Ianthe rose on shaky feet to a stand as her knees threatened to collapse underneath her. Blood rushed out of her head, sending spots of black across her vision and making everything spin as she fought not to pass out.
“You’ve awakened earlier than expected.”
She startled at the sound of his voice. When her vision cleared, she saw the hated Alpha standing across the room in front of a gap in the curtains. The newly revealed door was closed behind him.
Knowing it was futile, she demanded, “Take me home.”
Legion smirked. “No.”
Ianthe edged around the bed as he took a first slow step towards her. “You cannot keep me here against my will. I’ll report you to Central Command.”
“You assume that I would let you out of this room long enough to do so,” he murmured, eyes narrowed. He took another step forward. “What do you think they would make of a girl with Beta credentials, drenched in the aroma of Omega slick? You’d be arrested for dynamic concealment before you were able to speak even a word against me.”
She matched his approach by stumbling around the bed until only the mattress lay between them. “So you’re threatening me? It’s one type of imprisonment or the other? Doing something like that is low, even for you.”
His smile was predatory. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you.”
“Please, I’m sorry that I lied to you.” It was only a lie of omission, but that detail seemed unimportant at the moment. “Just let me go home.”
He growled low, the sound heavy with threat. It was enough to momentarily freeze in her tracks.
“You are home.”
Ianthe suppressed a shudder. The manipulative connection created by the claiming bond twanged out of tune as the manipulative whispers in her mind presented a mismatch to what stop before her eyes. “I can’t remember if I’ve told you this already, but you’re a monster.”
“I remember.” His smile widened further, revealing too sharp teeth. “And as I’ve told you before, I’m your monster.”
“You can’t force me to stay here.”
From the dark look that passed across his features, he appeared to take her words as a challenge. In the next moment, he lunged for her. Even when healthy, she was no match for the speed or strength of an Alpha. He practically leaped across the bed, catching her up in his arms before she could make even the slightest move to fend him off.
Against her weak protests, he forced her back on the bed. As angry tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, he rose to loom over her body.
“You misunderstand your place in this world, Ianthe.” His lips touched her cheek in a kiss more gentle than the iron bands of his arms that kept her trapped beneath him. “Just because you chose to toil in the slums does not make that choice the same as true freedom. You were trapped by your circumstances, perhaps even more so than you are now.”
He was truly beautiful, she thought. Her gaze roved over each feature of the face that was close enough to her own that their noses practically touched. And even in recognizing that beauty, she would have preferred to have any other man in the city smirking down at her. “You think that justifies turning me into a slave?”
“You were always a slave.” His tone was coaxing, as if it were actually important to him that she understand his point. “It is only the terms of your imprisonment that have changed. You labored in that slimy cafeteria and you will do the same here.”
It was clear the sort of labor that he had in mind. She felt worming fingers work their way into the sore place between her thighs. She fought the deceptive response of her body that made her want to spread her legs obscenely wide and welcome the invasion.
“What are you doing?” She tried for demanding, but her voice shifted to a plaintive moan.
“Teaching you a much-needed lesson in the only way you seem to understand.”
Two of Legion’s fingers entered her slowly. He made gentle strokes in and out of her, as if he was more concerned with comforting than arousing her. A confusing swirl of emotions threatened to overtake the tenuous control she had over her own mind. His thumb came down on the little bundle of nerves above her opening and her eyes nearly rolled into the back of her head.
“The physician informed me that our mating has done you some damage. Despite entering estrous, your body was not fully prepared to take an Alpha knot in its entirety with the alterants still tainting your system.” His tone was faintly disapproving, as if all she had done to chemically castrate herself was solely intended to serve as an inconvenience for him. “You will need time to heal before I can mount you again. Although she agreed that your estrous must be broken completely for any hope of a full recovery.”
He added another thick finger inside of her. She winced at the burning stretch.
Ianthe couldn’t care less what the damn doctor had to say. She remembered that the woman tending her with cold hands and a chill disposition had every opportunity to release her and had left her a prisoner.
She tried to squirm away, but Legion held her firmly, although only with enough force to keep her still. One hand kept both of her arms stretched above her head so she could not push him away while the other stayed busy playing at her most private place.
“You don’t remember it, but you’ve experienced the suffering that comes without stimulation. An Omega are afflicted without the attentions of an Alpha until estrous has broken.”
He was referencing memories that were lost to her, but flashes of recognition remained. She remembered the agony, just not if he was the cause or the solution.
Not that he gave her a choice in the matter as he held her down in the stinking sheets while teasing her slick-soaked opening.
“Your mine,” he growled, the sound resonating through his chest to fill the room.
“I have to go home.” She tried to hang on to the precious tendrils of sanity as pressure mounted inside of her skull. “What about my family?”
“Perhaps I could be persuaded to provide for their continued care.” His golden eyes were unnaturally cold, like amber frozen in ice. “If you were to ask me very nicely.”
“Please—”
“Spread your legs.”
She obeyed with a soft cry, closing her eyes against the reality of his body pressed against hers.
Legion moved down her body, licking and nipping at the skin in a path that led to where the fingers of one hand still gently stroked. His teeth pressed against the skin of her inner thigh, painful but not quite sharp enough to break the skin.
Her body bowed, hips thrusting up toward his face in a reflex. He was forcing her submission with teeth, hands and the force of his will. There was little she could to resist him, even if she had wanted to.
His palms slid up her thighs to force her legs further apart. Sore muscles complained, but he forced her still when she squirmed. His fingers continued to pump in and out of her as she moaned for him to go deeper or faster. But he kept up the maddeningly slow pace until stars burst across her vision.
“More…”
He smiled against her skin and let out a rumbling purr that twanged down her nerves until the feeling settled at her core. “Patience is a virtue, pet.”
The sharp scent of her unwanted arousal filled the air. She could taste it like burnt sugar on her tongue. She whimpered. “Please.”
He growled again, the sound making her inner muscles clench. “You’ll take what I give you and like it.”
Then his mouth closed around the tender nub of her clitoris and sucked hard.
Shame fled in the face of pleasure and she frantically rolled her pelvis to get him to apply more pressure. His hands moved to her hips and held her down against the mattress, forcing her to submit to each stroke of his tongue.
Pain was forgotten, and she succumbed to his determined onslaught. She flew higher and higher, like a skycar with its elevation dampeners removed. He tormented her, easing off the pressure and slowing his pace if she came too close to the edge.
When he finally allowed her to come, stars of light burst across her vision and momentarily blinded her. She did not see him as he rose over her body and only realized he loomed above her when his lips met hers and he forced her to swallow a mouthful of her own slick.
And instead of spitting it back in his face, her eyes closed, and she hummed in pleasure, too lost to the high to have any conception of her own responses.
When her eyes finally opened again, she found him staring down at her with an unreadable expression on his face, eyes narrowed.
“A lesser man would have torn you apart.”
But wasn’t that precisely what he had done? The blissful afterglow faded abruptly like a shock of cold water. Anger quickly returned to replace the haze. She had no intention of apologizing for wanting freedom. “I had no problems until meeting you. That’s not a coincidence.”
He dragged her bodily onto his massive chest until her heart was pressed above where his beat in a steady rhythm. “You are still too young to understand the ways of this world. You flirted with discovery each and every time you stepped foot outside. Eventually, you would have been found out. AND I WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THERE!”
So that was the source of his anger, that she had placed herself at risk of being claimed by someone else. Ianthe wanted to disagree with him but there was little purpose to it. He had made it clear that fighting him only compelled him to enforce her submission in some terrible way.
Already, she had to fight off the insane urge to burrow deeper against him. Absently, her tongue darted out to taste the nearest bit of salty flesh, his taste exploding on her tongue.
He chuckled, momentarily forgetting his anger with her, and the rumbling echo continued against her chest even after the sound faded. He was purring for her. Contentment washed over her as he lulled her traitorous body. She had to remind herself that the treacherous emotions were not her own. They came from him, another twisted gift of the claiming bond.
With each passing minute, he burrowed deeper inside of her until there would no longer be any separation from her true emotions and his more dominant ones. Eventually, she would lose herself.
Her stomach made an embarrassing rumble, reminded her that she could not remember the last time that she had eaten.
Fingers teased down her spine, tickling her as the Alpha spoke. “If you desire food, you need but ask.”
Ianthe glared down at his chest. “I want nothing from you. I’d rather starve.”
“Stubbornness is unbecoming.” One finger touched her chin, tipping her face until his calm gaze met the storm in hers. “This emotional lability will pass as the bond settles. Now, shall I feed you or would you prefer another lesson in what I expect of you?”
She understood clearly what he meant by that. He gave her the option of submitting like the mewling Omega he wanted her to be or he would hold her down and torture her again until she was pleasure-addled enough to tell him anything he wanted.
“May I please have something to eat?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“Of course, dearest.” He swatted her once on the backside and she bit back a yelp of pain at the abuse of already tender skin. Her whole body was practically one gigantic bruise. “But do not think that my concern for your physical wellbeing will save you from punishment. Behave or suffer.”
The invisible but heavy bond connecting them hummed in contentment as her mind raged, thinking only of how to be free of him.
Chapter Three
The claiming bond had nothing to do with love. She’d read various mythical accounts on the CommNet, of soul mates and everlasting connections that survived even death. But there was nothing tender about the twisted connection that her mate had forced on her.
Alphas had a biological need to dominate everyone around them, and Omegas most of all.
Whatever had emboldened him to just take her like this was clearly born of that urge. She understood that Alphas considered themselves above the laws governing more ordinary citizens, but she never imagined that something like this could be possible.
Legion made good on his promise to feed her. She sat across his lap on an ornate sofa, his partially erect flesh pressed into her bottom. He had allowed her to take the comforter off of the bed and wrap it around herself, but she remained unclothed underneath. It was still a question whether he would ever allow her the decency of being fully clothed. In that moment, she did not feel particularly optimistic.
He kept one hand on the nape of her neck, trapping her in place while the other hand fed her finger foods from the plate resting on her thighs.
“Open,” he commanded, holding a thin slice of meat to her lips.
She obeyed, expression like stone as he fed it to her. The food tasted like dust on her tongue even though she knew it was of finer quality than anything found in the slum cafeterias that she was used to.
They sat in a small sitting room that was connected to the bedroom. It was similarly adorned with heavy curtains covering the walls, concealing any windows or doors. She knew there was at least one exit somewhere to her right but with the coverings it was hard to know for sure exactly where it was located. The large hand on the back of her neck kept her from moving off the sofa, much less towards the door.
“I can feel your dissatisfaction, you know.” His fist caught in her hair. He pulled with just enough force that her head tipped back until their gazes met. “Explain.”
Ianthe glared up at him, despite her continued fear. What more could he do to her at this point? “You kidnapped me.”
He disagreed. “I saved you.”
“Saved me?” She snorted at that. “From what? You’re the only threat to me.”
“Are you so sure of that? Eventually, the suppressants would have failed you. What do you think would have become of you then? I am the only thing standing between you and charges of dynamic concealment. Do you really think you’d be better off laboring in the work camps?”
There was some truth to his words. But they both knew that an Omega, even a bonded one, would never be sent to the workcamps. Some disgusting official, likely old and doddering, would pay her surety in order to take her for his own.
Labor sentences could be bought out and commuted if someone had enough interest and money to purchase the indenture. If Central Command had discovered her dynamic, she might have ended up in a situation as bad as this one, possibly worse.
That realization did nothing to cool the fiery hatred burning in her gaze. “But the suppressants worked,” she spat, still defiant even as he loomed over her. “They fooled you.”
He stroked a finger down her cheek, sparking a heated sensation that she tried to ignore. “Poor, naive girl. You didn’t fool me for a moment.”
What could he mean by that? Her mouth opened to demand that he explain, when they were interrupted.
The curtains parted and a man she did not recognize entered the room. He was more compact than Legion, likely a Beta, but well-muscled with a whipcord strength that immediately made her tense. The man seemed vaguely familiar but she could not place where she might have met him. She doubted anyone that Legion employed spent significant time in the slums.
His nostrils flared as the man strode forward, inhaling the scent of anxious Omega suffusing the air. His gaze flicked to her briefly before focusing above her head at about the level of Legion’s face.
“I apologize for the interruption, but a representative of the crown has requested an audience.” The Beta’s voice was deeper than it should have been, resonant and chilling. Ianthe had to suppress a shiver. “I’ve kept the man waiting for some time, but he is growing insistent.”
Legion made a rude sound. He had shifted to partially block her from view and Ianthe was forced to stare at his chest wh
ere the gap in his shirt revealed a patch of muscled flesh. “Tell him I’ll be along shortly.”
“He threatened to terminate the connection without disclosing his very important business.”
The Alpha raised an eyebrow as a malicious smile curved his lips. “Too bad he isn‘t here in person. Perhaps then you could inform this representative that I would as happy to see him tossed over the walls as I would be to speak to him. It’s a straight fall from here to the slums. He’d have plenty of time to consider his poor choice of words before hitting the ground.”
“I may have made some mention of his rudeness.” The Beta glanced down at the tablet in his hand. “He must have taken the words to heart because his connection is still open in the vidroom.”
“I’m sure it is. Thank you, Adrian.”
The man, Adrian, nodded sharply. Just before turning away, his gaze slid across the Omega draped in bed linen and shivering on the sofa. Their eyes briefly caught.
Ianthe should not have been shocked by the cold, clinical regard in his gaze. She had a feeling that he could walk in on Legion literally disemboweling her and the expression on his face would remain the same.
A low growl emanated from Legion’s chest, enough for the other man to turn away. It was a milder version of the urge to submit to a more powerful Alpha that Ianthe also suffered. There was nothing else subservient about the man and she innately understood that she was right to fear him.
Just as she was right to fear the Alpha who tumbled her off of his lap and rose to stand above her, glaring down.
“Finish eating,” he commanded. “I will return in a moment.”
Ianthe was certain that he would be gone for significantly longer than a moment, and much more if she were lucky. She resisted the urge to throw the small plate at his head, instead smiling in a way that was more like baring teeth. “Fine.”
Omega's Capture (Omegas of Pandora Book 2) Page 2
