Absently, she reached up to touch her neck where she hurt the most. There was a bandage covering the place Brenya remembered a stranger’s teeth taking hold. “What happened to the Ambassador?”
A warm palm flattened on her shoulder, wrapping aching flesh in reverent fingers. “Jules Havel is the righthand man to the terrorist who destroyed Thólos. That is who you kidnapped and thought to take there—a real monster who has murdered millions of people. If your stolen ship had made it as far as the southern continent, you would have started a war Bernard Dome cannot win. Everyone you know, your George included, would have died. Their regime is merciless.”
That could not be true…
But it was true; she could feel the sincerity of such a statement. The knot shrank, and she turned to finally look at the man who had caught her in his trap, shamed her before his men, and shared her with a stranger.
The lingering marks of her attack still bruised his face. His arrogant playfulness was gone.
“Why did you let him…?” Why had he ordered his soldiers to set such a man free and offered her body to him. Jacques had encouraged the Beta to fuck her, to bite her, to join in his fun. Why?
“Hush, now, Brenya. You misunderstand.” He kissed her quickly, cuddling the repulsed female. “Please listen to me when I tell you that everything, every choice I made, was in your best interest.”
She didn’t want his games or misdirection. She wanted answers. “What happened to the Ambassador?”
“Can you not tell?”
“No.” Growing horror brought fresh tears, because there was something whispering in her mind. Something about that moment on that ship that Jacques had manipulated her into. “No.”
“He won’t be able to hurt you. Ever. The pair-bond will prevent it.”
It was too much. There was too much inside her, too much to bear. “What did you do, Jacques?”
“I put a rabid dog on a leash.”
2
“You are angry with me.” Exuding reason, chest vibrating a sleepy, warm blanket of a purr, Jacques held another bite of fine cheese to Brenya’s mouth, patient for her to accept food from his hand. “And you feel unwell.”
Eyes distant, her thoughts somewhere else entirely, she parted her lips and took the offering onto her tongue.
Not a morsel had passed that chapped skin that he had not placed there, hand feeding his new mate delicious things, sips of cool water, and a few coerced swallows of rare vintage white wine. A new mate who appeared more unfocused and startled than a freshly born calf.
And just as shaky on her legs.
More comforting elation he poured within the empty cup of what made her Omega, drowning out lingering, trifling disgust and total terror by manipulating the link as if an expert already. Dwarfing her slumped shoulders with careful strokes of big, warm hands, he offered relaxation. Yet all he offered failed to produce the desired result.
His Brenya was implacable on a soul-deep level. A place even he had not yet found a way to touch with the captivation of their bond or his more practiced pleasantries.
Jacques changed tactics. In place of luxury, he offered sympathy. “I was cruel to you, wasn’t I?”
An instant internal flicker, silent agreement followed by a sniff.
Despite his aggressive manipulation and constant, relentless pull on their link, honeyed eyes welled. A single tear fell on her next blink. And by the Gods, it cut him to the core. That tear gutted him, so much more than her small agreement.
A small voice replied, “You were cruel.”
In contrast to his height and strength, she was so fragile—feminine and delicate—and in need of his protection. She was so valuable, worth his whole kingdom no matter her scarred face or his abject obsession. No Omega anywhere could compare.
“You have my heart, mon chou. It might not seem that way when I correct you, or when I make demands, but you own it all the same.” Scooping up her limp hand, he pressed it to his bare chest. “Does our bond not tell you so?”
A refusal to answer was answer enough.
“How badly does it hurt?”
Wriggling on her seat, shifting uncomfortably at the mention of her discomfort, and the why of it, paired with the silent throb on her side of the link.
It had been done. Necessarily so. And she had agreed to it—the price she’d named certain to cost him a great deal of conflict with Ancil. Lifting the crystal goblet designed specifically for this vintage of viognier, placing it at the trembling lips of the only thing on the Gods’ rotted earth he adored, Jacques urged her to swallow another sip.
She’d been bathed, the water puce and filthy from all he’d been required to wash away. She’d been bandaged. She’d been held close when she sobbed.
She’d been warned.
And though he had spoken his threats with a rational compunction, that didn’t change the fact that if the name George crossed her lips again, he’d see the Beta thrown into the most despicable Centrist brothel. To be used until there was nothing left. And Jacques would watch that recording every last hour, over and over, until he was wizened and old.
Against his chest, her finger fluttered, Jacques realizing his thoughts had made him tighten his grip on her bruised wrist. Softening his hand, he nudged her chin. Offering a cajoling, well-meant smile, he pressed a kiss to her scar. “Tell me what will make you smile.”
When his mate shrank back from his nearness, sinking inside herself at the brush of his lips, he didn’t correct her. Not after what she’d suffered in the bath. “Come now, tell me how to cheer you.”
A minute headshake.
She believed there was nothing to remedy her spirit, and that just was not so.
Accept they were at odds and the Omega was unreasonable. He could give her the world. Fine things, the best foods, eternal comfort, endless sexual pleasure.
What she wanted, the only thing her brain focused on, was the very goddamn things he’d forbidden. Which things: Beta rations? Freedom? Ancil’s head on a platter? George? Further thoughts of the Beta sent his purr to a snarl. Before he could catch himself, he upset his mate all the further.
A mate who was now sobbing into her hands.
Fuck.
When it came to this female, his control had always been less than exemplary. He’d punish himself for that later. He would do better.
“Unit 17C, I order you to tell me what you need.”
The jolt in her body, he knew to expect. The way eyes, the color of honey in the sun, turned up to meet his eager gaze, Jacques was utterly unprepared for. Steadfast, the fluttering thing in his arms sat taller, grew angry. Drinking him in with the cold eye of a rival, she spoke with harsh tones and great feeling, “I want to hold the baby.”
What luck!
Tucking the front panels of her fluffy robe tighter about his mate, Jacques smirked. “Is that all it is?”
Of course! His Omega was upset that she had not fallen pregnant after her first true estrous. How had this not occurred to him? These tears were not due to his attentions during her bath or the deal they’d struck when he bartered his kingdom to wash another male’s seed from inside her rectum.
Yes, he’d known she had not understood this request. Yes, he’d manipulated her. And yes, another round of anal penetration had given her pain when there was no estrous to dull it. But his strokes had been cautions, methodical, and slow. And because he loved her more than breath itself, he’d kept his knot outside her sphincter when his excessive ejaculations had rinsed a pathetic rival out of her body.