I guide her down to lay on me. Her shoulders twitch, and then her muscles relax as sleep takes over.
Sprawled across my chest, her head fits under my chin. Her breathing is deep, like one who has been spent.
It satisfies me to know that my omega is content, for now.
There are things I want to do to her which I’ve never wanted to do to anyone else, and that in itself is a shock.
Since she’d walked into my space and I had taken a whiff of her scent, I’d known she was mine.
Call it primitive, but it is the wont of the alpha to dominate, and any omega chosen by me had better be grateful I am going to see her through her heat cycle.
I tighten my arms around her, and she moans. It’s such an inherently feminine sound, so completely contradictory to everything I am, that I harden again.
She burrows in deeper, and warmth floods my chest.
I unhook one arm from around her. Reaching up I brush my fingers over her mark at the side of my throat.
No one has done that before.
Not even the more uncontrollable alpha females who I have on occasion taken to bed. And only for the satisfaction of bending them to my will before allowing them to find release. As for the omegas? Most had been too tame, too ready to spread their legs so I could rut them to release.
This wildling is unlike any female I’ve met. She’d gone straight for the jugular, literally speaking. And it doesn’t bother me as much as it should. And it should really. It should worry me very much that this little slip of a not-very-submissive omega swept in and seduced me with her cunt, her heat, her scent. She could distract me from the plans I’d worked on for so long. A skitter of apprehension tugs my nerves.
I am so close to taking over the Scots and becoming far more powerful than Golan ever was. Nothing and no one can sway me from my goal. She’s a pleasant distraction, no more. My very own plaything, who will do as I bid her. I’ll seduce her, make her so hungry for my touch, for every shred of my affection, that she’ll beg me for satisfaction.
I will shield her from the world, and in return, she’ll provide me with many moments of pleasure. She’s a means to forget where I came from, a relief from the responsibilities that lie in store for me, for even the alpha at the top of the food chain, aka me, needs an omega to satisfy him.
While she marked me first, it is the alpha’s claim that matters. I forged the mating bond with her and took her as my mate. And she’d better be grateful for that.
I rub my cheek against her hair. “Wake up, sweetheart, your true mate is here.”
16
Lucy
His voice whispers in my ear. Seductive, beautiful, it shivers over my nerve endings. The heat of his body cocoons me. I feel safe and secure. And that can’t be right. A flicker, a hum of contentment rolls out of me. I rub my cheek against the hard, unforgiving planes of his chest. He curves his body around me, and it feels so right.
Is this what it feels like to be home? But I don’t have a home. Not since my country was invaded, and my father made a deal with the Vikings—virgin omegas for the life of his people.
I’d managed to escape with as many of the omega women as I could save.
We’d stowed away on a ship to Scotland, and the leader of the Scots had agreed to protect us. On one condition. I had to comply with his plan of sneaking into the General’s stronghold and killing him.
I had failed in my mission.
Now I was going to meet the fate of almost every omega captured by an alpha. I was going to be mated and I am sure, eventually, bred. Only omegas can give birth. In these times of declining population, it should have been a blessing to be born one. Why, then, has it always felt like a curse?
He yanks my hair back, and heat prickles over my scalp. It doesn't hurt not exactly…more of that pleasure-pain I am coming to associate with him.
I moan and force my eyes open, knowing already what I am going to see. That I am trapped, under the watchful gaze of my mate.
My monster.
Chills rack my body, immediately chased by heat. It rises from my belly, bubbling up to the cord that is curled against my breast bone. The heavy coil that binds me to him.
A hum of betrayal tightens my chest.
He is the strongest alpha in the land, yet he’s also the General, the ruler of this country.
Will he listen to me if I explain why I broke into his stronghold?
As if sensing my emotions and realizing that my rational self is asserting itself despite the heat cycle in which I am still trapped, he flips me over. I am on my back, and his big hulking figure is bent over me. He’s all around me, and I should feel what? Threatened? Afraid? But I am not. And that scares me further.
It also arouses me.
All other thought spills from my head. I cannot think about the world outside, about the other omegas who wait for news from me.
“Do it,” I narrow my eyes.
His arousal throbs.
His lips curl in a smirk, then he pulls out of me. The knot has lessened and he slips out with very little pain. Had he waited until now so he didn’t hurt me? If so, why didn’t he let go of me earlier? Why has he held me on his chest, his fingers running over the back of my hair, my spine? Goosebumps flare on my skin. Had he taken care of me? No, I don’t want that. I want him to be exactly what the role demands of him. An alpha. Who takes and rapes and pillages?
He didn’t rape me, though, did he?
He’d waited and seduced until I’d asked him to fuck me.
My face heats at the memory.
I hadn’t wanted him, and yet my body had given in and been a willing participant in how he’d taken me.
My shoulders tense at the thought, and a whimper of protest coils up my throat. I don’t stop it; I couldn’t if I wanted to. Without him inside me, that emptiness crawls in on itself. It aches. I ache.
Every part of my skin feels like it is being stretched.
Heat flushes my skin. Sweat drenches my back. My lips are dry, so dry. And yet between my legs a fresh dose of slick trickles down.
His nostrils flare, and a low purr grumbles up his massive chest. It only sinks into my skin, rolls over that damned throbbing in my chest, and twines with it.
It hurts me and yet it also feels right.
It doesn’t make any sense.
Nothing makes sense. Except the animal on top of me, who’d rutted me not a few minutes ago. Of whom I want more.
I raise my chin and lick my lips. My hips arch of their own accord so my melting core brushes against his already hardening cock.
His gaze narrows; silver sparks flare in those blue eyes. His lips pull back in a snarl. And I am almost relieved. This I know, this creature born of need, of hunger, trying to fulfill the most basic of desires, hunger, sex, thirst…these urges I can manage. I don’t want to think beyond that, not now.
He slides down my body, and as if knowing exactly what I had thought, what I had wanted, he grabs my thighs and shoves them apart. Sliding his big palm under my hips, he holds me up and fits his lips to my core.
My eyes roll back, and my mouth opens in a silent scream, only his hand glides up, and he shoves his thumb between my lips. I don’t question it. I bite down around his digit, to anchor myself.
His tongue is inside my pussy, licking me, sucking me. A growl rumbles up from him and draws forth a fresh stream of slick. He licks it up, swallows it, then comes back for more.