The Omega Rule (Omegas of the New South Book 1)

by Sharilyn Skye

  He filled her with thick ropes of cum, washing her insides until she felt fullness and pain in a place she never knew existed. He sank against her back, holding her to him. His breaths came fast and hard.

  Tears coursed down her cheeks, but she didn’t make a sound. The knot would hold them together. If she pulled away now, there would be severe pain and damage. Not that she cared, she was dead anyway.

  She braced against the wall. He purred and rubbed her back, kneading her tense muscles and pulling the long strands of her hair to massage her scalp. Words of praise, satisfaction, and pleasure at her surrender came from his lips, but she couldn’t hear any of it.

  When his knot receded with a gush of semen and slick, she pushed him away, ran to the bathroom, and locked herself in.

  “Get ready for dinner, Eve,” he said, his voice heaving with exertion.

  “I’m not going. It’s done, Lukas. I’m done.” He heard the shower come on and growled in anger. She was washing his scent from her. Then he heard her crying and stopped growling, confused.

  “Eve, I said, get ready for dinner. Dinner was at seven.”

  “And I said, I’m not going. Get out of this room. Get Out!” she finished with a scream. Backing away from the bathroom, he went into his room, leaving the door open between them.

  Sitting on his bed as he dressed and ran through the events of the last hour or so. He approached her; she responded to him as an Omega should. He took her, and now she was angry. He couldn’t figure it out. It was amazing. He had never experienced anything like it. His cock was more satisfied than it had ever been, and his balls had never been so empty. She had orgasmed beautifully. What the hell was the problem?

  She slammed the door between their rooms, and it clicked closed. He heard her engage the lock. That got him moving.

  “Eve. You will come out of there right this minute and have dinner.” Muffled cries and the sounds of things slamming against the walls came through the door.

  He stood waiting, showing great restraint, in his opinion. He would allow her this little fit, and then they would eat. Maybe he would take her again. His cock stirred at the thought. He heard the window creak open, and the door into the hallway slam shut. That’s when he got worried and kicked the partition down.

  A light breeze blew through the pale curtains in her room. Her nest was destroyed, torn apart and scattered. She had broken the mirror in the bathroom and destroyed every piece of furniture. She was gone. Her strong scent permeated the room. He could smell her fury. She was everywhere and nowhere. He couldn’t tell if she’d tossed herself out of the window or ran down the hall.

  Gripping the Comlink, he called to his Alpha, “Jason, find the Omega, she’s on the run, detain her only. And keep your filthy paws off her.” His order met with a long-suffering sigh, then silence.

  Lukas stormed from the room, following the faint scent of Pine and Omega down the halls. On the first floor, he found his Alpha, clutching a dead bird in his hands. His face was pale, and fear shone in his eyes as he approached.

  “What?” The Alpha growled.

  “Sir,” said Jason, stopping his advance and standing at attention.

  “Report.” The Alpha lowered his voice. Danger leaked out of his every pour.

  “She’s in the building, but I’m not sure where. We checked the cameras and caught only glimpses of her. She’s much shorter than the typical people in the halls, so they are aimed higher and don’t always pick her up. I know for certain that she hasn’t left because there are cameras on every door, and they have not opened.” He spoke in quick even tones, watching The Alpha relax a bit, knowing it wouldn’t last.

  “We intercepted a message from her to an unknown party,” he continued. “Three birds were seen flying from the building; a Beta guard shot one down. We’re assuming all the birds carried a message. It’s an old tactic, one we were not expecting,” he finished.

  The Alpha snarled, grabbing the dead bird from him and ripping the letter off its leg. “Find her. Do not engage her when you do. You are dismissed.” He glared as he watched the man scurry away.

  Lukas went to his office, pulled his chair out, and dropped into it before teasing apart the folds of the letter.

  ‘L-

  You were right. There are no honorable men in the New South. The contract is broken. Fall back to the contingent rendezvous point. I have gained some strength and will delay here, gaining what more I can before we fight until it ends. We move on to plan B.

  Ever Yours,

  EJ’

  With a roar, Lukas crumpled the letter and ripped his desk drawer open, pulling out the damned contract, he began to read. His stomach turned as he glanced at for it for the first time. Then he reread it. It wasn’t binding; it wasn’t. He knew that. No court in the country gave an Omega rights, even though some households ran differently. He knew that too. His father was so besotted with his mother that she ran roughshod over everyone in her domain, his Alpha father included. But that didn’t hold outside her four walls.

  Eve’s contract was simple, and he cursed himself for not reading it sooner. It was geared to his favor, and he was a fool for tossing it aside. In it, she offered him her nest, where he could lay with her nightly. She would not lie to him and had promised to answer any direct question honestly. He could have as many Beta lovers as he wished during their courtship period as long as he took no other Omega, but she also promised to provide for his sexual release daily, at the time and place of her choosing. She must be allowed to initiate the act, but otherwise, she would provide the fulfillment of his basic Alpha needs in a variety of ways without limitation.

  At the time of her next estrous, she would submit to him and allow him to serve her through it. She would accept any claim he placed on her at that time and bear him as many children as she could. She would not attempt to run away or break their bond, and once bonded, she would accept him as her Alpha in all ways on three conditions. One, he would not impede her freedom to move about during their courtship period. Two, he would not rape her or attempt to force her consent using the power of an Alpha. And three, he would allow her to advise him on the best way to win the war in the Seventh District and would consider the plight of the Hidden Omegas, but he did not have to act favorably in regards to them.

  She had kept to her word that he knew, and he had broken his from minute one. She had laughed off his attempts to lock her in, but she had not laughed off that middle bit. Now she was planning to leave. He could’ve been sleeping in her nest tonight, but it was destroyed. Except he was an Alpha, and she was an Omega. She’d get over it. He heard they always did.

  “I found her, Sir,” Jason said from his open door, jerking him back to the present.

  “Where?” Lukas asked, leaning back in his chair.

  Jason said nothing; he just pressed a button on the remote control. An image of Eve erupted onto the screen on the wall. Pizza boxes littered the floor of the basement training room, crusts tossed aside, and boxes open and empty.

  Eve moved with more grace than he would have thought possible for such a small person. Her red hair flowed around her in a fiery storm as she moved with a bo staff. She was skilled. Highly skilled. She moved as one with her weapon and struck at the practice mannequin with well-honed precision. Had it been a man, she would have killed him.

  Sweat dripped down her back, soaking the black tank top and into the waistband of her exercise pants. Muscles rippled in her arms with each strike, and sweat shone on her blank face as her body absorbed the shock of the impact. Well defined muscles flowed down her legs, and her bare feet moved so fast he had trouble tracking them.

  Eve was a warrior. How is it that an Omega female was a warrior? How had he not seen it before? He let fall any preconceived notion he had of her and walked down the steps to the basement. When he opened the door, she whirled on him in challenge, her eyes blazing with contempt.

  “I ask that you let me know when you leave the building so that a guard may e
scort you. This is for your safety and theirs. You may order any delivery service that you like and charge it to me. I ask that you not leave the city until the issue of our contract is resolved,” he said, meeting her eyes and holding them.

  “The issue of our contract is resolved, Alpha,” she said, and he cringed. He liked it when she called him Lukas. She gave a curt bow and pushed past him.

  “Eve.” He grabbed her arm, dropping it when she turned her glare to him.

  “Don’t.” She walked away, her long hair curling over the side of her hip. She didn’t look back.

  Chapter 8

  She settled into her new room on the second floor. Once, these rooms had been offices, but they had been converted to soldier’s barracks at some point and were now empty. The room was utilitarian: bed, dresser, sink, toilet, and shower. A tiny window opened to an alley, but she didn’t care about the view anyway. Views were deceptive. A gorgeous view from prison didn’t change the fact that you weren’t free.

  She didn’t unpack her bag that she had shoved everything into before she left the third-floor suite, just tossed it onto the floor. She went to the shower, taking with her what she needed.

  She knew he would find her eventually. There were cameras everywhere. She would, most certainly, take him up on his offer of having food delivered. She wouldn’t stay much longer, but maybe she could gain enough strength and weight to survive one more estrous. Just one. Maybe she could go back to the Seventh and find an Alpha she could tolerate. It wouldn’t achieve her ultimate goal, but it could work. She had to think more about that. She drank the floral tea then lay down on the bed to sleep. She did not make another nest.

  She awoke refreshed in the morning. Determined. She would follow the plan, stay a few more days and then head home to finish what she started. It would end, but it would end with her fighting for what she believed in and if she died in the process? Well, that was okay too. Better to die doing what you believe in than live doing what you don’t.

  Lukas did not sleep well. The open door to the empty room next to his taunted him. He had taken the Omega’s bedding and slept on it, trying to bend it into a sad approximation of a nest before throwing himself on it.

  All he’d had to do was be patient. Take her to a few dinners. He’d gone and fucked it up. By now, he’d begun to believe her when she said he couldn’t keep her here. She’d blown through every single lock he’d put on her room. Hell, she’d broken out of his jail. His JAIL.

  He could continue to force himself on her and then force a bond when she went into estrous, but he didn’t want a broken Omega. He wanted a wild, ripe, fat, and happy Omega. He wanted a pale-skinned, red-headed Omega that shouldn’t exist. He had to retreat and rethink. He had to show her he was a man of honor, even if he didn’t always act honorably. He was declaring war on Eve Hatfield. It was a war he wasn’t willing to lose.

  Forgoing sleep, since it wasn’t coming anyway, he got up and headed to his office. As he walked down the steps, he picked up her scent. She was on the second floor somewhere, sleeping in the ratty old training barracks. He needed to find the room and make sure it had a lock, even if it was on the side of the door that would keep him out. Or attempt to anyway. He couldn’t risk one of the other Alphas coming across her and…and what? Doing exactly what he had done to her? He growled, slamming the office lights on and making coffee for himself.

  As he read emails and checked district reports, he pulled up the cameras on the second floor, keeping an eye on the halls. He called for breakfast at a reasonable hour when the staff would be awake and caught up on his endless mountain of work before pulling the files Jason had made for him on the Seventh out of the tall stack of papers.

  On the surface, all appeared well. Upon closer look, things didn’t add up. The Seventh supplied ninety percent of the power, eighty-five percent of the natural gas, and eighty percent of the fossil fuels and finished gasoline to the New South. The Seventh was wealthy. Their tax money rolled in, and there was an unbroken line of product arriving daily.

  Eve said there were hundreds of thousands of people living in the mountains there. The total census numbers of the New South didn’t add up either if Eve was telling the truth. There couldn’t be that many people living in the Seventh; there were barely that many people living in two or three districts combined. According to the Seventh District census, just about ninety thousand people were living there. That meant that a hundred thousand people were unaccounted for.

  He picked up Eve’s file; it would contain basic information, grades, degrees, matings, and her picture. He opened it up. A teenage Eve smiled back at him, her face open and alight. Perfect white teeth gleamed, and blue eyes shone with sharp intelligence. She was breathtaking. Gone were the sharp angles that cynicism and starvation had given her. Her pink, rounded cheeks glowed in the camera flash.

  While most Omegas were barely educated, she graduated at the top of her class in both Dynamics and Law. Many didn’t want the burden of what she had taken on. They wanted to raise children and care for their mates. That was their focus. Not Eve. She had an eighth-degree black belt in Kobudo at the age of twenty, which was also the last update to her file. She could easily be a tenth degree by now.

  Her only registered mating was to Joshua Davis, a man listed as a strong Beta. His application was retracted, which was odd in and of itself because all Omega matings must stay on record, and retractions aren’t granted, even if the mating didn’t occur, it is simply listed as null in the file.

  He typed the man’s name into the database, and nothing came up. No picture. No background. Nothing.

  He needed to go to the Seventh. If he could understand Eve, maybe he could get her to reconsider leaving.

  Motion caught his attention. Eve exited one of the rooms at the far end of the second floor, east hall, her pack strung over her shoulder, and her bo staff in hand. She wore the black scarves she had arrived in. They covered her so expertly that she would blend in almost any crowd, save for those blue eyes. They flashed a grim smile up at the camera, and she flipped him the bird.

  He got on his Comlink immediately, “Jason, Miss Hatfield is leaving the building. Follow her at a safe distance. Do not engage. Report any attempt to leave the city.”

  “Understood, Sir.” His Comlink clicked off.

  He changed the view of his cameras to the streets of Greenville and watched as she entered six different restaurants and four clothing shops. She came out with bags of clothes but never boxes of food. She didn’t have leftovers. She caught almost every camera and gave a feral smile, knowing he watched her. She moved effortlessly through his people. Most never looked twice at her; those that did dismissed her as something less than what she was. She had a gift. She flowed through the river of them, never making a wave. Jason reported nothing amiss other than her large appetite, and then she was back, walking down the hallway to her new room.

  Lukas knew what she was doing, she was gaining strength to leave him, but that wasn’t happening. He watched as she glowered at the new lock on her door then up at the camera at him. She rolled her shoulders and stomped back down the hallway.

  Three minutes later, she slammed the door of his office open, denting the drywall behind it. He already had the keys to the lock held up and waiting. She ripped them out of his hand and turned to go.

  “Those are the only keys to that room. Dinner is at seven; I will pick you up.” He kept his head down and buried in reports, feeling her stare burn through him until she slammed back out of his office. He grinned to himself. She had not said no.

  She moved through every exercise she knew. Her bo staff was an extension of her body, and it moved like one. Just like every kid of a certain age, her parents had insisted she take karate. Only karate turned into taekwondo, and that turned into Kobudo. She loved the discipline of it. It took her size and made her a better fighter because of it, not in spite of it.

  Her belly full from the many breakfasts and lunches she’d eaten while out m
ade her languorous, and her motions were subdued but no less graceful. The new workout clothes she wore fit her like a glove; she would need them.

  The door to the room rattled open, and The Alpha walked in. He wore a white Gi with no belt and carried a thin sword resembling a katana, but more delicate in its construction.

  He didn’t say anything; he just stood in a ready position, sword drawn and pointed with grace, waiting. Her smile was wicked and not at all welcoming. Light from the solar simulator reflected off the perfect surface of the steel and the deep, beautiful color of his skin. The sleeves were short, allowing his tattoos to dance in the light. His green eyes sparked in challenge.

  Bringing her feet together, she gave a brief nod then spread them wide, snapping her bo against his shoulder. He engaged, and they fought. He did not fight lightly, and he did not fight to lose.

  She countered his strikes and made red stripes under the fabric of his Gi, she bloodied his knuckles, and he landed a blow to her exposed bicep, drawing blood. She twirled and twisted around him, never allowing him to land another. The style and mechanics of her fighting were flawless, but he had more stamina. She was thin, deconditioned, and soon wore down. She pushed through the pain, needing it. She needed to train and be strong. In his way, he was helping her, and she would let him.

  Let him think she would stay. Let him think she would not go. Now that the contract was broken, she could lie, cheat, and steal from him with abandon. She’d use everything he had to her advantage then go do what needed to be done. She’d use his body any way she could to become stronger. He had broken the rules and, in doing so, untied her hands. Abruptly she stepped back, nodding in salute before walking out to shower.