A shape moves in the dark next to me.
I scream and spring up.
21
Zeus
She screams, and the noise rips through my guts. It shouldn’t affect me. She is just someone I had decided to take for my own and keep on a whim…except that’s not true, not anymore. Fact is, from the moment I had seen her, scented her, laid eyes on her, there was a powerful pull toward her. One I can’t yet understand.
Except I need her with me, need to bury myself in her softness and slake my hunger.
To satisfy her while I am at it, too. Why is it so important that I soothe her? I don’t want to go to her and yet I cannot help myself. I am not aware that I am on my feet and moving to her, not until I am sitting next to her on the bed. Not until she’s flung herself at me, tearing at me with her nails. She growls, and there are tears dripping down her cheeks as she flings herself at me again and again. Pain comes off her in waves. And terror, the sheer terror of the unknown. Mixed with it is the whiff of hunger. A need so powerful that a growl rumbles up my chest. It’s torn out of me, flowing through the air. My very insides seem to be begging me to stop her, take her close, protect her. I curl my fingers into fists at my sides, digging my nails into my flesh. Pain shudders up my arms, but I push it aside. All my attention is taken up by the tiny thing who is trying to climb me, who is crawling up my chest, to wrap her arms and legs around me.
“Please.” She clings to me.
Her voice breaks.
I need to bring her closer, take her to me, draw her essence inside me…and yet I resist. I am not sure why. Is it because the way she suffers satisfies some deep-rooted hunger inside? The need to rut, to kill, which has been with me from the very start, from the time I saw my father hurt my mother, over and over again as he tried to take her, make her bend to his will? And my mother had resisted every step of the way. Until the bastard had broken her physically, and yet her spirit hadn’t given in. She’d resisted.
Like she is. My little omega who bares her teeth at me.
“Why are you not taking me, fucking me as a red-blooded alpha should?”
“Is that what you want?”
My voice comes out harsh, and I don’t recognize it. It sounds like a man at the edge of despair, an alpha at the edge of his control. And I have been holding on to the shreds of that ever-weakening control of mine. I hadn’t been aware of that, not until now.
Not until she snarls, “I demand that you fuck me and take my pain away. That you break me and find that part inside of me that wants to be revealed to the world. I ask that you then feed me, for I am hungry. Hungry. Do you understand, Alpha?”
The crudeness of her words sends a keening cry of desire rippling down my spine. My cock hardens. My groin throbs. “You are not in your senses; you don’t know what you are asking—”
She grabs the back of my hair and yanks me close with such force that my head snaps forward.
“How do you know what I want? How can you possibly know the depth of hunger that twists my insides, that bubbles up from my very womb, that yearns for your touch, your heat to fill me, that needs your seed to soothe it, to fulfill it? To take root. How can you know the depth of want that drives me to open my eyes, my mouth, my soul and ask for you to take me? Even as the part of me that is rational and independent that was taught to fend for myself and survive without an alpha cringes and wails at the depths to which I have fallen?”
She pants to a stop, chest heaving, red lips glistening. The scent of her need fills the space, crashing over me.
I lean in until our noses bump, until I can see the pores on her cheek, the flush that stains her skin, the freckles that dot the creamy expanse of her breasts. “Once I start there is no going back.” I want to smirk, to pretend it’s a joke, to show her that I am the dangerous one in this relationship—and I am, of course I am.
For I am bigger, more physically powerful, much stronger than her.
And yet, as she raises herself on her knees so her eyes are level with mine, so the heat of her core flows over my chest, I know she packs a powerful punch, too. Perhaps we are more equally matched than we realize. Perhaps that is why the force in me that needs to take, relishes the challenge. For that’s what she is. A challenge. Prey. One I can toy with, play with, without fear. For she will not break, not that easily.
And I will keep trying over and over again, so she gives a little every time.
And when she finally goes over the edge, I’ll be there to taste my spoils.
Her complete submission, it will be so beautiful.
So erotic.
A thing of pleasure that will be well worth the effort. And break she will.
I intend to take every single part of her until she is pleading with me to stop.
Until she is begging for more.
Until her very spirit cries out for me.
Until I own her. Absolutely.
The thought of it is such a turn-on that desire hardens my groin. My cock strains against my pants, its need twisting my insides. While every part of me readies to take her, to bend her to my will.
“Promises, promises, Alpha. Are you going to just sit there talking or are you going to live up to your words?”
Anger brushes my nerves. My skin tightens with the overwhelming need to take, to possess, to consume. “Don’t provoke me, Omega.”
I shove her away, not gently. “Not unless you can take the consequences of your actions.” I am past any pretense. She wants to see what I am. She wants to feel the monster inside. The one who is insatiable, who will not stop, not until one of us breaks, and it will not be me.
22
Lucy
He pushes me away, and I am not sure why. Does he not want me anymore? No, that can’t be true.
I sense the need in him, the want to tear into me, to break me. And I am not unhappy about it or threatened.
All I feel is a relief that finally he’s revealed his true self to me. Just as I have to him. I watch him walk to the door, open it, and speak in a low voice to the soldier stationed outside. Footsteps approach up the corridor. A tray exchanges hands. He steps back, holding it. The door snicks shut behind him. It’s a soft sound and yet it shivers over my sensitized skin. The scent of food wafts over to me, but that only twists my stomach.
He places the tray on the table, then turns and folds his arms over his chest. He doesn’t say anything, just waits for me to comply with his unspoken command. Every line of his body indicates he’ll patiently wait until I give in.
I want to say no, want to deny him, but all that comes out is a snarl. It’s as if whatever I am becoming is cutting through the civilized veneer in me, marking me what I am. An omega with the desire to breed.
“You know what happens when you disobey me.”
“So you’ll fuck me?” I smirk. “Guess what, big man? That’s what I want anyway.”
“If you continue like this, I won’t give you what you want.”
What the—? My breath catches, and I feel the color leave my cheeks. “You wouldn’t dare.”
He bares his teeth, then grabs his crotch. “I can scent your arousal, the moisture that your body is producing as we speak.”
His every word sends a fresh need rippling over my skin.