“So you see, I understand a little of what you are going through… Hell, I am envious that you found an omega who calls to you the way she does.” He drags his fingers through his hair. “And ignore what I said earlier. Ultimately if she is the woman for you, then nothing else matters, certainly not the fact that Kayden sent her to kill you.”
“And the surprises keep coming.” So not what I’d expected to hear from Ethan. That must have cost him, given how much he hates the Scots. This fight with Kayden is personal for him. For me…it’s a means to show the world I am better than my father.
“We’ll find her.” I stalk back to him. “I’ll help you find her.” I grip his shoulder.
His gaze widens. Guess he hadn’t expected me to say that. Hell, I hadn’t expected myself to say that. The omega’s influence is more consuming than I realized.
The mating bond stutters, and a cold feeling coils in my gut. My shoulders stiffen, and I half turn toward the exit.
Ethan’s eyebrows furrow. “Go.” He jerks his chin to the door.
I don’t question the urgency that sweeps through my blood. She needs me. Swiveling around, I rush for the exit.
26
Lucy
I look at myself in the mirror and wince. My hair is caked with cum, and there is fluid drying on my body. My lips are swollen, the skin around my lips is chafed, my nipples look unusually larger, and my breasts…?
I cup them and grimace.
They feel sore, like they have been squeezed and pummeled.
Well, to be fair, he had been gentle with my breasts. Overall, he’d been gentle with my body. For a big man like him, his fingers are unusually light in their touch. He’d rubbed his cum into every part of me that he could access, then poured some of our joined-up liquids into my mouth, and I had…loved it.
I admit it.
I had relished every touch, feel, taste of him.
I had reveled in his scent. I had fucked him right back.
I grasp the edge of the wash basin and lean forward, my hair falling over my face, bringing with it the scent of sex. That darker, deeper, muskier essence of his laced with the lighter one that I recognize as the spoor of my own arousal.
It feels like he’s right here with me in the room again. His scent, his touch, his caresses surround me. My lower belly cramps, and liquid seeps out from between my legs.
I squeeze my eyes shut and will back the sickness that twists my gut. The mating bond twangs and coils inside, trying to reassure me that this is as it should be, that he is my mate, he had taken me, used me. Claimed me. It is only right that my body responds to him.
No, no, no. I swing out and smash my fist into the mirror. Cracks spider over the surface and pain slices through the sexual haze that has gripped me. Scarlet drips down my fingers and splashes on the floor dripping over the shards of broken glass. I swear bring the side of my palm to my mouth and suck on it. I have made a mess of this place. Is he going to punish me for this? Probably. Most likely he’ll fuck me again, and my body will enjoy it and ask for more.
My shoulders hunch, and the adrenaline fades. I am bleeding, and I know I need to stop the flow of blood, and yet my legs feel too heavy to move.
Every part of my body aches.
Not surprising, though, for it’s been what, five, six days since he brought me here and locked me in his space? Since he ravished me and forced the mating bond on me?
I only have myself to blame. I made the first move. I bit him, I staked my need for the bond. It was the heat cycle, of course, and I can keep telling myself that.
That my hormones are at play and I am not really aware of what is happening. It doesn’t change the reality of everything that has taken place.
Tears burn at the backs of my eyes and fall on my hand, burning the broken skin that still bleeds. I need to get ahold of myself. The bond twinges again, and a feeling of warmth pours down it, bleeding into my muscles. It’s as if he knows of my discomfort and is trying to soothe me. Lies, all lies. I don’t trust him. All of it: his taking care of me, making sure I am fed, trying to get me to say his name, seducing me by sharing a little bit of the broken man I sense inside the monster on the outside. All of it is an act.
I feel his presence creeping under my skin, twinning with my blood. He’s becoming a part of me.
Just as he’d rubbed his fluids into every crevice on my body, making sure to strengthen the bonding process. Making me a part of him, too. The thought sends a shudder of fear down my spine. I am losing myself in the omega I am at heart. That core of me who is bonded to an alpha, who wants to be taken and cared for. Who needs an alpha to rut her through a cycle. I am all of that and more. So much more. I need to stop resisting him. Need to let him in, let him take, allow myself to dissolve into him…then find myself again.
I stare at the woman whose face is reflected in the cracked mirror. Something inside me tells me I am right. The sooner I put this plan in action, the faster I can find a grip on my destiny, find a way to help my clan. All without telling him. If I tell him the real reason I am here, he’ll only find a way to get to my clan, many of whom are omegas like me. He’d make them join his harem, and I am not that stupid.
No, I need to play him at his own game.
He wants an omega? A meek woman? A breeder? I’ll become that. I’ll throw him off my track, then find a way to get what I want. I must bide my time until I find a weakness and then I am going to kill him…break the bond he forced on me.
The mating cord writhes at the thought, sending a shudder of pain so sharp that I double over. My body cannot stand the thought of him dying. Every second I am here with him, in his room, every time he fucks me, cares for me, makes me think of him, the bond only deepens. I need to kill him before the bond becomes so strong that his dying would kill me, too. I have no intention of dying, not like this.
Turning, I walk to the shower closet, wrench the door open, and step in. The water is blissfully hot, and I let it pour over me, let it clean away the residue of the various times he took me.
My skin is so sensitive that the water sliding over it sends a shiver of need coursing through me.
The wound at the base of my neck where he bit me throbs. I had avoided looking at the broken skin in the mirror. Trying to deny what he’d done to me. I needn’t have bothered.
The wound softens under the water and pulses with need. It seems to be calling for its maker to touch it, caress it, and soothe away the pain. The cord in my chest pulses, and a dense plume of heat flushes my skin. I imagine I hear his purring, feel his massive chest at my back, his arm a steel band around my waist, sliding up until his big palm cups my breast, tweaking my nipple.
His other palm slides down to part my lower lips. He drags his fingers through the folds, slipping into my wet, needy channel. Heat coils low, tightening my belly, and I lean forward to rest my forehead against the wall.
His presence only follows me. His big body shields me from the shower. His lips touch the claiming marks—he licks it, his saliva sealing the wound. The pain recedes and is replaced by pure primal greed. For him. To take me all over again. It shouldn’t be possible to want him again. Not after the number of times, he’s taken me already.
Not after I’d allowed myself to be used over and over again. And not after my heat cycle has simmered to an end, and yet here I am, in the shower imagining he is here with me and…