Then there was the nest itself.

  He had taught her this art. Now that she was aware of the Omega need for such things, the urge to pile up pillows and blankets—in very specific patterns based on texture, and color, and instinctive configurations—consumed her thoughts until it was done. This building of things pleased her to such a great depth that she refused to let the Beta see how strongly it affected her. Brenya kept her island from shimmering in delight so that he might not ever take it from her.

  That is how deeply she loved the act.

  Sleeping protected, encased in soft things, covered… made the nightmares easier to bear.

  That first night after Ancil had been killed, after Jacques had abandoned her, after her naked body had been laid out before Jules Havel on that very bed, he had stepped between her spread thighs and reached for her…

  But he had not raped her.

  Instead, the man had pulled her upward to help her sit comfortably, so he might carefully place the warm shirt he had just removed from his body over her aching arms. He’d fastened each button, covered her breasts, her sex, and drew her to the part of the bed farthest from the door.

  And when she had obeyed, a man who had promised her that Bernard Dome would know no mercy pulled the covers up under her chin and told her to, “Sleep,” in a soft voice.

  On the other side of the large bed, he had joined her—trousers on—and made no move to touch, to taste, or to take.

  Staring at the carved wooden canopy above them, noting that the cool sheets felt different than the crusty mess she’d been forced to sleep in with Jacques, bracing for the moment Jules Havel would launch his body at her and take what he would, she’d begun to hyperventilate.

  Red Consumption in Bernard Dome. A Red Room to sleep in. Ancil’s drying blood still on the floor.

  Her new owner turned to his side at the noise, watching her pant as the sun began to rise. Yet, still, in no place did their bodies touch.

  Her teeth had started to chatter as an overwrought brain began to catalog all that had happened in such a short time: Annette, her baby, and George were in the air, on their way to a new home. Ancil was dead. The very Beta she had wronged and tried to save only hours ago was lying next to her body, staring.

  She was wearing his shirt.

  All her focus had been spent on one task, and it had been achieved. Now that it was done, her sorry grip was beginning to slip, and Brenya was about to fall down the side of the Dome again.

  The hiccup came first, surprising her so much her hand flew up to cover her mouth. And then another, and another, until she was heaving from the effort of holding back.

  The ugliest of cries broke free, one that had been growing inside her from the day Jacques Bernard had torn her in half.

  “Are you familiar with the concept of shock?” Jules had asked, perfunctory, with perfect calm.

  Yes, she was. It was a common response to physical trauma. Yet even when she had fallen from the Dome, it had not manifested with so much noise.

  The man moved a pillow, tucking it to her side. Then another, all the while saying, “I was given a report on your behaviors, yet thought it would be best to observe them for myself before concurring with an outside perspective and a dossier I had less than ten minutes to read. It is obvious that you have not been guided on how to be an Omega. Your dynamic was manipulated instead by a boy who lacks control and experience, so he might pleasure-seek at your expense.”

  Another pillow, the very one he had been sleeping on, was added to the pile that grew around her and between them.

  “You do not understand the difference between a nest and a bed, nor were proper nesting materials made available to you.” The blanket was doubled over, bridging the pillows on either side of her to cover her in a cave-like embrace, Jules being left with nothing. “It never occurred to you to ask me for them tonight.”

  Slipping back against the softness, teeth chattering, and unable to breathe through her nose, Brenya sank into the strange cocoon as if it might actually keep the Beta male off of her.

  It didn’t even matter that the pressure against her stitches was uncomfortable and that everything smelled musty and unused.

  The mattress shifted in such a way she knew, even buried under the bedding and unable to see, that he had moved away.

  The offer was stony yet not unkind. “Considering I am your husband, it is appropriate for me to offer a purr.”

  “No.” Purrs were unsettling in their ability to make mental switches short. Purrs were dangerous.

  “Sleep,” Jules Havel had ordered. “I expect you to rest and recover.”

  So long as he continued to not touch her, she would agree.

  Sleep did come. It seemed like it never would, but it did. It dragged her down so far that it felt like days had passed before her eyes had opened again.

  Changes had been made to the Red Room, furniture rearranged, piles of fresh bedding waiting along the wall. New COM screens were installed. Foreign men dressed in black occasionally knocked at the door to speak with her new keeper.

  When Jules noticed she was bleary-eyed and awake, he did not approach. Instead, he ordered her to bathe herself.

  There was no huge sunken tub like the one in Jacques’s rooms. The Red Room’s lavatory boasted less opulence. But the windows were colored glass arranged into shapes that reflected the light like a prism when the sun hit just right.

  Brenya found she enjoyed the subtle artistry much more than gaudy grandeur, marveling at the hidden details in the stained glass as she soaked in the tub.

  And it was utterly strange to remain untouched, to wash herself.

  Shoulder damaged and swollen, flesh mottled and disgusting, she grew clean.

  Not once did the Beta intrude to gawk at her or demand she bend over and present.

  Though he did come through the door long after her water had turned cold, bearing the doctor’s cases and a chilling demeanor.

  Again, he inspected the most vulnerable parts of her. Again, he treated the wound on her neck. Yet the man hardly touched her. No caress to grope her softer places, no bark or purr to entice her to drip for him. Even when his hands went to the buttons of his shirt, where once again he removed his clothing, covering her in black, he didn’t reach for her breast or tease a budded nipple. Jules's actions were perfunctory as he helped her manage the sleeves when her shoulder refused to cooperate.

  He dressed her in warm fabric that smelled of him, and then he gave her a sling.

  Back in the bedroom, the refuge he had built around her the previous night had been removed. The coverlet was fresh, the sheets were fresh, and a mountain of equally fresh pillows and blankets waited nearby. Over the next hour, Jules Havel showed her how to build an Omega nest, offering tips on design, while a corner of her brain sparked to life. Twice, he even praised her work.

  And then he left her there to take a nap in her new haven.

  That night, again, he did not rape her.

  Jules fed her simple foods, ordered her to prepare for bed, stripped her naked, checked her wounds, and dressed her in the shirt right off his back.

  Sharing a bed with her, but did not so much as brush against her hand.

  A few days later, he told her she was to undergo a procedure to correct her shoulder, the Beta explaining that an entire medical unit had been set up down the hall. She would sleep and wake up repaired. “It is your duty to recover completely.”

  She obeyed, followed him down the halls, guards everywhere, and did not fuss when a medical team put an IV in her arm.

  Though she had not been consulted, when she woke from anesthesia back in her nest, the damage on her face had been covered with a fresh bandage, and a lingering ache in her pelvis let her know the doctor had done things beyond repairing her shoulder. Panicking to find her vaginal canal packed with gauze, a catheter between her legs collecting urine, it was the first time she had heard Jules’s purr.

  It startled her enough that she stopped trying to fight her way out of the nest, and tubes, and beeping machines.

  Beta purrs were different than Alpha noise. The sounds emanating from her husband didn’t force her to feel a specific way at all, yet offered comfort all the same.

  Finding his limpid blue eyes, she accused him with a single sad look. “It hurts.”

  “You had an extreme amount of vaginal scarring. It needed to be addressed.” Taking her hand in his just that once, he added, “As for your face, the damage from your fall pulled down your lower lid and exposed your eye to the air. Infection and discomfort were inevitable. Now, you can blink properly. Though you do still have a scar. If you choose, skin grafts can be prepared, and your face can be returned almost to the way it was.”

  Woozy from drugs, confused, and in pain, Brenya snarled, “I like my face the way it is!”

  Rare intonation in his voice, Jules smirked. “As do I.”

  Bernard Dome boasted miraculous medical technology and cutting-edge treatments. Her shoulder healed in a matter of days; her face took a week. Still scared, still her, but the eye was sound. Yet it was much longer before she could sit without pain, strange tingling and odd cramping enticing her fingers to soothe where she had not been penetrated since Jacques had last used her.

  Only when she was alone in the bath did she dare look. Everything was as it always had been, except she wasn’t swollen from Jacques’s viciousness or stinging from the pliarator. No male cum dripped from her used cunt.

  One day, the pain was gone completely, a different feeling in its wake.

  It wasn’t estrous. It wasn’t mindless. But when she’d put her nose to his shirt she wore and breathed in the scent lingering in the fabric, she would relax.

  And that day, for the first time, Jules left the room.

  All that time alone, there was nothing to do but think… and worry when he did not return before dark.

  What was he doing? Were her people okay? If she disappointed him, what would he do? Was she already disappointing him? He never touched her. They shared almost every hour together, but they hardly spoke.

  Was she supposed to entertain him?

  He’d had her body repaired in certain places, so was he upset she had not…?

  Staring out the window for hours on end, she worked up the courage to do as she should. All the while, her city was alive at her feet, people moving through the streets, lockdown having ended long ago.

  She could not fail them.

  Voices outside the door let her know Bernard Dome’s new Commodore had returned. Brenya rushed from the window to greet him at the door, performing exactly how Jacques had trained her.

  Smile pasted on her face, she threw her arms around Jules's neck once he stepped inside.

  Breathless with nerves, heart in her throat, she felt how strong his body was under her touch, and asked, “Which chair would you prefer, Commodore?”

  He did not look pleased as he demanded, “What are you doing?”

  Behind the fastenings of his trousers, she could feel his cock pulsating to life. “I am going to pleasure you with my mouth… as you have returned, and it is my duty.”

  Grabbing her wrists, Jules pulled her hands away. “Stop.”

  What was he doing? Embarrassed and oddly insulted, she looked to the floor.

  “My jaw has healed, and all the stitches have been removed. I can…. I should…. It doesn’t hurt anymore, if you require more than my mouth.” Face hot with humiliation, Brenya swallowed. “How… would you like me? I don’t know what you prefer.”

  Releasing her wrists, the Beta brushed past her, growling, “Go for a walk.”

  “I’m sorry.” She had done something very wrong. Voice tiny, she knew she could not have heard him right. “A walk?”

  “Leave the room, Brenya. Walk anywhere you want. You have your own guards waiting to escort you.”

  “Anywhere I want?” It was a trick. It had to be a trick. The one and only walk she had taken since coming to Central had almost started a riot.

  It was like he could read her mind. “Standard protocols have been put in place to move the unmasked male populations away from areas Omegas want to stroll from noon until four. As you are my wife, and as I trust you not to abuse your people’s schedules, I expect that you will do your best not to inconvenience those who are working, should you wish to leave the grounds at other hours.” Back to her, his voice barked a stiff, “Areas can be suggested for you to tour. No one will touch or bother you.”

  She did not want to go. “I don’t have any clothes.”

  Life had been somewhat palatable in the Red Room. The food had been simple, the hours had been quiet, and there had been no buzzing pliarator or bruising grip.

  The darkness in him surged. “Get out!”

  Her skin might have been left behind she ran so fast. Throwing open the door, dressed only in his shirt, she found biosuit-clad guards waiting.

  “Greetings, Madame Havel.”

  Before she might untie her tongue and form some kind of reply, a shot of pleasure spiked right between her legs. On a gasp, she put her weight against the door at her back and felt an uncorked wave of slick go right down her leg.

  Lightning struck her spine, a tiny pool growing at her feet as electricity spread from leaking, empty cunt to every extremity.

  Seconds away from blinding orgasm, fighting the urge to reach between her legs and ferociously rub her throbbing clitoris, Brenya pointed at a door across the hall. “What is in there?”

  “Every room in this quadrant of the palace is vacant.”

  Perfect. She ran the short distance, throwing the door closed and locking it before any of the men might see her fall to her knees. The scream of her climax was trapped, Brenya having bit down on her forearm until she tasted blood.

  Dazed when it was over, finding herself sprawled on hands and knees—fully presenting—she rolled to her back and panted at the ceiling.

  Under a beautiful fresco depicting lovers torn apart by the savage clutches of Red Consumption, Brenya felt another man’s pleasure.

  Though Jules had rejected her touch, he was touching himself all the same. Around her island of light, waves pounded the shore, threatening to eat her up and drag her down as far as he could into his darkness.

  And it felt so good.

  Staring up at one of the most famous artworks in Bernard Dome, Brenya felt her body come apart all on its own.

  Aftershocks still quivered between her thighs, her confusion blending with relief… and also humiliation. She wanted more, even pain, if that’s what it took to ease the gnawing need.

  No wonder Jacques thought she enjoyed his attention.

  A light knock came to the door. “Madame, the Commodore has suggested you return to your room and rest. He says you will not be disturbed for the remainder of the day.”

  Why she laughed, Brenya didn’t know.

  24

  Jules was gone by the time she found the energy to peel her body from the soaked floor. Padding barefoot across the hall, Brenya ignored the waiting guards and went right back to her home in the Red Room.

  Bernard Dome’s new Commodore returned an hour later, stern as he asked her to take a seat across from him at the table where they shared modest meals.

  Glaring.

  Though it was almost unbearable, she held his gaze and waited for judgment.

  Tension burned between them, her island quaking, his ocean sucking at her shores.

  The silence was at long last broken with a commanding and cold, “Whatever training you received from Jacques Bernard is unnecessary from this moment forward. There is no protocol to greet me at the door. You are not expected to perform sexually to appease me.”

  But that was what men wanted, wasn’t it?

  “I don’t understand. That is why males desire Omegas.” So far, the only thing he had ordered her to do was walk, and that had not gone well. “What do you want with me then?”

  The depths within him churned, his lips curving into something sinister. “I want everything.”

  “But…” That didn’t make sense. “I… I am very confused.”

  “You are an innocent point of light in a very dark, corrupt world, and now that you are mine, I want to keep you all to myself. But you need to understand this, Brenya Havel. I am not Jacques Bernard. I find no pleasure in stealing something that was not given freely. That is the game of weak men afraid of pursuing someone who may not return their affection. You will love me to the point it cuts, but only if I wait for you to come willingly. Fall on your knees before me if you will, but never out of obligation or fear. Suck my cock, but only when you crave my taste so much it stings. Invite me to pleasure you, but only because to be without me gives you pain.”

  Her breasts began to feel heavy, skin oddly tingling to hear such vulgar promises, but mostly Brenya was frightened. On a whisper, she confessed, “I’m afraid that if I make a mistake, you will hurt my people.”

  Steepling his fingers before him, Jules leaned forward. “Whether or not I hurt your people has nothing to do with any action you might take. It is completely out of your hands.”

  Blood running cold, Brenya asked, “What about Annette, her son, and…”

  “Say his name,” he barked, glaring.

  And for a moment, Brenya could only stare. Mouth dry. Heart hammering in her throat… until she realized the order wasn’t entrapment but a command for her to realize it was safe to speak of her friend. That Jacques was not in the room and did not have power over her anymore.

  Voice small, she whispered, “George.”

  “I don’t require hostages to get what I want from you.” As if to prove a point, the vast empty ocean surrounding her stirred, tripping its touch over every last part of her psyche, as Jules said, “My will can make you do whatever I wish.” The shadows retracted, flowing back into their abyss. “But again, I don’t want to fuck a mindless puppet.”

  Which is exactly what she had been under Jacques’s control.