Jacques had never seen her eyes so wide upon his return, nor found Brenya so eager to run her palms over his body when he reached for his mon chou.

  She had heard him, grasped the fact that males enjoyed touch, and was listening.

  Even if she was sick from too much food.

  But that first impatient thrust broke the magic, his mate grimacing at the impact of his hips on hers.

  Why could she not be like the Beta females he could ride day and night? Fragile vaginal passage, picky womb, there always seemed to be something that hindered what should be between them.

  Pulling out, he issued the growl he knew would leave her body pumping out the very fluid it needed to seat him, before he shoved back in.

  Deep.

  Omegas were designed by the Gods to be fucked and adored by Alphas, but this one, she needed endless work.

  Which only made him crave her more.

  No pussy would ever panic around his cock like Brenya’s did. And when he conquered—as he always would—no pussy would ever choke his knot so hard he saw stars.

  She was a strong thing, small breasts thrust toward his mouth as her back bowed.

  Her pain made him leak for her. The pleasure he could make her feel would swell her flat stomach until she was fat with him.

  Thrusting hard and fast, feeding off her submission and sorry squeaks, he grunted like a boar and fucked.

  In his bed.

  In his Dome.

  His mate.

  The Omega thought to supplicate with his latest demands that she touch him. Pats here. Pats there. A great deal of squealing.

  He prayed the bastard Beta locked downstairs could feel each thrust. Knowing he might, Jacques ravaged all the harder.

  Her ankles at his back, the Omega cried out, “I am begging you!”

  Then he would deliver. Lifting his weight from her tiny frame, Jacques sat back on his heels so he might see how perfectly her labia screamed around her mate’s cock. Stretched bloodless, they hugged his shaft as he retreated from her heat. Puffed with the force of his next thrust, that part of her seemed to disappear.

  If he didn’t know her better, he would assume she was having a stroke.

  So he stroked her again.

  Warm honey, that was what her eyes looked like before he blew them into black.

  Hand to slender hips, watching the bouncing tits of his pretty Omega, he fucked and fucked and fucked away—tossing his head back when she began to flutter.

  When her pussy began to beg.

  As it should!

  The knot, perhaps his sixth of the day, was not his most impressive. Still, it locked behind her pubic bone, shot deep and true.

  It was genuine, just like the text claimed. Mated Alpha’s testicles were always swollen. They needed to be milked.

  Jacques had learned this the hard way, moaning as he circled his hips and dug even deeper.

  Gods, she was small. When she grew fat with his babies, she would scarce be able to stand upright.

  She could hardly contain him as it was!

  Which only urged him to fill her even more.

  Bones creaking under his hips, she opened enough that his knot might dig deeper.

  And deeper still as his perfect female swooned.

  That fucking Beta! The arrogance of the man. To think he might ever be capable of tasting her sweet slick without Jacques to draw it forth. A mere Beta couldn't make her bloom with a single rumbling note, the application of the perfect force.

  Brenya needed an Alpha.

  The sleeve encasing his cock began to rhythmically convulse. Little hands touching on his body as if he were a console.

  Could a console fuck her this hard?

  The wayward Omega squealed like a cute little piglet each time he shoved his knot deeper.

  That first wad of seed…

  It was as if Jacques could feel how thick and globular it might be, traveling down his shaft, his sperm searching for her cervix.

  Omegas were meant to drink. All the text said so.

  So this one had been conditioned to bloat. Brenya didn’t even cry anymore when her tummy got fat. Like any good mate, she lay and accepted.

  When his knot inevitably shrank, she even held a good portion deep inside.

  He’d tested her more than once. Gently pushing on her abdomen to watch the flood he left inside her wet the bed.

  It came out curdled these days, solid proof that her sweet cunt wanted to retain what he had graced her with. But there was something about watching his gift flow.

  Drinking it down was even better.

  Honey.

  The perfect slippery sweetness. Sucking her empty, enjoying how she groaned when he brought her to an empty climax, Jacques thought of the Beta trapped below and slurped down a mouthful of himself.

  Jules Havel might have fucked her ass, but he would never know the taste of Brenya’s sweet cunt.

  17

  Muscles stiff from stagnant lactic acid, scraped raw inside and out, bruised, and swollen—sleep had dragged Brenya down so deep she didn’t so much as toss in the sticky puddle of fluids left behind when Jacques finished with her.

  That's why the first, sharp jerk on her arm didn’t register.

  There was no waking someone so submersed in oblivion. Yet, the following insistent tugs on her arm, oh so slowly, gave Brenya a reason to part her lashes.

  The room was dark, as dark as she found Jules’s heart to be, yet a single lamp had been lit, outlining the form of a radiant woman dressed in maroon silks. Pin-straight black locks shined, almost as smooth as the glass of the Dome, as Lucia stared down at her, urging, “You must rise, Commodoreina!”

  Accent thick, fingernails sharp, a slender figure jostled her aching shoulder.

  Startled, Brenya fought the heavy, confounding sleep as it clouded her thoughts. “What’s going on?”

  Yet waking had sent her heart to pick up speed, racing as panic washed through every last bit of flesh and bone.

  Memories of what she'd done—and what had been done to her—rushing in.

  Mere moments later, owl eyes began to blink, and brain and body aligned in terrible recognition. Something very bad was happening. “Where is Jacques?”

  Where was the Alpha who could hardly bear to have her out of his sight?

  What was he doing that was so essential that he'd send the foreign Omega into his private rooms?

  “They must not be kept waiting,” Lucia insisted, trying to pull Brenya’s body into a seated position. “You must get up. Wash and dress, quickly, now.” Narrowing her eyes, Lucia clicked her tongue. “You have to answer for what you did.”

  They knew….

  Bernard Dome knew she’d gone to the imprisoned Ambassador Jules Havel, that she had tried to free him in exchange for mercy. That he had refused her help, refused to forgive her.

  That he had promised to hurt her… and she had shown him how to open his cell.

  But he had not left it. And she knew—they both knew—he could have broken out of that cell at any time before she’d arrived.

  Why had he not?

  There had been no time to consider how her world was falling apart on her race back to Jacques's rooms. No luxury of time to sit with the knowledge that Jules Havel was a much-greater threat than anyone had given him credit for. Not as she had rushed to be back on the balcony before Jacques might murder George or allow Ancil to smother his newborn son to punish her.

  Yet, the Alpha had rushed her at first glance, only moments after she arrived, distinctly vicious in his desperation to mount her. How he’d behaved, the way he spoke… she'd been certain he didn’t know. Brenya had even tried to touch him, to calm him… finding giving him what he wanted did not soften his aggression in the slightest.

  He only hurt her more, his enthusiasm so great.

  Now that he knew she’d betrayed him, had he already gone to collect George? Was he going to torment and execute her Beta tech right in front of her?

  Of course he was.

  Blinking up at the woman with the perfect sheet of black hair, aristocratic features, and sun-bronzed skin, seeing how urgently Lucia moved, how disgusted, Brenya knew time was slipping right out of her fingers. Shaken, Brenya could find no words. “Lucia….”

  “Commmodoreina, get up, bathe, and dress for royalty. The men wait to judge you, and I will be held accountable if they are not impressed. I was told explicitly that you must be perfect!” Lacking all mercy, Lucia yanked her arm again. “Come, come, the bath is already full, and you stink.”

  Aching head to toe, warmth leaking a steady trickle from between her abused thighs, Brenya hissed yet sat up all the same. The sheet fell away, an unobstructed view of her nude upper body exposed.

  Lucia went still.

  Openly staring at new and old bruises, fresh bites, each scrape, and the yet unhealed claiming mark on her neck, the Omega foreigner gaped.

  And then she rolled her eyes upward, sighing. “You’re one of those Omegas. Gods, send me strength.” As if to dig in deeper some barb that Brenya didn’t quite grasp, the woman added, “And your nesting skills are atrocious. You are practically a queen, yet you sleep like a peasant. No wonder Ancil sent me to prepare you. You’d shame us all without my help!”

  Just the sound of Ancil’s name set Brenya’s teeth on edge. He should be the one dragged in for judgment, not her. He should pay for all he had done! “Did he tell you he intends to murder his son? Annette’s life will be next.”

  Compunction soured an angry expression to one of discomfiture. “No. But I will not lie and pretend that such an outcome has not occurred to me. The customs and laws regarding females in this Dome are centuries behind the progress of Greth. I cannot be expected to change them overnight, especially when our Commmodorina does nothing with her influence. You have done nothing for any of us—your Omega guests locked away for these past weeks? We have not been able to even speak with one another. But, why should you concern yourself with your kind? You lay in filth and refuse to wash yourself.”

  Tired of the ugliness of this place, Brenya sighed. “If I am going to be judged, what does it matter how I look?”

  Scoffing, Lucia tossed her hair and renewed her attempts to pull Brenya from the bed. “Do you wish to see my skin marked as yours is? Do you think I will not be punished by your mate if I do not follow orders?” Sneering, the woman added, “You may enjoy these things, but I do not.”

  Brenya did not enjoy these things, but there was no point in saying so. Lucia had already formed a terrible opinion, and others were waiting to do the same.

  Jules Havel must have hated her a great deal not to follow her out of that cell. She had been prepared to suffer this for his escape, to buy his freedom from this hell, but now? Now, beloved friends would suffer, they would die, and she would be tormented for nothing.

  Did he not want to go to his Rebecca? Why else would he have whispered her name?

  Had she made some error?

  It had not been Brenya’s imagination—that moment, like every moment she had ever lived—was cataloged and memorized. Even now, she could replay the look on his face and the pain in his voice when he had called to her.

  “You’ll need your energy for what’s coming.”

  She had none left.

  Fingers repeatedly snapped in her face, Lucia saying, “Snap out of it! We are all aware that you are unpolished, but I didn’t assume you were also dim-witted. Men of this level do not wait on one foolish Omega. Do you not understand what is at stake here?”

  “I do.” More than anyone else might. Slipping from damp sheets, cum running down her leg, Brenya stood before Lucia and said, “I’m ready. Take me to them.”

  Lucia’s beauty was not marred by her irritated expression. “You are naked.”

  Did it matter anymore? White lace was a lie.

  A trill of aggressive foreign language preceded, Lucia moving to the dressing room to pick through the uncomfortable clothing that hung from every last rail. So many dresses, and Brenya had not even worn a portion of them. Nor had she so much as entered that room. Jacques had always hand-selected what he wished to see her dressed in.

  Out of sight, Lucia shouted, “You want to stink of a sewer and show us all once again how lacking you are, I will not be blamed for it. Dios mío, these dresses are ghastly! Is this what I will be expected to wear here? Split skirts? Never! How much more of a burden could you be? We came here for the best life might offer, and you are the reason we cannot enjoy it.” As if she did not care to be overheard, the woman muttered, “The first time I am allowed to leave my apartments in days, and this is all I’m afforded. And the clothes, I have been ordered to cover my body from neck to toes, thanks to your preferences in fashion. My entire mating wardrobe is forbidden.”

  Ignoring the woman’s ramblings, Brenya padded to the window. The view was wrong. The city did not glitter as it should have in the night. There was nothing but a sea of black—as if Jules’s inner darkness had already swallowed it whole.

  Dumbfounded, Brenya murmured to herself, “Lockdown has been engaged.”

  The entirety of the city had been shut down.

  Did the Commodore really think she’d try to run? Now?

  There was no point in delaying the inevitable.

  Scrounging up the tatters of her reason to pull it together one last time, Brenya conceded to Lucia's demands and made her way to the bath, lowering her worn body into steaming water.

  To take the time to think.

  To address that she was terrified and willing to tolerate a stranger's touch just to have one last moment before she marched to the hangman.

  And her end was coming.

  The link had grown monstrous. Jacques was furious, and Jules… his placid lake had begun to ripple.

  As if laughing at her.

  And now she knew better than to trust his silent invitation to rest in the endless darkness within him. He wanted her to pay.

  The Beta promised her pain.

  There was no sanctuary anywhere.

  Grief washed over her more powerfully than she’d ever known. The response through the pair-bond was immediate.

  Sucking in a deep gasp of air, Brenya felt the Alpha hooked into her chest, inundating her with fresh rage, roaring through the link, and pulling her with all his might. Demanding she come to his side. His violence pushed her right into the waiting dark, the silence sucking her in as Jules had his way with her floundering attention and drew her deeper into emptiness.

  Where it hushed her as if putting a finger to her lips, all the while calling her closer.

  Alpha and Beta were at war within her.

  “He is upset. That is what you feel.” Taking care to wash her body thoroughly and quickly, Lucia pulled the hand Brenya had pressed over her pained chest away so she might clean it. “You must present him with calm thoughts if you wish to appease your Alpha.”

  What calm thought could possibly be found at a time like this? It was almost as if she were hanging upside down from the dome, broken and knowing death was coming.

  But even then, she had found white flowers… she had known beautiful breaths of clean, sweet air.

  Like magic, it worked. Those little memories of what she once thought were her dying moments calmed her. The banging behind her ribs softened, the men’s presence still larger than life but fading into the background.

  Able to pull in an unhindered breath, Brenya glanced toward the insufferable woman. She couldn’t find it in her to hate the female. The foreign Omega had said it herself—she had come here for the best life. Being mated to Ancil would be the worst.

  “I will be punished tonight, but I will do it dressed in white and clean, so that you are not implicated in my sins. Go on as you were, but know that I dislike you for your part in what happened to Annette.” After the night was over, Brenya would be in no position to help anyone, so there was no point in pride. “Should her baby die, that will be on your conscience if you do nothing to prevent it.”

  “I don’t care for you either, but that doesn’t mean I want to see a child murdered.” Lucia tossed her sheet of shining black hair. “And know this. At no time did I suggest we be friends.”

  “That is for the best,” Brenya said, leaning back in the tub to think of flowers before her mind might be ripped in half. “The Commodore has tortured all my friends.”

  It was as if the female was finally starting to understand. Painted lips parted as if she might speak, apprehension growing in Lucia’s beautiful, dark eyes.

  18

  Despite her acerbic jabs, Lucia had taken great pains in assuring Brenya was scrubbed clean, patted dry with soft towels, and her hair wrung out and dried with a moisture transfer unit. Brown waves were then combed into order and styled in a quick, tight twist.

  Chastising Brenya for failing to take care of her mottled skin, the Omega went so far as to dig through Jacques's cabinets in search of bandages and unguent.

  Chin pinched in between the woman’s pointed, lacquered nails, she allowed Lucia to turn her head and expose the wound that refused to heal.

  One glance at the angry claiming mark, and the foreigner’s lip curled. “This is infected.”

  Fitting, considering the man who had given it to her. “It doesn’t matter.”

  A light smack came to Brenya’s cheek, Lucia turning up her nose. “You should care. You will be judged on this mark for the rest of your life. It will be captured in paintings and projections. Talked about by an entire civilization throughout their history, and there is already the unfortunate issue of your face.”

  Jules Havel had once told her differently. When they had been alone, before she had unwittingly abducted him and uncovered who he really was. There had been a time he had been kind to her when she was vulnerable and desperate, a time his presence had been a comfort. “How I look doesn’t matter. Omegas are meant to be people.”

  And really, what was the point of beauty? It didn’t do anything. Just as disfigurement had done nothing. Jacques knotted her either way.

  With a mean laugh, Lucia chided her. “Whoever told you that lie has never lived as an Omega. I have five older sisters, all Omegas. To be one of us is to be always at war. With each other, with ourselves, all the while working hard to impress the Alphas. Do not think I say this to be cruel. Both my nose and eyes were improved so I might outshine rivals.” All of this was said as those sharp nails began to poke at the open, oozing wound. “There is an abscess that needs to be drained.”