2
Savannah woke slowly, warm and comfortable. For a second she allowed herself to lie there, savoring the last moments of sleep. It was the only place either she or her mother were truly at peace, even if only for a little while. Then it hit her and her eyes snapped open.
She wasn’t with her mother. She’d been taken.
Off the bed before she could register where she was, she tried to run, only for her leg to fold underneath her, dropping her to the floor in an undignified sprawl. A large pair of boots appeared in her field of vision.
“I numbed your leg to treat your wound,” a deep voice said.
An alpha. She gasped and scrambled backward until her shoulders hit the side of the bed. Then she looked up. An alpha towered over her, tall and broad-shouldered, a dark expression on his face as he looked down at her.
“Is there a reason you keep winding up on the floor, little one? Do you have a balance issue I need to know about?”
“No. I... wait. When was I on the floor before now?” The question was fueled by fear, not curiosity.
“Last night when I tried to treat your wound. You fell off the bed.” The big man crouched down beside her. “I am A’rath. Your alpha. What is your name?”
Her alpha? Oh. Hell. No. What had happened last night? Where was she? Even ruined, it was the most beautiful place she’d ever seen.
So was he. And that was the most unsettling thing of all. The man in front of her was tall and golden skinned with a mop of unruly dark curls and a jaw shadowed by several days of beard growth. He was clean and didn’t stink like the other alphas she’d met. And he was... being nice.
She had to be dreaming. Nice alphas didn’t exist.
Without looking away from him, she reached down. A new dressing wrapped her leg, but the only part of her clothing that had been touched was where he’d cut away her pant leg.
She narrowed her eyes. “You only treated my wound?”
As soon as she said the words, she knew he had. There was no way an alpha had taken her, knotted her, and she would be in any fit state to have a conversation. She probably wouldn’t even be conscious.
Reaching up, she boosted herself to sit on the edge of the bed. Whatever he’d done, her injured leg was numb from the knee down. “Why would you do this? Why would you help me?”
“Name,” he reminded her as he got to his feet. He wasn’t as big as some of his kind, but he was big enough to tower over her. “I want your name. As for why, I told you already. You are my omega. Mine to care for and protect.” He shrugged. “That is how this works.”
“Your omega?”
“Mine.” He folded his arms across his powerful chest. “Name.”
“Savannah.” There was no harm in giving him that much information.
“Savannah,” he repeated, rolling the name off his tongue with satisfaction. “How are you feeling, Savannah?”
“I can’t walk properly,” she said, frowning as she tried to rotate her ankle. “And I’m not your omega.”
He growled at that and took a step closer. She reared back, pulling her legs up to try and scoot across the bed. But he snapped a hand out, catching her trailing ankle in a firm grip.
“What was that?”
“I am not your omega.” She threw caution to the wind. “I’m not an omega at all.”
“Do not lie to me.” He kept hold of her uninjured leg and leaned in, making a show of inhaling deeply. “I know what you are.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“I am not.”
She’d run low on blockers weeks ago. That’s how the alphas had found her in the first place. She and her mother had been sharing what little they had until they could find more. Even the last traces of the meds were out of her system now. There was no hiding what she was, but at least she’d tried.
“I’m sick. Dying. You don’t want to breed with me.”
His finger stroked over her leg and his eyes darkened. “You’ll recover.”
She’d die before she gave herself to one of them. She knew what life was like for omegas. She’d seen it. “I don’t want this.”
“You don’t have a say in this. You are mine.”
“You keep saying that. You know repetition doesn’t make something true. Right?”
Darkness filled his eyes and the corner of his lips quirked.
“I am alpha. When I say you are mine, it means you are mine.” He yanked on her uninjured leg suddenly and hauled her half under him. “You’ve been mine since the moment I scented you in the ruins.”
She managed nothing more than a small squeak before she found herself under him, hands curled around his upper arms as she tried to push him away. This close he smelled so good, a clean, masculine scent that made her inhale and want to get closer to him. The men she knew all smelled of stale sweat and grease or dirt from the fields. And, she realized as she looked up at him, none of them were as handsome as this alien. He was gorgeous, with dark curls falling over his eyes, dark stubble over his chiseled jaw, and sinful lips.
“Nope. So not yours. I’m sick.” She forced a cough. “See? And I smell bad. You don’t want me. I’m weak and I won’t breed well. I’m not good at it anyway.”
His eyes filled with darkness, swallowing up the color and the white. She caught her breath, recognizing the signs of the beast. This was it. He would tear into her now and she wouldn’t survive. Her fingertips wandered down to the mercy on her thigh, only to remember it wasn’t there.
“You’re not good at it?” he demanded with a vicious snarl, leaning in. “With who? I’ll xarthing tear him apart. Limb from limb.”
She caught her breath but kept her wits about her. She knew what she had to do. Her hand snaked out to the sheath he’d hidden her mercy in, and with nimble fingers she pulled it free. With a quick, practiced motion, she aimed for her inner thigh.
“No!” he snarled, blocking her movement with his forearm.
A wordless shriek of fear and frustration tore from her lungs as he denied her the only choice she had left—the final escape.
The blade bit into his flesh so cleanly it could have been a surgical cut. Only he wasn’t her intended target. A’rath snarled and tightened his grip. His fangs lengthened and she caught the telltale pattern of markings starting to appear along the sides of his neck. The beast was almost free.
“Please. Let me die. I don’t want this.”
“No.” He tore the knife from her hand. “You are not going to die. Not by your hand or anyone else’s.”
“Please don’t do this,” she begged, tears sliding down the sides of her cheeks. “I can’t do this... please. Just kill me.”
“What?” He looked at her, ignoring the blood pouring from his cut arm, his gaze locked onto her face. The markings faded from his neck as the color returned to his eyes.
She’d asked him to kill her.
She might have well asked for the moon and stars. No true alpha would kill their omega. They were to be protected and cherished, especially one as unique as her. She still had her wits and her mind was as sharp as the blade she carried.