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by Alison Aimes
Gods, how she hated being an omega. Totally at the mercy of those who had none.
The booming voices of the two Alphas echoed down the corridor.
“You will not get away with this.” Olan’s voice shook with rage. “You have no damn proof of any treachery—and you tricked me into giving you the omega and making me look bad with the Verish family.”
“I’m just getting started.”
“Fuck you, Skolov. You can stick your cock in her as much as you like. Knot her until she tears, but it won’t change a thing. She’ll bleed Lundin blood. Which means she’ll always be loyal to me. She’ll never truly belong to you.”
“I’m confident she’ll register the change in ownership as soon as she’s properly fucked, bred, and used as I see fit.”
Shame pulsed beneath Dahlia’s chest. Their crudity only enhanced her sense of powerlessness.
“Enjoy her while you can,” snapped Olan. “Once I disprove your accusations, you’ll be dead, and she’ll be returned to me.”
“I never took you for a doting man. You certainly never treated my mother with such care.” Dahlia cringed at the reference, the reminder of what his mother had suffered at her father’s hands making her sick all over again. “Makes me wonder,” continued her new Alpha, “why you want your first daughter back so bad. Is it so you can keep all your ugly secrets locked up tight?”
“You think you can use my own property’s gift to destroy me?” The depth of Olan’s rage was so great it bounced down the hall and shook the tiles beneath Dahlia’s feet.
She really did not want to go into that room. Each volley they lobbed at one another embedded like shards of glass beneath her skin.
“They cannot get to you.” It was the beta to her left. Rather than pity, his voice was thick with impatience, and perhaps a little superiority, as he tugged her along faster. “They are speaking through a private comms system and separated by thick glass. Otherwise, they’d tear each other apart. Once you arrive, the signal will be given, and the other crime heads will enter their pods. The assessment will begin.”
“I-I don’t want to be assessed.”
“It is only Alphas who get what they wish.” With a nod to the other beta, he tightened his grip and pulled her along faster.
She tried digging in her heels, but no luck. She simply skidded along the floor and kept going, her heels stinging as they rubbed the tile. Even betas were twice as strong as omegas.
She twisted in their grasp, anyway.
She knew what her mother would say. Do not fight what you cannot change. They may take your body, but they can’t take your mind. Be smarter. Rise above.
But no matter how much she wanted to be like her mother—to accept serenely and stride into that room of horrors, head held high—she could not find the detachment to make that happen.
She did not know how to serenely accept. All she wanted to do was rage and fight.
Bucking in her guards’ hold, she struggled to break free—and only succeeded in being dragged more roughly down the corridor, the thunderous voices growing louder.
“Once I am found innocent of your accusations,” roared Olan, “I will destroy you.”
“You have to get there first.”
“You think my daughter can help you?” Olan’s tone turned mocking. “That’s rich. Have fun with her, then. Especially that gift of hers.”
A new worry emerged, fear threading with Dahlia’s shame.
Thanks to her father’s lies, Nikolai Skolov—like the Verish family and everyone else—expected her gift to work. What would he do when he found out she was worthless?
She had to escape before then. That part of her plan could not change.
“I will wipe you and your entire family from this universe, Skolov,” shouted her father. “Once I’m exonerated, I’ll personally enjoy killing each of your brothers. I’ll save that sweet, ripe omega sister of yours for last—and I’ll be sure to sample her, defile her, and knot her ’til she screams before I rip her throat and pussy wide.”
Dahlia had always hated her father but never more than she did now. Both for his cruelty to the omega she’d never met and for baiting the very male who now controlled Dahlia’s fate.
The betas pulled her to a stop in front of a thick, glossy door five times her size. Despite her determination to show strength, she was trembling enough to make standing difficult.
Panels were pressed, lights shimmered. The time waiting to be summoned passed in the blink of an eye and dragged on forever.
But too soon, the directive came.
“Enter.” It was the same disembodied voice she’d heard earlier.
The doors slid open.
The betas bowed low, pulling her into the room.
Twelve thick glass pods stood in upright positions evenly spaced over ten feet apart in the circular room. Each was filled with a huge, intimidating Alpha. Some were more animal-like in appearance, some insect-shaped, some covered in slime, and some, like her, humanoid in shape and genetic makeup, but all the warlord crime bosses were massive and fierce.
The instant she entered, their gazes locked on her with unblinking stares, their bodies going unnaturally still.
Hands, paws, and hooves slapped against the glass. Someone roared.
She whimpered.
“They can’t scent you through the glass or break free.” The second beta’s voice was kinder than the first. “They are here to observe. They must remain within the containers during the assessment.”
She barely heard, her thoughts scattering as her gaze was captured by one male.
She could not look away. Could barely breathe.
Nikolai Skolov stared at her as if his hand was already wrapped around her throat, locking her in place. Even with her robe as a barrier, his burning stare was as visceral as the tips of claws against her flesh, toying with her, circling her nipples, skimming across her belly, and dragging down the length of her body before probing between her legs.
Gods help her, she trembled with the urge to bow before him. To beg him to do exactly as his ruthless gaze promised. To arch her back and spread her legs and earn his praise. To be a good omega. His good, dutiful omega.
Everything she had always promised herself she would never be.
The thought was enough to shake her from the worst of her trance.
Her pulse still fluttered, her skin tight and needy, but at least she now remembered the omega part of her was not what ruled her.
“The assessment will begin.” The disembodied voice jerked her from her thoughts.
Her fury returned.
This was exactly the kind of horror she was desperate to save her sister from.
“Come.” The two betas dragged her toward a simple metallic bench. Positioned in the center of the room, it rotated slowly on a circular platform, so it was visible to each pod from every angle.
“No.” Her struggles did nothing. Chest heaving, she was brought to stand at the back of the bench. The heat of too many hard, hungry, predatory eyes burned into her skin.
For a moment, before the bench turned, her father’s pod was directly in front of her. The smirk he gave her sickened her, but worse was how quickly he dismissed her, his stare locking on Skolov, his hate for the other man obvious.
That animosity was more emotion than her father had ever shown her. Olan Lundin neither loved nor hated her. He simply used her.
All her life she’d wanted one person to truly feel something for her. Not for what she could do for them or how she could best serve them, but because they cared.
“The property’s robe will be removed.” It was the same disembodied voice as before.
Her breathing hitched. Shifting slightly, her gaze instinctively returned to the only male she suspected had a chance of stopping this humiliation. Against all hope, she searched for the boy who’d once lived inside the brutal Alpha before her now.
“Please, don’t.”
The Ruthless King’s expression harde
ned. “Skolovs do not beg.” Even through the thick glass, his rumbled disapproval was clear. “You will remove your robe and you will present. You will allow the betas to confirm you are unused and in prime condition.” Something in his voice shifted, so subtle she almost did not catch it. “This is a Brotherhood requirement. After this, no other male will touch my property again.”
The declaration offered little comfort.
She stifled a sob and vowed to herself she would survive this, and she would get away. Nothing had changed. She refused to be broken.
“Do it now.” Skolov’s massive hand slammed up against the glass, his amber gaze shifting to lock on the betas still holding tight to her arms as his growl turned deadly. “Do it and then get the hell out as fast as you can, or I’ll rip you apart.”
For some reason, that little show of emotion soothed her as nothing else had. Was it possible there was a small part of him that remembered the connection she’d never been able to forget?
His expression gave nothing away, but she clung to the hope nonetheless.
Eyes sinking shut, she allowed the betas to remove her robe.
Cool air brushed her skin. Her nipples tightened, her legs shaking as she stood before them all, exposed.
The sound of cracking glass had her eyelids springing open.
Skolov’s palms smashed against his pod, the tendons on his neck bulging. His lips curled upward while the once black bands around his wrists glowed bright red and then gold. His horn jutted straight out.
Small fissures snaked down the once smooth pod.
The beta had said the glass was shatterproof, but she wasn’t so sure.
The powerful Alpha’s stare fused with hers.
She shouldn’t be able to hear him, but she did. Low growls that reverberated down her spine and through her skin interspersed with softer purrs. The sounds vibrated over the follicles of her hair like the softest of strokes. Soothing her. Calming her. Connecting her to him.
She was no longer alone. Her Alpha watched over her.
Even all these years later, the connection between them was as potent as ever.
“Bend, now. Legs spread.” The meaner beta’s impatient command, followed by an equally impatient press against her shoulder blades, ripped her from the soothing spell of her Alpha’s hold. The wrongness of the beta’s touch burned her skin.
“N-no.” Panic tore through her once more. She fought the beta’s grip. She couldn’t do this.
Another slam against the glass. Another crack. Her Alpha, demanding her attention, exerted his will over her.
Gaze locked with his, she bent.
4
He wasn’t going to make it through.
Looking at Olan Lundin’s smirking face might have helped, but Nikolai couldn’t look away from her. Couldn’t stop the animalistic, possessive growls or urge to purr and comfort.
His control was shot when he needed it most.
Unlike most of the Alpha crime heads, he had no stable of omegas, indentured or otherwise, and no long line of official offspring or bastards, either. At age twenty-eight, that was almost unheard of. He fucked when he needed release, but until now he’d never had an omega of his own. He’d known, after meeting her, no one else would do.
But he wasn’t prepared for the effect seeing her like this would have on him.
Shoving his hand into his pocket, he pressed his thumb into the deepest groove in the necklace and let it dig into his skin as he repeated his personal creed.
He did not show weakness. He was harder, tougher, more ruthless than anyone here, and he did not let anyone see him ruffled. Ever.
Except now he couldn’t reel himself in, and the chain wrapped tight around his thumb wasn’t tempering the worst of his fury as it usually did.
Instead, the skin designs at his wrists flashed from red to gold as the lines on the top and underside bled together to form a perfect circle, completing a cellular change that had begun the first time he’d seen the omega and waited until now to complete. At the same time, his cock grew harder than it had ever been in his life.
He hated her fear, but he was mesmerized too.
The thick pod barrier blocked her scent, but it did nothing to hide the beauty of her curves, the lushness of her hips, the high globes of an ass shaped for his hands, or the sweet shadowed hint of the tight pink slit he knew would welcome him home.
She was perfection. Perfection he wanted no one seeing but him.
His claws scoured the glass. He’d lost the ability to retract them.
He wanted to kill every one of these fuckers for looking at her.
He told himself to be reasonable. To play it cool. To picture his siblings and remember he was so close to his goal. That this tiny attempt by Olan to piss him off didn’t need to affect him at all.
The omega was his and would soon be riding his cock, doing his bidding, presenting and spreading for him, showering him with her gift, telling him all he needed to know.
Then the beta male laid his hand on her back and pinned her to the bench, kicking her legs wide, and Nikolai’s vision tunneled.
His female’s eyes sunk closed once more.
His body went mad as the tie between them severed.
With a roar, he threw himself against the glass.
His frenzied stare locked on the glimpse of paradise between her thighs. Pink. Tight. His.
The other beta stepped forward, his hand slipping between her thighs before his fluttering robe blocked Nikolai’s sight.
Everything went red. He would not allow this. He could not let this happen.
He had to stop them from touching what was his. Maim. Kill. Destroy. Whatever it took.
Lucidity slipped away as the rut took over and instinct took top billing. At the worst possible time.
He threw himself against the glass. Over and over.
Even as Olan’s gloating voice, utterly indifferent to his first daughter’s plight, crackled through the shared comms. “Proceed. I demand the ritual proceed. It is the way.”
Even as the beta performing the assessment shoved his arm further between the omega’s spread thighs.
Even as her shoulders tightened and her body stiffened.
Nikolai felt the invasion as if it were happening to him, the cold, hard digit stabbing into his flesh.
He roared in fury.
Blackness curled the edges of his vision.
Fractures snaked down the barrier like cracking ice or rolling tears.
“Sh-she is untouched.” The beta’s declaration barely reached him over the slam of his body against the glass. “The assessment is complete.”
The barricade shattered, shards tumbling to the floor as the Brotherhood’s automatic alarms sounded, triggered by the destruction of one of their own pods.
Terrified, the two betas sprinted toward the door, their robes swirling behind them.
Rightly so.
They were going to die for touching what belonged to Nikolai Skolov.
Glass crackled beneath his boots as he stepped out from the broken pod, his mind clouded by lust and violence, the blaring alarms mingling with the roars of the other crime heads as they too threw themselves against the confines of their pods. His aggression had triggered their own. But unlike his, their barricades held.
Which was good. It left him more time to kill them all one by one. And he would. He would kill every single male who’d looked at her. He would—
“Help.” The soft, lyrical voice of his omega penetrated his blood-rage. “The glass. I can’t move.”
His body turned toward the sound as if pulled by a magnet, the sight and smell of her hitting as one. Her beauty was more startling up close. The scent of her in his lungs better than the sweetest of tavel berries.
Fear. Sorrow. Shame. Pain. Fury. He tasted it all on his tongue, and beneath that, courage and goodness, light and life, and lush vitality.
Her.
So much more intoxicating than he remembered.
; His lungs heaved under the onslaught, greedy for more. Determined to devour. To soak her into his bones, absorb her into his cells.
Until some still slightly lucid part of him registered her delicate features tight with fear, and the shards of glass scattered around her bare feet. Thankfully, none had reached her, but one wrong step and she’d be cut.
The thought made him want to throw back his head and roar with rage.
The faint sound of a door sliding shut echoed behind him. His beta targets had gotten away.
He could not seem to care.
Nothing mattered but getting to her.
He stalked forward.
Her breath hitched and he could see the panic in her eyes: she wanted to run.
He issued a warning growl—he would not have her feet torn up so he could enjoy the chase—and was gratified when a low moan slipped from her in response.
Her eyes sank to half-mast as his Alpha call triggered her instincts and a new scent joined the rest: slick for him.
She was readying herself, responding to him, just as a good omega should.
Her pupils dilated, her breath coming fast, her cheeks flushed.
Soon her lust would be as great as his own.
He stepped closer. Growled low once more. He wanted her wet and wild, frantic to be placed on all fours, begging for her neck to be pinned down while he shoved inside and fucked her hard.
“P-please.” Her tiny hand swung upward as if that could somehow ward him off. “Not the heat. Do not trigger the heat. Give me some control, at least.”
He did not like her attempt to resist the pull. He ran right through her hand until his chest was pressed tight to hers and her fist curled against his pec.
White-hot electricity crackled through every cell.
Even through the barrier of his clothes, he knew. Her skin was silk, her fit perfect. The scrape of her beaded nipples against his chest drove him mad, while the feel of her soft belly cradling his hard cock was better than anything the universe over.
He flattened his mouth against the sensitive tendon at her throat and breathed deep. His gums throbbed as his fangs screamed for release, craving to sink into her trembling, pliant body. To mark her as his for all time.