Page 14 of Forbidden Bonds
My little pep talk doesn’t help. Slick leaks down my inner thighs. The scents filling the room are overwhelming: male alpha, female betas, and sex. The enormous bed that dominates the room draws my eyes and is the source of most of the repugnant aspects of the smell.
Rhett, as I heard Lucain call him, is a natural alpha—if you can call the mass infection of whole planets with a virus ‘natural’—and his potent pheromones reaching through the scent deluge shred my self-control.
Not that I can blame my reaction on only his pheromones when he presents such a compelling, attractive package. He’s on the leaner side for an alpha, but still tall and powerful compared to me. Less threatening somehow. The memory of his rippling back muscles and tight ass as he turned to pull up his sweat pants is like a fever dream. They hang low on his hips now, revealing an arresting V and perfectly defined abs. Below, his cock tents the material obscenely, a distinct wet patch near the head that is driving me crazy.
“Well, fuck,” he mutters again, scraping a big, broad hand through his messy hair. Only his eyes tell a story. He can’t take them off me. His deeply admiring gaze is like a balm over my battered soul.
I’m petite, my tunic a functional covering rather than designed to entice. During my incarceration with the Uncorrupted, drawing attention was the last thing on my mind. During the long journey here, a wardrobe makeover was hardly a priority.
Except, for the first time in over a decade, someone is staring at me like a person and not a strategic weapon to be used.
He thinks I am beautiful,but he also finds me detached—a puzzle. I break his preconceptions about omegas.
No one has ever thought of me as beautiful before. But the detached part is unerringly accurate. I don’t know whether it’s from self-preservation or merely a byproduct of reading minds and wishing I did not.
He’s looking atme.He doesn’t know anything about me, not what I’m capable of, nor all the things I’ve done. I am just an omega in heat, unfettered by the baggage of my past. Under hiseyes, I feel reborn. Tomorrow, my past will catch up with me. There is no avoiding that. But today, in this brief interlude, I can pretend.
I want to preen before him, to turn, fall to my hands and knees, and present myself for ravishment, to be nothing more than an ordinary omega in heat in the presence of an alpha.
Only that is not me. Nor how I behave. I just lunged at the two pretty betas sharing his bed as they walked past, made my fingers into claws like an animal. If Lucian hadn’t gotten a good hold of me, I would have ripped their pretty hair out. That both of them were head and shoulders over me and probably had many pounds of lithe muscle on me hadn’t fazed me in the least.
“How important exactly?” he asks.
“Very,” I say. I’m trying really hard not to read his mind again, terrified that I will find disappointment, or that he is likewise telling himself this is only biology, and he would take the model-perfect betas over me in a heartbeat if not for my impending heat clouding his free will…
He is an alpha, a slave in this as much as I am. The Copper Virus can only target and modify what is already present. When it changes you, it focuses on specific strong characteristics and diminishes other, less useful ones. For omegas, our psychic gifts become our purpose, and the virus exaggerates mental strength at the cost of physical strength.
Yet there must be a balance in life, as in the dynamic world. Were omegas not so appealing to alphas, I think our caste would not have survived the first mass viral awakening long enough for our gifts to flourish. An alpha is predisposed to covet our kind, just as we crave their protection. The knot, pheromones, slick, and animalistic mating are all by-products of nature forcing our hand so that we might endure long enough to pass our genetics on to the next generation.
And nature really wants alphas and omegas to breed.
He licks his lips.
It’s an involuntary tell, just one of many he’s giving off, but it hits me like a blow. I sink to my knees as a sharp and insistent fisting grips my womb. I have never known an alpha’s touch exceptthatone, and I’d sooner scour the memory of Ethan Black from my mind than linger on it even for a moment. His mate is pregnant. That his presence triggered my heat is a source of acute and eternal shame.
My needs disgusted Ethan. He’d wanted to snap my neck. The visions of him doing so had flooded my mind even as my confused body wept slick. They had locked us in a monitored nesting room together in the heart of the Uncorrupted base. He did an outstanding job of faking tending me, all the while telling me how he wanted me dead, that the only thing stopping him was the fallout if he did, along with the fear that he might never see his beloved mate again.
A hiss escapes my lips as broad, naked feet enter my periphery. “Don’t you dare touch me,” I snarl. “You smell like them!”
I feel small, pitiful, and feral, kneeling here before him. And while it’s true I can smell the betas he fucked, I can also smell him, and I really want him. He isn’t mated. No omega has claimed him yet.
He holds up both hands. “Fine, I’ll strip the fucking bed—take a shower. Whatever. It’s destroying me seeing you in pain like this.” There is no preamble as he shoves his sleep pants down right there in front of me. His thick cock bobs free, releasing a shot of rich pheromones that brings another fierce contraction to my womb.
I whimper. He curses and strides over to the bed.
I am a mess, and can barely see through the pain. I have to bite my lip until I taste blood to stop more of the needy whimpers spilling out.
On the other side of the room, sheets are stripped from the bed, and the alpha bundles the mass together with his clothes before he strides for the door. My eyes track him. I rise, ready to crawl after him when he disappears from view, shame be damned. I think I might die if he leaves me.
He returns before I can lose what little pride I have left, his arms laden with fresh bedding, pillows, and soft-looking throws.
“My asshole brother moves fast. This was waiting…” He stops dead beside me, and his eyes glaze over. “I didn’t think this through.” He drops the bedding beside me, and then it’s like he gets stuck.
I’m on my knees, he’s standing close, his cock is thick, long, and jerking, pre-cum pooling at the tip.
My mouth begins to water. I swallow convulsively. All I have to do is lean forward, wrap my fingers around it, and direct it toward my waiting mouth.
The thread of pre-cum grows longer. Our breathing is loud in the quiet room. My eyes refuse to move. He can’t seem to look away either. And then the viscous liquid drops, landing with a splat on the hem of my dress.
