“She isn’t yoursyet. The money hasn’t come through, and until it does, you will not harm property you do not yet own.”
Again, she laughed, uncaring that she looked insane. “You know, you almost had me,Dad.”
He leaned down and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, using it to clear the blood off her face. “How so?”
“I thought for a minute, maybe you were right. Maybe I’d been fighting this whole time to avoidsomething I was never going to escape. Maybe I was meant to bethisperson.” She met his gaze head on, truly defying him for the first time in her life. She didn’t just snap, didn’t offer pointless hissy fits, but stood toe-to-toe with the man who had ruined so much of her life. “You were wrong, though. I’m not something to be owned by whoever pays the most. I am not property.”
“I saw you kneeling for those other alphas. If you think that didn’t come naturally, you’re fooling yourself.” His words were soft, as if she were naive and he were trying to help her understand, gently.
“That’s what you don’t get, what you’ll never get. You can’tforcesomeone to submit. It isn’t possible. Trying is like declaring you’re king. If you have to say it, it isn’t true.” She threw his words back at him. “Do you know why I knelt for them? Why I willingly gave up my power to them? Because I trusted them. Because they earned it. Because at the end of the day, it was stillalwaysmy choice.”
He titled his head but said nothing.
“Mom never loved you. How could she? You were just some man demanding he was king, and in the end, she killed herself rather than spend another fucking day withyou.”
Thatgot to him. His face darkened in a way she’d never seen before, and the man who rarely showed any emotion had fury written there across his features.
Still, she didn’t relent, didn’t back down. She wasdoneletting him control her.
“You will do as you’re told,” he said, voice steady and dark. “You will behave yourself or you will find your life very unpleasant. You will listen to your mate, you will do as you are expected, you will have his children and care for them.”
Another groundless, crazy laugh left her at that all. All sorts offuck thatran through her mind at all the ways that would never happen.
“What’s so funny?” Howard asked.
“I’m already pregnant,” she said. “Sorry, buddy, but you’re buying damaged goods. Whatever little power fantasy you have, it’s never going to happen. I’m never going to submit to you, and I’ll spend my entire life trying to end yours. Hope you’re up for the long haul, buddy, because this willneverget any easier.”
Geoffrey grabbed her chin, forcing her eyes to his. “You think you’ve won?” hetsk’dsoftly. “You havenoidea what I am capable of. You will behave, because you will be chained until you learn to. Trust me, no omega has ever outlasted me. And you’re pregnant?Thatis a very simple problem to fix. Perhaps when we take care of that inconvenience, it will also remove this pointless infatuation you have with those alphas. You will never see them again, not only because you’ll be gone, but because I expect they won’t live long enough to cause me any more problems. I dislike loose ends and they have seen my face.”
The world went away as she stared into her father’s dark eyes. His words slithered through her, casting away the sounds of the people downstairs, the guards in the room, Howard. None of it mattered.
He reached forward and set a hand on her stomach. “You will have offspring with whoIdecide. Perhaps one of them will actually make for a proper omega. Not this one, of course. Lucky for you, we can take care of it easily tonight.”
The touch was what did it, what snapped loose whatever control she had. Something dark inside her spread out, filling her, twisting her. She’d done a lot ofthings in her life that weren’t good, a lot that might shock a better person, but she’d never enjoyed them.
She’d done them because she’d needed to, because she logically knew they were necessary.
Whatever it was that took over her wasn’t logical. It didn’t care about what needed to happen, or what should, or what was right or wrong.
It only cared that he had threatened her mates. That he had threatened her unborn child.
She moved forward so fast that her father didn’t even have the ability to scream. She had no idea if anyone else reacted, since her focus was entirely limited. She brought her hand down against his face, only three times, but he stopped moving. A yank to her hands made her growl.
The leash.
She wrapped her fingers around it and yanked back, moving Howard off balance. Still, that fury inside her didn’t abate. Everyone in that room had proven a threat to her mates, to her child, and at that moment she had no idea what mercy was.
She came forward, knocking Howard down and twisting behind him. She got her bound cuffs around him and used them against his throat, her knee in his back. Sickening gurgling noises left him, but she didn’t let up.
Something struck the side of her face.
She snarled at Galen, amazed he hadn’t shot her. Then again, she was worth a pretty penny.
They should have shot her.
She yanked again, hard enough for a snap from Howard’s neck, for him to go unnaturally lax.
She tried to extract herself from him, but Galen did most of the work when he grabbed her arm andyanked, hard. She was nothing compared to him when it came to weight. Her cheek hurt where he’d hit her, and it took a moment to realize he’d used some sort of stick.
