Sasha was moaning, fighting against herself and a male succumbing to the rut. She wanted to yield to him. She wanted to vomit.
She heard a screech—a crash, yelling—and snarling. She looked up at Savage's face, his pupils blown in desperate hunger. His mouth twisted in a snarl as someone from behind suddenly pulled her away, and two men wearing black uniforms jumped on him. She was picked up like she weighed nothing, walked through a parted crowd, and placed gently into a transport.
Zinanno was in the front seat of the car. He handed her a blanket. His expression was sad and angry at the same time. He watched her come to the realization of who’d found her.
"You don't like me very much, do you?"
Sasha wiped at the tears on her face. She hated them. "What? I like you. You're fine." Her breath shuddered in and out of her lungs, unsteady. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it trying to escape.
"He kills breed for less," the beta secretary said solemnly. "You know that, right? I have a beautiful family. We've been planning a grand get together, all the children and their mates, even the babies. Now I must call my dear wife and tell her no, please just plan Zinanno's funeral. I want my ashes scattered in the yard where the children play. They can use Zinanno to fertilize the flowers. I would like that."
"This isn't your fault."
Zinanno hung his head. "I was gifted the charge of you, clever girl. Of course it is my fault."
Sasha clenched her teeth. Holding the blanket against her chest, she repeated Bella's words.
"He left me." She closed her eyes, leaning back against the seat cushions. "He doesn't want me."
Chapter 13
Sasha found herself in holding once again, but this time, her arms were stretched over her head and bound in chains suspended from the ceiling.
The chains worked just like she’d thought they would, except she felt certain that most guests of the torture chamber didn't get small, perfectly fitted cuffs to keep their skin from becoming bruised or broken. The chains had been used for someone else before, but the buckled cuffs smelled new, like fresh leather and rabbit fur.
He made her wait until her arms went numb and her feet hurt. She'd started to hum lullabies to herself when the icy calm of Constantine Kane's fury seeped through the frame of the metal door, his invisible frost curling around her.
She wondered if he was out there counting to ten.
He opened the door—a primal beast of sculpted muscles—hard curves and edges looking at her. Silent.
Head tipped to the side and looking at her feet, Sasha offered him the submission due an alpha. This had always come naturally to her, an ability to pretend what she didn't feel.
Kane was an alpha who didn't care, anyway. He would be more than happy to dominate her by using her desire for him. Somewhere between their first encounter and now, chained up in his torture chamber, all her fear and uncertainty of him had evaporated. She’d grown.
Lowering her eyes to the black leather shoes on his huge feet was a courtesy to a man who had been kind to her and sheltered her. There wasn't a submissive bone in Sasha's body otherwise. They both knew it.
"You don't want a bride-mate." She said the words slowly, reminding him. He had no right to do this to her. Emotion wanted to sneak out of her chest, into her throat, from out her eyes in the form of tears and sobs. But she'd done enough of that just yesterday. All that wet, snotty weakness never got her anywhere.
She watched his feet move forward. The door closed. Her nose itched from his ice. It added a burn to the spice of male pheromones. She'd have to ask someone if they'd ever felt this from him, too. Was this what made him so terrifying to weaker breed?
He didn't speak.
The silence made her feel like she had to fill it with explanations. "You already have an omega breeder and others in reserve waiting for you. There is no reason for me to stay here. I need to get home, get back to my people, and pick my husband. Someone who values what I have to offer."
Kane crouched, his head of tousled black hair coming into view. With practiced ease, he lifted his pant leg and pulled a knife from the sheath strapped there in one graceful move. She didn't even have time to contemplate how badly she wanted her fingers in his hair.
"I have no connections, no political advantage, no wealth to speak of that a male like you could want. I know that now. It's silly to keep me here. I want to go. And don't go killing any of the guards because I slipped away. It's not Zinanno's fault. They are dependent on their sense of smell to help them see, that's how they're trained. And don't kill that enforcer either."
"Too. Late." Kane bit out the words, flashing his incisors at her.
Sasha groaned. When that stupid male touched her with lust, he’d signed his death warrant. Sasha was leaving a body count in her wake.
"It is good that his weakness can no longer risk others," he told her. "You have a way of doing that to breed, Sasha. You reveal who we really are." On silent feet, he stood and moved behind her, a dangerous monster at her back.
His entrance had made her innermost tissues swell. She could feel it happening, the ripening between her legs, the presence of her slick. He was going to make her drip.
"But he would be alive if you had stayed where you were supposed to. Yes?"
