Hadim and Samina had stood united, hands clasped as they shoved her forward, honoring those who kept their society safe with the gift of a dishonored breeder.
It was an unparalleled gesture. To make a prize of a bloodline such as hers, was an eloquent solution for a unique problem.
That’s what he’d called her, when Samina had dragged her back to the master’s room, still dripping gore. Still too shocked to speak, much less defend herself, her eyelids sticking together with every blink as the matron’s blood grew tacky.
The royal pair had stayed to watch her being mounted, Hadim barking that she be denied a knot while in heat. Made to suffer, so she might be more compliant with the dreary, brutal life she’d been given.
Desperate to please, punished forever.
When they were satisfied their orders would be obeyed, when Hadim and his wife had retreated to their quarters, the girl allowed herself to cry. Cheek pressed to the cold stone atop the wall, her insides being pummeled by the captain of the guard until she succumbed to the bliss of darkness. Waking in her dank little cell, surrounded by criminals.
“Please,” one of the younger Anhur males whined, pacing at the edge of the bars. His cock bulging through tattered pants, tail limp and twisted at an awkward angle. “I’ve never had a female! She smells”—jaws hanging slack, he inhaled, tugging at his prick—“sssooo good…”
“You wouldn’t know what to do with her, runt,” snarled another. This one older, his face mangled by hideous scars.
Growing more irate by the instant, the girl hissed, her ears flat. Tail tucked.
“Aww,” Horace cooed, working himself hard once more. “Little girl has teeth. Come see if you can use them before I fuck a litter of brats into your belly, hmm?” Grunting, he wedged his cock and balls between the bars. A lewd display that made her ache, nevertheless. Her heat still working its way free of her blood, the instinct lingering. Still poisoning her mind. “What’s your name, baby girl? I wanna know what to say when I tell you to take this knot.”
But her name would never cross Horace’s lips, because she didn’t have one. She had a tattoo that bore her lineage. The twisting, elegant designs traced her spine, utterly meaningless to her, but decipherable to the Anhur at a glance. Not knowing that was the mark of an underprivileged male who’d never so much as seen a real harem.
In a flood of sickly torchlight, the prison door banged open, admitting one of the three guards she knew had intimate knowledge of her body—she could still smell his leavings on her skin.
Without a word, he stalked past the cells overflowing with males in rut, threw open her door, and caught her by the nape, saying, “Good morning, Omega.”
She didn’t bother herself to struggle. Knowing her energy was better spent learning about her new life, knowing the guards would expect a submissive Hathorian, in spite of why Hadim and Samina had rejected her from the harem.
No, instead, she allowed the clawed fist to score her scalp. Eyes watering against her will, taking massive strides to match the gait of the guard driving her up. Toward fresh air not laden with the scent of cum and horror.
The guard stopped abruptly, pressing her against a damp stone wall. “Hadim commanded us to deny you a knot,” he said, forcing a hand between her thighs. Where she was tender and bruised and still sticky. “But once that insufferable cunt is back in his fancy palace, we’re going to knot you two at a time.” Without warning or grace, fingers speared through her, making her hiss, calves flexing in a futile attempt to wriggle away. “Maybe three, once we’ve ruined you and this pussy does nothing but gape. Two in this hole, one in your ass.”
Heart beating behind her eyes, the girl dared to shrug. “I was born to serve my Alpha.”
A toothy grin spread across his lips, making her cheeks hot and damp with a gust of fetid breath. “You are a thirsty little slut, hmm?”
She said nothing, allowing him to play in fluids that were, for the most part, not her own. Seething.
“I should have come for you earlier,” he growled, withdrawing at last. “Could have taken you all night, without any of the others realizing you were gone.” At this, he glanced around, checking they were alone. Hesitant, as if he were trying to determine what he could get away with.
And then, “Fuck. There isn’t time.” He smeared sticky fingers down the front of her ruined harem silks and shoved her forward. A low growl rumbling at her back.
Relieved, she all but ran from him. Knowing this was only the beginning, yet unable to extinguish the fires burning low and sour in her belly.
It wasn’t until they stood at the top of the wall, wind ripping through her sheer silks, that the guard released her.
Hadim and Samina were already there. Lounging where they sat in the dull gray morning sunlight. Regal and elegant among the peasants.
“Let’s be on with it,” Hadim snapped, glowering. “I have duties to attend. Omegas going into heat.”
“And a heavily pregnant wife,” Samina drawled, reminding him.
The captain of the guard nodded, flustered and stammering. “Of course, my liege. S-sir. My Alpha. The procedure won’t take but thirty seconds, once she’s been prepared.”
Samina scoffed, flicking her wrist. “Then prepare her.”
“Mistress,” he replied, offering an awkward, misplaced bow. And then, with a steely glint gleaming in storm-gray eyes, he turned to the girl shivering in the wind. Caught her bicep in a hand big enough to almost encircle her waist, then thrust her forward.
She stumbled and tripped, gasping as she fell.
The captain was on her before her palms touched the stone. Hauling her up, he bent her over a strange bench. Placing her head and wrists before trapping her there with a wooden panel that pressed against the back of her thighs—another clapped shut around the back of her neck. Locking her in place with a snap that forced a whine between her lips.
A modified stock. He’d bound her in a fucking stock! Hands frozen on either side of her face, left exposed, vulnerable and utterly unable to defend herself.
It was only when the first sounds of panic began to bubble past her lips that Hadim bothered himself to stand. Only then, when she could do nothing but watch him approach, did he deign to address her.
“You’re being punished, Omega,” he whispered, stroking her hair back with fingers that had touched every single millimeter of her skin. Inside and out. “It wasn’t enough to send you here. To know you’d spend the rest of your miserable life shitting out peasant brats. Whelping them by the dozens.” His lips curved, mimicking a smile. “No, I want you open and exposed at all times. Nothing between your treacherous cunt and whoever wants to stretch you out.” Teeth bared, he pressed in. Lips grazing the shell of her ear. “You’re going to spend the rest of your life marked. Like the filthy little criminal you are.”
She couldn’t make a sound. Jaws hanging slack, sweat blooming on her skin.
And then she felt a hand slipping between her thigh and the wooden panel keeping her over that bench. A searching, wriggling hand that was both utilitarian, and far, far too intimate. Her skirt was hauled up first, leaving her cheeks bare to kiss the smooth surface of the wood, her tail wedging tighter between the naked lips of her pussy.