Confused, she squirmed against him, left suffering on the edge. Hips lurching back to chase that blissed-out fullness only he could provide. “P-Please, I need—”
His grip about her throat tightened, cutting her off. “You take liberties beyond your station.” Hunching, he humped against the curve of her bottom until his tip found her slit once more, then said, “My name is not for your lips.”
He was right. Intimate though this act might be, Hadim was not her lover. His name not hers to call out in a moment of foggy passion. “Alpha!” she yelped, scrambling to appease the dominant male at her back with his appropriate title. “Alpha, please, I’m sorry! It was an accident. I didn’t mean—I-I wasn’t thinking!”
He hauled her arms behind her back and pinned her to the furs, filling her with his shaft as he forced her submission. Knot thick and heaving just outside of her clasping channel. “Allow me to remind you, Omega.”
Chapter 3
Staggering, she made her way through the darkened tunnels. Her every step a concentrated effort, muscles screaming in the agony of one denied time and again. Left to writhe, trying to escape the ants crawling beneath her skin. The twitching, lurching muscles overwrought with lactic acids that had flooded her system when her Biquea glands hadn’t been stimulated by Hadim’s knot.
Her punishment for an insignificant transgression. Two measly syllables spoken at the wrong time.
She stumbled through the dark, all of the torches long since burned down to nothing. The absence of light doing little to hinder her on a path with no turns and only one destination.
The matron was waiting when she finally ambled into the peaceful grotto where the girls were permitted to lounge. Lit with the eerie green glow of an evenwood sapling—a gift from Hadim’s father to his most cherished concubine—it was a rare prize indeed. Needing no light to flourish, it fed directly from the nutrient dense soil common in areas with high volcanic activity, giving off light and supporting entire ecosystems beneath its elegant canopy.
“You’re back sooner than I thought, dear.”
A hiccupping breath escaped chapped lips. The familiar face crinkled at the edges in a welcoming smile that faltered when the girl shuffled into the dim light.
“By the Nine, child! What happened?”
Sobbing, she fell into the squishy embrace, inhaling a breath of comfort from the other female’s breasts. And for several long, humiliating minutes of a breakdown, she could do nothing else but vent every emotion she’d ever had. Letting the matron unwind her ruined braids. Massaging at the claw marks scoring her scalp, her hips, the matron ran gnarled fingers through her hair, murmuring against the soft fuzz of her ear.
“Come, darling,” the matron said at length. “Tell me what happened?”
Back arching, the girl twisted. Trying to stretch the burn from her limbs, though she already knew it wouldn’t work. The only thing that could offer true relief had sent her stumbling from his private rooms. Cock semi-stiff where it hung between his legs, connected to the flesh of his thigh by a strand of sticky, pearlescent drool.
“I…” She swallowed, hard. Eyes downcast, tail tucked tight between trembling legs. “I misspoke and he punished me. Refused to knot.”
“Oh, child,” the matron clucked, the lines on her forehead deepening around a grimace. “That’s cruel indeed. And I’m afraid there’s nothing for it but to wait it out, darling. Is this your first time being denied in heat?”
Sniffling, the girl nodded. Her cheeks hot, pussy gushing, saturating the underside of her tail in the cloying scent of cum and slick. Unable to deny what she’d been doing with Hadim to a female who’d spent her life doing the same thing.
“Come,” the matron continued, setting a pot to boil. “Chances are good that he wasn’t able to trigger ovulation without knotting, but you’re still fertile, even if he doesn’t lock with you. Come and have a nice spot of tea and soak in the spring. The cool water will help with the swelling and muscle spasms.”
Mortified, the girl obeyed, for the swelling to which the matron referred wasn’t the finger print bruises marking her hips. Nor was it broken blood vessels ringing her throat where Hadim’s hands had tightened when he came the last time, choking the girl he refused to knot while he took his pleasure.
No, it was her Biquea glands nestled inside her opening, red and glossy. Irritated with a tight, red sheen where they throbbed and oozed, begging for a knot to squash them into submission, trigger ovulation, and end her suffering.
The matron tucked thick calves beneath her, arranging her skirts to conceal the hint of dimpled skin marring her thigh. Fussing, she said, “What did you say to anger him?”
Carefully stepping into the cool, dark water, the girl shivered. Holding her tail high about the surface of the water as long as she could, before sinking down with hitching breath as her genitals were submerged. Unable to deny the relief the cold offered. And then, reluctantly, “His name. He denied me, and I begged for his knot just like he wants. But I said his name.”
“Fool girl,” the matron hissed, but it was without heat. “My reckless, darling renegade. You’re lucky the master chose only to deny you.”
“I don’t feel lucky,” she grumbled, holding herself still in the pool. Trying not to displace the chilly water that had warmed against her skin.
The matron tsked. “None of that. I’ve seen him beat a girl purple for the same transgression. You will suffer the consequences you earned, child, and be thankful they weren’t far worse.”
Blunt teeth flashing, the girl turned her back. Hands dipping between her legs to discretely cleanse her channel of Hadim’s seed. To massage her glands with chilly fingers, even though it wouldn’t offer relief.
Chuckling, the matron sighed and took a hold of kinky black hair, working to repair her braids. “It’ll ease soon enough, dear. And I’m certain you’ll not make the same mistake again.”
Shivering, yet soothed by the deft fingers gliding through her mussed hair, over the shell of her ears, the girl said, “I won’t even think his name.”
“I thought not.” The matron patted her cheek.
And though couldn’t see it, she felt the matron’s smile.
For a moment, they sat in companionable silence, broken only by the gentle whisper of water lapping at the edges of the pool and the occasional pitiful sniffle. Each lost in thought. And then, “He’s going to give me to his sons. Let them compete and name the winner his heir.”
The matron went still. Tension singing in the fine muscles of her hands where they lay against the girl’s shoulders. But before she could speak a word of comfort or outrage, the kettle shrilled. Shattering the hush.
With a huff, the matron stood. Turning to fuss with the tea before she returned with a mug of pungent, brackish liquid.
The girl wrapped her fingers around the warm ceramic with a reluctant nod of thanks. Fingers brushing those that were gnarled and boney. And, lips peeled back in an uncomfortable grimace, she set her lips to the rim and tossed the steaming beverage back in three long gulps. Ignoring the burn of tea that was too hot for comfort in favor of getting it over with.