A Tainted Claim (Beholden Duet Book 2)

by Zoey Ellis

  Ana opened her mouth, but Raine held up a hand. “It’s all right, Ana.” She turned to Ryden. “I will join the new guard. I will be here every single day protecting the king. I will answer any questions I choose to answer, I will not join the royal assembly. But as soon as the king recovers, my duty is over.”

  “No, Raine,” Maddoc said.

  Raine gave him a look. “We are almost there, Maddoc. Our home exists, your mate is with us, and we got everyone out. But it will never end if we don’t make a compromise. You and Ana will never be safe at home if he is here plotting and scheming against you both.”

  Maddoc was silent for a long moment. “You know what is coming.”

  Raine nodded. “And if I am here, the king has a better chance of surviving.”

  Ana glanced between them, unsure what they were talking about. “Raine, I appreciate you making this offer, but you don’t have to do this. You deserve to be home, too, like the rest of us.”

  Raine smiled at her. “I can’t sit and twiddle my thumbs, remember?” she said, grinning. “This is just temporary and then I will come home.”

  Ryden turned her to face him, and she yanked herself away hissing. “You will not manhandle me!”

  Ryden’s thunderous face held as he glared at her, and he dragged her toward him. Ana was about to push out of Maddoc’s arms to go to them, but Ryden suddenly chuckled and let her go.

  “It will certainly not be boring having you here,” he muttered. He picked up his sword, looked at Ana and Maddoc. “What do you mean something is coming?”

  Maddoc and Raine exchanged a look.

  “At least two other kingdoms will join forces and invade Allandis within the season,” Maddoc said.

  Ana snapped her head to him, her face going cold. “What?”

  Ryden stared at him. “Two other kingdoms? Two?”

  “Why would they do that?” Ana asked.

  Ryden expression darkened. He raised his sword and pointed at Maddoc. “You did this,” he thundered. “You organized it!”

  “I cannot control two different kingdoms; tell them to combine resources, leadership, and then conduct an invasion,” Maddoc said firmly. “They are doing it because the houses have strayed into their lands with their abuses.”

  Ryden did not respond—he seemed speechless.

  “How do you know this?” Ana asked.

  “I told you. I monitor anyone and anything that does not belong here,” Maddoc said. “The other kingdoms have been watching us for a long time.”

  Ana nodded, recalling the men who had ambushed her father. “The men with the different insignia.”

  Ryden found his tongue. “When?” His voice was hoarse. “When is this happening?”

  Maddoc shrugged.

  “What are the kingdoms called?” A growly edge entered his tone.

  Maddoc shrugged again.

  Ryden gripped his sword, his mouth tightening. “Fuck!” Shooting Maddoc a look of murderous fury, he left the room.

  Ana finally relaxed in Maddoc’s arms, her body trembling with the sudden release of tension.

  “I’m going to introduce myself to the new guard,” Raine said. “One of them will have to pull back.” She smiled at them both. “I’ll see you before you leave.”

  Ana nodded at her, as did Maddoc. “Thank you, Raine.”

  As Raine exited, Maddoc pushed Ana up against the wall, reaching under her skirt.

  “Maddoc!”

  “I wanted to be inside you from the moment I came in this room,” he growled, ripping off her panties.

  Ana already knew that. She’d been able to smell it in his scent. She hummed with delight as he widened her legs, batting away her skirt so he could claw her ass as he pressed into her. There was a desperation for both of them to connect in the purest way they knew how. “Someone might come in,” she whispered.

  “Good,” he murmured. “Then they will see you are mine.”

  As he filled her up, stretching her wide, she tucked her head into his neck, breathing in his scent. “I missed you so much. You said you were coming to the kingdom.”

  “I was,” Maddoc groaned. “I just needed to get everyone out. I promised them they would have a new home. They helped me and suffered for me.”

  His cock sunk into her so deep and stretched her so brutally wide, Ana could barely breath. “I understand,” she whispered.

  Maddoc pulled her head from his neck to look at her. “Do you?”

  Ana searched his eyes. “You are not the man they say you are. I understand that. You care very much about the commoners, and that is something we share. But there is much you still haven’t told me. I don’t understand why.”

  Maddoc held her eyes. “Because it has no bearing on who we are together. This feeling between us, Ana. It should be what leads us.”

  “But it is the lies and the secrets that made me ignore it for so long,” Ana whispered. “I couldn’t understand it, and I rejected it. I don’t want anything else withheld between us. If I had known the pairing process doesn’t work—”

  “It does work.”

  “It cannot,” Ana insisted. “It paired me with Ryden.”

  Maddoc growled, flicking his hips, and Ana’s body jerked, the strange pain of being filled so deep shooting to a peak. “Do not talk about him when I’m inside you.”

  Ana leaned forward, eager to comfort him, her nose nestled in his neck, and he rumbled in satisfaction.

  He pushed in even deeper and slowly withdrew to the tip only to slam in again. Ana’s toes curled as he fucked her slow, steady, and hard as if savoring every inch of her. She licked his neck, sucking on it as he grunted, loving the sweaty taste of him.

  Maddoc sped up slowly, each thrust sweeter, and wetter, and sharper than the last, until Ana was humping her hips for more, tortured by his rhythm. Her orgasm built in crashing waves, layer upon layer of feral, sinful, and violent devastation, assembling perfectly only to break and shatter her while she screamed and convulsed. He was still fucking her when she went limp, all muscles exhausted except the ones clinging to him between her legs, unrelenting in their greedy need for more.

  His tongue was in her mouth when she came, making her swallow his gruff barks and growls, connecting another opening that he dominated completely. He slammed his knot in hard, and Ana yelped, but the primal contentment of his knot in her while his cock jerked inside filling her, spread quickly.

  Maddoc carried her over to the throne, and sat on it, wrapping his thick arms around her as she lay on his chest, sleepy and exhausted.

  “I was born into House Sterling,” Maddoc said.

  Ana jerked awake. She didn’t move, just opened her eyes and listened.

  “I was a promising member of the royal assembly and always took my duties at court seriously. I wanted to be a knight but my father was a scholar. He thought I could be much more—a man who used brain and brawn to reach heights others struggle to get to. So while I started my combat training, he pushed me to study and examine and research everything. I read a lot. I wrote reports and investigative research, and aimed to learn as much as I could.

  When I was thirteen, my father told me he had uncovered a series of bribes and exchanges that unfairly advantaged Redcrest to keep hold of the throne.”

  Ana lifted her head. “What do you mean?”

  “There are five houses. Those five and the crown make up the royal assembly. But the crown is a separate entity—it has no specific association with any house.”

  “Yes,” Ana agreed.

  “The king and queen can come from any of the royal houses, and when they take the position, they lose their family name, and become wards of ‘The Crown.’ So, if someone from Thorneshaw becomes king, he can no longer have allegiance to the Thorneshaw families and he can no longer use the name.”

  Ana nodded, resting her head back down.

  "The problem is, one cannot just turn off the feelings for their family members or family friends. It is always the case that who
ever rules will slightly favor whichever house they came from. There were measures in place to stop this from becoming a serious hindrance to the system, but ultimately there’s always a slight favoritism. One way the favoritism issue is dealt with is nominating Alpha and Omega couples to rule the kingdom. By doing so, a house is more likely to have a ruling couple on the throne if an Omega was born into one of the families."

  Ana nodded. That was how she understood how things worked.

  "For the longest time, Sterling and Redcrest both had a lot of ruling couples on the throne, which is why they are the wealthiest houses. But at some point, Redcrest began to cheat. My father found evidence that they went to great lengths to acquire Omegas—to guarantee the couple on the throne would continue to favor them. The longer this went on, the more biased the favoring became.

  “When I was thirteen, my father found evidence. It included , including the recent story about your great-grandmother and he was preparing to inform the other houses so it could be corrected. Before he could share what he had learned, he was killed by Redcrest knights. I saw them with my own eyes.

  “I tried to save Father’s research, so I could expose them and have them pay for what they did, but they took it a step further. They killed my mother, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, everyone. They eliminated the entire family so Sterling lost a complete family. And then they blamed me for it."

  Ana's breathing slowed to a standstill, her heart beating in her chest. That was horrific. "And the other Sterling families believed them?"

  Maddoc nodded. "I had none of the evidence. My father was the one who put everything together. So I became their monster from that day. But it was on that day, I was matched with you."

  "Me?" Ana said lifting her head.

  Maddoc nodded, his eyes holding hers. "I hadn’t met you yet, but earlier that day the scholars told me that we were fated. I hadn't even seen you yet, you were really young, but they matched us very early, which means that we are incredibly compatible."

  "But why didn’t I know about it?"

  "When my family was killed, I was painted as a villain, and all documents and reports, anything with my name was erased, including our matching. I was already a criminal avoiding the law and couldn’t earn a living doing something useful and simple, but I quickly discovered how cruel the houses were being to commoners. They formally enslave commoners through taxes, Allandis Law, and duties while they enjoy the fine life and conceal what goes on. They make the rules so that they can break them but nobody else can. I soon found that I was the only one who could retaliate. I no longer had anyone they could harm and I had no livelihood.

  “I will admit, I was as brutal as I could be in my retaliation, and the more I tried to help people, the more brutal I became. It was necessary to try to find a permanent safe place.

  “When I heard about your wedding announcement, I remembered that we were matched, and I couldn’t understand how you could be matched again. I’d left you alone because I told myself I didn’t need you. It wasn’t worth bringing somebody else into my world, and especially not someone aligned so deeply with Redcrest. But I thought I would at least see what you were like."

  Maddoc paused, and when Ana glanced up, he was looking down at her, his beard twitching. "I fell in love with you the day I saw you. I knew I had to have you. So I started to look into you, and research who you were, and I was disappointed to find that you didn't have a voice. You were a mild-mannered ornament for the crown, but didn't seem to have your own opinions, even in court. I began to wonder if we'd really been matched correctly. But I knew by then I was going to take you anyway, because I couldn't let anyone else have you. You weren’t ready for me, so I planned and waited for five years. By the time I got into the room with you, I had convinced myself that there was nothing behind the vacant shell that they had made you into—that they had ruined my gorgeous mate. But then, you insulted me, you slapped me, you refused me. And I saw you. It was the moment I knew everything had been worth it and anything coming would be worth it.”

  He lowered and kissed her, and Ana blinked away tears from her eyes. "I know I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me,” she mumbled. “But I wish I’d known.”

  “If we had had our three nights, you would have.”

  Ana squinted her eyes at him. “How? What was so important about the three nights?”

  Maddoc gently lifted her off his lap, and she winced as his cock slipped from her sore folds. “You will find out.”

  12

  ANA

  "Mother."

  The queen lifted her head from where it rested on the king’s bed. Her face was haggard and exhausted, and for a moment Ana worried for her health. She sat in a chair next to Father's bed, holding his hand.

  Ana." Her mother smiled when she saw her. She stood and reached for her, pulling her in for a hug. "I didn’t think I’d see you again. How did you escape? Are you doing well?"

  Ana hugged her back, looking her in the eye when she withdrew. "I am, despite the actions you and Father took against me."

  The queen's face dropped. She lowered back down to her seat. "Nothing we did was to harm you, Ana. I hope you understand that."

  "You were going to have me marry a man who I wasn’t fated to. You forged the match so that I wouldn't question marrying him. How could you do that?"

  "Would you have preferred to be an Omega that never had a fated mate?" Her mother said, her brows drawing together. "Do you know what kind of life that would be for an Omega?"

  "But I did have one."

  Confusion flickered in her mother's gaze and then died. "Who?"

  Ana crossed her arms. "Don’t pretend that you didn’t know, Mother. You knew I had a fated mate."

  Her mother swallowed. "I suspected that it could be someone…. The only person ejected from the assembly. But I had no way to contact him, and even if I did, I wouldn't want him for you.”

  “It wasn’t your choice.”

  “It was,” her mother said sharply. “We had a responsibility, Ana. We had to make sure you were matched so that you could take the throne. The scholars couldn’t find any mate for you, and that was terrifying to us. We had to do something.”

  Ana shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why was it terrifying? Why wouldn’t I be able to continue if I wasn’t matched with a fated mate?”

  The queen inhaled, closing her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, tears glistened, but Ana ignored them. She wouldn’t be manipulated any longer. “Your father wanted us to start explaining things to you much earlier, but I couldn’t.” She glanced at the king, lying still on the bed. “I just thought if we could get past your wedding to Ryden and then….” She gestured to the other chair next to her. “I will explain everything now.”

  Ana glanced at the door where she knew Maddoc was waiting. She’d had to be stern that he not enter while she spoke to her parents, so that she could find out the truth, but she knew he wasn’t happy about it. He’d only reluctantly agreed because his healer, Agnes, wanted to look at his shoulder, but he said he would be coming back to get her immediately. She sat down, her eyes on her mother. “I don’t have long.”

  “Our family have a long and distinguished history with the crown,” her mother began. “But that is not an accident.”

  “I heard.” Ana muttered.

  Her mother ignored her. “We are Redcrests, and we have been on the throne for at least eight generations now. Our ancestors have done terrible things to the other houses so they could remain the dominant house that provided kings and queens to the throne. They abused the structure of the royal assembly; I don’t know why. I assume it’s because of greed. The crown aligns itself with Redcrest and sometimes Thorneshaw, but it eventually it became clear to the other houses that Redcrest had a stranglehold on the throne. But by then there wasn’t much they could do.”

  “Why didn’t you and Father do something?” Ana asked. “You could change things, turn everything back to how it was supposed to
be.”

  “I would have loved to do that, Ana,” the queen said, her smile wistful. “But too much animosity has built between the houses now. Serious life-changing incidents and events have affected the houses. It’s not a matter of apologizing and moving past it. Once a Redcrest no longer holds the throne, the house and its families will be made to suffer. It doesn’t matter that we are not the people who committed those crimes in the past, we will still be made to pay. Sterling, in particular, is waiting for their chance to eradicate us, and they have the power to do it once we no longer control the throne.” Her mother gave her a knowing look. “I’m sure if you’re aware of some of things we did to them, you can guess how they may choose to retaliate?”

  Ana chewed the inside of her cheek. “So it’s important to all the Redcrest families that a Redcrest remains on the throne.”

  “Yes, it is crucial. Unfortunately, I could only have one child.”

  Ana took a sharp breath in, her eyes snapping up to her mother’s.

  “And that child had to be our heir.” The queen held her gaze, tears trickling down her cheeks. “Your father and I, and the entire house of Redcrest were so relieved you were an Omega. The only thing left to ensure was that you had a fated mate.”

  “Why? I could have ruled with a husband. I still would have been the heir.”

  The queen shook her head. “No. Because two of the houses also have Omegas. If they found their fated mates and you didn’t, they would argue that their Omega has more right to the throne.”

  Ana exhaled.

  “So I prayed the scholars would match you, and when your seventeenth birthday came and they hadn’t I was worried. The earlier the match, the stronger the bond. So I asked the scholars, and they said they had nothing yet, but there was still time to match you—until you were twenty-one. But I didn’t want to risk it. I did some research, followed up on some documents that I found, and I discovered that soon after the incident that happened that caused a man to be ejected from the assembly, the scholars of that year were all murdered.”