Taken by the Alpha, page 4
part #1 of Knotted Omega Series
Fuck everything else.
My thighs go rock-hard.
Her gaze slides back down to my dick. Her little pink tongue slides out to lick her lips, and I feel the ripples of need all the way to my groin.
I have to have her now.
I growl my intention, drawing that harsh purr out, all the way from the depths of my being, up through my ribcage, pouring it out, unfurling the notes over her, lassoing her with it and pulling her closer, closer.
She groans and stutters mid-step. Her gaze widens; the black pupils in those forest-green eyes bleed out. “That’s not helping.”
“On the contrary. I’m making sure you are wet enough to ease my penetration.”
I breathe out a low purr. And am rewarded when the sugary scent of her arousal grows deeper.
Her cheeks flush. “Thanks for painting—or should I say panting—that for me in graphic detail.”
I can’t stop the surprised chuckle that cracks out of me. “Not only gorgeous, and a fighter, but also smart.” The compliments roll off my tongue so easily. I hear my own words and start.
Just a one-off, that's all it is.
I never waste time on words, definitely not before I fuck. Not ever. And certainly not to sing the praises of the omega who’s already in my grasp. I have no need to tell her what I think of her. Really not.
Her cheeks flush. “You going to say now that your approving talk will also ease your infiltration of my body?” She huffs out a breath.
“No, actually… I am deciding how to put that sharp tongue of yours to better use.” I gaze at her mouth, knowing that will only turn her on further. Somehow, my plan of taking her has turned into a full-blown seduction. It feels so right, and yet it’s not what I want. Is it? I need her to fear me, lay with me, fuck me back perhaps, just as I intend to worship her body, too.
Molten heat courses through my blood.
She must sense my thoughts, for her lips tremble. Her chest heaves. She curls her fingers into fists at her sides, and I know it’s because she’s stopping herself from touching me.
“You want me, admit it.” I run my hands over my chest.
“No.” Her gaze follows my actions as I slide my palm down to my thick cock and palm it at the base. Squeezing it down the length until a drop of precum oozes out.
She licks her lips. Oh, yeah, she wants me, wants my dick inside her all right. “Why are you fighting the inevitable?”
“Because… I have sworn to only lay with my mate.”
Her features freeze as if she can’t believe she’s blurted that out. I angle my head. Interesting. A strange warmth pools in my chest. I don’t want to examine it. Don’t care what it is. Nope. No way.
“So you haven’t been with any other alpha?”
She squares her shoulders. “Your ability to deduce the obvious is overwhelming.” She tries to sneer, but her voice trembles, spoiling the effect.
I don’t need her confirmation to reaffirm what I’ve already sensed. She’s held back from anyone else having her, and that knowledge shakes me to the core.
I want to shove her on her back, bury myself inside her, sheath my cock in the depths of that sweet omega essence right before I turn her over, then bend her and slam into her from behind, taking her in every conceivable position.
She must read the intention on my face, for she shakes her head. “No.”
I peel back my lips. “Yes.”
This is when she retreats, perhaps falls on her knees and submits to me—better still, lies back, opens her thighs, and stays that way. I growl low, anticipating that sweet taste of her coating my tongue, that complex, seductive omega scent rolling through my blood as I raise and lower her on my cock. I can literally feel her skin give under my fingers when she snarls and bows her head and comes at me.
For a second it is I who blinks and freezes. I stare as she charges at me.
Little hellion.
I almost admire her for her fighting instinct, for that need to not give up, to fight back until the last breath, that intuition that had kept me going all through my growing years. That had brought me here to this fine suite in the palace in the richest district of the city.
I sense a kindred spirit in her. Which is why I am going to have to break her. I almost feel remorseful at that. Almost. But I have no choice. I have my plans all laid out. I haven’t come all this way to let an omega derail me.
So what if she smells like sunshine and heat and that faint sugary taste of musk that hints at her arousal?
So what if she has the most beautiful, most desirable, most luscious body that I have ever encountered?
So what if given half a chance she will claw her way under my skin, rip out my heart, and trample all over it, even as she claims ownership of my soul…and I must put an end to this. To whatever spell she is casting over me. Her omega essence is clearly ensnaring me, making me lose my composure, and that I will not allow. No way.
When she rushes at me, I take the brunt of her hit. I don’t feel it. No, that’s a lie. The feel of her breasts sliding against my chest, the scrape of her knuckles as she smashes her fist into my side, all of it turns me on.
I don’t move. And it’s not the fear of hurting her that keeps me immobile. It’s just that I relish the splatter of her punches on my chest until the fight finally goes out of her.
She falls to her knees, head hanging forward, shoulders slumped.
She’s breathing heavily, her lips parted, her spine curved down. It’s a gesture of total submission, one I appreciate.
My cock twitches and I delight in every second of the tension building in my groin. The inevitable coupling is going to be so much sweeter. So satisfying, that bite of pure satisfaction that comes with having broken an omega completely and utterly.
Reaching down, I swipe her hair away from her face, then clamp my fingers around her neck.
Her body tenses, then she springs up and snaps her head forward.
8
Lucy
I rear up and smash my head into his chin. Shock waves ricochet down my neck, down my spine. Sparks of red flash behind my eyes.
It feels like I’ve run into a brick wall. The impact slices through my body.
I cry out and fall back on the bed. Tears run down my cheeks. I’d known I wasn’t going to be able to escape, knew it from the moment I’d agreed to this half-assed plan to assassinate the General, that this could go either way. But until that moment I’d not realized I’d held out a last sliver of hope that I’d be able to break out of the grasp of this alpha.
He’d given me a chance to escape, and I had failed.
Then he’d allowed me to go at him, and the one solid hit that I’d got in at him had laid me low. The physical pain from the impact rips through me. A dull pressure pushes against the back of my eyeballs. More than the fact that I am utterly and completely at his mercy, it is the humiliation that I can’t hold my own against him that frustrates me. I’ve honed my fighting skills against some of the most skilled warriors, and all of it is to no avail.
It’s strange that more than the possible rape of my body that this alpha no doubt intends, it is the rape of my pride that hurts me more.
The throbbing in my head increases in crescendo. My guts twist, and the band around my chest tightens.
Sweat drips down my back, down my forehead, creeping into the space between my eyelids, and they sting.
I squeeze my eyes shut and lie there waiting for whatever punishment he has in store for me. Knowing only to expect the worst. Every last nightmare version of what I have heard from other omegas of how alphas will take from you, tear into you to slake their thirst…all of those scenarios crowd in on my head. My shoulders hunch. Tears slide down my cheeks and dammit, but I can’t stop them.
I am aware of him swooping down on me.
The world tilts as he slides his body under me, stretching out and cradling me close to his chest. There’s a strange gentleness, an almost awkward reverence to how he holds me. He doesn’t soothe, doesn’t say anything. His arms are around me, bands of steel that tie me to him. To keep me prisoner, to stop me from escaping, no doubt. I should feel threatened…yet I am not.
There’s only a relief that I can stop pretending. Is that what I have been doing so far? Pretending? The thought brings on a fresh wave of tears, and a sob racks my body, then another. Before I know it, I am holding on to the same arms that imprison me, hanging on to him for support as I bawl my eyes out.
My insides twist.
I curl up my legs and bring them close. I am wound around this man’s chest like a baby clinging to her mother.
My sobs intensify. What the hell is wrong with me? This is not the time to have a full-blown breakdown. Not in the arms of my captor. Yet surrounded by the heat of this alpha's body I feel secure in a way I've never felt before, not even with my own family. I don’t have many memories of my mother who died too young. My father was a warrior, the Czar of Moscow. Though I was an omega, he’d recognized the fighter in me. He’d made sure to train me. I’d been fortunate that as a member of the royal family I’d had the choice of when to mate with an alpha. I’d managed to delay it, too, until now.
The tears keep coming.
My throat is so dry I am sure I shouldn’t be able to cry anymore, and yet I can’t seem to stop. It’s as if all the years of pent-up hatred, fear, recklessness, all of it wound inside comes bubbling up. I am falling apart, and it’s in the arms of the most powerful alpha in the land. The one who will no doubt take my virginity against my will.
But even that thought doesn’t stop my weeping. Nothing matters anymore. Nothing except the feel of his arms around me.
The soft growls that rumble up his chest rock my body.
The rich bass of his purring crawls up the space between us, vibrates up his throat and curls around me. Sensuous, gentle. His tone is almost sub-vocal, and yet it’s unmissable. It’s hypnotic. I listen to it. Am entranced by it. I hiccough once. My ears pop, and the sound grows deeper. A soothing, resonant murmur that rolls over my skin and sinks into my blood.
Each new wave of purring sets off sparks of heat in its wake. Seducing. Comforting. Like he’s weaving a cocoon around me. I am caught in the wonder of this new experience.
The earthy scent of him, mixed with the dark cinnamon of his arousal, sloshes over me. I breathe it in, not aware that I am doing it, not until the hard planes of his chest bite into my cheeks. I become aware of digging my nails into his skin, which is streaked from my tears.
My tears.
It’s so intimate. And yet it shouldn’t be like this. It shouldn’t feel so right when everything else is wrong, so wrong. I shouldn’t be here. With him. In his bed. Enfolded in his arms. Soaking in his warmth. Reveling in that entrancing alpha scent of his, seeking out his touch…his caresses. Him. Only him.
How can I feel so much, in such little time? And for someone completely and utterly wrong for me? My eyelids grow heavy. I try to crack them open, but it’s too much of a struggle. I push against his hold, knowing I should try to break free.
Another soothing purr rumbles over me, and the muscles of my shoulders unwind.
He slides his thigh between mine, but I am too weak to protest. The rough hair of his upper thigh brushes the tender skin between my legs. I was wrong. The feel of his skin on mine is not only pleasurable, it heightens the contrast between what only he can offer and the emptiness swirling inside me. Something like pain skitters down my spine.
I swallow and reach once more for that rumbling that is growing in volume, deepening around me. Pulling at me. Tugging at me. I want to protest, say something. But I feel too weak. Like I have been running, fighting too hard.
The purring changes tenor becomes deeper, resonant. It sparks a response from my nerves which immediately seem to catch fire. I shudder, not sure exactly what he’s doing to me.
If this is what it means to submit, so be it.
He may as well take me when I am half out of my head with grief, with sadness, and an overwhelming desire to be done with whatever it is that an alpha does to an omega. Or not. I’ve heard of it but I’ve never been with a man before. Not because I am a prude, not for my lack of trying, but because for an omega, once you get an alpha to mate you to break the heat cycle, then you can’t stop, not until the heat cycle has run its course. More often than not it results in an omega’s pregnancy.
And I’ve never thought I’d want to bring a child into this world, not until I’d met the right alpha. Which isn’t him.
My muscles tense.
His arms tighten as if he senses my discomfort.
I wriggle in his embrace, pushing against the sculpted planes of his chest.
His breath raises the hair on my head. Another purr builds up from his groin. I am lying on him so I can track exactly the source of that sound, follow it as it shivers up his iron-hard stomach, ripples through his rib cage, vibrates up his throat and then pours out in mellifluous chords that slide into my blood, straight to my core.
My thighs clench.
The soft flesh of my center quivers. A trickle of slick spurts down my inner thigh.
And it is that which brings me to being alert. Awareness tugs at my nerves. It pushes aside the haze of desire that has clogged my mind.
All of his gentleness, his tenderness, it is all a front. It has to be. A way to lull me into comfort, to make me trust, enough to allow my hormones to regroup, my core to relax and ready itself for my alpha. Which he is not; he never will be.
I raise my head, gaze at him through hooded eyelids, then lean down and sink my teeth into his neck.
9
Zeus
Her teeth dig into me, and the shock of it surges down my spine. There’s a primitive satisfaction that she wants to own me, while a part of me cannot believe she took that liberty with me. It is my prerogative as alpha to mark her first.
Mine to own, to claim, to do with her as I want.
I’ve been holding back, and she has taken advantage of that; she has taken the lead in this mating game. More than the physical hurt, it’s my ego that roars in protest at the liberty.
With a roar, I flip her over, pinning her to the bed.
I snag her arms together to pull them up and over her head, shackling her wrists. I want to ask her what she’s trying to prove, but one look in those green eyes, and the words stutter in my mouth. I am not someone with a soft heart, I have no tenderness inside me. I take, that’s what I do, yet one whiff of the fear that vibrates off her, and when I open my mouth all that emerges is a rumbling growl.
Her lips are stained by the blood she drew from me when she bit me.
It’s primal, and so fucking arousing. The evidence that she already marked me, has staked her claim on me, does she realize it? It sends a
fierce surge of need pounding through my veins.
My cock twitches and I grind the evidence of my arousal into her soft core—not because I want to show her how turned on I am, though that, too—but it’s more a clear sign to her as to who owns her and that there is no escape from me.
“You fought well, little warrior; you can take comfort in that.”
She bares her teeth, showing gums stained with my blood. “I’m not done yet.” Her green eyes are so large, the pupils so dilated that it’s a clear sign she is nervous, afraid, and also aroused.
“Yes, you are.” Something like tenderness flushes through me. Nah. It can’t be that. Me? Wanting to take care of this omega who tried to kill me? I must be losing my mind, or perhaps I have been too lenient with her. I’ve indulged this wildling for too long. It’s time to show her the kind of pleasures only an alpha can give his omega.
I lean down and lick my blood from her lips.
Her shoulders shudder. Every muscle in her body goes on alert.
I nibble my way up her cheek to the shell of her ear, then suck on her earlobe.
She shivers. Her eyelids flutter down. A low groan spills from her lips.
“That’s it, submit, give in…go with your instinct, and then it’ll be easier for you.”
As the words leave my mouth, her body tenses again. It seems if I speak it breaks the trance she falls into when I purr for her. And it’s no hardship to do that, mind you. I’ll force her if needed. I’d much prefer someone more submissive, someone more pliant, open to do my bidding…not. If that were the case, wouldn’t I have taken an omega from the ones stocked in the harem, the ones my alphas lay with whenever the need to rut comes over them?
I’d done so on one occasion, but the encounter had been so unfulfilling I’d not bothered again. Then I’d caught a glimpse of that dark-red strand of her hair tumbling free of its restraint to curl over her shoulder and I’d known what was missing. Her. Her fire, her breath. Her scent. I have to have her.
My dick pulses in agreement. My shaft pushes against the softness of her core.
Her eyes fly open, and the green in them has faded to light gold. My breath stutters. She is much more breathtaking than I’d thought. It makes me want to see how the rest of her is.
What is so special about this female that she is already in my blood?
Why is this prickly omega the only one I want?
The thought pulses a trickle of discomfort down my spine. No, I have no intention of feeling anything for her. The only reason I brought her here was to punish her. To show her she can’t challenge me on my own turf.
And, yeah, because the thought of any other alpha violating her is something that affects me in a way I still can’t understand. It’s that which makes me pull my weight off of her and stand back.
Her legs are flung apart, her breasts rising and falling, her cheeks flushed. And the remnants of the jumpsuit cling to her body like petals from a rose on damp ground.
Bending down, I grab the seam of her collar and rip the fabric to her waist. Yanking it over her legs, I pull it off her.
She is naked underneath.
Her full, lush breasts spring out, dark-pink areolae crowned with the most delicate of buds for nipples.
