His Defiant Omega (The Royal Omegas Book 2)

by Kristen Strassel

  I didn’t push her on it. The way she fidgeted, moving from foot to foot, jerking with waves of heat, I knew her need was at nuclear levels. Each throb of my cock urged me to mount her, but we needed to get clean of the acidic lake water first.

  Looking around, I found a shower spout sticking out from the wall. No barriers to keep the water in, just a spout.

  “That work?” I asked Tavia.

  “Yes.”

  I took her hand and led her to it, twisting the faucet as far left as it would go. The water that spewed from the shower was already warm from the desert heat and I pushed Tavia beneath the stream first.

  “It won’t last long,” she said. “It’s on a timer.”

  “A timer?”

  “To preserve water.”

  There were no such timers in the city. No need for them. Water was abundant in Luxoria. And it was fucking nothing to pump it out to the Badlands. So why the fuck put a limit on it? Anger flared in my chest, but it was nothing new. The omegas had been treated as lesser people. Why wouldn’t that reflect in meeting their basic needs.

  I’d known this all along. I just chose to ignore the details.

  I washed my mate clean, studiously ignoring her moans every time my hands swept over her smooth skin. And the way she pressed her curves against me. And how my cock was like a pillar between us, not so patiently waiting for the moment when she was taken care of and it could find home.

  When I’d finished, I switched places with her, feeling the fresh water wash away the rancid film from the lake. I let her hands roam my body because it seemed to quell the waves of desire that wracked her. They were growing stronger, throbbing between us until I felt them like a physical touch. My head spun with a vision of her beneath me again.

  Tavia dropped to her knees without a word, her fingers wrapping around my thick erection seconds before her lips closed over the tip. A growl rumbled up my chest as she took me to the back of her throat. Her eyes stared up at me in the darkness and she moaned in relief. My hand shook as it cradled her cheek and the water from the shower ran over us. Her mouth on me was like heaven. Just as before in the Humvee, no experience had ever felt so right. So heavy with meaning.

  Shit.

  Tavia’s hands moved to grip my ass cheeks as she sucked ravenously. It took all my strength to keep from pounding away at her throat.

  “Mate,” I croaked in warning, but she didn’t let up. The water cut off above us and still, she moved her mouth on me, owning me like no one ever had. Because no one ever could. Not until her. And no one else would from this moment on.

  With my thumb on her jaw, I forced her to stop and pulled her up to meet my mouth. Her fingers caught in my hair, gripping tight as my tongue dove in to devour her flavor mixed with mine. She melted against me, her curves fusing with my hard planes, and my wolf roared with satisfaction.

  Mine. My omega mate. Keep her forever.

  The words from my animal solidified a feeling in my heart that I’d been denying for too long because of who she was, who I was. Alpha and omega. Commander and servant. Montague and Capulet.

  Enemies.

  Not anymore. I had to make her see we were more alike than she ever realized.

  But it couldn’t happen when we were both out of our mind with lust.

  I broke the kiss, gripping her thighs to lift her around my waist. She whimpered as my cock brushed her slick opening. Not yet. I would take her on the nest she’d so carefully constructed. Instinct told me it was important.

  She writhed against me, trying to fit us together as I lowered her to the mattress and forced her frustrated gaze to mine. “Look at me, mate.”

  She stilled and I groaned easing inside her tight heat, watching every reaction to our union flutter across her face.

  Something was different this time. A bond was growing. I could feel it winding between us to wrap around my heart, digging in with its thorns. It was painful and wonderful at the same time.

  “Be mine,” I whispered so quietly I wasn’t sure if I’d said it out loud. Did I want it to be out loud?

  Tavia closed her eyes. pretending she hadn’t heard me. Maybe I’d only thought it.

  I pulled back, thrusting into her until our hips locked, and I kissed away her delicious moans. “Be mine.”

  “Dagger…”

  I didn’t let her finish. I dragged my cock from her body slowly, watching her convulse beneath me, and pounded back in, again and again. I needed her to say yes. I needed her to submit, but my omega wasn’t submissive to anybody.

  She would submit to me. By the time we left this nest, she would be mine. Because life without her wasn’t something I wanted to endure anymore.

  Tavia cried out with pleasure and I felt her tense with her first orgasm.

  “Be mine for good,” I snarled at her ear, my tongue darting out to lick a trickle of sweat from her jaw. “My omega mate. Be mine.”

  She shook her head, frantic with lust, thrusting her hips in time with mine. “I can’t,” she breathed.

  “You can.”

  My knot swelled inside her and she cried out with another wave of pleasure, clenching around it so hard I could barely breathe.

  I gripped her neck to make her look at me. “Mine.” The sound of my wolf rattled in my voice. Her nails pierced the skin at my shoulder. She wanted to say yes. I could feel it, see it in her eyes.

  In her heart, she was mine. In the secret places of her mind, she was mine.

  And it was almost enough.

  “Say it,” I demanded, thrusting one last time until my knot swelled to bursting.

  “I belong to my people,” she choked.

  “But I belong to you, and I always will. So be mine, Tavia.”

  “You belong to the pack. You belong to the royals.”

  “I belong to you,” I growled, pushing my knot deeper as my release battered her walls and she convulsed with her own orgasm. “Only you. For life, there will always be you.”

  I collapsed around her, gathering her body close as we remained locked. I buried my face in her neck, collecting as much of her scent as I could, waiting for her breath to steady.

  “Do you know what it’s like to be born an alpha but not a royal?”

  Her hand smoothed over my back and I shivered at the sensation.

  “Not a royal. What do you mean? You were a General.”

  My knot released and I eased from her body, rolling to the side and bringing her with me.

  “Yes. But did you ever wonder why I was put in charge of the Badlands? Why the king chose me and not Cassian or Evander or Solen?”

  Tavia blinked. “I always thought you must have made Adalai angry somehow. Made some asshole move that got you assigned here.”

  I shook my head. “No. Adalai is one of my closest friends. It’s why he gave me a chance in the first place.”

  Her palm went still on my chest. “What do you mean gave you a chance?”

  “I am alpha…”

  “I know you are.”

  “… but I wasn’t born a royal.”

  Tavia frowned, her blue eyes swirling with knowledge as she tried to make sense of what I was saying. “You… you were poor.”

  It was my great shame. The reason I worked so hard to prove myself. Now there was only one person I cared to prove anything to.

  “My father didn’t lead armies in the omega wars like Cassian’s. He didn’t know technology like Solen’s. And he wasn’t a dignitary like Evander’s. He was a leather craftsman. He made boots. Belts. Later, armor. He didn’t live in a grand estate. We had a small home away from the castle but still in the city.”

  “Like a beta. Why?”

  “I’ve asked myself that question a million times. Why an alpha would live a life lower than he was due. Why he would abandon his call to the kingdom. Why he was satisfied having no accolades, no valor, no prize. But I didn’t have an answer until now.”

  I could see it in her eyes. She knew. The answer was obvious to her becaus
e everything the omegas went through in the Badlands taught them to value the things that mattered most. And the reason I’d been blinded to it for so long was because until now, nothing had mattered more than my ego.

  “Love,” Tavia murmured.

  “Love,” I repeated.

  She stiffened, her body going rigid beside me.

  “Dagger,” she whispered, eyes wide, “are you saying you love me?”

  I swallowed hard. Admitting such strong feelings to her could be the biggest mistake of my life. But denying it would feel like breathing fire.

  “I’m saying that I would give up any title, any position in the kingdom. Any accolades or status. Because none of them matter as much as this. Not anymore.”

  “This?”

  “This. This is my place, with you. This is my purpose. You are my purpose now. Everything else comes second.”

  “Including yourself? Including the king?”

  I sighed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Including everything.”

  “Everything.”

  “Yes.”

  She was quiet, her gaze digging into me, searching for something. I was determined to be an open book. I needed her to trust me. Needed it. The man in me, the wolf. The whole of me, needed my female to trust me.

  “When did you decide this?”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “When?” she asked, her voice holding an edge sharper than a razor. “When did you decide I was this important?”

  “Tavia…”

  “Just tell me when,” she snapped, her lip quivering. “Was it when you scented my heat? When you fucked me? Or was it when you realized what Renaldo offered was looking like a better choice than our own pack? Did you know all along that the humans weren’t a threat to the omegas?”

  “I just told you things I’ve never told another soul and never will again. And it wasn’t enough for you. Fuck, Tavia.”

  “Did you know?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’ve been a priority for longer than you can imagine. Meant what I said in the desert about my mate. I never intended for you to find out. But things have changed—”

  “Just… just tell me. I have to know, before this gets any harder.”

  “Harder for whom?” My voice was what I wanted my heart to be. Hard as goddamn scar tissue.

  “Me. You. Both of us? I don’t know. I just need you to tell me the fucking truth. Because I swear to god, if you’ve done all this to make me weaker… and if I’ve let you…” A sob ripped from her throat and her fist pounded weakly at my sternum. “Dagger, tell me the truth. I deserve that much.”

  She deserved more. So much more.

  “I didn’t know anything.” I sighed. “That’s the truth, mate. I didn’t know… but I suspected the humans might try to ally with the omegas to rise against the king. Maybe I even wanted that, somewhere deep inside. I was sick of seeing the suffering. Sick of watching you work your fingers to the bone for nothing. Sick of being the enemy. Sick of being the in between. The division between the city and the Badlands. That’s the goddamned truth. But when they attacked and I saw what they’d done to the omegas… I decided I was going to do whatever it took to get your people free.”

  Tavia’s breath sawed in and out. “They don’t want to be free.”

  “I know.”

  “But you don’t think the humans are safe.”

  “No. I think they will ally with the omegas until they have complete control. Then they will do whatever the fuck they want with them. Use them, imprison them. Who knows. It could be worse than the Badlands when things are all said and done. We just don’t know, and I’m not willing to risk trusting them. Not when it involves you.”

  She eyed me, and I knew she was considering my words. There was no way to prove what I’d been thinking in the human keep or if what I suspected was even true. I had nothing but suspicion and instinct to go on. But they were enough to have me questioning everything.

  “What will you tell Adalai?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The union of the pack is fragile,” she said quietly. “What if… what if he institutes another Division?”

  The answer was easy. Didn’t have to think twice about it.

  I lifted my hand, brushing the worried crease at the edge of her eye. “We’ll leave. We’ll

  leave this place and lead every omega across the canyon to the human keep.”

  Her eyes softened. “You’d do that?”

  “I won’t let you suffer again. I swear it, Tavia. Never again.”

  She swallowed, her eyes blinking wetness away before it had a chance to fall. “But you think the humans are dangerous.”

  “Only if we allow them to be. And we won’t. If it comes to that.”

  Our gazes remained locked for untold moments as she worked out what I was saying. Eventually she lowered her head back to my chest and the stillness of the bunker settled around us.

  “Dagger?”

  “Hm.”

  “Do you think it will come to that?”

  I ran my hand over her hair and dropped a lingering kiss on her head before answering the only way I knew how.

  “Let’s hope not, mate.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tavia

  The first day after my heat always felt like freedom, but never more than this month. I’d never been away from the relative safety of the bunker before. The Badlands, as shabby as it looked in the early morning light after my time away, had always been my safety net. I knew the rules here. I could beat them. After our trip to the human keep, everything had changed.

  I returned to my home as Dagger’s mate, and it scared the hell out of me.

  Everyone in the Badlands opposed The Division. That was easy, because it destroyed our lives. But only a few omegas were brave enough to voice that opposition, and mine had been among the loudest.

  My people would see me as a traitor, as I walked hand in hand with Dagger, wrapped in the sex-soaked sheets we’d ripped from the heat bunker. The same sheets I’d used to build a nest, so I could bond with him. A multitude of emotions swarmed my body, but shame and regret weren’t among them.

  “Tavia!” Maryellen, Jacoby’s mother, ran to me, gasping when she saw who I was with. She covered her mouth with her hand and stumbled back a step. “Get away from her! You can’t treat her like an animal!”

  Maryellen’s voice shook as she scolded Dagger.

  “Ma’am—”

  “Don’t you ma’am me. I’ve already lost one son to those beasts. You won’t take Tavia from us.”

  “Maryellen, it’s okay.” I had to defuse the situation fast, before we drew a mob and I was unable to convince them that I actually wanted to be with Dagger. Not under these exact circumstances, of course, but I had to make my friends and fellow omegas believe he hadn’t forced me. That I hadn’t been taken advantage of. “We saw Jacoby,” I added, my heart pounding as the crowd around us grew. “He’s good. He’s safe and happy.”

  Maryellen’s expression was a mixture of relief and confusion. “You spoke with Jacoby?”

  “Where is he? You were supposed to bring him back to the Badlands,” a voice from the back of the crowd called out, and the others joined in the chorus, demanding to know about him.

  “He… he didn’t want to come back.” I swallowed their shock and disbelief. “He says the humans are helpin—”

  “Tavia,” Dagger interrupted. “We don’t know that for sure.”

  “Let her speak, alpha.” One of the males came forward, his chest puffed out at the chance to challenge Dagger without consequences. “We’ll take her word long before we take yours.”

  “We don’t know that the omegas are better off in the human keep,” he said. “We’re offering our protection—”

  “How?” Another male cut in. “By stripping them naked and spilling your seed inside them while you take their voice away?”

  “That’s not what happened.” Dagger stepped forward, clench
ing his sheet into a fist at his chest.

  “Then tell us what happened.”

  “Stop!” I stepped between them. “We’ve fought enough. Jacoby is fine. No, we didn’t bring the omegas back. And Dagger hasn’t taken advantage of me.”

  “Tavia,” Maryellen reached for my arm. Since my mom was killed in the wars, she’d been like a mother to me. “If you’re in danger…”

  “I’m not.” I could tell she didn’t believe me. It was time to come clean with my feelings. “Dagger is my mate.”

  Gasps rose from the small crowd, and then the disbelief turned to anger. I couldn’t expect any different. I was still bitter about Zelene mating Adalai. If it wasn’t me standing here, I’d be part of this mob too, loudly demanding answers.

  Maryellen raked a wary gaze over Dagger, then back to me. “Are you sure?”

  I’d swear Dagger held his breath. This angry horde didn’t scare him, but the possibility of my rejection did.

  “Yeah. I’m sure,” I said softly, squeezing his hand. “Dagger needs clothes. We can’t go into the city like this.”

  “Don’t do it, Maryellen,” an older woman warned. “They left your son in the human keep. And now they want his clothes.”

  “As a member of the royal court, I ask you to treat visitors to the Badlands with the same respect that you hope your son is receiving in the human keep.” I hated pulling that card, but if I’d learned anything from this journey, it was that we couldn’t beat awful behavior by being awful in return. We had to be better, and demand better.

  “Yes, my lady.” Maryellen motioned for us to follow her and the stunned crowd parted to allow access to her broken down shack.

  At the door, we waited for her to find what we needed.

  “The clothes might be too small for you.” She handed Dagger the burlap bundle.

  “Thank you, Maryellen,” he said.

  “All the times I came to you with problems, and that’s the first time you’ve ever used my name.”

  He didn’t look away from her accusation and my heart opened for him even more.

  “As soon as I was able to, I fixed my mistakes.”

  Maryellen nodded. “These ladies bring out the best in all of us.”