Born to Be Bound (20 page)
Authors: Addison Cain
She had not voiced it, but Shepherd interpreted the truth. Svana found him wanting in the most primal of ways.
All those years, Shepherd's fidelity had been one-sided. Svana did not hesitate to admit she'd taken other lovers. Hadn't he? After all, were they not Alphas? Was it not their right? She had stroked his chest and smiled so perfectly, reminding him that what they shared was beyond the physical. They shared a great destiny, an eternal spiritual bond of love.
Gutted, Shepherd fulfilled his duty to his loyal Followers, to the dead mother he hardly remembered. Thólos fell, everyone playing their part to perfection; yet he was less for it. The world had shifted, he had achieved greatness, but what was he left with? Nothing. A big black hole where the light had gone out. He was incomplete.
But then he'd smelled something untainted hiding under the poignant stink of decay. Like a gift from the gods, Claire was delivered; unlikely virtue born out of the filth of Thólos. A lotus. Claire, with her convictions and her timid bravery, walked up to a man like him—stubbornly waited for hours, a lamb amongst the wolves—to beg for help from the very villain inflicting suffering on the friends she would save.
One breath of her and he would have taken her, heat or no. The gods had simplified his spiritual culmination by delivering her in estrous.
As he rutted the willful, strange thing, Shepherd found she wriggled so wonderfully, felt so perfectly snug encasing his cock, that he had to ensure she could never leave. As Svana had claimed their
devotion
was beyond the physical, their love divine, Shepherd felt perfectly justified in taking Claire, in creating a corporeal mate—an attachment that would only benefit the unruly Omega. He bonded to keep Claire for himself, his reward for service to the greater good of mankind reborn. The green-eyed little one's purity was now his own, her nearness succor. In Claire, Shepherd had regained that missing piece, the covetous need to possess something innocent, achieved.
Yet, now his bonded mate was gone with his child in her belly, wandering a city that was destined for plague.
The Omega would never come back to him willingly, not while the pair-bond was so damaged. Shepherd would have to return Claire by force.
He could almost hear the echo of her words in the air:
do not give me cause to hate you more.
What had gone through the mind of the Omega he'd found unconscious on the bathroom floor? He'd anticipated anger, but found something impaired far beyond his reasoning. His coupling with Svana had left Claire unresponsive and empty—left the cord so fractured, all Shepherd could feel from her was an echo of desolation.
It was not a sensation he enjoyed.
No amount of attention or space had made a difference. Her glassy eyes had looked at him with judgment and hatred no matter how he tended her, touched her, or purred. All her favorite foods had been prepared, new dresses put in her drawer... she had not even noticed.
Claire O'Donnell belonged to him. Shepherd would find her, drag her back... and force-feed her if he fucking had to. He would make her adore him like she was supposed to. Because she was his, only his, and he did not share his things. Ever.
To be continued… Born to be Broken, available in Spring 2016 from Blushing Books
Addison Cain
Addison L. Cain was born in sunny California, but found herself drawn to dwell in older, history-rich places. Japan, Ireland, Qatar, and now Washington DC, Addison is always on the move, always eager to immerse herself in new cultures and people. Her stories reflect the antiquities she loves: deep and sometimes very dark. Driven to push her characters beyond the pale, Addison’s books are not for the faint of heart.
An alumni of California State University Fullerton, she earned a degree in Japanese and spent years in Asia studying indigenous Japanese religion. Primeval forests and worn pathways have led to her obsession with gardening. Her Great Dane approves, loping around the yard and getting into mischief. Unfortunately the cat has to watch from a window, and because Addison is a total sucker for his sad golden eyes, he gets hours of belly rubs and too many treats.
Visit her website here:
addisonlcain.wordpress.com
Don’t miss these exciting titles by Addison Cain and Blushing Books!
Consumed: Born to be Bred Book One
Available Soon:
Sanctified: Born to be Bred Book Two
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Chapter 10
Corday's assumption was accurate. Betrayal by those closest to Claire had allowed Shepherd to abduct his friend. Standing with the masses gathered before the Citadel, he watched three emaciated women being shoved forward to be gawked at and heckled by the crowd. The Omegas had been charged with theft and battery, Shepherd himself shouting their sentence as the terrified females were dragged, then propped up so each might have a noose fitted around her scrawny neck.
Tens of thousands had come to watch the sentencing, Dome Broadcasts having announced the upcoming executions for days.
Thólos Dome had once been the pinnacle of evolved human culture, maintained and exalted no matter the ruins left far behind and far away—the greatest of the Domes. Capital punishment had not existed before the breach. The worst male offenders were sent to the Undercroft, the females to the farming levels to labor. And now the city was enamored with such morbid pageantry, cheering for their conqueror, and hungry for blood.
It was an extravaganza, a visual warning to remind the population who was in charge. It was a sham.
Shepherd postulated, eloquent and captivating, listing the three Omegas' sins, calling them cowards and aggressors—rattling off a record of crimes so ridiculous Corday found the crowd's gasps preposterous. How could they not see what this was? Could they not grasp that those skeletal women were terrified and pleading... that they had been gagged so their shrieks would be nothing but noise?
Shepherd approached the Citadel's archway—turned into a macabre scaffold—large and terrible, the Da'rin markings on his arms flaunted as if the pain they caused him were nothing. The convicted Omegas sobbed pathetically, their eyes darting over the crowd in search of deliverance, mercy... anything.
"Lilian Hale, Xochitl Ramos, Barb Guppy, you have been found guilty and are sentenced to death by hanging."
Shepherd himself, the monster who had Claire in his possession, kicked each support from under the terrified females' feet. They fell—a short drop, their toes kicking a few inches from the ground. Through it all, Shepherd watched them jerk and thrash, fixated. Fifteen agonizing minutes passed before the last of the women stopped twitching.
The rabid crowd lost its edge when the women's uncovered faces turned grotesque shades of purple, the corpses' eyes bulging. Two of them had wet themselves and, in the end, it appeared as if Thólos recognized and began to suffer the fear Shepherd had intended to inspire. The three bodies were left there to swing in the breeze, exposed to the birds when Shepherd turned his back and walked away. The mob began to disperse.
With hands deep in his pockets, Corday moved on. Some part of him had hoped Shepherd would have Claire at his side, that he would flaunt her, though deep down such an idea was ridiculous.
But Corday needed to see her, to know she was okay. For her to see him, so she might know he was fighting for her.
There were so many unanswered questions, so much that weighed on his shoulders, and when he closed his eyes each night, it was her in that grave he saw being covered in dirt; Claire's green eyes, staring dead and unblinking at the sky, which haunted him.
Shepherd was a psychopath. It had been two weeks and Corday was not sure if his friend was even still alive. The temptation to approach, to ease just close enough to see whether he carried her scent, took Corday's feet up the steps and into the Citadel.
It was madness; he knew that; he had totally lost his mind. But with the crush, with the fanfare and the rowdy froth of the crowd, he was unseen and unnoticed. The stink of the room was intrinsically gross. With unwashed males and a few of the more nasty Alpha females, the air was laced with an aggressive musk that mingled into a pungent stench that would warn off the vulnerable and timid. Corday could imagine Claire walking into such a place, could see her being swallowed up.
She had claimed a riot broke out at the start of her heat, that Shepherd had killed a lot of people to claim her. If it was in the midst of this group, she was lucky they had not started ripping off her limbs.
But Shepherd had fought the mob for her...
That was the one part Corday still could not wrap his mind around. Shepherd was a killer, the type to enjoy the bloodbath. He'd just murdered three women. So why fight for Claire, why pair-bond?
Edging through the crowd, mimicking the savage behavior of those shouting for more, Corday went unnoticed. He only needed to get within fifteen feet before he smelled the scent Shepherd wore with pride. Claire's slick—Shepherd's trophy—was fresh, as if he'd only just had her before executing the Omegas Corday's gut told him were responsible for turning her over to the brute.
It was all too surreal, too double-edged. But Claire was alive; in that, Corday found reassurance. So he must remain strong for her—for all the oppressed—and he, like the other Enforcers, would find a way to end this madness.
Gritting his teeth, he left the Citadel.
#
Shepherd found her under her burrow again, fast asleep in a circle of his scented garments. His Omega was almost always sleeping, a side-effect of the early stages of pregnancy. Turning her into the curve of his body, he saw her grimace, draw in his scent, then come awake startled.
Pensive, she began to sniff at him, scowling deeper each time she did; it was impossible to miss her displeasure at whatever she found. Stranger still, she made no secret of her appraisal, climbing over him until her nose was breathing in the air exhaled from his mouth.
Revulsion sat thick in her eyes.
Shepherd let her climb out of bed to approach the bathroom, where he could hear her turn on the shower. Her new ploy, the extensive cold-shouldered silence, continued. Claire was not going to speak to him; she simply marched back in the room with her hand over her nose, her silent way of telling the Alpha to wash off the smell.
"Explain your issue," Shepherd growled, watching her grimace deepen.
Her tongue was sharp when she lowered her hand. "You stink of many hostile Alphas... you contaminated my nest."
He rose from the bed, narrowing his eyes at the disgust on her face. "Your tone is undesirable."
Claire wiped her face clean of her unfriendly expression, needing him to wash, refusing to give him a reason to fuck her while he smelled of the very squalid men who'd almost raped her in the Citadel.
Her heart picked up pace; an off note vibrated out of tune from her end of the thread. "Please don't touch me while you smell like… them."