“I hate you,”she’d say, even as she begged.“I hate you, but I need—please—”
“Please what, little warrior?”
“Touch me. I can’t stand it anymore. Please, Alpha—”
The word sends me over the edge. I come with a growl that echoes off the stone walls, my release spilling over my fist while I watch her shiver in her chair through the crystal.
Maybe she felt it. The bond between alpha and awakening omega can manifest in strange ways, echoes of pleasure and need passing between them even before the claiming is complete.
When the tremors subside, I clean myself with a thought and refasten my breeches. The release took the edge off, but it’s not enough. Nothing will be enough until I have her beneath me, around me, surrendering everything she is.
But I can wait.
I’ve been waiting for seven centuries. A few more weeks won’t matter.
I spend the rest of the night planning how to break her in.
The physical training will be straightforward enough. She’s already a skilled fighter, and I intend to make her better—Stone Court respects strength, and if she’s going to be my omega, she needs to be able to hold her own against anyone who might challenge her position. I’ll train her the way I’d train any promising warrior, pushing her limits, building her endurance, teaching her techniques that will make her deadlier than she’s ever been.
She’ll like that part. The warrior in her will respond to the challenge, to the chance to become stronger. And every session will put her body in contact with mine, her skin against my skin, my scent soaking into her until she can’t wash it off no matter how hard she tries.
But the real work will be subtler.
I’ll use her exhaustion against her—the bone-deep weariness she’s been carrying for eight years. I watched her through the crystals long enough to see how tired she is, how much she’s been shouldering alone, how desperately she needs someone to share the weight. I’ll give her that. I’ll offer her rest and comfort and the relief of finally having someone strong enough to lean on.
I’ll make sure that obeying me feels like safety. That fighting me feels like suffering.
Not through pain—I have no interest in damaging her body. But there are other ways to wear someone down. Loneliness. Denied comfort. The slow grinding exhaustion of fighting a battle she can never win, alone in a cage that feels smaller every day. I’ll make sure she understands that I’m the only relief available to her. That everything good in her new life comes from me, and everything painful comes from her own resistance.
I’ll train her the way you train any wild thing. Patience and persistence. Reward and denial. Showing her again and again that submission brings pleasure and defiance brings nothing but more suffering.
And when she finally breaks—when she looks at me with those gray eyes and admits that she needs what only I can give her—I’ll reward her with everything she’s been craving.
Until then, I’ll be patient.
Patient as the mountain itself.
The scrying crystal shows Hannah finally giving up on the chair.
She moves toward the bed reluctantly, every line of her body broadcasting her resistance. She strips off her outer clothing with sharp, angry movements—revealing lean muscle and soft curves that make my spent cock twitch with renewed interest. A warrior’s body, built for violence but designed for other things as well. Things I intend to teach her.
She climbs into my bed wearing only her underthings, pulling the silk sheets up to her chin like a barrier against everything she’s feeling. But I can see the way her body relaxes despite herself, responding to my scent saturating the fabric. Can see her eyelids grow heavy, her breathing slow, her resistance softening as exhaustion finally claims her.
Eight years of carrying everyone else’s burdens. Eight years of standing alone against the dark. She’s been running on stubbornness and desperation for so long that she’s forgotten what rest feels like.
I’m going to remind her.
I’m going to make her associate rest with me. Safety with me. Every good thing in her world with the alpha who claimed her.
And by the time I’m done, Hannah Mitchell won’t remember why she ever wanted to resist.
She sleeps surrounded by me tonight. My scent in her lungs. My sheets against her skin. My presence seeping into her dreams.
Tomorrow, her training begins.Chapter 7: Hannah
I dream of him.
Not the monster who trapped me. Not the predator who explained in clinical detail how my mind would be broken, howmy body would betray me, how I’d eventually beg for everything I’m fighting against. In my dreams, he’s something else entirely.
