The kind who, no doubt, the fucking history books will love to sing about…no, that isn’t me.
I am a monster, an illegitimate bastard who took great pleasure in using his power for one thing. The downfall of the bloodline that had given birth to him and given him nothing else. Nothing. This city is going to Hell. And I am going to be responsible for it. That’s how I want the future to remember me.
And I intend to live up to my reputation.
Starting with her.
I am going to find her and teach her a lesson, the kind that will ensure she never dares face up to me, never dares run away from me again. The little princess of royal blood is going to be broken completely by the most nefarious bastard in all the land. Me!
The mating cord in my chest thrums and pushes against my chest, warning me I am wrong. Telling me not to do this. Pleading with me to reconsider. Nah. No way can a simple bond do that. So what if it links me to her?
So what if I am using the connection to find her. It is only a means to chain her to me. To bond her to me for now. Forever. So no one else can have her. No one except me. That’s all it means.
That. Is. It.
I turn to Ethan. “It’s time to move.”
35
Lucy
I walk to the window and look out over the grimy city.
The buildings are all low, a relic of the past when government laws decreed that no construction would be tall enough to block the view of the parliament building from anywhere.
The same structure that the monster now uses as his base.
The same monster who had taken me, rutted me and broke my heat cycle. A trickle of slick dampens my core. I squeeze my thighs together.
He is still a monster.
He may have not fucked me against my will, still, he had taken advantage in the midst of a heat cycle when I had been desperate for any alpha’s touch.
No, not any alpha…but him.
I push the thought away.
He hadn’t given me a choice. He hadn’t restrained himself. But then…I hadn’t wanted him to either. So why are my thoughts still on him?
Why does every part of me want to go to him, to feel his touch on me, his wide palm gripping my hips as he brings me closer and lowers me down on his shaft, and again… A moan is torn out of me. There has to be a way out. I can rip the bond from my chest, break this connection so he won’t be drawn to me as I am to him.
So I won’t imagine that he is already somewhere in this city, getting closer, closer, closer to me.
Wanting me, missing me, yearning for me as much as I am for him.
The mating cord thrums and gnaws at me, tugs at my nerves and stretches, pushes into my chest.
My spine curves and my eyelids fly open.
My breath is coming out in gasps, and my heart is racing. Fast, so fast. My chest thrusts out, and I feel like I am being pushed forward to the tips of my feet, yanked out of my body. My very soul is fluttering inside, slamming against my skin as if my very essence wants to pour itself through the cord to him. Him. No! I curl my fingers into a fist and slam it on the wall. Pain flutters over my skin, but the wall doesn’t crack.
Of course not.
Physically I am still an omega.
Still weak.
I may be fast on my feet, quick with my thoughts, know how to use my intelligence and my beauty to seduce, but I’ll never be as powerful as an alpha. Did I really think I could break out of here? Out of the prison that another alpha had imposed on me?
It isn’t fair that omegas have to always depend on someone else; wherever you turn, there is always someone bigger, more powerful, one step ahead of you. Someone strong enough to do the things you want to do. To reach the heights you want. Who takes what you need. I always feel like I am lacking, as if I am secondary, and the world would rather I give in, roll over, and submit…except when I am with him.
Oh, make no mistake, he wants me to submit to him…and I want him to make me. A shudder of fear laced with desire tightens my stomach. Can he sense that I am I thinking of him? Am I drawing more attention to myself? Calling him to me? I stand there yearning for him, hating myself for it, yet unable to stop the shudder of pleasure that runs down to my core. My stomach cramps in anticipation, yearning for that deep, rich fullness that only an alpha, only he can fill.
That feeling of utter completion that I’d felt only once when he’d covered my body with his and slammed into me again and again; that feeling of oneness as he’d bitten me and the pain had swept through me, pushing away all other thoughts except that it was me…and him…and I was his. Irrevocably, completely, fully his.
He is the monster; I am his victim. And yet he owns me, and not against my will. And that is the sad truth. Only with Zeus do I feel like I am something, that I am at the center of his world.
The city may hate him or love him. Either way, they want a piece of him.
Yet with him…I am his world.
He may deny it, may not acknowledge it, perhaps abhor the idea, but the fact that he wanted me, needed me…enough to have mated me.
The mating bond tugs and whines in my chest, yanking me forward with such force that my spine curves again.
My chest thrusts out, and my spine curves. A force that I cannot see urges me to keep going. I fling open the windowpane, shove my leg over the sill, and begin to slide forward to the muddy ground three floors below. All the time my gaze is still on the palace in the distance, across the river.
The site of my mating.
By knotting me, had he bound me not only to his body but also to his soul, to that very place where he had taken my virginity? And what will I do when I find him again? Ask him to take me back? To forgive me, and then what? I sit here, legs dangling, thoughts buzzing in my head, my vision narrowing, focusing. My thighs firm, my shoulders bunch, and I lean forward when arms grab me around my waist and yank me back. No, no, no. I fight against the restraints, rake my nails over the barriers that hold me back. I push, wriggle, bring down my head and bite, and kick out.
“Let me go, please.” I hyperventilate.
“No.” Reena’s voice whips through my ears.
The strength in her grasp digs into my waist, and the ground recedes.
Another strong pull and I fall back into the room, to the floor. I hit my side and the breath whooshes out of me. All thoughts spill from my mind. Pain shudders through me, and I focus on that. The mating cord writhes in my chest and I hate the damned thing. Loathe it.
How can something unseen control me like that?
I am not a coward. I’ve never thought of taking my life no matter how rough things were in the past. And I hadn’t meant to put myself in danger, not like that, and yet when I’d seen his palace, all that had mattered was that I get out of there and go to him and find him…and he wasn’t even there.
The cord pushes me to get to my feet. The hair on the back of my neck rises. Every instinct tells me to get out of here and find him. I don’t question how, but I know where I must go. It’s the only way out.
If I want to salvage anything of myself, if I want to retain my own identity, then I need to put enough of a distance between us. I must slam down a barrier that separates me from him before his essence bleeds through me and mingles with my thoughts and I don’t know who he is and who I am; before we become the kind of bonded pair that not even death can part, I know what I have to do.