Page 16 of Bonds of Pain
Several more creaks of the floorboards. Footsteps so hard that they’re audible even on the carpet.
I move to the door in three silent steps, slipping through and pulling it closed behind me before Logan can reach for the handle. His golden eyes narrow in the dim light of his bedroom, taking in my rumpled clothes, my alert stance.
“Where is she?” His voice is rough with sleep, but demand vibrates beneath the words.
“Sleeping,” I say, keeping my voice neutral.
“In your room?” His jaw tightens. “Why?”
I shrug in response. “She was already asleep beside me before I thought to ask.”
“She belongs in my bed.”
I step forward, blocking his path to the door. “She needs rest, Logan. Real rest. Leave her alone for now.”
“Since when do you decide what my Omega needs?”
“Our Omega,” I remind him, the words strange on my tongue. The look of annoyance on his face is a sweet counterpoint to the sour taste in my mouth. “And I’m not deciding anything. I’m stating facts.”
Logan’s eyes flash dangerously, even as a wide smile stretches across his face. “I’m glad to see you so concerned for her welfare. I suppose we can work out the details of sleeping arrangements later.”
I return his smile with a neutral one of my own. The last thing I want is to spend another night sharing a twin-size bed with a sleep clingy woman, but the thought of keeping Logan from having something he wants. “As always, your wish is my command.”
Logan steps closer, his tall frame crowding me against the door. His scent fills my nostrils, making my heart race in a way I’ve spent years trying to suppress.
“You know,” he says, voice dropping to that silky timbre he uses when he wants something. “My bed is more than big enough for all three of us.”
His golden eyes glitter in the dim light, predatory and possessive. One hand comes up to rest against the door beside my head, caging me without actually touching me. A familiar dance we’ve performed countless times.
“Is that what you want?” I ask, fighting to keep my voice steady. “Both your toys sat up on the same shelf?”
Logan’s smile widens, revealing perfect white teeth. “Don’t be crude, Cillian. I’m merely suggesting a practical solution.” His free hand reaches up, fingers brushing against my jaw with feather-light pressure. “Besides, I’ve seen how you look at her. Don’t pretend you’re not curious of how it would feel to have her without all your senses intact. For both of us to have her and each other.”
I hate how my body responds to his touch, how even after all these years, all the pain and manipulation, I still lean into his hand like a starving animal being fed by hand.
The bond between us pulses with his satisfaction. I can feel exactly how pleased he is with this situation. The culmination of a well-laid plan that, from his perspective, has worked out perfectly.
“You’re getting everything you wanted, aren’t you?” I say quietly. “An Omega bride for the public, and me still faithful at your side. The perfect arrangement.”
Logan’s thumb traces my lower lip, and I fight not to shiver. “Not everything I want. Not yet, at least.”
Logan leans closer, his breath warm against my lips. This close, the scent of him is almost too much. Overwhelming my senses like an aerosolized drug. I recognize that look in his eyes, the hunger that hasn’t been directed at me in months.
He’s going to kiss me.
My heart hammers against my ribs as my mind spirals into panic. Before this catastrophic heat, we hadn’t so much as touched since the early days after he claimed me, that last heat before I learned how to dose suppressants with obsessive specificity. Since everything changed between us and then changed again into something so much worse.
The memory crashes through me with sickening clarity. Ander’s hands pinning me down. The terror of being discovered as an Omega after years of successful deception. The sound of my clothes tearing. My desperate pleas falling on deaf ears as the crown prince laughed as he threatened to reveal my secret unless I serviced him well enough.
Not that he intended to give me a choice.
Then Logan appearing in the doorway, his face transforming from shock to murderous rage in an instant. The sickening crunch as he slammed Ander’s head against the stone floor. Again and again. Until the crown prince of Melilla lay still in a spreading pool of crimson.
Logan turning to me, his golden eyes wild with something primal. It would have been stupid of me to run, even if I’d felt any impulse to do it at the time.
“Mine,” he’d growled, before sinking his teeth into my neck.
The irony of the situation has never been lost on me. Before that fateful night, I had lived in constant fear of discovery. An unbonded male Omega is prey to any Alpha who discovers the truth. I’d survived by learning to hide and becoming indispensable in a place powerful enough to afford me some protection. I rose in the ranks of palace guard by training harder and pushing myself further than any sane man would.
