The arm around her middle tightened as Jacques pulled her flush to his body. “I’m going to make you feel better.”
“I’m sore.”
Husky, he chuckled. “I don’t doubt it. In estrous you were a very greedy girl.”
Estrous had been awful, and had left her wasted, body and soul. She never wanted to think about it again, any of it.
Jacques was not going to allow that.
“You were glorious through all of it, even when you refused to behave. It was the necessary choice to make, and had I not loved you so much, I never could have abided sharing… but it was exciting watching you take us both at once. Feeling another inside you next to me, hearing you come undone.” Rubbing his thickening cock between the cheeks of her ass, he whispered, “I came harder than I ever have before… and Gods, so did you.”
Jacques was against her back now, mirroring the motion. Brenya knew he’d planned his assault in such a way so she would have tactile memory of the Ambassador grunting at her ear.
There was no way to describe the sensations. Even allowing a moment of recollection sent an unwanted tingle and a small dribble of slick to gather at her slit. “It was wrong.”
Tongue slipping out to tease the shell of her ear, Jacques teased, “Far from wrong. I know what’s best for my rebellious, naughty Omega.”
The Commodore rolled his hips as if to penetrate what was his.
Brenya angled away.
In answer to her unspoken rejection, the male caught her hip, purring, “Just as this will make you feel better,” while thrusting slowly in.
Exhaling in an effort to handle the unusual discomfort of the stretch, Brenya found she had no will left to fight, that her body was weak, and that it did feel good no matter how much she wished it did not.
“That’s right. I can make my defiant Omega sweet as cream.” He took her breast in his grip, withdrawing his cock before easing deeper with the second controlled thrust. “Before you know it, you’ll whisper how much you love me.”
Closing her eyes, because she could not close her ears, Brenya grew limp.
“That’s right.”
Her nipple distended, peaking under a rolling pinch, and with little more than a few minutes of slow fucking, she already began to feel the early flutters of climax.
Soft and easy, the ripple of her muscles drew out a growing knot. The Alpha’s groaned reaction fed her pleasure, even if the muscles that clenched around him were tender, even if her heart was not in it.
His was. His heart was completely taken with her.
When it was done and his knot tied her to him, Jacques traced his finger over the gash on her shoulder and let out a satisfied sigh. “Now that you are awake, I’m going to kiss every wound, wash every scratch. Don’t be alarmed by what you see in the mirror. Claiming marks are supposed to scar. Like the rest of you, they are beautiful.”
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
