by Keri Lake
I shake my head. “I need to lie down for a while.”
“Clever girl. Clever. Clever. Clever.” In spite of the smile on his face, the ire is clearly burning a hole through Doctor Ericsson’s patience, evident in the bite of his tone. “Well, we can’t send you off to Titus. He won’t come near you without the blessing of Valdys. Which means, you win. You win, and Valdys will get you all to himself.”
Frowning, I lift my gaze to his. “I win?” Fingers curled around the chair, I shift in a poor attempt to shake off the burgeoning anger and lean forward. “I win? I have the choice of getting impregnated by an Alpha, so you can use him, or get strapped to a gurney in a slow, agonizing death! But I win?”
“There is the alternative of feeding you alive to the Ragers, so you’d do well to mind your tone.”
I fall back into the chair, slumping in defeat. No matter how I spin this game, in the end, Calico wins. Calico always wins. “Why me? Why am I the only one who’s had successful binding?”
“Technically, Neela did, as well. But I suspect it has to do with your genetics. There may be some ancestral DNA linked to the chemical structure of the pathogen. Who knows? The science is so new, we don’t yet have the answers. Which is what makes it so exciting!”
There’s nothing exciting about it, but I don’t dare stoke his anger by telling him so.
“Calithea …” The sound of my name from his mouth is strange. He’s never once called me by anything other than subject, girl, or my number. “If we find the cure, we can save thousands of people. Imagine if your mother had been given access to a vaccine before she threw herself to those Ragers.”
I made the mistake in the early days of telling him the story of my mother. Thinking it might help make me look more human in his eyes, instead of another savage to poke and prod. I regret giving him the opportunity to use her against me. “What makes you so sure the cure is still below? And if you are so sure, why don’t you just force him to go? Why go through this stupid exercise of making him care about something?”
“Because it’s only when we care about something that we do our job well. We’ve sent Alphas below before.”
“How? I thought the tunnels were sealed off.”
“The main entrance to the tunnels is sealed, but we discovered a ventilation shaft, through which we were able to send them down with success. The Alphas found living amongst Ragers, or being torn apart by them, as the case may be, was more inviting than having to return to their cells. They had nothing to come back to.”
“I don’t want to be the reason Valdys risks his life for you.”
“You don’t have a choice. You already are.”
“So, why bother to impregnate me, then?”
“It’s what he wants. It’s what our species, as a whole, wants. To leave behind a legacy. To let the world know we were here and that we were seen.”
“Valdys wants a baby. I find that hard to believe.”
“Ask him, then.” Fingers crossed, he tips his head. “You’ve been primed to carry an Alpha’s baby. Either of the three, in case you need reminding of that. I’m just guessing you’d prefer to carry Valdys’s over the other two. Valdys is well aware of this fact, also. So, naturally, he’d want you to carry his baby.”
Chapter 23
I lie on the bed, tears streaming down my temples as the pain clenches over my womb, as though squeezing the very life right out of me. Pressing the pillow into my face, I do my best not to wake the other girls, who will surely have me sent down to the infirmary, where I’ll land on Doctor Tims’s table. I need this to end. I can’t bear the thought of this pain waking me every thirty minutes. The agony radiates over my belly and into my back, sending my hips forward, until my body forms an arc. Panting against the pillow, I breathe through it, but to no avail.
This must be what my mother felt when she described childbirth to me once. At the time, I thought death at the hands of Ragers sounded less painful.
Trembling like a leaf, I will myself to roll over, and fall over the edge of the bed. Skin smacking against the tiles, I’m certain I’ll wake the others, but I don’t. Reaching out, I pull myself along the floor, dragging my aching womb along the smooth surface that leaves a burn on my skin.
I need Valdys.
Once at the door of the barracks, I push to my feet, standing upright on legs that feel as if they’ll give out any second.
Outside the room, I hobble down the hallway, knowing there’s a guard at the end of the corridor. Keeping to the wall, I duck low, just out of the line of his flashlight when it sweeps over the window. Shaky breaths beat against my arm, propped against the handle of the door, while I sit poised to run at any moment. Closing my eyes, I count to ten, imagining him reaching the end of the hallway. Light at the other end of the corridor catches my attention. I have to time it right. One guard walks left. The other paces right.
Eight. Seven. Six. Five.
The lights at the opposite end become brighter.
Four. Three. Two. One.
As I push through the door, I just miss the arc of light sweeping over the far end window. I look to the right, where the guard hasn’t yet reached the end of the hallway. I have five seconds to make it twenty feet to the stairwell. Padding quickly toward it, I take light steps, and glance back only once, to be sure he hasn’t spotted me. Pushing through the door, I only just slip through before turning around to keep it from slamming shut.
Peering through the crack, I see the guard whistle, as he stops to check his watch and starts in my direction. An easy breath escapes me, and I slowly release the door with nothing more than a quiet click.
Down five flights, I round each landing, until I reach the last, where I bend forward, gripping the rail against the intensity of the pain that feels like a blade pushing through my flesh. Lips pinched, I don’t let so much as a whimper past my mouth, before continuing on. Finally reaching the basement level, I push through the door.
It’s then I realize this whole exercise is futile. I’ll never breach the locks to get inside Valdys’s cell. Still, I limp down the corridor toward his room.
Every door clangs along the way, flinching my muscles, as I rush to get to his cell.
“Valdys!” I slam my palm against the door. “Valdys it’s me!” Sliding the peephole to the side, I peer into the darkness. “I’m … I’m in so much pain,” I whisper, as if there’s anything he can do about it. Resting my forehead against the door, I grimace, while another wave moves through me.
When I look up again, he’s staring out at me, his stormy gray eyes like a sky full of clouds. He sets his fingers to the window, and I do the same, entwining my fingers into his. “I’m sorry this is happening to you.”
The contact isn’t much, but it’s better than suffering in my bed alone.
A ding at the end of the hall tugs a gasp from my chest, and I watch, in horror, as it opens to reveal Medusa, glaring my way.
She storms toward me, but not before the pain pierces my belly, and I drop to the floor.
“Calithea!” Valdys pounds on the door, as if he would break through the iron.
“What are you doing down here?”
“Please …” When I glance up at her, a blur of tears distorts her form. “Don’t let them hurt me like Neela. Please, Elspeth. I won’t survive it.”
Nostrils flaring, she stands expressionless, then reaches for her walkie-talkie, presumably to alert Legion officers that I’ve breached security.
“Please.” My plea is weak with the pain.
She releases the equipment and sets her hand to the door.
Eyes closed, I breathe out a sigh of relief, trembling as I push to my feet, allowing her to pull me up by my arm. “Thank you,” I whisper. I suspect this will mean some form of punishment for her, though I can’t imagine what. The guards are hardly punished to the extent that subjects suffer the doctor’s wrath.
The door clicks open, and I fall into the awaiting arms of Valdys. Scooping my legs up, he carries
me across his shadowy cell and sets me down on the bed. I don’t waste any time, and running my fingers over the stubble of his shaved head, I pull him to my lips. That spice and metal hits the back of my throat, watering my tongue, and I squeeze what little of his skin stretches over tight muscle, as I grip his bicep. I gasp when he pulls away and drags his nose over my body. Not with lust, but as if he’s investigating my body.
Searching for the scent of Cadmus on my flesh.
Hands at either side of his face, I shake my head. “We didn’t do anything.”
His brows lower, eyes darken to a cold and detached expression. Jaw tight and clenched, he grips hold of my shirt and tears it in half.
With a frown, I look down my body, where my breasts are on display for him, and I lift my gaze back to his. There isn’t a hint of remorse in his eyes, and as I scramble back against the wall, he yanks me hard, until I’m beneath him, and tears away my pants as viciously as my shirt.
“Valdys!”
I only manage to scream his name, before he slaps a hand over my mouth and gropes my breast, pressing his enormous erection against my swollen belly. Rough fingers push up into me, and I cry out against his palm, as he removes them quickly and smells his skin. Salty tears leak down my temples, and I catch a flicker of a frown dance across his face. Slowly, he removes his hand from my mouth.
“Please, Valdys. Not like this. Not for my first time.”
His brows wing up with the first evidence of shame, and he strokes his hand down my face. “I’m sorry.” His lips press to mine, and he gathers the scraps of my shirts to cover what little he can. “I’m sorry. I heard you … that night.” He trails his lips down to my neck. “I’ve been in hell ever since.”
“We didn’t do anything. I couldn’t. Not with him. Not when I wanted my first to be you.” The scar on his face passes beneath my thumb. “I only wanted you.”
His lips are gentle this time when they find my throat and my collarbone.
“It hurts. It hurts so much.”
“I know.” Crawling down my mostly naked body, he pauses at my belly to leave a kiss on my navel. “I’ll make it better. I promise.” On his knees, he grabs my thighs, and pulls me closer, until my legs are spread at either side of him. I should be embarassed to be in such a compromised position, but the anticipation, the promise of relief, has me slamming my head back into the mattress, arching toward him.
Pressure at my entrance eases to the smooth glide of his finger pushing into me. My mouth gapes, and I grab handfuls of his sheets at either side of me. I concentrate on the sensation of his thick finger rubbing against the walls, and his thumb massaging a sensitive spot where the lips of my sex come together. My thighs tremble with the urge to squeeze them together, the pressure in my belly winding up like an invisible string that tugs at my womb.
The room is quiet, aside from the humiliating wet sounds when he withdrawals and inserts his finger. My soft moans echo through his cell, and this seems to excite him, because he hastens his pace, grunting like that of an animal as he stares down at me, deliciously violating me with his fingers.
“You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.” His voice carries the awe of an artist, admiring his work.
As much as I enjoy his torment, the ache in my belly hasn’t yet subsided, and perhaps he sees the agony on my face, when he removes his finger. “I’m going to give you some relief, Cali. Are you ready?”
Eyes screwed with a wave of pain that draws my hips upward, I nod. “Please, Valdys. Make it stop.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, though.”
“I don’t think anything could be worse than this pain.”
His big palm grips the top of my head, as he lines his tip to my sodden entrance. Whimpers escape me, as I lay trapped beneath him, and he kisses my forehead. “Shhh. Relax.”
One palm gripping my thigh, the other tight to my crown, he notches himself inside. Solid muscles flex beneath my hands, where I hold tight to his shoulders.
Head tipped back, I clench my stomach with his intrusion, arms shaking from the excitement and fear. “I don’t know how to do this.” My voice wobbles as much as my twitching body, and I blink away the tears. I don’t know why I’m crying. I want this. I want him.
“You don’t have to do anything, Cali. Just lie still.” The storm in his eyes consumes me, and he kisses my temple where a tear has fallen. Fingers curl into my hair, as he pushes a little more, fully breaching my resistance. His breaths are harsh and thick with lust, and though it reminds me of Dean’s breath in my ear, it doesn’t have the same effect.
I’m glad Valdys is excited. I’m glad he wants me this much.
“It’s so tight. I can’t. Not without hurting you.”
“Please. Just try.”
I catch the bob of his Adam’s apple, and he blows out a resigned breath, pushing further. This time, in spite of the pain, I don’t dare make a sound. I don’t dare give him any reason to stop. By the time he’s fully seated inside of me, the pressure is beyond anything I’ve ever felt before. I swear he’s so deep, I can feel him in my belly.
When he slides out of me, the fullness subsides, and I feel the tight glide of his cock against my swollen walls. He pushes again, only this time, it’s smoother, and when his tip hits something up inside of me, I let out a gasp. In a slow and agonizing cadence, he enters and exits, in and out, in and out, until each thrust becomes sloshy, creating sounds that once again heat my cheeks with embarrassment.
The sensation is everything I imagined, and more, because I never once anticipated the look in his eyes, as he stares down at me. One of lust. Of dominance. Of pure possession. The way he’s looking at me now, reminds me of a man who’s found a treasure he’s unwilling to share. One he’s wants to keep locked away, just so no one will ever know it’s there.
His thumb brushes over my forehead, his eyes shifting over my face, as though memorizing every flaw he sees. “You belong to me, and only me, Cali. Do you understand?”
Fighting the agony of his lazy thrusts, I smile. “Yes. Only you.”
He nods, and his hips move like a wave beating against the shore. Faster and faster, higher and higher, as if commanded by the tide itself. A heavy blink of his lids, and he tucks his head into my neck, thrusting his hips faster.
Faster.
His breaths are fervent, building to a growl in his chest that vibrates against me. When he tips his head back on a harsh grunt, face red with exertion, I fall into a sort of pseudoexistence, where the world around me moves as though we’re underwater. Slow and fluid. As if time has stopped, and it’s only the two of us.
I reach out to touch his face, his beautiful pained face, and tears slip from my eyes. He’s the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Vulnerable and strong all at once.
As he steals my pain away, I absorb his into my body, all that agony and suffering that has made him cold and detached over the years. The punishment he’s endured for no good reason. I let it seep past my ribs, into my lungs and heart, igniting the desire to nurture and care for him. To heal his wounds and show him how it feels to be touched by warm and gentle hands. My fingers trail down to the band at his throat, the symbol of a caged animal, and I wish I had the strength to tear it away.
Mouth gaping, he lets out a sound of both agony and pleasure that rips from deep inside his chest.
The warmth that trickles past his cock, still inside of me, is a balm to the ache of stretched skin there. Like melting steel, his muscles turn lax in my palms, and on a shudder, he collapses, catching himself on outstretched arms before his body crushes me.
“You’re crying.” His voice is ragged and punctuated by exhaustion. “Did I hurt you?”
Smiling back at him, I trace my fingers along the path of his hairline, along his forehead. “No. There’s no more pain.”
“Good.” With sleepy eyes, he drags my body against his, close enough that my ear presses to his chest, and I can hear the strong and steady beat o
f his heart. I turn just enough to kiss his chest, and in turn, he caresses the top of my head, before leaving a kiss there.
My thoughts rewind to the moment he told me I belonged to him. How perfectly it gave sound to the thoughts in my head. “I wasn’t lying, Valdys. I refused Cadmus.”
“I know you did. I felt it.”
Frowning, I tip my head back at that. I’d heard of girls describing the sensation of a man breaking their barrier, or hymen, as some called it, how embarrassing it could be at times, but I felt nothing unusual, other than the ache of his girth stretching me. “What did you feel?”
“You. I felt everything. I know he didn’t have you that way.”
His answer is vague, and I lift my head to see if I spilled blood onto his bed. “How?” I ask, squinting to see through the dim light of the room.
The chuckle that rumbles in his chest snaps my attention back to his content-looking face, and it’s strange how the amusement there makes me want to have him all over again. “Because you trusted me. Had you been with Cadmus first, I very much doubt you’d have allowed me to do what I just did.” He opens one eye, peeking down at me. “And you wouldn’t have scratched up my back the way you did.”
“What?” I push up onto my elbow to look, but he yanks me back down onto the bed beside him. “It doesn’t hurt. I enjoy the pain. It intensifies the pleasure.” Once again, his big arms envelope me, drawing me tight against his body. “Another reason I knew. You wouldn’t have been in so much pain.”
“You’d have been angry enough to reject me then, if I’d been with Cadmus first?”
“Angry? Yes. Rejected you? No. I’m not strong enough to deny you. I wanted you. From the day you stood shivering in my cell, frightened as a small kitten, and I first heard my name on your lips.”
“The same day you held me by my throat.”
“You should know I’m not proud of the way I behaved toward you.”
“I thought you hated me. I was certain of it.”
“I didn’t hate you. I was afraid of you. Afraid of how easily I’d have claimed you for myself.” He pauses for a moment, as if the gravity of what we’ve done has suddenly begun to weigh on him. “How easily they could control me if you were mine.” He strokes his hand over my head, tucking my face into his chest as he kisses my forehead. “The day I was forced to watch them whip you ... “ I feel his muscles tense against me, feel his bicep grow against my cheek, his body trembling with the tautness. “It was the hardest day I’ve had in this place. I’ve seen and heard horrible things, but nothing haunted me like the sound of your screams that night, as I lay here in bed. I wanted to tear every person in that room to shreds. I had visions of flaying the skin from bone of the guard who carried out the punishment.”
