“Why?” An innocent question, its indecency beyond Brenya’s grasp.
“An average Betamale’s sperm count upon ejaculation is in the tens of millions. The usual copious volume ofAlphaejaculate may have less than a few hundred thousand sperm. Alphas are practically infertile, so they produce more fluid, and knot to prevent competitors from inseminating desirable females. They form pair-bonds. Yet, despite their size, their cultural supremacy, their pheromones, and ability to daze an Omega with a purr or growl, it is almost impossible to overcome Beta semen once it has been deposited.”
Deposited?
A chill crept over Brenya, the memory of Jacques’s determination to cleanse Jules’s ejaculation from her bowels after all three of them had been pair-bonded. How Jacques had hurt her to do it, bartered a meeting with Annette, if Brenya would only hold still.
The pain of an Alpha’s oversized cock up her ass, the agony of Jacques’s cum ballooning her large intestine. How the man had promised it wouldn’t hurt, but it had.
And then she’d been shamed into running for the toilet to evacuate her sperm-filled bowls while Jacques watched and delighted.
The same Alpha trying desperately to seep back into her thoughts.“Brenya… do not trust the Beta!”
This time, it was as if Jules Havel heard it too.
Taking her chin, the Beta urged Brenya to meet his gaze, and he seemed to read every last one of her secrets in a single, prolonged stare. “Jacques Bernard cannot remove me. Ever.” As if to prove a point, Jules used his fingertip to scoop up the larger globs of cum on her breasts. After showing it to her, Jules unceremoniously carried it between her thighs. Pushing his finger deep into her pussy as she gasped, the Beta smeared his spend right over her sensitive cervix, dead serious as he declared, “Even if he were to steal you away, I am so deeply inside you already that any child conceived before I could get you back would be mine. Remember that.”
“Steal me away?” Brenya blinked up at him, grimacing from his finger probing her overly sensitive vaginal canal. Around her thoughts, his black sea began to move, to creep up over her shores as if pressing her into a corner. “He’s in prison. You promised?—”
“He will try.” Jules softened his expression, gently removing his fingers to trace the last remnants of his cum over her parted lips. “Should that day come, swear to me you will not break out of the Dome like you intended to the night you tried to free me. The air may be clean of Red Consumption, but predatory animals no longer possess a natural fear of humans. You would not survive long unprotected. Swear you will obey me in this. Ifyour only choices were to go with Jacques or with wilds, go with him and trust me to come for you.”
The moment had been ruined, her calm, her peace, her sense of pride in his praise, all spoiled with a few unwelcome words. “Don’t talk like that. I would euthanize myself first.”
The hand that came around her throat then… it was different than the way he had taken her neck the night before. It was dangerous, lethal, but careful as he rolled their bodies so she was beneath him, the Beta looming over her.
Limpid, feral eyes met hers. “Don’t. Even. Think. It.”
Tears pricked her eyes, the whites showing, as she whispered, “You’re scaring me.”
“Good.”Therewas the killer of millions. Right there, naked, holding her down, his hand on her throat to remind her which of them held all the power. “If you were to die, I will not be held responsible for what would follow. And it would be terrible, Brenya. I will doterriblethings. Remember that.”
8
Terrible things?
Yes, Jules would do terrible things. Enjoyed it when necessary.
Found it deeply satisfying.
Caressing his mate as he uncuffed her throat, clever fingers trailed over her breasts, delighting in Brenya’s beauty. Kissing three times along her jaw as he made his way to whisper at her ear, “I know you think I am horrible when I say such things. But I don’t mean to scare you, not in the way you imagine.I love you. Understand that.”
Obsessed. Starved for. Curled around mentally and physically in all ways possible.
She was his hoard, and he the dragon.
“And I will tell you I love you every day. I willshowyou I love you.” Forearm to the mattress, Jules hovered over the breathless Omega he had caught, studied her features, his eyes running over Brenya’s jagged yet wonderful scar. “These moments of terror will waste away into nothing. I’ll assure it. Because I know that you love me too.”
Sure fingers danced over her breastbone, tapping where his claim was buried deep—where he and she were one. “Emotions are layered and complex. The chemicals released retarded by the Beta suppressants you ingested from birth. Now, they flood you, overwhelm you, because you don’t know how to identify each one. How to explore them. But this one, this warm, bright,knowingyou feel here? This is your love for me.”
His touch traveled lower, Jules palming the vulnerable, concave belly he’d worked so hard to fatten up over the last months with simple food for a complex woman. Possessive, insistent. “And here. That’s where I am inside you. Where you know. Where your instinct lives. Listen to it. Trust that this will never lie.”
Because he would.
He would lie to his mate.
But not today. Today was a long-awaited conjunction. Today was their first true day as husband and wife.
“And because you love me, I beg you, Brenya. Please do not test the lengths I will go to preserve you. Not even in a passing comment.You cannot die.” His cheek to hers, a gentle nuzzle, careful his scruff did not abrade her delicate face, Jules pressed her into the mattress and turned her head toward the light. Silken words at the shell of her ear, he told his deepest truth. “You cannot die if you want the world to live. And it’s so little I ask. Just thrive. Take the happiness you deserve, because Iwillgive it to you.”
