Born to Be Bound (15 page)

Corday buried her, knowing at least that her name was Kim Pham, right next to Jane Doe. That time, he cried like a baby.

Chapter 9

As they stood on the terrace, Claire suffered the first stirrings, the first warning sign it was time to fight estrous. A wave of warmth banished the cold, the blanket around her became uncomfortably hot, itchy... she tried to hide it. Her attempt to feign normalcy made no difference; Shepherd sensed the change at once. Without a word, she was lifted and swiftly carried back to her cage. Once the door was locked, she scampered off, forcing space between them, where she began pacing back and forth. Her march continued for hours; her stomach sour, her mood foul. The male seemed content to let her wring her hands and pace to and fro, noting she refused to even glance in the direction of the provided nesting materials, or at the table full of food prepared to see him through what might be a lengthy seclusion.

The knots in her gut twinged and soon she was breathing hard, pressing her hand to her belly, worried what his drugs were doing to a body nowhere near ready to ovulate.

A calming, muted voice came from the corner. "The discomfort will pass. There will be no long-term damage."

Claire threw the unwelcome presence a long, vicious growl, hating how he spoke as if he could read her mind. He ignored her disrespect; merely sitting like a gargoyle too big for his chair.

It was infuriating.

She wanted him to leave the room, unaccustomed to being near a male in those uncomfortable moments of pre-estrous. Forcing herself to ignore the intruder, Claire employed a catalog of tricks she'd learned over the years, small distractions that might ease the madness. Feverish, she found her hands in her hair. She braided her locks, paced, unbraided, breathed—over and over. The delicious smell in the air—the scent of a far too near Alpha—she pretended was something else; orange blossoms from the orchards her dad loved to visit. Every summer of her childhood, he'd purchased family admission to the highest level of the Gallery Tower so she could play in the dirt as little girls had once played before humanity retreated under glass for survival.

Each precious weekend had cost her father a month's wages.

Needing to crack her neck, her bones growing looser, Claire absently rolled her damaged shoulder. Instant pain stopped all movement. She'd forgotten. Looking down at the bandage, she trilled her fingers over the gauze; it hurt much less. Muted pain receptors signaled that full estrous was almost at hand.

Fear sharpened a clouding mind. Claire forced more thoughts of orange blossoms, ignored the need to pop joints, and tugged at her hair.

But time marched just as she did. Movements that had begun in a brooding, stiff cadence grew into something languid. Frustration spiked, diminished, leveled. And no matter how hard she tried to concentrate, her thoughts grew muddled.

At the sound of a purr, Claire began absently humming. Something soft came under her touch. Bedding, all fluffy, all new, lay in her arms. Once she realized she had mindlessly begun organizing the nest she dropped it all, scattering the temptation, and stumbled back as if burned.

Shepherd chuckled. "You are doing fairly well, little one, but you will not last much longer."

Her head turned slowly toward the unwanted presence. Finding Shepherd naked, Claire's thought process slammed to a stop, her attention drawn to the bulging grandeur of his stiff cock.

Green eyes began to dilate.

The Omega had endured remarkably. She had denied and ignored him with a will deserving admiration. But there would be no more time wasted. Based on her behavior, Claire's reaction to the injection was stronger than predicted, her temper and outright aggression almost cute as she fell further in. Shepherd had found himself watching, hypnotized, as she sang under her breath and muttered about fields of orange trees.

"Come to me," he beckoned gently. "Let's end the charade. Allow your mate to tend to you."

She spat, measuring him as if she were the greater dynamic, "What, so I can kneel at your feet, Alpha?
No
!"

When the beast began to stand, to look at her as one looks at prey, the angry Omega stood her ground, showing teeth.

As he approached, she held her breath, determined to make a point that she could resist his scent and presence. Claire could prevail.

Shepherd went to his knees, purring beautifully and stroking her hips. His nose found the apex of her thighs, the heat of his breath hypnotic. "Is this what you wish, for me to kneel to you?"

His nearness exacerbated the internal chemical issue she had been fighting so well. Watching him, knowing he had approached, had knelt, to further his agenda, Claire whimpered. Standing rigid and uncomfortable, she fought the urge to touch him so hard, her muscles shook.

"Your eyes look very beautiful this way, little one," Shepherd crooned, mesmerized by the green irises slowly conquered by the encroaching black of her pupils.

He was not holding her, she could just walk away; one step, then another—it would be simple. Instead she grimaced, feeling that first sharp cramp of estrous slick. He smelled it at once and silver eyes flared. Rising with a flowing grace, Shepherd rubbed against her, pulling her dress in a swish of fabric over her head.

From the Alpha's chest came a demanding growl, the male relishing the way his mate's body doubled over at his call. For hours he had controlled his need to posture and pace so that she could have her short-lived victory; he had tested himself instead of descending into the rut and forcing her along. Now slick openly dripped down her legs; now every fiber of his being needed to fuck her.

Shepherd wrapped a hand around the scruff of Claire's neck and pressed her lower. Fisting his cock, he rubbed the head of his manhood against her lips, spreading the heady fluid created to entice her into the frenzy. She stiffened, panted, the tip of her tongue flicking out against her will.

Swallowing, she keened.

"Is it not better when you don't fight what you are?" he asked, smoothing her black hair to expose hollowed cheeks to his view, hungry to watch her suck at his cock.

For a moment Claire remembered herself. On her knees, debased before him, Shepherd's cock slipped out of her lips and she looked as if she might weep. "What you have done is wrong."

The pads of his fingers burrowed against her scalp. "I am giving you life."

Unable to stop running her nose over the heat of his groin, she panted, "I already had a life; you destroyed it."

Feeling the fury, lust, and vehemence blend with wretched need, Claire clawed her way up his body. Dilated eyes wide and burning, she growled at the male. The noise had hardly left her throat before Shepherd spun her about and pressed her back into the mattress.

Arched, struggling to sheath the mountain cramming his throbbing cock into the pussy that wept for him, Claire entered full estrous. The cord was plucked to harmony, her insides eager for that first true sip of what her pair-bonded mate promised to give. Shepherd hooked her legs over his arms, allowed her to scratch and cling as he attacked, ramming fast and deep, staring into blown pupils while his little one howled.

He had enjoyed her during the Omega's first heat, but something was far more fulfilling in this second estrous cycle. Shepherd was as high on her pheromones as she was on his, knotting her with shouted roars each time her pussy clamped down and wrung his cock for fluids. Words were spoken they could hardly remember, shrieks of ecstasy and feral violence. Claire was so much stronger than before—nothing compared to him, of course, but she had no reservations about attacking if he did not please her. And Shepherd loved it, loved how he had to pin her down, secure viciousness, and overtake his prey.

Claire slept in spurts, always lying on top of him, no matter how he tried to tuck her against his side. When she woke the first time, she looked down at the mess of blankets and just knew they were all wrong. Shoving at the warm mass in her way, she snarled until it shifted, yanking soft materials out from under the Alpha.

As she designed the nest, the heat of a nearby body lingered at her side. Shepherd sniffed her often, running his fingers through the dripping fluids that ran sluggishly down her thighs, stopping only to hand the Omega pillows or whatever she demanded next. When it was done, Claire pushed him back into what she had built and took what she wanted; a thing she had never done before. Riding his cock at her pace, watching him and relishing the way he eased that horrible internal itch, she came powerfully, loving the look in his eyes when she grinned.

The Omega prowled over him, her black eyes utterly absorbed in his body; it kept him hard for days. When she grew tamer, as the overblown reaction to forced estrous lessened, she would stay still long enough for him to scent her, for his big hands to rub the puddle of come that had leaked out of her womb all over her skin, to feed it to her as he purred and gave affection.

When her high was near its end, Shepherd moved in her gently, his silver eyes watching every tick, seeing that she smiled softly and gasped in pleasure with each thrust. He put his lips on hers.

Even caught in estrous, she repeatedly refused his kiss.

Shepherd found it very displeasing.

With her small, conquered, exhausted, and distracted in orgasm it would be so simple to take... but he needed her to come so he might knot her; he needed her to cry out—because once she did, once he had her fully trapped where she could not resist, he was going to force what was his due.

Eager for his due reward, his hips snapped, he clutched her too tight. Mouth at her ear, Shepherd howled, "COME NOW!"

Something in his tone, the absolute command, and Claire spasmed. Eyes rolling back in her head, her climax crashed too soon and too hard. Shepherd's knot swelled huge behind her pelvic bone, the beast groaning loudly with each gush. With her mouth open in a silent scream, he took advantage. Shackling hands held her in place, as if the female would panic. His rough lips crashed down.

She tried to turn her head, body twisting. No matter how he teased her tongue, how he sucked her lips, Claire would not engage.

Issuing another stream of semen into his Omega, Shepherd lifted his head and found her eyes hooded, distant. Growling, frustrated, he demanded, "Kiss me, little one."

Full lips came again to hers. When Claire locked her teeth, he grabbed her jaw and brought her face back to his. "Look at me."

It was the rough-hewn voice that broke through the haze of orgasm; Shepherd desperate and almost human. She glanced at the source, confused. A ragged scar ran diagonally across what was still a beautiful mouth; she found a strong jaw. She looked at him as if for the first time, studied the Alpha who had taken her, who had drugged her to force a child into her womb; the one whose purrs almost brought her as much peace as the sky.

"Look at the man you claim to hate," snarled words that were distorted by gnashing teeth, "and kiss me, little one."

Claire continue to stare, reaching up to touch, to trace the lines of her mate's face—the stubble on his jaw, his fine nose, and the aggressive lips with their arresting scar. She whispered to him. The great beast began to tremble, eyes clouding with what almost looked like physical pain.

She did not offer her lips, but she pulled his head to her breast and offered a tingling nipple instead. He sucked greedily.

#

Tucked against him, his Omega slept far more deeply than she had after he'd broken her previous heat cycle. Carefully running his fingers through the dark mass of her hair, Shepherd purred, just as possessive as he had been from the first. Obsessive thoughts circled in his head, centered on the female in his care, on how to keep her, on how to continue. She was his; he was never going to share her. She'd stay in this room and he would pet and purr as much as was needed while the child he'd planted grew.

What was a sky compared to that? Nothing. The sky was nothing.

His little one stirred, and dark lashes fluttered open. Seeing his face, smelling the familiarity of his breath, Claire hummed sadly and put a hand to her belly. "I am pregnant."

"You are, little one. Your scent is already altering." He disregarded the look in her eyes when it was not exactly one of joy, and stroked her cheek. "You will provide me with a fine child."

Something about the way he spoke made her incredibly uneasy. The haze of lust was gone; the moments of tender words and untrustworthy proclamations passed. Automatically, the purr increased and the tugs on her hair resumed. Watching him with distrust, Claire filtered through the memory of the last few days, aware he had been patient with her initial refusal and outright drug-induced aggression. Shepherd could have debased her but for hours he'd simply watched… until she began to drip, until the rut became unavoidable. Not that it absolved him of what he'd done, the manipulative bastard. She almost wished he would have just outright raped her.

He'd got what he wanted without her consent or approval, and been rewarded with a very willing bedmate in estrous.

"Are you going to keep our child locked in this room, too?" she asked, nervous that no matter what his answer was, it would not be good enough.

"No." The purr came full force.

Claire reached for his hand, holding his eyes as she pulled the roughened palm down her sticky body where it might rest over the life planted within her. It was almost impossible to bring herself to whisper, "Will you separate me from..."

The hand on her abdomen tightened over a womb cradling rapidly dividing cells, owning their combined genetics. "You do not need to worry over such things."

"That is not an answer." She rose to an elbow, growing indignant. "I was not ready for a child—certainly not with a man I hardly know—but you have done this, and I would know what you are going to do to us."

"Already the protective Omega mother; I find that pleases me." There was a strange glow in his eyes, as if the bastard was grinning, though his scarred lips remained neutral. Pressing her down into their nest, he purred, "I will not part you from our child."