Absolute Power: Alpha's Control Prelude

by Addison Cain

Publisher’s Note: The Alpha’s Control series is a dark Omegaverse tale with explicit sexual themes and complete power exchange. If such material offends you, please do not purchase.

  One-click STOLEN: ALPHA’S CONTROL BOOK ONE Now!

  If you loved Alpha’s Claim and Alpha’s Control, you’ll adore my sci-fi ménage, Sigil: Irdesi Empire Book One. An international bestseller, Sigil’s epic tale takes you to new worlds, through twisted societies, and pushes the boundaries between love, lust, and violence.

  You can find Sigil and the brothers who fight to possess her here!

  If your tastes run to brooding alpha males and regency taboo, my hit dark romance, Dark Side of the Sun, will scratch your itch.

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  Turn the page for a sneak peek of Shepherd and Claire in STOLEN: ALPHA’S CONTROL BOOK ONE…

  Everything had been prepared, extraction flawless.

  Huddled on his lap, her body enveloped by his coat, slept an Omega that was his. The risk of the leap into his arms she’d handled well; the way she’d slept once he had her, a sign she felt safe. Not once had his purr faltered, it projected powerfully, so Claire might continue her rest and Shepherd might take the time to examine his mate.

  Her head cradled against his shoulder, he moved a light touch over her face. The bridge of her nose, last he’d seen had been badly broken. While she’d convalesced, doctors had set it, but a sharp eye could see the slight bump and hairline scar. Shepherd traced over the flaw, going next to circle the socket of her eye. That too had healed well, no permanent mark remaining from the orbital fracture, no impairment of vision.

  She was in perfect physical health.

  A small whimper in sleep, and Claire turned her face toward his chest. It was so like her to be fussy whenever he’d inspected her beauty in the past. Shepherd smirked at her unconscious protest, hugging her to him, so he might deeply inhale his Omega’s scent.

  Across from where Shepherd fawned over his female, a woman read through pages of a chart, quick fingers flipping quietly. “Severe PTSD—improvement nominal. Her list of medications has altered since our last update. Claire O’Donnell is on a great deal of sedatives, some of which are highly addictive.”

  “She will be given whatever she needs,” Shepherd, cautious to keep his voice low, answered the unwelcome interruption.

  Dr. Osin looked up from the pages. “There is a list of twice daily opiate injections here, doses larger than what I would deem safe. Considering the cocktail of medications, I cannot foresee the side effects of abruptly ending this treatment. Inevitable withdrawal may make her very ill. She will have to be carefully monitored.”

  He didn’t care what she may or may not be addicted to. His Claire probably didn’t even know what poison they’d been pumping inside her. None of this was her fault.

  The only one in the cargo ship who Shepherd found fault with at this moment was Dr. Osin. Shepherd glared, eyes threatening death, certain the woman’s voice was disruptive to Claire’s rest. “Leave us.”

  “As she is still fully medicated, I suggest you mate her the moment she wakes. It will be better to have it over with rather than something she ruminates over. Anticipate fear.” The woman stood, spine ramrod as she exited the forward cabin of their transport to join the soldiers in the cockpit.

  It had been over a year. Clinically mounting his mate in the cargo hold of a transport ship was not exactly the elegant treatment Claire deserved, but there was wisdom in Dr. Osin’s suggestion. It was something Shepherd had already considered himself. And it needed to be done.

  Transition would be easier if the bandage were ripped off, so to speak.

  A quantity of blankets had been prepared, set in a quasi-nest in case she’d needed such a comfort. Once he laid her upon it, Shepherd woke her with the growl. Dazed, Claire groaned, half aware when her body automatically responded and slick flowed. The instant he parted the jacket covering her damp nightgown, her eyes went wide and the Omega fully awoke.

  Her end of the link frayed, buzzing in panic when an Alpha pressed her down to something soft and held her there under his weight.

  “Shhhhhh,” Shepherd cooed, trying hard to resonate properly for her so Claire would recognize that he was not going to hurt her. “Spread your legs for me, little one.”

  It was as Dr. Osin had claimed, Claire was frightened. “Shepherd?”

  He placed a kiss on her lips, over her cheeks, moving his mouth to her ear. The Alpha growled again, louder, calling to her to remember what was theirs. More slick dripped, but Claire’s breaths were shallow and uneven. Every part of her was tense.

  Sex was not going to be pleasant for either of them.

  Unzipping his trousers, Shepherd took his member in hand. He was still clothed when his thighs forced hers to open. It wasn’t the romantic coupling she deserved, it couldn’t be. He lined up. With the initial thrust, looking her right in the eye, Shepherd found her almost as tight as the first time, and knew without estrous it was uncomfortable for her. For ages he did little more than slowly stretch her, pressing his cock deeper and waiting, stroking and petting, calling her beautiful while she trembled and endured it.

  Shepherd knew the secret places of her body, teased and rolled the sensitive nerve bundle atop her sex, all the while speaking to her as one spoke to a frightened animal. It took time, but she grew pliant, the little Omega’s pupils blown when she relaxed her pelvic floor and finally let him in.

  Bottoming out, Shepherd groaned.

  The noise excited her further. The Alpha withdrew, Omega hips followed. It was a gentle rocking, cautious, and only for her pleasure. But pumping into a willing body, feeling her cunt squeeze him so tight—remembering the look on her face as she climbed atop the causeway’s safety rail to answer his call—Shepherd could not have loved her more in that moment. He kept her cocooned in his body, brought her to climax, calling out his own long needed release once the knot began to swell and his seed surged deep.

  While they were joined she touched his face as if he could not be real. “They told me you were dead. Why did you make me wait so long?”

  He wasn’t going to lie to her. “You needed to heal, little one.”

  Claire began to grow uncomfortable, the knot something she had not born in ages. He had to catch her hip and hold her still so she wouldn’t harm herself by trying to force out his girth with her squirming.

  Staring fixedly at his face, Shepherd watched as sadness overtook her expression. Between the war and their separation, the last few years had been unbearable for her; they had changed her and taken from her.

  “They wanted me to accept another Alpha.”

  Murder was written on Shepherd’s face. Silver eyes smoldered, his hips snapped, and the knot was pressed even deeper. “You are mine. No other male will ever touch you.”

  His anger was reassuring, Shepherd’s feeling on the matter absolute.

  His Claire held on to it, on to every scrap of true emotion in her mate. “Are they going to come looking for me?”

  “No one will look for you.” Shepherd nuzzled her cheek, stubble lightly scraping over her skin. “And even if they tried, Thólos is an ocean away. You no longer need to worry over such things.”

  He knew his Claire didn’t want to know the details about her city or people. She did not want to know what he’d done to retrieve her. She knew enough horrible things already.

  Green eyes full of fear, wet with unshed tears, her voice broke. “I can’t ever go back there.”

  Shepherd understood. The largeness of his palm cupped her face. He wiped her cheeks as he had done a thousand times before… when she’d been his in the underground den… when he’d kept her safe. “Never.”

  Encased in the arms of her lost mate, warm, the purr pouring into her, Claire sobbed. “I ca
n’t do that again. I can’t, Shepherd.”

  He could hardly bear the torrent of tormented feeling resonating from her end of the link, but he would. He would do it with devout resolution, because he deserved every ounce of pain her sorrow might stir in his breast. “Quiet down, little one. It’s over now.”

  She looked so happy and so heartbroken at once. “I watched you die.”

  “No, Claire,” The tortured look in his eyes was nothing to the sorrow she felt on his end of their link. “I watched you die.” Damaged as he was, he’d been able to do nothing but watch. He’d watched Jules run toward them, watched his second-in-command administer CPR, the man bleeding from a wound to the torso. He’d laid there as Jules pulled tubing from the med kit hanging from his shoulder and hastily slapped together a direct blood transfusion, the Beta pumping her heart with his fist until he’d passed out.

  When the resistance finally found the opportunity to storm into the crumbling Citadel, Claire wasn’t breathing, Jules lay pale and unresponsive, and Shepherd… he had to watch as the Thólosen scum dragged his mate away.

  If the building had not begun to crumble, they would have finished him. But the ground fiercely rocked, fissures cracking through the marble floors, and they left him there for dead to save themselves.

  One or two had even laughed as Shepherd lifted his hand and tried to reach for Claire.

  In that moment, he prayed her soul had fled to the Goddess, watching her flop over the shoulder of a man who had no right to touch her.

  His vision blurred, death closing in.

  “Debris smashed into my roof, you fucking son of a bitch. Everything I’d prepared was ruined!”

  Bleary eyed, Shepherd had dared to turn his head, and saw his unlikely savior. Gods he hated her. He hated more that he passed out the instant she tried to move him.

  The next time he woke, he lay wrapped in bandages, trapped on the last, stuttering transport ship out of Tholos. And Claire, she was parted from him, in a fortress on a ventilator.

  All reports claimed she was too damaged, that she would not survive—just as his child had not survived. He had raged before the ragged remnants of his men, broken in that cargo hold. Lost in grief, three of them he had condemned to death for abandoning her and saving him. But he could not carry out his intended punishment. Shepherd had been too wounded to move.

  Once alone, he’d wept like a child.

  But day by day he could feel that Claire hadn’t died, she was too stubborn by half—even if the people wanted her blood. While lying savaged in the Premier’s Sector, Thólos, her Thólos, had made her into a villain. The very people she’d fought for spat her name as a curse.

  Shepherd wanted to hate them, but he could find no room. His hate for Svana was too consuming.

  That lying cunt’s quick death at Jules’s hands had been a mercy she did not deserve.

  Reason returned when Shepherd had learned Claire took her first unassisted breath.

  And now he had her back in his arms.

  His anger at such a memory grew sharp. He knew Claire found the link too much to bear, made himself stop, made his mind blank, and focused only on her.

  In a whisper, she confessed, “I don’t want to know what was done to get me here.”

  “All you need to know is that I am taking you home.” Between them, the thread harmonized. Shepherd showed her love. He looked at her as if she were precious, the purr strong.

  That was all she needed, that look forever. The knot felt less invasive, the ache in her body bearable. Where her legs shivered from the tension of spreading, she strove to relax them.

  Shepherd saw the effort on her end, pleased she was trying. “Sleep, little one. Soon we will be comfortable in our den and our life will begin. You have no need to fear, you’ll see.”

  Addison Cain

  Addison L. Cain was born in sunny California, but found herself drawn to dwell in older, history-rich places. Japan, Ireland, Qatar, and now Washington DC, Addison is always on the move, always eager to immerse herself in new cultures and people. Her stories reflect the antiquities she loves: deep and sometimes very dark. Driven to push her characters beyond the pale, Addison’s books are not for the faint of heart.

  An alumni of California State University Fullerton, she earned a degree in Japanese and spent years in Asia studying indigenous Japanese religion. Primeval forests and worn pathways have led to her obsession with gardening. Her Great Dane approves, loping around the yard and getting into mischief. Unfortunately the cat has to watch from a window, and because Addison is a total sucker for his sad golden eyes, he gets hours of belly rubs and too many treats.

  Don’t miss these exciting titles by Addison Cain and Blushing Books!

  The Alpha’s Claim Series

  Born to be Bound, Book One

  Born to be Broken, Book Two

  Reborn, Book Three

  The Irdesi Empire Series

  Sigil: Book One

  Sovereign: Book Two

  Historical Romance

  A Trick of the Light

  Dark Side of the Sun

  Available September 2017

  Stolen: Alpha’s Control Book One

  Anthologies

  The Dark Forest: A Collection of Erotic Fairytales

  Valentine’s Roulette: Unraveled

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  ol Prelude