by Zoey Ellis
He answered immediately. “Yes.”
Nyan made a noise in the back of her throat, and he leaned forward and picked her up, settling her in his lap. “You are only doubtful because you have never trusted our principles enough to try them,” he murmured, brushing his lips against hers. “They are fair, Nyan. You might believe that we came from some faraway land to take over your homes, but we didn’t. We came from these Lands. All the Lox warriors are Alphas who grew up in these territories. We are part of the Lands, and have history with them, just like every other citizen, and our principles reflect that.”
Nyan was silent for a moment as she watched him. She’d never considered that. “Where did you grow up?”
“Othlland.”
She couldn’t help but grin. Her birth territory and his were neighbors. “That is why you called me a northern girl. Most people cannot hear the accent.”
“Hallowcryst and Othlland are good partners,” the Alpha said, his voice low. Nyan couldn’t drag her eyes away from the intensity burning bright in his eyes. His fingers found the top button of her tunic. “They thrive together. One cannot survive without the mercy of the other.” Before she knew it, her tunic was open, and his eyes raked down her body and back up to her face. Her whole body flushed.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Nyan whispered, lowering her eyes. The power he had over her body, and even sometimes her thoughts, scared her.
Roclan lifted her chin. “Why not?”
“Just don’t.”
He nibbled her bottom lip. “That is not a well-reasoned argument, Nyan.”
Nyan kept her mouth shut as he pressed his lips over her cheek, then over her neck. A slight panic rose in her stomach at how much he affected her—surely it wasn’t normal? But she had no one to ask… no one to compare this too. He was like one of the elixirs she told patients to use very sparingly and only under supervised conditions; powerful, dangerous, addictive... She’d never felt anything like how she felt with him. What if he sent her into another Haze? She could barely remember how he’d forced the first one. If he had.
As he slipped his hands into her tunic, onto her bare skin, she sighed at his touch, and her panic dissipated. A trembling shiver of pleasure ran over her when he squeezed her breasts, small in his hand, but that didn’t seem to bother him; he was transfixed, his dark emerald eyes locked on to her hardening nipple. When he leaned forward and took it in his mouth, she arched into him, moaning as the sweet waves tingled through her, making her core clench. He circled his hands along her torso, rotating until he had squeezed every part of her, then slipped his fingers into her panties. Nyan should have protested out of principle, but she couldn’t find any reason to. And by the time his fingers were drenched with her slick, she was moaning for him not to stop.
Roclan hooked his hands under her thighs and lifted her, burying his face between her legs while she yelped and she grabbed onto his head for balance. As he pleasured her, she marveled at his strength, at the sight of his back contracting as his arms held her, and the sight heightened her pleasure, making her come almost immediately. When he lowered her back down to his lap, his cock was already out, thick, weeping, and hard, and when he plunged inside her, there was nothing more she could want than the way he took her; rough, hard, and savage, with his arms hooked under her knees as he gripped her ass and fucked her down on him. The brutality took her breath from her lungs, making her whole body convulse, her eyes rolling back.
By the time exhaustion came for her, she was underneath him, screaming as he slammed his knot into her, plugging her up so his seed could spill safely inside. She breathed heavily as he panted around her nipple that was still in his mouth.
Nyan closed her eyes, reveling in the fading euphoria and trying not to feel disgusted with herself. It felt right to be in this Alpha’s arms, but it was clear he wasn’t giving up the investigation. He could be using sex to soften her, and if she didn’t pay attention and keep her wits about her, he could undo everything. The execution that was supposed to happen days—or was it weeks—ago hadn’t happened and that was because of him. All she had to do was keep her mouth shut and things would go as planned.
So that is what she would do.
Chapter Five
NYAN
Her plan was disrupted one afternoon when Roclan entered and yanked her up from the floor, his eyes blazing.
“Time is running out, Nyan,” he bellowed. “I have been following my instincts with you, but I’ve tended to you for over a week, and you refuse to give me the information I ask for.”
Nyan blinked. It’d only been a week since her Haze ended?
Roclan’s voice was stern. “You cannot expect to carry on this disobedience and not be punished.”
Nyan’s mouth tightened as she glared back at him. He was using his cock to force her into this mellow state of Alpha worship that he called “tending to her,” and he expected her to talk to him? “I already told you when you first came in here I wasn’t going to talk about the death,” she snapped. “I’m not sure why you’re angry now that I’ve done exactly what I said.”
“Things have changed!”
“No, they haven’t,” she shot back. “Just because your ‘interrogation-by-cock’ and forced Haze tactics didn’t work doesn’t mean anything has changed for me.”
Puzzlement jumped into the Alpha’s eyes. “Interrogation by…” The moment realization registered on his face, he let out a ferocious, deafening roar. Veins bulged at his neck, his eyes flashed with rage, and his grip on her tightened as he pushed her back against the wall. “You think I’m fucking you for the Lox?”
Fear, awe, and desire stole her voice. For the first time in his presence, fear dominated her, but it was impossible not to appreciate what a handsome sight he was—pure, undiluted, hot Alpha aggression; even his scent was sharp with it.
“You think I suck that clit and fuck you with my fingers until you squirt all over me to force you to talk?” She couldn’t take her eyes off him as he roared at her, the fury that filled his face darkening his green eyes. “You think I knot you so securely and eat your ass, and drown myself in your slick out of duty to the Lox?”
Nyan wasn’t sure she was breathing. Nervous prickles of fear scattered across her shoulders. Her heart battered her chest, pounding so loud in her ears, all she could do was stare at the beautiful sight of him.
“Fuck!” He leaned forward until his nose almost touched hers. “I do all that because I fucking love it, Nyan. I love how every inch of you tastes, looks, sounds, and smells. I’m fucking addicted to it!” he bellowed, clearly furious at the fact.
A coarse thread of arousal twisted straight to her clit, and Nyan couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped her lips. At the sound, his scent deepened to that familiar heady arousal she loved.
“I had nothing to do with your Haze coming on, but it’s obvious that it would have. It was the most incredible experience I’ve ever had with a woman—except the experiences I’ve had with you every fucking day since! It’s not within my power to stay away from you.” He slammed his mouth on hers, bruising her lips with the hunger of his kiss. “And I don’t want to,” he said against her lips.
He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth, groaning for a moment, before releasing her and pulling back to look her in the eye. “Do you know why?”
The answer was obvious. It had been nudging at her since she woke from her Haze, and she’d been unwilling to think about it properly because… well, she didn’t have to. But now, she knew it had to be true because everything he said echoed her own need, her own enjoyment of him. Beyond the pure feral nature of their couplings, she couldn’t deny the sense of completion she felt in his presence, the peace that settled her in his arms, the comfort and security that always existed when he was in the cell. They were true mates. He was her Alpha, and she was his Omega; they belonged together.
At her silence, his nostrils flared. “So you do know.”
Nyan nodded, unable
to stop the sorrow she had been warding off all this time, filling her heart. To find her Alpha now, while waiting for execution, was a cruel punishment to endure.
“And you don’t care?” Roclan yelled, his brows drawn together in disbelief.
Nyan pressed her lips together as they trembled. “What difference does it make? Nothing can be done.”
His growl shuddered through her body. “You are mine, and I refuse to allow this execution to take you from me.”
Nyan’s eyes widened. “You have no choice. You don’t have the authority to free me, Roclan.”
“You are not telling me everything!” His eyes were wild, his entire body tense with agitation. “I can’t say what I can or cannot do until I know the sequence of events that led to the general’s death.” He grabbed her neck, and at once, her body relaxed, going limp under the pressure of his grip—that hold only Alphas knew how to do just right. “Tell me what I want to know!” he bellowed.
Nyan took a halting breath and lowered her eyes. “I… I was summoned by the general to his office… to explain a recent visit to the Islands of Ashens.” Her voice sounded thin, and the tips of her ears burned, but she swallowed and continued. “He got angry while I was there… and I thought I was in danger.” She glanced up at Roclan. “It was an accident.”
Her Alpha held her gaze for only a moment. In a swift move, he released her neck, and she dropped down the wall, her knees almost unable to hold her weight. By the time she looked up, the Alpha was locking the door from the outside.
Nyan straightened, staring at the door, puzzled by his reaction, but she didn’t have time to figure it out before he returned.
“Nyan.” He barked her name like a demand as he locked the door from the inside. “I have been with you every spare second I can,” he said, turning to her. “I have watched every muscle in your body, touched every part of you, examined all expressions that have graced your face.”
He stood in the center of the cell, staring at her with eyes as hard as stone. “Do you think I cannot tell when you are lying to me?”
Nyan inhaled sharply, shock trapping her voice in her throat. Before she could gather her thoughts to respond to him, he was moving toward her. “I guess you truly are incapable of both respect and truth,” he said, his voice gritty and heavy with disappointment. He lifted her swiftly into his arms before she had a chance to respond. “So you will just have to learn it,” he said grimly. “Like every other criminal.”
Uncertainty jittered in Nyan’s veins as he crouched down, lowering her to the ground next to the chain that she had once been attached to. Nyan struggled to find something to say to him, but what was there left to say?
She hissed at the coldness of the chain as Roclan wound it around her arm up to her shoulder. Alarm pressed in as she realized how stiff it made her arm. She could hardly bend it.
As she was staring at it, twisting her arm around trying to see how much leeway she had, the Alpha held up her other arm and buckled a thick belt at her shoulder before winding the rest of the belt down to her wrists.
“What are you doing?” Her panic rose steadily as she realized both arms could barely bend. The Alpha attached the belt to a hook at the bottom of the adjacent wall, stretching her arms out and forcing her head so low, she had to place her forehead on the ground.
“Roclan!” she yelled. “What are you doing?”
“You want to be treated like a prisoner. So that is how you will be treated.”
“Let me go!”
The Alpha ignored her. Lifting her hips so she was kneeling with her forehead on the ground, he threaded a rope behind her knees and round her neck, forcing her to stay bent in the position.
“Roclan! Get me out of this position, now!”
When he ripped off her panties, she screamed, and she fought against all her restrains. But he had secured her too tightly. The arm bound by the chain was too heavy to move, and the belt was beginning to block the flow of blood between her arm and shoulder.
“There is no point in fighting it,” Roclan growled. “You will be released as soon as you tell me what I want to know.” He paused and then leaned in toward her. “You are the one who has forced this upon yourself.”
Nyan bit her cheek to stop herself from snapping at him. She needed to prepare herself for what he might do, and the cool air brushing passed her ass and exposed pussy made her nervous.
She held her breath and listened carefully for the Alpha’s next move. It didn’t surprise her that it sounded as though he was taking off his clothes. Humorless laughter burst from her, bitter and hard. “So even though you assure me that you didn’t use your cock to interrogate me, you’re going to use it now? How lucky I am to have you as a true mate.”
“My cock is the only thing you’ve shown you care about,” Roclan bellowed. “You do not even care that if you are executed, I will be left without you. You know that nothing and no one will ever compare to you, and you feel no remorse about inflicting that on me—as long you get fed my cock daily until you die, it doesn’t matter. Is that accurate?”
Something sharp and uncomfortable dug into Nyan’s chest. “Plenty of people don’t find their true mates,” she muttered her mouth tight. “You can still have a good life without me in it.” Her voice strengthened as she became defensive. “Why would you even want to save someone who has killed anyway? Isn’t that against your precious principles?”
“You speak as if I have a choice,” Roclan said, his voice closer as he positioned himself behind her. “You speak as if I haven’t considered facing life without my true mate already, as if I haven’t met numerous Omegas, trying to find an ounce of the purity and peace I find in abundance with you.”
Jealousy twinged in Nyan’s gut, but before it had time to take hold, he was speaking again.
“You speak as if it is right for me to condemn myself to a life without you, as if this connection between us is so insignificant that I will be the same if it were lost to me.”
Sudden tears stung Nyan’s eyes. “We only met a few weeks ago—”
“It doesn’t matter!” Roclan shot back. “Don’t try and pretend you don’t feel it as well.”
Nyan was silent. Everything he said wasn’t a surprise to her, but she was shocked that it was coming from him—that he was able to so clearly articulate those thoughts and those feelings—ones she’d been desperate to ignore. And it made her seem incredibly selfish.
He entered her in a hard thrust, driving into her with such a brutal slam, she screamed. Pain ricocheted through her, chased immediately by the thrilling satisfaction of the delicious stretch only he could provide. Strangely, he wasn’t that deep. The angle she was in changed his access, causing him to press into her in a different way.
He stilled his hips, rubbing her ass cheeks as she panted and wriggled her ass, trying to ease the discomfort.
“Did the general really summon you?” he asked, his voice cold.
“Yes,” she gasped.
He kept rubbing her ass. “Why? To fuck you?”
Nyan gritted her teeth together, annoyed at the implication, but the slight pause was enough.
The Alpha pulled out of her suddenly and slammed in again. She screeched at the pain and pleasure that bounded through her body. He pulled out again and slammed in, tilting her ass up higher into the air as she turned her head to one side, trying to get his attention. “Wait,” she panted. “Wait.”
He pulled out, grabbing her ass cheeks and spreading her wide, before slamming in again and again until he was pounding into her pussy.
Nyan tried to keep up the different sensations that were claiming her body, but in the position she was in, she could barely take the intensity of it. Her orgasm rose in a jagged heat, but just as she was about to soar, he pulled out of her entirely and spread her pussy wide. A bubble of air burst out of her, splattering her slick on her inner thighs.
“Roclan!” Nyan could have died from embarrassment, but before she even had time to scr
eam at him any further, he was inside her again.
The position was too uncomfortable to enjoy properly—her neck was at a distorted angle—but the orgasmic climb hinted that the ecstasy could be worth it. Unfortunately, Nyan never found out. Each time she was about to submit to the approaching climax, Roclan withdrew and spread her wide to allow air to release. Eventually, the pressure built up; the immobility and lack of orgasm were torturous.
“All right,” she screamed finally. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. Please stop!”
The Alpha stilled. “Speak”
“He summoned me to find out about someone who lives in the Islands of Ashens. A patient of mine.”
“Why?”
Nyan swallowed. “When he visited the Islands, he came across my patient and was concerned about her. He summoned me to question me about her.”
“Who is she?”
“Just someone who lives on the islands,” she said.
He entered her slow this time as if feeling for all the sweet spots he’d bruised along the way. Nyan gasped, turning her head and tucking it under her left shoulder, trying to view him. Was he truly as coldhearted as he sounded? Doubt niggled at her. Had everything he said about being with her simply to get to this point? She swallowed her questions. It didn’t matter. He was using brute force to get her to give him the answers he wanted, and nothing could change that now.
“Who was she?” Roclan repeated.
Tears filled Nyan’s eyes as she blinked them away rapidly. They wouldn’t help her now. “She is a little girl,” she said, her voice raspy. “A girl who grew up on the islands.”
“What was she being treated for?”
“A defect she was born with,” she said. “She will never be cured; it’s something she will have to live with.”
