with cleverness, not violence. And though he ran his hand carefully over her throat and collarbones, he didn’t paw.

  But he would.

  Unsolicited Alpha attention continued the entire flight from ship to ship, endured by a confused woman who did not understand why his fingers were so careful, or why he didn’t grunt at her like Esin did when she failed to adequately return the kiss.

  It seemed he didn’t mind her lack of participation. In fact, the more still she grew, the more excited the Alpha became. The smell of musk dripped from his pores; it was rubbed on her, unavoidable like that tongue playing between her teeth.

  When the ship docked and the door opened, he set her free, only to gather her up against his chest before she might take so much as a step. The others were left behind as he marched forward to the riotous sound of cheering men.

  Holding her tightly to him, he gave a single triumphant shout in return. When she startled, when fear bloomed all the brighter, his march through the hangar became a rushed affair.

  Corridor, corridor, corridor, left, too many turns to count, a beep and a slick slide of a door.

  Through the mad race, he had his paws on her anywhere he might reach without dropping her, his tongue on her skin like a slavering dog. The fur, her slim protection, was yanked away. A hand came to her chest, Morgaine pushed back until she fell into weightlessness.

  Pillows cushioned impact, but not the sting against raised welts and aching bruises. And then the beast was over her, grinning, speaking guttural nonsense she could not understand, even as he tore at her clothes.

  This she expected. This is how they all were.

  The instant he had her naked, the Alpha stilled. Arms locked, muscles protruding, he panted and stared. Pink nipples, he licked his lips to see them. Her belly, flat and velvety, brought to his face a lecherous grin.

  Legs caught outside his hips, Morgaine was fully exposed when that hungry gaze slid lower. Her slit shined with dampness, sweet slick smeared across her inner thighs… the same damn fluid that had plagued her body since she’d been taken from her cottage.

  She tried to cover herself when a trickle leaked from her slit to drip between her cheeks. “I don’t know how to make it stop.”

  With a grunt, both her hands were batted aside, wrists caught and pinned. He even shifted his knees to spread her further, to see the little, twitching mouth of her cunt waiting behind soft lower lips.

  Pink, pretty, contracting in tight pulses at such direct attention.

  Noises beyond the purr were coming from the barbarian, low threatening growls that turned her body against her fear.

  On his lowest rumble, a rush of fluid spurted from her cunt, leaving Morgaine shocked, embarrassed, and trying to squirm away.

  The more she moved, the more the grinning male countered.

  He grumbled more words at her, lowering his head as he did so. He chased until her hips were caught and hooked over his shoulders. A broad tongue swept up as much of her slick in a single lick as it could, gathered it in his mouth to be savored.

  He closed his eyes, offered a low, ravenous moan, and swallowed.

  This had never been displayed on the wall during lessons. What he was doing was unseemly, Morgaine squealing when his mouth descended for another taste.

  The other part of the Alpha was supposed to be jammed inside of her, not the tongue that had gone right back to licking her slit. It prodded her hole, played with the fleshly wet lips, worst of all, flicked at a part of her that made her gasp and choke on air.

  No Sergeant Uriel wa
s going to come into the room and tell the male to stop. Her pleas were nothing to him. In fact, they were not even making sense to her own ears.

  On and on the brute feasted, Morgaine’s eyes rolling back in her head.

  There was a sense of powerlessness that stole the air from the room, that made her pant and wriggle—that even spread her thighs as if she wanted more. Buzzing skin, a great swirling crest of feeling…

  And then she cried out, a burst of heat in her belly stealing all sense. Lava flowed through her veins, twisted her guts, and burned all the hotter as the male flicked the tip of his tongue even faster over that nub of sensation.

  Her wrist was set free, her hand going to his forehead to push him away… but it was too late. Fingers pointed like a javelin, he pushed them knuckle deep into her sopping, twitching cunt.

  Her inner muscles grabbed at those digits, fighting to draw them deeper, to clamp down around them while the rest of her spasmed uncontrollably.

  It felt as if it would never end, the evil he was working on her body. Worse, it felt so good she could not stop the way she begged for more and rolled her hips against his wriggling fingers.

  When the tide of pleasure slowly abated, she was boneless, tender and swollen between her legs, and caught lying back with a stranger’s fist partway in her body. Smiling down at her, he pulled it out slowly, carefully, despite her inner muscles trying their best to hold on tight.

  He rubbed that hand, slippery with her fluids across his bare chest, leaving a mark of shine.

  Next his fingers went to his belt, Morgaine unsure what to do.

  She was not even sure of who she was in that moment.

  Leather parted, the Alpha fisting a hard cock, stroking it as he stared down at her.

  The crown was swollen, dripping beads of pearly fluid. The shaft was pulsating in a continuous throb, many times thicker than the Beta males’ she’d seen on the screen. At the base of it, a bulbous knot already hinted at what was sure to be far more than she could handle.

  He was going to force that monstrosity in her, just as the Alpha had done on the screen.

  Watching her face, the male continued to stroke that huge organ, speaking lowly in a rhythm of guttural consonants and growls. The things he said, she was certain translation was not desired. They were filthy things, disgusting things, things that would shame her more than he already had.

  Why else would he look at her that way?

  With one hand he took her shoulder and urged her to turn over. There was no fight, her body still reeling from sparks of raw feeling and her spirit trapped by his purr. On her knees, bracing her hands against the edge of his sunken bed, Morgaine let him draw her hips up high, and closed her eyes tight.

  She felt him sweep her hair from her back and… and then she felt nothing.

  He was not touching her, though he still knelt between her spread thighs. The heat of his body was certain, but he did not move.

  Bracing for pain, Morgaine’s every muscle went tight. Still he did not penetrate her.

  Sniffing, tears on her cheeks, she glanced over her shoulder and found such a look of rage on the Alpha’s face.

  His hands, fingers spread, were hovering over the line of welts on her back.

  Her only value in the eyes of Alphas was in her beauty, and she had already disgusted the one who possessed total power over her now.

  Afraid, she sat a hip to the floor, pulled her knees under her chin, and made herself as small as possible. She even apologized. “I’ve been told they won’t scar. You won’t have to look at them forever.”

  Climbing to his feet, he stood over her, nostrils flared and eyes wild. When she began to cry, he bounded from the nest. The nearest piece of furniture was grabbed; the Alpha flipping a table with such strength it broke against the wall. Next, a chair sailed through the air, his roar louder than a dragon’s when it shattered. After he’d torn a corner of the room to pieces, the brute flew, shouting at the top of his lungs, out the door.

  Chapter 14

  Never in her life had Morgaine seen anything like it—that type of rage, that total loss of control.

  The second she was alone, she darted from the foreigner’s sleeping pit, threw on the shreds of her clothing, and grabbed the first potential weapon she could get her hands on.

  A broken bit of metal, the edge sharp enough to cut into her palm as she gripped it.

  The layout of his rooms was unfamiliar, but she ran through them looking for a decent place to hide or a way to get out. The wash chamber was too small, the room for food consumption too sparse. There was a living area with a view of space. In there, she saw they had left her planet, that a company of ships flew at their side.

  The weight of it left her reeling.

  She was alone in space, stupidly hiding in a dark room from a male whom she been given to like a sacrificial lamb.

  …as if he’d never find her.

  The ridiculousness was not lost. Morgaine looked down at the sharp sliver in her hand, saw the way she clutched the ruined dress over her breasts, and knew hopelessness.

  Whatever he had in store for her, she could not stop it.

  Running the back of her hand over flushed cheeks, she wiped the tears away, and straightened her shoulders to face him with the last bits of pride she could muster.

  The sound of the Alpha returning could be heard in the other room. Swallowing back a sick feeling, she turned from the view, standing so he would see her when he checked this final room. It did not take him long.

  Still naked, his flaccid cock hanging thick and foreboding between his legs, he strode in with a scowl. Shorter and less muscular, a fully dressed man followed and immediately averted his eyes.

  This frazzled companion was clearly a Beta like the men in her settlement—the first Beta she had seen in days.

  The Alpha began to speak, his voice low, calm, almost poetic in its velvety meter. He even purred.

  A moment later the Beta translated. “Our Heidron would like to know who struck you and why.”

  What did it matter? What did any of this matter?

  Morgaine tightened her grip on her makeshift weapon, felt the skin on her palm split until warm blood dripped down the blade. When the Heidron sniffed the air and darted a glance to her hand, when it looked as if he prepared to approach, Morgaine narrowed her eyes, and growled at the pair of them. “I was taken from my mother, forced to endure lessons on how to be a proper Omega, threatened constantly with unwanted male attention, and watched every minute of every day. I was struck because I disliked it.”

  The words were fed back to the Alpha, the one watching her bleeding hand with his own narrow-eyed gaze. He did not find her answer satisfactory.

  The Beta asked again. “Who struck you and why?”

  Morgaine found the question pointless considering the brute who’d asked it, and snarled, “The day before you arrived, I laid down in the glass cage and ignored the rude questions and vulgar demands of the Alphas who came to bid on me. The commandant assured that I would not be able to sit or lie down again the next day. He ordered five strikes of a cane. The sergeant responsible for my transition carried out the sentence, adding in an extra strike for good measure. The Alpha with the greatest claim to me held me down, though he offered to take my punishment upon himself.”

  Every word was fed back to the one staring at her. His eyes went to hers when he spoke for the Beta to translate. “You smell like fear.”

  Her lip shook. “You’re very scary.”

  “And you believe you can fend me off with that broken bit of metal?”

  Morgaine glanced down at her bloody weapon. “No, but if I get you angry enough, you will kill me more quickly.”

  He paced toward her, pried the shard from her numb fingers, and threw it to crash against the nearest wall. “A weapon will not work unless you are willing to wield it, girl. I suggest never raising one to me again.”

  Taking her bleeding palm in his hand, he inspected the shallow wound
.

  The last traces of pride and bravery vanished when he licked it. “If you are angry about the marks on my back, I was assured they would not scar.”

  His palm cupped her cheek, fingers curling around her skull. A smear of her blood on his lips, he rumbled, the translation following. “I am angry about the wounds. Very angry. But I am not angry with you.”

  Unsure what to say, Morgaine closed her eyes, a long breath leaving her chest. Again, he put her cheek to his chest, his hand to her hair, and placed an arm firmly around her middle.

  The resonant purr was like warm sand for her to sink into. It felt treacherous and untrustworthy, even as it promised safety and warmth. Like the thing he’d done to her in his nest, the way he’d turned her body against her and made her the true definition of feral.

  The male knew how to control in ways which Sergeant Uriel had only tested the waters and Corporal Esin had yet to learn.

  Pressing closer to that noise, Morgaine muttered, “I don’t know what to do.”

  The words had been too soft for the translator to hear, but the Alpha responded as if in perfect understanding, his Beta companion announcing, “He says you shall rest now.”

  The translator dismissed, Morgaine was taken back into the sleeping chamber. Only this time, she was not shoved into the bedding, but urged to lie down on her stomach. A short time later his weight came heavy beside her, a cool pass of medicine swabbed over her back and buttocks until her hurts vanished.

  He talked again as if explaining all he did, bandaged her hand, stroked her hair. Morgaine passed into dreams anchored by the sound of a stranger’s purr-rich voice, warmed by the heat of his body.

  ***

  Dark hair slipping over her bare skin like a brush of feathers, Simin took his time scent-marking his mate as she slumbered. The graze of his jaw over her alluring curves set bumps to smooth flesh and a soft smile to his kor’yr’s mouth.

  Males knew to purr, and yes, he had for other women in the past, but never as loud or as strong as he did for this one. She inspired an impressive, and it would seem necessary, amount of noise to echo from his ribs to sing her into a state of calm.