A Tainted Claim (Beholden Duet Book 2)

by Zoey Ellis

  "Because it's impossible for you not to know where he is when he has been sighted by your property so many times," the man growled. "So we're going to ask you over and over again until you tell us what the fuck we want to know!"

  "I don't know, I swear to you! I don't know where he is, I don't know where he's been, and I don't know where he's going to be. The sightings must be because he frequently goes past my property. But I don't know him."

  Ana glanced at Maddoc. His jaw was rock hard.

  "Tell us where he is!"

  A loud thud hit the wall, and the man cried out.

  "We can do this all day," came Aldous’ low tone. "And now we have the use of the king's guard, we can make it as painful and as crippling as we want."

  Ana closed her eyes, willing away the nausea that rose. Why did they have access to the king's guard? The king’s guard were only supposed to protect the king. But then, she didn't know the rules around what happened in this scenario when the king was assassinated and there was no heir.

  "I swear," the man wheezed. "I swear I have no information."

  A series of thumps and slams hit the wall, a couple with bone crunching sounds accompanying them. The man sobbed and pleaded and begged, and Ana had to curl up in Maddoc's arms, gripping his tunic so she wouldn't cry. She hated listening to all that pain and violence. How could they do it?

  Just as Maddoc was placing her down so Raine could take her away, the door opened, and more footsteps came in.

  "No!" the prisoner cried out. "Leave him, please!"

  "I remember when you didn't pay your taxes a couple of years ago, and your grandchild was invited for the fun. You managed to find the money pretty quickly," one of the men said. "So let's see if he is as effective to get us results this time. After all, Duke Ryden is all about results."

  Ana froze, but Maddoc was ushering her out of the room with Raine. Ryden? Was he was alive?

  Before she had time to think about it, Raine was leading her down the steps and out onto the side road.

  "I need to go back in," she urged. "I need to know if Ryden is still alive."

  Raine shook her head. "Impossible."

  Ana yanked her hand away. "It may be impossible for you, but I want to go back in."

  Raine stared at her. "You want to go back in and see what they do to his grandchild?"

  "I need to know if Ryden is still alive."

  "What difference does it make if he is?" she said, disgust in her voice. "He is part of that house. He is condoning that behavior."

  "You don’t know that," Ana said immediately. "He may not know what they're doing in his name." Even though Aldous was an Alpha Ryden looked up to, it didn’t mean Ryden was aware of this. He wasn’t a representative of the house. He could be kept out of the truly terrible acts. Besides, it was too hard to believe that Ryden would know about this and approve it.

  "Look," Raine said, her voice softening. "I cannot take you back in. It's already too late. Maddoc has already entered the room or kicked down the wall or something, and there were king's guard in that room. It's not just fighting knights from the houses or inexperienced men who haven't faced battle before. The king's guard are dangerous to us. They have killed many of us. I cannot take you back up there to be hurt, or taken, or distract Maddoc from what he's doing."

  Ana's heart sank. She was right. Glancing back up at the house, she nodded and they both headed down the street.

  That evening Maddoc did not come.

  Ana paced the pavilion after sundown, expecting him to enter at any moment, but when an hour passed, she began to worry that he may have really been hurt. What if Aldous had caught him, did that mean that they were coming to the camp to get Ana? What hope did the rest of the people here have without Maddoc?

  She shook her head pushing away her fears. Slowing her pace down in the middle of her room, she realized that she was fearful for him. She didn't want anything to happen to him, and she could not go to sleep until she saw him.

  Peeking out the entrance of the tent, she looked to see if anyone was nearby. Her guard stood a few feet away, but he seemed to be watching something on the other side of the camp.

  She tiptoed over to him. "Do you know where Maddoc is?"

  He turned, his eyes glistening in the fire light. "Yes. He will come and see you when he is ready, Princess."

  "Where is he?"

  The guard was silent for a moment. "He would prefer if you waited for him."

  "I don't give a fuck what he prefers," she hissed. "I want to know where he is right now."

  The guard eyed her. "He is in the healing tent."

  “Where is that?”

  The guard pointed.

  "Is he all right?"

  The guard didn't answer. "That's all I know." The guard's answer was noncommittal, but there was clear worry on his face, and she realized that he had been staring across at the healing tent when she approached.

  Without saying another word, she walked in that direction, preparing for him to try to stop her. But he didn't, and when she glanced over her shoulder, he was simply following, escorting her there.

  The healing tent was surrounded mostly in darkness, but since Ana had never been there before, she was unsure what she would find. Who was the healer in the camp? Did each camp have one or was it one for the whole base?

  She stepped toward the opening and peeked inside to see Maddoc’s huge form lying on a raised platform in the middle. It looked like a mix between a table and a bed, possibly what they might use in treatment rooms to treat patients. Next to the table was… Raine.

  What? Ana blinked.

  They were talking, and she was pressing something on Maddoc’s shoulder, leaning over him and laughing as she did so.

  A flare of anger sparked a growly rumble at the back of her throat. What was she doing?

  “Princess, I think you should leave him to—”

  “Go back to your station,” Ana hissed at the guard, her anger heightening.

  He stilled, then took a few steps back, but went no farther.

  Ana turned back to the tent, incensed that Raine was in there. Was this really a healing tent or a fuck tent? She’d always been aware that there were probably a lot of women that Maddoc had slept with, but she’d assumed that they would be whores or disposable liaisons, much like the way he treated her—only interested in sex with her because she was an Omega and a princess, but this woman was a fucking highcloak. She was permanently by his side in battles, and he trusted her to bring the stolen Omega back to camp every day.

  She scowled as she watched them. Maddoc was naked from the waist up and they talked to each other comfortably, as if nakedness wasn’t a problem. The woman even brushed her hand over his skin and barely looked at him, as though she had seen him naked plenty of times before.

  The more she watched, the more she disliked what was happening, and emotions rose that she didn’t understand. She tried to turn away, but couldn't. She had to know what this woman was doing with her Alpha. Was she who he was with every night after he kissed her and left her?

  She leaned in closer, her hands gripping the opening of the tent as the woman went around the table and rinsed a cloth in a basin nearby and then returned to place the cloth over his shoulder. Blood dripped down his arm and onto the ground, but he didn't even wince. Raine looked down at the rest of his body and murmured something, then giggled.

  And that was breaking point.

  All the rough, ragged feelings building in Ana took hold of her, reaching a scalding tipping point that pushed reason far from her mind. Instincts urging her forward, screaming for her to do something about this threat. And as much as Ana had not wanted to address any feelings for this Alpha, she had no choice now. She had to act.

  Embracing the inner haze of fury that swept her, she stepped into the tent.

  8

  MADDOC

  Maddoc growled at the pain that tore at his shoulder. He had been stabbed with a sword before, but didn’t recall i
t being so painful. It was always a risk fighting the king's guard, but he had been trained better than them, and so had most of his highcloaks. This injury happened by accident on the part of his attacker—he got lucky. It was unfortunate for him he was no longer alive to brag about it.

  He groaned again. It was as though his shoulder was being trampled every time he moved, and while Raine was doing her best, he had the feeling she wasn't saying something. "What is it?" he finally growled.

  Her mouth twisted as she looked at her chart and then dripped two drops of a foul-smelling liquid into the wound. "You are lucky. The sword went through the joint. It didn't hit anything major that will cause any difficulty in your arm."

  "But?" Maddoc sensed something coming.

  "You've lost a lot of blood, and from the way in which the skin is reacting around the wound, the sword may have been poisoned."

  Maddoc was quiet for a moment. That was bad. "Do you know which one? There are antidotes to many of the poisons available."

  Raine nodded. "I think so, but it would be difficult to determine, and I don't know how long this one will take.” Her voice lowered. “We need our healer, Maddoc.”

  “We cannot use her right now. She trained you for a reason.”

  “Yes, but I’m not an expert with this! Your life is too important for me to guess, Maddoc.”

  Maddoc said nothing. He simply stared at her until she calmed down. Raine managed to control her outbursts most of the time now. “How has escorting Ana been?”

  Raine made a face. “You want to talk about that now?”

  “You know why I gave you that task, don’t you?”

  She sighed. “Yes.”

  “Has it helped?”

  Raine shrugged while mixing some of the ingredients into a paste. “A bit. I’m trying to find the right time to talk to her.”

  “My experience is that there is never a right time. You just pick one and make it work.”

  Raine snorted. “That might work for you; she’s weak for you.”

  Maddoc smiled at that.

  “But it wouldn’t work for me. She practically screamed at me to take her back into the house today.”

  “Why?”

  Raine suddenly stilled, as though realizing she said something she shouldn’t have and was backed into a corner. “She wanted to know if her betrothed is still alive,” she said finally.

  Maddoc growled. Ana was still concerned about him?

  “It’s been a lot on her to take in, Maddoc,” Raine said after he’d been growling for a few long moments. “The people she thought were good people have turned out to be the opposite. I understand that she wants to know if—”

  Maddoc served her a look that made her stop speaking. All the progress he thought he’d been making with Ana was now in question, all the nights he’d spent apart from her, all the times she’d looked at him without the hatred in her eyes. That had been fucking progress. He didn’t like senseless killing, but finding a way to kill that fucking duke was making a lot of sense right now.

  Raine sighed as though she could sense his murderous thoughts and went to rinse out the cloth in the basin. She returned and dabbed it into his shoulder. "The good thing is, if the poison is what I think it is, we have a bit of time," Raine commented. “If it had hit any major organs, we would have needed to do something quickly.” She glanced down at his body. "It’s pretty lucky he got you here. It’s not as though there isn't enough of you to get." She laughed at her own joke, but Maddoc said nothing.

  Even a lucky shot was bad if it was poisoned. He trusted Raine to patch him up and even trusted her analysis, but it might really need their healer to return to be on the cautious—

  A presence in the tent made him tense. He looked over at the entrance, and at the same time, the most wonderful scent reached him, beautifully raw and so erotically sweet it made his cock hard instantly. Ana was here.

  She stood just inside the entrance, her jaw clenched, glaring at both Maddoc and Raine.

  "Analisa." He was about to order her back to the pavilion, but something shining in her eyes and a slight heady bitterness in her scent made him stop. He frowned at her, noticing that her gaze was locked onto Raine. Glancing at Raine, he saw she already had her palms up and was backing away from the table slowly. The women’s gazes were locked onto each other.

  He glanced back to examine Ana and realized she was furious. The hardness of her gaze suggested she wanted to rip Raine to pieces—but what had Raine done? She hadn’t mentioned anything happening when she escorted her.

  "What is it, Analisa? he asked. She didn't answer.

  As Ana came farther into the tent, the more Raine slowly backed away, and Ana’s scent was so powerful, it swamped the tent. The power of bitterness within it, the aggression that dominated it, shocked Maddoc. His sweet Ana, mild and unassuming, was bitterly angry about something that involved Raine.

  And as she reached the table, Raine reached the back entrance of the tent and quietly slipped out.

  Maddoc reached for Ana's cheek to console her now that Raine was gone, but the aggression had not left Ana's face or scent. She began to undress, shocking Maddoc to the core.

  "What are you doing, Analisa?” he asked, his voice hoarse. If she undressed right now, revealing that incredible body of hers, he wasn’t sure he could keep to his rule. His cock had been jerking wildly from the moment she stepped in.

  But it seemed he didn’t have a choice.

  Ana climbed on top of him, naked. Maddoc’s mouth watered at the sight. He rumbled with pleasure at seeing her climbing up his form, and he reached out with his good arm to squeeze her breasts.

  But Ana did not stop climbing. Scooting up to his chest, and then farther up, she straddled his head, positioning her pussy over his mouth.

  Maddoc groaned as her scent enveloped him. He never thought she could smell any better, but this rich, luxurious aroma was beyond any experience of her he’d had. He undid his pants to give his cock relief and then grabbed her hips and pulled her pussy down onto his mouth, suckling on her lips and her clit and licking everything he could reach. But then she moved again.

  Wriggling on top of him while he tried to tongue her, she moved farther up and he took the opportunity to bite her ass cheeks and wriggled his tongue over each perfect round cheek and everything he could reach. Ana wriggled her hips above him in the sexiest way, and he couldn’t help but groan, then she wriggled back down to his mouth where he latched onto her clit and began to work it gently with his mouth. The moans coming from her throat made his cock leak, but nothing prepared him for the sight of her above him, her swaying breasts, the bliss of surrender on her face coupled with a fierceness in her eyes that made him want to fuck her raw. She gripped his hair as she rode his mouth, her hips writhing and jerking as she sought her release.

  Maddoc had never seen anything sexier. He loved dominating Ana, truly brutally using her body and feeling her accept him the way that he knew she loved, but something about this drew on an instinctual need that satisfied him more. He couldn’t understand it yet, but right now, he didn’t need to.

  Her climax wrecked her body, jerking her hips harder against him, blasting screams from her throat, and spasming her right leg. She dug her hands into his scalp as her pussy gushed its succulent sweet release, and when her clit’s throbbing on his tongue began to wane, she moved off his mouth and wriggled downward. Her knee pressed close to the wound on his shoulder, but he ignored the pain as he watched his Omega scoot down his chest to get more of what she needed. A trail of her fluids smeared his chest, and suddenly he realized what she was doing.

  His Omega had been claiming him in the most animalistic way. She’d rubbed her pussy all over his face and his chest to mark him with her most intimate of fluids to warn off other women—namely Raine.

  He didn’t know why she thought Raine was a threat—he would have laughed out loud if he wasn’t so intensely aroused.

  Ana might not be talking to him, she might
fight him and resist their attraction, and even deny everything he says, but her most basic instincts told her to take steps to claim him in a way that he could never have anticipated. And when she sank herself onto his cock, her tight, wet channel drawing him in so beautifully, there was nothing that could stop him from lifting off the bed and fucking her the way she deserved.

  Their mating was loud and rough and raw, the grunts, panting, and yells from both of them filling the entire tent as she rode him on her toes, her slick squirting all over him, the bed, the floor as she took his cock. Maddoc squeezed her neck with one hand, and grabbed her hip with the other, fucking her down onto him with all the force he could manage. When her back arched, he flicked her nipple with his tongue, and nibbled and bit until her guttural moans were yelps. She braced herself with a hand on his wounded shoulder, her nails digging into the wounded muscle.

  The pain had no impact on the savagery of their mating. Both of them instinctively understanding the need for all potential threats to be eliminated. For Maddoc, a kindling of hope bloomed in his chest that Ana would come around to understanding what they mean to each other. He had never heard of Omegas doing anything like what she had done, but it was clear why she did it. The entire tent now smelled of her, of them, and no scent of Raine remained. And he was getting the fuck of his life.

  When she orgasmed again, he bit down harder on her nipples and twisted her hips as he pummeled her, each soaking slam equally as loud as her screams. He took all the pleasure he could from watching her body, and he lifted up and she tilted into another orgasm straightaway. The pain in his shoulder tried to get his attention, but he was too busy watching his Omega as she climbed another peak, soaring, the most beautiful expression on her face.

  His orgasm was the strongest he’d ever had. Grabbing her ass, she slammed down on him, once, twice, three times as her groans became raspy and gruff, and he bellowed as his knot smashed in stretching her clenching pussy wide, connecting them in a way that only an Alpha and Omega could.