by Addison Cain
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 speaks 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, Claire wordlessly asking for more. 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 bridge’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 her mate, sadness overtook her expression. The last few years had been unbearable; they had changed her and taken from her. “They wanted me to accept another Alpha.”
Murder was written on the man’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. Claire held on to it, on to every scrape of true emption 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.”
Claire didn’t want to know details about her city or people; she did not 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 tears 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 can’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.”
How could she be 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 until he’d passed out.
When the resistance finally found the opportunity to storm into the crumbling Bastion, Claire wasn’t breathing, Jules lay pale and unresponsive, and Shepherd he had to watch as the Thólosens scum dragged his mate away.
If the building had not begun to crumble, they would have shot him on the spot. 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 as he lay 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 was 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 laying 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 been told Claire took her first unassisted breath.
And now he had her back in his arms.
Laying beneath him, Claire could see so much in those familiar eyes, but found the link too much to bear. In a whisper, she confessed, “I don’t want to know.”
“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.”
~Alpha’s Control Coming Summer 2017~
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 to
o many treats.
Visit her website:
http://addisonlcain.com
Don’t miss these exciting titles by Addison Cain!
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
Historical Romance:
A Trick of the Light
Available Summer 2017:
Alpha’s Control Book One
