“Do you know what I do to those who challenge me?” He growls.
The rich sound grates over my sensitized nerve endings and shudders straight to my center.
My thighs quiver, my stomach trembles, and I thrust my pelvis forward in blatant invitation. What the hell? It seems my body has already arrived at a decision and the rest of me is struggling to catch up.
I grit my teeth. “I am sure you are going to tell me.” Every instinct in me tells me to cower…to give in to him. But I cannot. Will not. The part of me that is honed to fight back, insists I resist.
I jut out my chin.
My heart pounds in my rib cage, and a pulse flares to life between my thighs.
He growls again, and the sound tugs at my nerves. The vibrations roll over me and surround me. Cocooning me in the center.
It’s like nothing I have ever heard before.
Moisture pools in my core. The scent of slick bleeds into the air. I gasp. No, not now. I can’t be heading straight into a heat cycle, not when I am here on a mission. Is it the adrenaline of the attack that has brought on this sudden wave of need?
His lips, those sensuous lips, tighten.
A vein throbs at his temple, and his cheeks flush as he looks down at me from his superior height.
I should feel emboldened that I am having an effect on him, the most powerful alpha in all the land, but instead a writhing need to challenge him tears at me. To ask him. To give in to his every demand. And that confuses me.
“You are an omega but not a submissive?” He frowns.
The hackles of my neck rise. I had not expected this alpha to figure that out.
Genetic mutation brought on by climate change has divided the human race into three subspecies: alphas, betas, and omegas, and I happen to belong to the weakest of them. But the warring sides of my personality have made me an anomaly in this world where alphas take, and omegas are raised with the expectation of being bred.
“It’s why you should let me go. I am not suitable for reproduction.” My stomach trembles, my palms begin to sweat. I am trying to rationalize with a savage.
Accelerated cellular transformation over the past few generations has equipped the alphas with the ability to knot the omegas and increase the chance of impregnation.
As for omegas, the onset of heat cycles at puberty compel most to seek out an alpha to rut them through it. Nature’s way of balancing out the dwindling population count, helped by the fact that heat suppressants are banned. Even black market supplies of the precious chemicals have run out.
I’d managed to hide myself away during the worst of these phases, had never felt compelled to lay with any alpha, not until this monster.
I need him, yet I want to fight him.
I must show him he can’t just take. Not without paying a price first. Not without begging, pleading, making me scream.
Anticipation stretches my belly.
An age old instinct inside me jolts to life. My core clenches. My knees quake, and I push my boot-clad feet into the dirt for purchase.
He angles his head and peels back his lips. “On the contrary, it renders the entire process so much more interesting.”
There is so much cruelty in his look…so much lust…so much everything.
My skin tightens.
Every single emotion that I have fought against my entire life, denied myself, all of it drips from his gaze.
I can’t tear my gaze away.
I clench my fingers, my muscles strain, and I try, once more, to move. It only sends another pulse of pain through me. Being in this particular alpha’s presence is weighing me down, making me feel like I am already in his control.
How is that possible?
The General takes a step forward, and his scent slams into me. Earthy, woodsy, and liberally laced with pheromones.
I am sure he can see every single emotion, every nuance of the feelings that tremble over me right now.
My belly clenches. My womb spasms. Slick pools between my legs and slides down my inner thighs.
His nostrils flare. He leans back on his heels. One side of his lips rises in a smirk.
The alpha knows exactly what he wants. His eyes gleam. His features flush.
Fear twists my insides. My limbs tingle.
It’s as if I am watching everything unfold in front of me from a distance.
Setting my jaw, I square my shoulders, only for another burst of pain to radiate out from my center.
I arch my back, thrust my breasts out at the keening need that grips me.
I wrap my arms around my waist and cannot stop the groan that ripples up my throat. Even to my own ears it feels more like an invitation, a call to the alpha to do what he was born to do to an omega. To mate me, knot me, and make that pain inside me go away.
To fill that emptiness that is once again writhing, gnawing, and tearing at me, growing inside me with every passing millisecond until it feels like I am one big mass of yearning that will not stop. Not until he slams into me, and no, no, no! This can’t be happening.
I’d starved myself of food for days to weaken my libido; I’d also calculated the time of the month to make sure I am between heat cycles. I hadn’t counted on the proximity to this particular alpha sending me straight into one.
My head spins with the overload of endorphins that my overwrought nervous system is dumping into my blood. All brought on by his presence. Him. He’s the reason why my body is responding with such primal need. The omega in me recognizes him. Only him.
My pulse thuds in my head; my vision blurs.
Pain cramps my womb, and I double over.
The shortage of omegas has led to alphas exploiting them, taking them at will. As he no doubt intends to overpower me now.
I will not let him do that. I straighten in time to see the General stalk toward me. His masculine presence tugs at my nerves, pushes down on my skin, sinks into my blood. My head spins.
Heat sweeps over my skin and heads to my lower belly. My core weeps.
All of my life I have tried to deny that I am an omega: the receiver, the nurturer whose insides are ravenous for an alpha’s touch, who has been deprived of the sensory stimulation that only comes from an alpha’s rut. Now, his scent, that concentrated testosterone, sinks into my blood, forcing a reaction.
The General growls.
It’s a long, drawn-out purr that seems to emerge from the very depths of his masculine body.
The hair on my neck stands on end.
Liquid need radiates out from my womb, bleeds through my skin, and flares up in the air around me.
My womb cramps, and a fresh burst of slick gushes down between my legs to wet my pants. I don’t dare look down, don’t dare acknowledge the liquid pooling under me.
I should be mortified, ashamed at my public display of what I am…an omega meant to be mated and bred, who cannot physically hold back her reaction, not in the presence of this prime male specimen, and yet the survivor in me says I need to fight. Fight! My shoulders shudder, and I straighten my spine.
The General slams his fist to his chest. “Leave us,” he roars.
The aggression comes off him in waves, surrounding me, cocooning me. Is he trying to shield me from the sight of his own men?
Footsteps sound, then fade away. Of course they'd rush to obey him. No one will dare stand up to him, and I'd walked into this predator's lair and challenged him. Sweat beads my palms.
The doorway to the warehouse slams shut. The echo resounds through my head. The blood thumps at my temples. A pulse flares to life between my legs.