And the Alpha stared at Brenya like she was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.Stared. “I ordered this particular breakfast for you. Dishes I know you enjoy. Please, please eat the food,mon chou. I need to see you eat it.”
But one chair was empty. The seat across from her.
The tables were set for four.
That was Lucia’s seat.
It had to be. The Omega noticeably absent.
But Brenya couldn’t find it in herself to have an opinion on the missing female. How could she when the symmetry of the glass iris crammed in Jacques’s head was wrong?The eye was wrong. It was not blue enough. It did not move as it should.
Her mind dissecting every detail in a way that made the Alpha self-conscious.
Yet he smiled at her with such tenderness. “Brenya, you need some water. I know you like me to hold the cup to your lips, but I can’t reach you. Lift up your glass and take a sip. Go on. You’ll feel better with a drink.”
She obeyed mechanically, suddenly very aware of just how thirsty she really was. Large gulps as she fought the ice, satisfied, the Omega draining the glass as she stared at the Alpha over the rim of her goblet.
“I would reach forward and take your hand if I could. I would warm your fingers. But I can’t. Feel me anyway. I’m with you. I’m right here. You don’t need to be scared anymore.”
What? What was he talking about? Her thoughts couldn’t move from a single concept. Mind throbbing, she muttered, “He cut out your eye.”
Softly, Jacques offered, “It doesn’t hurt.”
“He’s taken your depth perception…” At long last, a quick blink. Only one. Her attention darting to his right hand. “And your trigger finger.” Cutting a glance to the left hand. “And your…?”
Why take that finger? What purpose did it serve? And what was hidden under those loose-hanging, opulent clothes?
He’d limped.
“Brenya.” It was Jules now, Jules leaning toward her, warming her ear with his breath. “How many spoons are on the table?”
An automatic, easy answer that did not require her to look away from the Alpha. “Three. You did not give him a spoon. And technically, his table is separate.”
Jules again. “How many tiles in the ceiling?”
Another thing she knew. She justknew. No need to look, the answer was just built into her brain. “Twenty-seven and one vent. The standard layout for a room of this size in this building.”
“Is the cell sound?”
“Today.” Because everything in the Dome required constant maintenance. And given time, maybe even centuries, the amorphous metal,the glass, would run and wobble. Though those bars were going nowhere.
Lifting the cover away from Brenya’s meal, Jules made conversation with his prisoner. “When I was your guest, my sweet wife here broke into my cell and tried to set me free. Didn’t you, Brenya? Poured herself into the room through an air ventlike that one. But your cell, she cannot get into it. Not that way. There are no vents on your side of the room.”
Anger washed over that almost-perfect face of an Alpha, darkening the one living eye as Jacques lowered his chin to his chest and glared at his mate as if she’d committed a great crime. “You did what?”
And that’s all it took to snap her out of the fixation, to make her cheeks heat with shame… as if she’d been caught doing something naughty. As if she was to be written up for a reprimand.
Jules not helping as he added coldly, “With a shirt full of leftover food… because she knew I was hungry. She couldfeelit. Using this very golden silverware as her only tool.” Holding up his knife, Jules angled it so it might catch the light and tell its secrets. “See the scratches? You never noticed she’d been gone. She was already so badly bruised that you didn’t see the fresh contusions. Or notice how swollen her shoulder was from the climb.
“Just like you seem not to understand how sore her shoulder will be later, because you bashed yours into a prison you cannot escape. Do you not understand that all damage to your body ends in pain for her? That’s why I removed certain parts of you while she was under general anesthesia. It’s why you don’t have a shock collar or screws drilled into your bones that I can tighten when the mood strikes.”
“Jules….” A small beg, a soft whisper from a nervous woman.
“It’s upsetting, I know. But I want us all to be clear where we stand here. This bond is precarious, my sweet Omega bearing the brunt of the weight. Jacques has to understand that I can’t hurt him the way I want to, and he can’t hurt me. But more importantly, he can’t hurt himself acting like an animal. Because Icanremove his arms and his legs and keep him on waking lifesupport… but I feel that might not be good for your mental state, Brenya.”
He could not be serious!
But the Beta was. Dead serious as she gawked at him. This cold killer, this threatening force. This man whose voice could drive an unwitting victim mad.
