Even Brenya had startled, eyes going wide, to watch a Beta rule them all.

  Smirking, as if nothing untoward had taken place, as if it were only the two of them in that shadowy room, Jules ran his unhurried gaze over every last bit of exposed skin—going so far as to hook his finger in her stiff collar. The dexterous touch of a single hand worked the buttons at her throat apart, one by one, spreading fabric until the gauze-covered bite mark was exposed.

  The bloodied bandage was peeled away, a savage wound uncovered for his voracious gaze.

  It seemed he’d even made a noise deep in his throat, a male sound Brenya had never heard before.

  One that rippled the vast, black lake within him, its untold depths churning far, far below.

  Testing the wound, feeling out each puncture, each torn bit of angry flesh, the Beta’s fingertip came away bloody. Only to be wiped against his tongue for a taste.

  Finding the flavor of infection, an irritated glare cut to where Jacques was now surrounded by his sycophants. Some with their hands on him, as if preparing to restrain, should the Alpha’s control slip.

  “You have been careless with what’s mine.”

  The word “mine” set Jacques roaring and those near him reaching out to hold him back. “You test my patience!”

  And the pair of them had driven Brenya far past hers. Body exhausted, running on pure adrenalin, she demanded to know what the Beta’s intentions were. “Jules Havel, tell me what you want.”

  Her on her knees? Her tears? Her agonizing death?

  Turning his horrible, burning gaze away from the panting Alpha in the corner, Jules released her hand and gestured for her to look toward the screens, announcing, “Chancellor Shepherd of Greth Dome, husband to Queen Svana, may I introduce my mate, Brenya.”

  Shepherd?

  The COM screens. All it took was a moment of attention to see that each screen worked together to project a single image: a massive, unknown male practically blotting out the sun behind him. Though Shepherd’s projection towered over the party, due to the height of the screens, Brenya was certain he would tower over them in person as well.

  Dressed in black, twisting dark marks edged up his neck, running down his wrists and over the backs of his hands.

  Jules bore similar marks.

  He'd been so still Brenya had not realized the feed was live.

  That there shouldn’t even be sun, because it was the middle of the night in Bernard Dome. But there would be sun far to the west.

  This man was not his title of Chancellor. This man was a destroyer of worlds.

  Meeting his eyes, Brenya whispered, “Thólos Dome was your doing.”

  And he seemed pleased with her statement, though it didn’t show in his reaction. It was in the way he held her gaze—that he allowed her the time to look upon him and absorb all that could be measured from a projection. That she might memorize the color of the walls behind him. The simple lines of a functional desk so unlike the filigreed furnishings of Central. There was a lack of embellishment or ornamentation in the man’s clothes.

  He wore a gold band on his finger.

  The Alphas loudly breathing in the room behind her looked ridiculous in comparison: powdered and painted and dripping with sparkly things.

  Brenya cataloged every last exposed scar on Shepherd’s flesh, noted that his hair fell at altering angles. Patches of skin had been torn from his skull, upsetting the pattern of growth. His knuckles were ragged from repeated breaks and no doubt ached deep in the bone.

  His nose had been damaged on more than one occasion.

  Shepherd’s lips—like the pulled flesh under her eye—did not lay properly. His top lip dragged upward. But unlike her own face, Brenya did not imagine people would consider his imperfection a disfigurement.

  This Shepherd stared at her with the same acute attention.

  This man whom Jacques confessed he could not defeat in war.

  Brenya understood at last why she had been brought here. She was here to confess her sins to this man in hopes there might be some mercy for her people.

  Whatever that feeling was that existed past terror, Brenya found herself there—a quiet sort of awareness waking up within her, one that didn’t call for tears or trembling lips. It was a realm of total acceptance that there was no way to escape the inevitable.

  Steady, she faced down a monster and professed, “I stole your ship, abducted Jules Havel, and attempted to fly to Thólos. Once there, I intended to make repairs to the Dome. What happened to your Ambassador due to my attempted escape, and his imprisonment afterward… it was all my doing.”

  The man on the monitor—his voice impressively deep and lacking all melody—spoke, “Why?”

  Such a simple question with such complicated answers. Swallowing, sad, Brenya said, “Because I had yet to understand there is nowhere to run. But that does not mean that all of Bernard Dome should suffer for it. If I had not stolen Jules Havel’s ship, he would not be inside me. Nor should he be. He should be free to return home, and I should be the one to suffer the consequences.”

  The man on the screen blinked once. “Do you understand what a pair-bond entails?”

  Shame bloomed in her heart, a solitary tear falling, as she said, “It means I have stolen him.” Voice dropping to a whisper, she added, “He told me it was forever.”

  A brush of another’s hand came to the back of Brenya’s fingers. A reminder that the man she had harmed stood at her side, that he was watching her in place of acknowledging his compatriot.

  Gathering up her fingers as if it were normal for them to touch, Jules held them tight.

  As if he had not just mocked her when she’d come to save him. As if he had not refused to help good people leave a bad place.

  Behind them, Jacques growled. He cursed, yet he didn’t step forward and tear them apart.

  Brenya found then that her eyes had moved to where her fingers intertwined with a stranger’s, that she was confused at the fact that something so simple offered comfort. That she could even let herself enjoy it in that awful moment.

  His palm was warm. He was warm.

  The only male in the room who did not stink of anxiety, Jules was completely calm, fully in control of himself.

  The person who held all the power.

  It wasn’t the Alpha on the screen; it was the Beta silently urging her to meet his poisonous gaze. Who stirred in their link, as if he mentally flicked a finger and commanded that she obey.

  Brenya could not resist.

  Eyes that shade of blue, impossibly bright, were otherworldly.

  Heart tender, she spoke softly, “You were kind to me on the ship when I was frightened. You offered explanations no one else had. You kept your distance when I was… um….”

  Jules, his voice deep and smooth as a flowing river, said, “When you entered your first estrous, Brenya.”

  Cheeks red from shame, she nodded.

  As if to take pity on her, Jules offered more. “The men of Bernard Dome do not understand what took place that day any better than you do. Through a stupid act of pride, in manipulating an experience that can never be undone, they have earned an enemy. And no, Brenya Perin, I will not grant them mercy. But I will demand that you understand the consequence these men must face is not because you stole my ship when you thought to escape an abusive Alpha. It is not because you were ignorant of the situation in Thólos or unaware of the agreement between two governments that no aid might be offered to the survivors of that fallen Dome.”

  Soft threats in gentle words.

  “Punishment must be served.”

  Jules Havel still held her hand, and now she understood the gesture. It wasn’t comfort; it was control.

  Of Jacques Bernard, who could do nothing to prevent the Beta from touching her, though he seethed through the link.

  Realization dawned, and Brenya closed her eyes to gather her thoughts. “You are going to hurt me to punish Jacques Bernard.”

  And Jacques was just standing there, allowing it, because much more was at stake. The lives of her people, the future of the Dome….

  “Yes.”

  This was the reason she had been summoned, why every man in the room was watching her. Because whatever happened next hinged upon her completely. “I give you my permission to hurt me in any way you must to punish Jacques. I will obey. But if you try to punish my people for what he did, for what I did, I will fight to stop you until my last breath.”

  Though there was no alteration to his expression, Brenya sensed the strangest feeling of approval emanating from the Beta’s depths.

  “Ms. Perin,” Shepherd’s voice, as coarse and rough as his face, came over the speakers. “A moment of your time, please.”

  Shepherd could wait.

  It was Jules from whom she needed an answer. Assurances that he would not strike out at Bernard Dome’s innocents.

  But he remained silent, laying a finger at the side of her chin to turn her attention to the looming screens.

  Shepherd told a dark tale. “Four ranking Alphas of Centrist leadership died tonight, infected with Red Consumption. I released the virus into Bernard Dome in response to your government’s treatment of my ambassador and failure to uphold our agreement regarding the exchange of Omegas for orange trees.”

  That was why the city was in lockdown! It wasn’t because she’d been caught and they’d assumed she’d run.

  The screen changed to display an accelerated recording of five horrible, choking deaths, the bodies left lying in their fluids for ages before a delayed incineration protocol began. The camera burned, and the story ended, all while Shepherd narrated, “It was a controlled release, fully contained—the virus has been destroyed by incineration protocol. It will not spread from that location, but there are many more places within your city in which I can release it again. So, understand that the day Jules Havel knows harm, so too will every last soul in your Dome. Every last citizen will choke to death on their own blood. Be cautious of your threats.”

  Never had Brenya witnessed a death before; certainly, she’d never seen anything so horrific. Voice catching, she stared at Shepherd, anger having seeded in her chest and growing.

  Where she had been clinging to Jules's hand, she threw off the Beta’s touch, pointing at the screen. “You said four Alphas! What of her?”

  What of the Beta waitress who’d died just as horribly but had been left unmentioned?

  “That is the nature of war, Ms. Perin. Innocents always suffer.” The man held no remorse, only wisdom, as he said, “You should know that better than most.”

  All Brenya could think of was the Beta servant on the screen who had done nothing but her duty. How she had reached out for help and the men had ignored her. How her death would be explained away as reassignment.

  Not one of her sisters in Beta Sector would know to mourn her.

  Tears spilling, she gave her back to Chancellor Shepherd to rage at Jacques Bernard—the reason her people were under the control of a terrorist in the first place.

  The full, threatening growl she gave him would have seen her aggressively raped had Jacques been in a situation where he could punish her. It would have seen her crushed under his lusts until she broke. But he could do nothing but listen, now that his life, everyone’s life, was at stake. “You told me Bernard Dome could not defeat the leader of Greth! Yet you thought to ‘leash a rabid dog,’ as you said, as if there would be no consequences? You said Jules Havel could never hurt me, while you were hurting me every day! You forced both him and myself into a pair-bond only you desired. You starved and imprisoned a foreigner you described as a savage terrorist—a man who had already destroyed an entire civilization, as if there would be no consequences! You allowed dangerous men inside my home for access to Omegas! For sex! Jacques Bernard, you are the reason the Beta on the screen died terrified, away from her sisters! And I will never forgive you for it!”

  Shepherd was the next to feel her condemnation, Brenya spinning to stare down the man on the screen. “Chancellor Shepherd. Whatever took place in Thólos, it is not the situation in Bernard Dome. Do not judge my people by the actions of the few bad men. Unlike the corruption of Central, Alpha and Beta Sectors are populated by good, hardworking innocents. Who were conditioned, just like I was, to serve one another for the greater good. Murdering that Beta female was wrong.”

  But she wasn’t done there. One more man in that room would hear her.

  “And you—” Tears fell, Brenya crying from the grief of it when she turned to face Jules Havel. “—why wouldn’t you come with me? It didn’t have to go this far. I could have seen you home to your Rebecca!”

  His focus entirely on her, the Beta stated a horror. “I have no Rebecca. My wife died in Thólos a long time ago. As did our two sons.”

  The horrible, cavernous emptiness of him… now she understood. It was where the love for his family had once been. And it must have been a sad story indeed for the man to have become so hollow inside.

  Still, she asked, brokenhearted, “And this is why you destroyed your people?”

  “Yes.”

  Another tear fell. “But it doesn’t give you a right to destroy mine.”

  Jules reached up to gently wipe her cheek. “If I leave my pair-bonded Omega and return to Greth, she will die from the loss. As I told you, the bond is forever. So, for forever, you must have me. And, for forever, I will have you.”

  And if she died, Jacques would be weakened, and Ancil would take control of the city… the very fear she’d confessed to Jules when she’d come to his cell. Which meant he was doing all of this, on some level, for her.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Because she had no idea where to go from here, how to exist in this world she was trapped in, or how to navigate what this man had truly come to claim.

  “Accept a gift.” Wiping away another tear from her cheek, Jules showed no softness, even while he offered her a great boon. “Within the hour, Chancellor Shepherd will be sent the orange trees he is due. There is room on that ship for a guest… one who will be treated well.”

  “A hostage?”

  Jules shook his head. “I assure you they will live in safety and comfort.”

  Brenya drew in a deep breath. Pursing her lips on an exhale, she knew better than to trust. It couldn’t be this easy. Nothing could be this easy. Jules Havel was going to claim a great price from her later. “Annette, first wife of Ancil, Security Chief of Bernard Dome, and her newborn son, Matthieu. They will leave this place.”

  Ancil was already shouting in outrage, pushing his weight forward yet bodily restrained by the Alphas at his side.

  But Brenya was not finished. She looked Jules dead in the eye, aware he may retaliate if he was anything like Jacques Bernard—as she was going to overreach. “You will need a pilot to deliver your orange trees and new citizens. My former tech, George Gerard, will fly your ship and remain in Greth as well. He is a good person, and he has been treated poorly because he is my friend.”

  And she was risking much by asking for something more from such a man.

  It was Jacques's turn to rage. Though, unlike Ancil, he was able to throw off those who thought to restrain him. Rushing forward, he snarled, “I do not agree with the release of George Gerard. I will provide another to pilot the ship.”

  “I accept.” The snorting Alpha was ignored, Shepherd addressing his comrade and the Omega at his side. “Jules, the queen sends her regards to your mate. Ms. Perin, I believe you will be a worthy match for my brother.”

  The screen went dark.

  Those men who had not been previously shouting joined in the ensuing melee. So much noise in so small a room as they argued amongst themselves, yet Brenya ignored it. Just as she ignored the hands of an Alpha shaking her and her name being shouted in her ear.

  Cerulean eyes fringed by dark lashes burned. “One more thing must be addressed.” Jules’s lips parted, and his price was claimed before the suddenly quieting room. “Brenya, your keeping and all rights to you now belong to me.”

  Snarling, a hand taller than the Beta, Jacques pulled Brenya bodily behind him. “That was not what we agreed!”

  As if Jacques were no immediate threat to Jules, as if he found him insignificant, the Beta offered a calm and even, “Monsieur Carlin, please escort my bride to our new quarters. Jacques, you may accompany her and explain the contract you signed before the members of Parliament this evening. At no time will Ms. Perin be left alone with you. Should I find her soiled before I might consummate the marriage, I will have your testicles removed.”

  Red-faced, spittle flying, Jacques roared, “You think you are the first challenger I have had for my position? You reach too far. The Dome will not back a foreign Beta usurper.”

  Unmoved, unflinching, Jules Havel made his position clear. “I believe it appropriate that you refer to me as Commodore.”

  20

  The sooner this was over with, the better.

  Sweeping his Omega away from foreign scum had somewhat quieted his rage, but Jacques Bernard would be gainsaid by no man. A full accounting was coming.

  Everyone who dared oppose him would pay dearly.

  But first, he had to see to Brenya.

  He had to explain, to prepare her, and to assure her she was safe.

  Flanked by Alpha guards who believed they served another leader, the group was escorted to the expansive and intimidating apartments where she would be kept until this was over.

  Formally known as the Red Room, the domicile of every Commodore of Bernard Dome prior to Jacques Bernard seizing power.

  A hideous, outdated room no modern leader in their right mind would occupy.

  The bedchamber grew crowded, Jacques irritated that so many had followed, as if he needed supervision in his handling of her.

  The tumult obviously agitated his Omega, leaving him to snarl at those who dared press close.

  He set her carefully on the edge of bed, hovering near, so his shape might blot out the members of Parliament who had escorted them to the Red Room. Jacques pressed a kiss to her hair.