When Kane came, he pulled her off the wrong alpha and made the male leave. He looked like he had been awake for days. She saw it in his face, the crazy, uncombed mane of his hair. Even his white shirt was wrinkled. As soon as he touched her, spoke to her, she could breathe again.
She bullied him into her space, demanding his shirts and pushing him down into her bed. He tried to leave, but she was absolutely not having it.
She changed out of his old shirt, put on the one he was wearing—the soft, inside one this time—crawled on top of him, and shoved her nose in his neck. She demanded he purr then, and he did. He may not have been very good at it before, but now he had it just right.
Her friends got her up to feed her, make her drink and take the medicine. The alpha still slept on the bed, so they kept quiet. When the door creaked open and a wrong alpha tried to come in, Sasha gave him the look she’d learned from Kane. The one that warned of death.
The door shut.
Sasha went back to her nest, snuggling on top of the alpha who was the best part of it. When he tried to wake up a little while later, she had her females bring food and water for him. She fed him, then she purred for him until he fell asleep again.
The cycle lasted eight days. Kane could sneak out of the room to attend to his work and household for about six hours at a time. When the clock creeped into seven hours, Sasha would begin to rage and demand to see him.
It wasn't just her wild screaming echoing down the hall that bothered the household. Every person who had met her or heard her since the beginning of her stay could feel her. Empathically gifted, her call affected them all until they were twitching like shine addicts for a fix, drone to alpha, her heat amplifying her ability.
The one who heard clearest and suffered most was Kane himself.
Breeders choose, and whether he wanted a bride-mate or not, Sasha had chosen him.
Chapter 11
At the end of eight days, Sasha lay in a strange bed in a strange room, looking up at a ceiling with rococo plaster patterns curling over it from end to end.
Her body felt like Maura had tied her to the floor and commanded every member of their home walk over her while wearing metal boots. She hurt everywhere, but her mind felt clear for the first time in forever and waves of clenching agony no longer assaulted her.
Sasha knew this was a pain of recovery.
Sharing a mattress, Lanny and Lilla were still asleep, the three-minutes-younger Lilla snoring into her sister's ear.
A warm gratitude for their presence made her heart glow. She felt like they had helped her stay alive through the cycle, forcing her to eat and drink, pulling her back more than once from the edge of crazy.
And Kane, who had been there with his voice, his purr, and his body. She felt her face redden at the vague images of a beautiful, shirtless Kane in her bed.
What had she done?
A niggling embarrassment twitched around the edges of her consciousness. She sorted through thoughts and memories, trying to understand what had happened the day her heat started on the way to the doctor's office. The Warlord Alpha's presence took center stage in each recollection.
He had purred for her. He had killed for her. He was firstborn son and heir to the king.
He had called her father, the person she’d most loved, a slave owner.
Why had she come here?
With a long, self-indulgent groan, she rolled out of the bed. Her muscles ached and her legs wobbled, unbalanced. She really needed to pee.
Sasha took one noodly step from the bed and fell like a stuffy without stuffing, straight to the floor.
"Sasha!" Lilla cried, climbing over her sister, who woke with a yelp and a knee to her belly.
Sasha held up her hand to stop her friend. Her head felt too big to lift. "Nope. Don't get up. I'm fine. I can do this."
Lilla giggled.
Lanny groaned. "Then can you come help me, Sasha? Lilla punched my stomach under the bed and I can't find it."
"Sure, sure. Coming, dear Lanny. Just give me a moment."
Sasha watched Lilla go to a box on the wall and push a button, yelling into it when a light came on.
