Troy laughed darkly, sending shivers up Faith's spine. Shivers that harkened dangerously back to the thrilling sensations of the last few days in his bed.
What was wrong with her? She had to be delirious. There was no other reason she couldn't separate fear from ecstasy anymore.
"You’d better believe it," he said. "Because the same thing is going to happen to us."
Faith summoned the last of her energy to glare at Troy. "Never."
The mocking smile didn't leave Troy's lips. He leaned against the rough stones of the fireplace.
"You're an omega, Faith. My touch awakened your nature. You've spent the last four days deep in your first heat, riding on my cock. We've already bonded in ways that no one can sever. Tell me…what do you think is going to happen?"
Faith bit her bottom lip. Troy wasn't lying, but that didn't mean she wanted to hear what he had to say. And it sure as hell didn't mean she had to accept it.
She took a deep, steadying breath and looked him straight in the eye.
"I'll tell you exactly what I'm going to do," she said. "I'm going to find my sister, I'm going to put her in the back of the van, and then I'm going to drive us back home."
Ice crystals formed in Troy's eyes. "Over my dead body," he said, his voice deadly serious.
"You think I don't mean what I say?" Faith demanded. She was past the point of caring what effect her words had on him. "I've already taken a shot at you once. I'll do it again."
Troy shook his head with cold certainty. "No, you won't."
Now it was her turn to laugh. "Why? Do you think just because you've defiled me that I'm obligated to love you? Now you're the one who's thinking like a child. I swear to you that the second I can stand, I am walking out that door. And if you stand in my way, I will cut off your head like Judith, or drive a stake through your temple like Jael."
Troy's eyes narrowed. "You really think you can kill me?"
"Goliath said the same thing to David."
Troy pushed himself off the hearth and disappeared into the kitchen nook, returning with a butcher's knife in his hand.
The blood went cold in Faith's veins. She struggled to get up and run, but couldn't even manage to sit up.
"Calm down," Troy said. "I'm not going to hurt you."
Still, Faith frantically drew away from him as he sat down on the other end of the couch. But then he turned the knife around and offered her the handle.
"What are you doing?"
"Giving you what you want." He forced the knife into her hands, then pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor, exposing his hard chest. "This is your chance to kill me. Do it now, because I won't make this offer again."
Faith gaped at him.
"It's what you said you wanted," he repeated impatiently. "So get it over with. Stab me through the heart."
Her pulse raced and her hand began to tremble as she turned the knife over in her hand. "Troy, I…"
"Now I'm back to being Troy again?" he said mockingly. "Not devil? Or how about monster? If it's so easy to kill me, then do it, Faith."
When she didn't budge, he reached out and wrapped his hand around her wrist, forcing it closer so the sharp tip of the knife pressed against his skin. Faith tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let her.
"You have to do it if you want to get past me to the door. My keys are in the truck."
She hung her head. "That's…not what I meant."
"No?" he said, the look in his eyes colder than ever. "You just said that you'd cut my head off, so…."
Hot tears welled in Faith's eyes as he forced the blade up to his throat. "Stop this."
"What's wrong?" he sneered. "Don't try to tell me David cried when he took down Goliath, Faith."
He forced her hand forward just far enough that the tip of the knife punctured his skin, causing a tiny rivulet of bright red blood to appear. Faith felt herself crumple at the sight. She thought that she might faint.
"Stop it, Troy," she begged, beginning to sob. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."
Faith didn't realize that the words were true until they left her mouth.
Troy let go of her wrist, and the knife fell to the sofa between them.
Faith snatched back her hand and wiped away her tears. She tucked herself into a ball and cowered in the corner.
Troy stood and walked away. When he reached the door, he turned and looked at her, his face completely blank.
"You can't kill me, Faith. Your nature won't let you. I am your alpha, and you are my omega, and not even your God can break the connection between us."
Chapter Nine
The steady click-click-click of Troy's torque wrench echoed through the three-bay garage as he secured the last bolt on Aric's transmission housing. Nothing calmed him like the familiar sound of a bolt being tightened to a hundred pounds of pressure.
Right now, that was just about the only familiar thing left in his life.
Troy pulled the tool free and set it down before dragging his hand through his hair. He didn't care that his hands were grimy with oil and grease. He could get rid of that easily enough with the bar of Lava soap resting on his utility sink.
What he couldn't seem to get rid of was the constant churn of thoughts intruding...even out here where he felt most at home. And with both Aric and Cade impatient to get their rigs back, he didn't have a moment to just sit and think, either.
Even now, he caught wind of a car turning off the Central Road and onto his drive.
No…make that two cars. One was Ty's—Troy could tell from the telltale ticking timing belt that sooner or later Ty was going to have to let Troy fix——and the other was the clunker with the piece-of-shit engine that Faith had crashed into the trash bins outside Evander's Bar.
Shit.
The last thing Troy wanted was more visitors, but it was looking like he didn't have much of a choice.
Troy's property was one of the few places in the Boundarylands where alphas could go without explicit advance permission. Since he was the only mechanic around, it had to be. Either his alpha brothers needed to be able to bring their vehicles to him, or Troy would have to go to them. And it was a hell of a lot easier working on the aging fleet of rundown trucks with his tools in reach.
The only downside was that he had extended a standing invitation to cross over his property line to every alpha in the area. For the most part, no one abused the privilege—but two visitors in one day still strained his patience.
Actually, it would be a total of four when all was said and done. Ty was driving Faith's rundown van, but Troy could sense that his mate Mia was behind the wheel of Ty's truck with their pup in a baby seat at her side.
At least Faith was still fast asleep. Even through the densely insulated walls of Troy's house and the metal siding of his garage, he could detect the slow and steady rise and fall of her breath as she lay tucked under a blanket on the couch, with no signs of stirring anytime soon.
Troy was almost willing to thank Faith's God for that small miracle. The last thing he needed to deal with right now was another outburst, especially around Ty's mate and child.
Faith didn't know how lucky she'd been that Maddox had been in a rare forgiving mood when she had insulted him, or else Troy would have had to face off with his brother and blood would have been spilled. He didn't want to have to face the same issue with Ty.
He rubbed at his temples, trying to forestall the onset of a headache. Why the hell had fate sent him, of all alphas, a virgin omega? And not just some poor woman who had never had sex before, but a card-carrying, purity-ring-wearing, pleasure-is-the-Devil's-tool sort of virgin.
Troy wasn't naïve. He knew that all mate relationships came with problems. Samson had faced the social stigma of binding himself to a beta woman. Ty had to crush a deadly shadow military operation.
But Troy would have preferred to deal with either of those scenarios instead of the hand he'd been dealt. He wasn't afraid to tell his brothers to fuck off, and
he sure as hell wasn't afraid of cracking a few beta skulls.
But a lifetime of being mated to with a woman who would try to fight him at every turn? Who would spend four days of every month begging for his cock and the other twenty-six reminding him of how much she despised him for it?
Troy had no idea how to deal with that.
He was accustomed to women like Nicky's girls—professionals who knew how to satisfy a man both in bed and out, mostly by keeping their opinions to themselves. Women who had enough experience to appreciate the skill with which he returned their sexual favors. Who understood that though the sex was transactional, it could still be a pleasant experience for everyone if they put in the extra effort to be appreciative.
Faith definitely did not put in that kind of effort.
And still, what he felt when he touched her was nothing like sex with a beta prostitute. To compare them would be like comparing his favorite Cementex combo wrench with a three-dollar piece of junk.
Faith might be a damn pain in the ass, but she was the only woman who could coax his knot to swell.
Troy couldn't help but close his eyes for a moment to savor the memory. Coming inside one of Nicky's girls had gotten the job done, but knotting Faith…that was everything.
Everything that Troy had ever dreamed of and then some.
And Faith had felt it too.
Troy knew that for certain. He could taste it in her kisses. Smell it on her skin. The satisfaction she received from his cock, his mouth, his hands—it was complete.
But that hadn't kept her from going right back to fighting him the second her heat had eased. Troy had been wrong to think that he could simply fuck the resistance out of her. Obviously, a handful of blistering orgasms wasn't enough to change her mind about alphas.
About him.
Her omega nature and the bond between them might keep her from coming at him with a knife or a gun again, but she'd never accept him as her true mate unless he could somehow change her mind.
Troy had been telling himself all morning that it didn't matter. That as long as she kept hollering his name when his knot swelled, what the fuck did he care?
But he did care—he cared enough to want to take a sledge to her old van and smash it into a twisted wreck.
The reason was simple. Until Faith accepted him, she would never bite him. Never claim him as her own and never allow him to claim her back. And that was what Troy really wanted.
What he needed.
The urge to mark Faith as his own had come roaring out of nowhere the first time he entered her and only grown stronger since until it was a raging need that overshadowed every breath he took.
Troy needed to make it clear to every alpha in the Boundarylands that Faith was his omega. That she belonged to him and him alone. It was an instinctive need, as elemental as hunger and thirst. It was what an alpha lived for.
But nature didn't work that way. Troy could never claim her without her claiming him first. Without her choosing him of her own free will.
Only then could he truly make her his.
That was why he was out here freezing his balls off working on a job that could easily wait until tomorrow, trying to drive out some of his frustration with hard work.
Instead, every passing moment only made him feel worse.
And now, on top of everything else, he was going to have to deal with company.
Troy wiped his hands on his jeans as Ty pulled the banged-up van to a stop just outside the door, and Mia parked their own truck alongside.
"I thought you might want this," Ty said as he got out of the truck. Judging by the sour look on his face, he couldn't get away from the clunker fast enough. Troy was amazed the thing had made it all the way out to his place, considering it looked and sounded even worse than he remembered.
"Bullshit," he retorted, glaring at the rusted brown panels. "Nobody would want this."
"Including me." Ty shrugged. "The truth is that it's ugly as hell, and I wanted it out of my parking lot."
"More bullshit," a female voice corrected. Mia stepped around Ty's truck, their pup cradled in her arms. "The actual truth is that it's been four full days since you drove off with Hope's sister, and I made him bring me out here so I could see for myself that everything's okay."
Ty shrugged sheepishly. "The truth is complicated."
"Don't worry about it," Troy said, turning and slamming the hood of Aric's truck shut. At least he'd finished the job before being interrupted. "You aren't the only ones to check up on me today. Maddox was already out here first thing this morning."
"Really?" Mia said. "How did that go? Was Faith with him?"
Troy rested his hip against the side of the truck and shook his head.
"Not great," he said in response to her first question. "And thankfully, no. He wanted to check things out first before bringing her over."
"Not a bad idea," Ty said. "She made a hell of a first impression, shooting out the side of the bar."
Troy gave a low warning growl. It was one thing for him to think his omega might be a little high-strung. It was another for anyone else to comment, and he wasn't having it.
"It was two shots, one at me and one at the trees. That old bar of yours has seen a hell of a lot worse."
Ty surrendered the point, raising his hands in apology. "No offense meant, brother."
Good.
But as much as Troy hated to admit it, the alpha had a point. Troy was on edge, almost asking for a fight—but getting into one with a friend wouldn't give him any satisfaction.
"It's fine. Honestly, it hasn't been the best morning so far. Faith hasn't—" Troy searched for the best way to put it. "—She hasn't settled into her new life yet."
Ty and Mia both nodded knowingly. Troy didn't have to say it out loud. They both knew what four days and no claiming bite could do to a guy. They were lucky Troy had welcomed them here at all.
"You know…it took me a while too," Mia said after a long moment had passed.
"Far too long," Ty groaned.
Mia rolled her eyes, and Troy got the feeling that this was still a sore spot between them. "But eventually I settled in. And everything's been fine since."
"Only fine?" Ty teased.
"Okay, better than fine," she admitted, unable to hide a grin. "Amazing. The point is these things can take time."
Hopefully, not too much time, Troy thought. His patience was not unlimited.
"Besides," Ty said with a chuckle. "Think of all the money you'll be saving from now on."
"Money?" Troy echoed, confused.
"It's Friday," Ty said. "The only Friday I can remember where you won't be first in line for one of Nicky's girls."
Holy shit--it was Friday, and if this had been any other week, Troy would have already been chomping at the bit, counting the hours until the sun went down.
But instead, he'd probably just stay out here, work on trucks, and try not to think too much about how he'd be spending the night—either listening to Faith call out his name in ecstasy or watching her contemplating all the ways she planned to send him to hell.
Chapter Ten
Faith felt disoriented when she opened her eyes, but it wasn't because she didn't know where she was.
On the contrary, she had a feeling that no matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to forget this place.
She was still stretched out on the massive couch, where she'd apparently been sleeping all day. The last thing she remembered was the steaming bowl of stew that Troy had handed her in the morning shortly after the other alpha left.
Faith's stomach roiled at the memory—Maddox was no 'visitor,' as Troy had called him, but the monster who had impregnated her sister.
The same fate that Troy had told her he planned for them.
She should have thrown that bowl of stew in his face. But she'd eaten very little for days, and her body rebelled, demanding sustenance. In fact, she had rarely eaten anything so satisfying as the simple combination of roas
ted meat and root vegetables.
After that, she had no memory at all of time passing, no dreams to mark the hours. It was as if she'd been unconscious. No sun came through the windows; night had fallen. She lifted her head to find the only light source, a subdued, flickering golden glow.
A fire blazed in the hearth, fresh logs piled on top. Troy had recently been here. He'd also lit a couple of oil lamps and set them on the mantel.
Faith sat up the rest of the way, pulling the wooly blanket around herself, taking in the cozy scene. At home, her father had installed harsh overhead fluorescents so that they could read the scripture from every seat in the house. Troy’s simple, deeply-grained hardwood furniture was as different as Faith could imagine from the fussy upholstered settees and ottomans jammed into every corner of her family's living room. A handwoven basket held pine cones for kindling, and on the wall was what looked like an antique engine schematic framed in birch bark.
"You hungry?"
The sound of Troy's voice behind her in the kitchen startled Faith. It shouldn't have—this was his house, after all. Where else would he be after dark?
But no matter how many times she heard it, Troy's voice invoked a confusing reaction inside her, stirring some part of her that she'd never known existed until just a few days ago.
Faith hesitated before twisting around to face him. His presence wasn't unsettling, exactly. It didn't provoke a reasoned response. Instead, Troy struck a chord deep within her, activating an edgy, hair-trigger sensitivity that was as unsettling now as the first time she'd heard him speak.
That her reaction was undiminished made it that much worse.
…Or better. Faith wasn't actually sure.
He was waiting for an answer. What was it he had asked again? Faith shook her head to clear the fog of sleep and shifted so she could look into the kitchen, where Troy was standing at the counter. In front of him, her plain blue suitcase lay open, its contents exposed.
"Where did you get that?" she demanded, jumping up from the couch. As she stretched her muscles for the first time in hours, she marveled that all traces of the aches, pains, and exhaustion had vanished, and her body felt refreshed and strong.
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