“You’re different because you understood what you were fighting for.” His eyes hold mine, gold boring into gray. “You walked into that arena knowing the odds. Knowing you’d probably die, or worse. And you did it anyway, because three girls from your village were worth more to you than your own freedom.”
“Any decent person would have done the same.”
“No.” He stands, and the movement is so fluid, so predatory, that I’m on my feet before I realize I’ve moved. “They wouldn’t. That’s what you don’t understand, Hannah. The kind of courage you showed isn’t common. It’s vanishingly rare, even among warriors who’ve trained their whole lives. Especially among humans.”
“So you trapped me because you admire my courage.” I don’t bother hiding my contempt. “What a touching tribute.”
“I trapped you because I want to own it.” He closes the distance between us with three steps that shouldn’t cover as much ground as they do, stopping close enough that his scent washes over me in a wave that makes my knees threaten to buckle. “I want that fierce, fearless warrior on her knees before me. I want to watch that pride crumble into surrender. I want to be the one who finally breaks Hannah Mitchell—not through force, but through pleasure so intense she forgets she ever wanted to resist.”
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat, in my temples, between my legs. “That’s never going to happen.”
“We’ll see.”
He reaches out and cups my face in his massive palm, tilting my chin up so I have to meet his eyes. The touch sends electricity cascading through my body—heat and want and something terrifyingly close to the surrender he just described. His hand is warm, rough with calluses that speak to centuries of combat, gentle in a way that somehow makes it worse.
“You feel that,” he murmurs, his thumb tracing along my cheekbone. “The way your body responds to mine. You can lie to me with your words, little warrior, but you can’t lie to biology. And your biology is already starting to recognize what you are.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.” His thumb moves lower, tracing my lower lip, and I shudder despite every ounce of willpower I possess. “But hate is just passion with a different name. I can work with hate.”
He holds me there for a moment longer—long enough for me to feel the heat of his body, to smell the intoxicating depth of his scent, to understand exactly how thoroughly my own flesh has betrayed me. Then he releases me and steps back, leaving me trembling with my skin burning everywhere he touched.
“Get some sleep,” he says, moving toward the door. “Tomorrow, your training begins.”
“Training for what?”
He pauses at the threshold, looking back at me over his shoulder. The firelight catches the silver veins in his bronze skin, makes his golden eyes gleam with ancient, patient hunger.
“For everything you’re going to become.”
The door closes behind him with a soft click that sounds louder than a thunderclap.
I stand there in the wreckage of my rage, surrounded by his scent and the echo of his touch, and I hate myself for the truth I can’t escape.
Some part of me—some treacherous, desperate part I don’t recognize—wanted him to stay.Chapter 6: Karax
I hear her breaking things from the corridor outside.
The crash of ceramic against stone. The shatter of crystal. The raw, furious sounds of a woman destroying everything within reach because she can’t destroy the one thing she truly wants to annihilate.
Me.
I lean against the wall and listen, letting the sounds wash over me like music. Each crash tells me something about who she is—the fierce warrior who won’t go quietly, who’d rather rage against her cage than weep inside it. Most omegas cry when they realize they’re trapped. They beg, or bargain, or collapse into despair so complete it takes weeks to coax them back to functionality.
Hannah Mitchell rages.
Something heavy hits the wall hard enough that I feel the vibration through the stone. A string of curses follows—creative enough to make even my most battle-hardened warriors raise an eyebrow. I find myself smiling in the empty corridor, genuinely pleased by her fury in a way I haven’t been pleased by anything in longer than I care to remember.
This is why I chose her. Not for meek compliance or easy surrender, but forthis—the fire that refuses to die even whendying would be easier. Breaking her in will take time. It will take patience and persistence and the kind of careful attention I haven’t bothered to give anything in centuries.
I’m looking forward to every moment of it.
I wait until the sounds of destruction fade before I enter.
She’s sitting in the corner of my study when I push open the door—as far from the bedroom as she can get, surrounded by the wreckage of her rage. Broken glass glitters across the floor. Shattered ceramics crunch under my boots. The vase of mountain flowers has been reduced to scattered petals and pooling water, white blooms trampled in her fury.
Her eyes are red-rimmed but dry.
