Setting her on her feet, the betas tugged and pulled her along into another room—a new place to torture her. Because the smell of powerful alpha saturated everything.
Her primal brain kicked into awareness, instilling in Naya fear and… something else. She’d never been more aware of the presence of a man, an alpha. And it affected her, sinking past her drugged state and induced docility to catch her full attention.
It was almost too much. The new scent was a wild mix of cedar and nutmeg, the alpha exuding it aged and powerful. Recognition of the male’s dominating strength buzzed through her and woke her.
It was... A good smell. A dangerous smell.
Naya needed to get away from it. Now.
The betas holding her arms were pulling them so hard she thought they might split her in half. They pushed her to her knees. It wasn't hard; Naya would have fallen if they hadn't been holding her up so tightly. She was becoming a liquid rush of something new.
"Crispin, where are you?" she whimpered.
Crispin, who smelled like sunshine—a male of worth, a recent military retiree, ready to settle, mate, and make babies. He had told Naya that he wouldn't restrict her. He'd said that after the marriage, if she still wanted to work with her mother and sisters at the family shop, that was fine with him. Or she could choose home life and run his household and have his children. He would be happy if she was happy.
Sweet Crispin. Where was he?
She needed him, desperately needed his smell to block out the pull of a stronger alpha. It was biology; she had learned it in school. Instincts would make her attracted to any strong alphas she encountered until she mated. It was how she would know her best choice for a mate.
Crispin may not have always had the best smell to her, but he promised her the most freedom, the most modern ideas of marriage of all the males she'd met. She'd been filling her nose with him for weeks so his unique scent would become marked on her psyche.
She needed him now. Needed to breathe him in and block out this other alpha.
The wrong alpha who smelled right.
This man—he filled her up. Sharpened her focus. Knowing this alpha was essential. The omega part of her nature ignited with curiosity and hunger.
A tremble started somewhere deep inside of her, a pure, raging power current down the lines of her every nerve ending. The static charge of it spread to her breasts, her belly, and the place between her thighs.
The thunderous rumble of a prime alpha growl tumbled into an ear-splitting roar of challenge over her head. The sound made her bones quiver and the small of her back hum with an unnatural sensation. She moaned, her insides seizing.
Released unexpectedly, she fell forward, curling tight, a small ball of female on the floor. She should have been afraid.
But she wasn't.
Be afraid, she begged herself. Please be afraid. This wasn't what she wanted. Who she wanted.
But that sound, that noise he was making, dismantled her insides, reshaping her being and remaking her cells.
Claiming her.
She covered her ears, plugged them with her fingers to drown it out, yet even still the feel of it, velvet over steel, assaulted her. It battered at everything she knew, tore away rules and social guidelines and opened the doors of instinct.
The cloudy daze faded. Her muscles locked, her omega breeder body frozen, waiting.
He was strong. She didn't need to see him. His smell and the sound of him told her everything she needed to know.
Above her, a storm exploded. Hot and wild, blood rained down. An alpha was fighting for the rights to a female. She didn't want that. But her heart beat hard with an ancient memory.
A strong alpha killed all challengers.
Where was Crispin? Where was her father? Her brothers?
But she knew they weren't stronger. They couldn't save her.
They would all die if they were here.
Chapter Three
