Alphas of Pandora, page 23
Aura shook her head, even as curls of fear moved through her belly. “Let’s go.”
“Where you’re headed won’t be as comfortable as this.”
And she’d spent her entire life on a derelict space station. “I can handle it.”
“There’s no coming back after this. If I make you disappear, it will be for good.”
Judging from the look of him, Aura had no doubt he was skilled in making people disappear. “I know.”
His gaze flicked briefly over her slim form and empty hands. “You carry nothing?”
Her reply was a simple one. “It’s the same thing that I arrived with.”
As if he understood more than what she said, his head tilted to the side. Aura distantly noted that Adrian was attractive, but all darkness. Everything about him seemed designed to fade into the shadows, unnoticeable until the moment he chose to reveal himself. She understood that she had no reason to fear him, but that this was not a man to be reckoned with.
Adrian turned abruptly and disappeared down the dark hallway on silent footsteps.
Aura did not hesitate as she followed him towards an uncertain future. She had made her choice. Her only option now was to see it through, even though her heart ached at the thought of never seeing Castor again. His name had been written onto her soul and she would suffer for it the rest of her life.
Pain was the price she paid for freedom.
Twenty-Eight
Any touch of flesh against hers, even in passing, set Aura’s knees to shaking. Every nerve-ending came alive with heat as if in memory of what it craved.
The press of skin against hers became unbearable, even when it was nothing more than a comforting hand on her shoulder.
She had vastly underestimated the effect of being without her mate for such an extended period of time. Adrian’s warnings had been numerous and explicit, but she hadn’t truly believed him when he described the extent of her potential torment.
Like the pulse of pain from an old wound, need gnawed at her in a way that always existed in the background of her thoughts. Aura ignored the discomfort as much as she was able, but everything around her seemed capable of stirring unwanted memories.
Despite the lack of Alphas, constant reminders of the man who claimed her were all around her. The wood smoke from the cooking fire brought her back to that cabin in the Forbidden Zone. Enough people lived in the small house that it became impossible not to taste the salty tang of sweat in the air which only made her imagine male flesh under her tongue.
Her mind conjured images of Castor, forcing her to look twice at the surrounding faces to ensure the vision wasn’t real. They had caught her staring on more than one occasion.
The people around her were members of a resistance movement that objected to the role of Alphas in society. Adrian had assured her they did not wish to overthrow the crown but strongly advocated for the rights of Omegas. She would be safe with them, at least for now.
Mostly women and children, none of them questioned her unwillingness to reveal her past. She was the only Omega here, but they all assumed that she hoped to avoid the attentions of an Alpha because that was a familiar refrain among them. None suspected that, in her case, the Alpha in question also wore the crown.
Adrian had told them little when he showed up with her, and no one had asked him questions. She couldn’t help but think he’d had encounters with the group before, perhaps even helped them. It made her wonder why he would work for one of the most dangerous Alphas in the city if he was sympathetic to the group’s cause. She hadn’t bothered to ask because she knew that he wouldn’t reveal the truth, regardless.
“You seem to be adjusting.”
Aura did not bother to look up as Adrian spoke to her. The gathering room was so loud that she hadn’t heard him approach. As always, she sat alone in a corner as life went around her, unable to truly take part in it.
“Can you hear me, girl?”
“She’s a real quiet one.” A nearby Beta woman cast her gaze over the pair, a slight smile on her face. “It does help to have a few of those around.”
“Is there a private place for us to talk?”
The woman gestured down a narrow hallway that led to a storage space. Aura did not resist as Adrian pulled her into a standing position and forced her to walk with him, but wrenched her arm away as soon they were out of sight of the others.
She pressed against the wall as if she could sink into the stone and hide from his searching gaze.
It had only been a week since he had last visited, but Aura was clearly in a sorrier state than even when he last left her. His gaze took in sallow skin, gone pale from lack of sunlight and haunted eyes that appeared sunken and dazed.
“Have you lost the ability to speak?” Adrian studied her with mild interest. “I find it hard to believe that implant has already failed. It’s the best on the market.”
Understanding that he planned to persist until she gave in, Aura shook her head and stared down at the floor. “I’m finding that I have little to say.”
“That’s probably for the best. The less that the people here know of you, the better. They’re relatively trustworthy as those things typically go, but these are dangerous times.”
Aura feigned disinterest, but part of her craved knowledge of what occurred outside of the walls trapping her. “What is happening?”
His searching gaze took her in, contemplating whether the knowledge would do more harm or good. “Omegas are being rounded up and brought to the palace in record numbers. All on the King’s order.”
The coronation had come and gone, Aura couldn’t have ignored it if she tried. Even the people who hid with her had been glued to their Comm screens. Rolan had stepped down and his son had taken his place. Castor was now the King. That her mate was capable of such a thing shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. “Am I safe here?”
“For now. But Castor is offering ransoms as large as what the typical family sees in a year. It’s led to chaos. Women are being dragged to the palace gates by their own families to cash in. Omegas have always been vulnerable, but it’s never been like this.”
A spike of pain moved through her chest, quickly replaced by anger. “Is he so eager to replenish his harem? I assumed his new queen would keep him satisfied for a bit longer.”
His voice was a low rumble. “There is no queen. The engagement has been postponed indefinitely. From what I understand, the Vigilian delegation is infuriated at the insult.”
Her gaze flew to his, and she could not keep the surprise from her expression. “He wouldn’t do that.”
“He did.”
The ever present yearning rose to a fever pitch, making it difficult to breathe. She told herself that nothing had changed. “Did you come here just to tell me this?”
“I came to bring you these.”
She accepted the package with a frown of distaste. “These make me feel sick.”
“Still better than a heat cycle, I assume.”
Aura wanted to throw the bottle of pills at his head but resisted the urge, recognizing that her anger was misplaced. She couldn’t even be sure if it was actually her anger at all, or a vestige of the bond with her raging mate. The fury drowned out almost everything else, making it difficult for her to think. She did not envy anyone in her mate’s path at the moment.
And she told herself that his feelings were only a result of being denied something he wanted, not out of true love for her. Adrian had risked much by helping her out of the palace and she still wasn’t sure why he had bothered.
“Does he suspect you?” she asked, forcing herself to think about the danger he might be in so she felt thankfulness instead of anger.
Adrian’s lip quirked. “If he did, then I wouldn’t be standing here right now. At least one guard has already been executed for failing to prevent your escape.”
The thought of it made her stomach knot, even as she recognized that Castor was responsible for his own actions. She hated the thought of being responsible for another’s pain or death, even tangentially. “You don’t sound afraid.”
“I do not fear death.”
Forcing herself to look away, Aura stared down at the dusty floor so he couldn’t read the emotion on her face. “How long do I have to stay here?”
“There’s no other safe place to take you, at least not now.” He crossed his arms over his chest as he stared down at her. “I don’t expect gratitude but you will have to give me patience, at least.”
Rebellious retorts threatened at the tip of her tongue, but Aura swallowed them back. Alienating Adrian wouldn’t do her any good and might result in an even worse outcome than the one she currently faced. “I’m surprised you’re still helping me.”
“I have my reasons.” His gaze was inscrutable as he glared down at her. “I’m told you’re making yourself useful.”
Aura had been drawn to the children here, taking on the role of caretaker while the other women cooked or cleaned. Their laughter was the only thing that didn’t grate on her already fraying nerves.
A contemplative thought briefly crossed her mind of one day having children of her own, but she dismissed it. She would have to bear the touch of a man for pregnancy to be possible and she would never willingly do that again.
Castor had ruined her for any other man and she would never see him again.
Adrian watched the emotions play across her expression, intent as if he saw more than she wanted to reveal. A sympathetic look briefly touched his face before it again settled into neutral lines. “I could take you back to him.”
Her head shook so violently that for a moment the room spun around her. “No. Never.”
His gaze bored into her. “You realize that freedom means spending the rest of your life running. Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“You ask that every time you come and the answer never changes.” Aura pushed off from the wall and turned away. “Thank you for the pills.”
She left him standing there, aware without turning to look that his gaze bored into her back.
As she always did, Aura skirted the edges of the compound and kept near to the walls, avoiding getting too close to the women clustered together in small groups. She did not have a problem with them, but preferred to spend as much time alone as possible. Fear of them discovering the truth was mixed with a complete inability to hold a civilized conversation for more than a few moments.
Which was part of why she did not mind taking responsibility of the children to free their mothers up for other duties. The young ones didn’t care where she came from, they only wanted to know if they could have another turn being spun around in her arms.
But none of those children would be safe if Castor discovered that she was here. Her mate had torn the city apart in his searching for her, heedless of the consequences. She did not want to think of what had become of the Omegas that had already been brought to the palace, likely added to the royal harem to serve.
Would he use them, claim them, decimate them, as he had with her?
As always when her thoughts turned to him, the mark on her shoulder burned in near agony. The skin had healed over the claiming scar, but that didn’t stop the flesh from aching almost as badly as when he first set his teeth into her skin.
She felt his anger and yearning as if they were her own emotions. Even fear, though she suspected that emotion was mostly her own. And the bond whispered to her, urging her to find him and reignite his claim before it was too late. Dire warnings were sirens in her head, flashing pain that made it difficult to comprehend anything aside from the desire to be with him again.
Her logical mind knew that these thoughts were a cruel trick of biology and the terrible science that had been inflicted on her.
But her body rebelled.
Her small sleeping pallet beckoned to her, even though it was the middle of the day. She shared the room with almost a dozen others but there was relative peace in the large bedroom during the day. Hidden under the scratchy covers, she could almost imagine that she was alone.
It was compulsion that drove her to burrow under the blankets. The bedding had been arranged in a pile that might seem haphazard to the untrained eye but created a very pleasant shape for an Omega in need of comfort.
Her fingers tickled down her thighs in a mockery of the touch she truly craved. When she closed her eyes and exhaled all the air from her body, it was almost as if she could smell the musky scent of her Alpha under the cocoon of blankets with her.
Aura didn’t want to need his touch, but the need for him made her sick with the force of it. Her own touch was a poor, but necessary, substitute.
If the other residents of the compound realized that she slipped off several times a day to hump her own fingers in a desperate imitation of fucking her mate, they made no mention of it. None of them understood what it meant to be Omega, but they remained respectful just the same.
Her hands smoothed down the flat plane of her stomach with more pressure than was necessary, but still nothing compared to the manhandling of an Alpha. But in the dim light, she could almost imagine it was the same thing.
The weeks of isolation had done nothing to sate her desire to submit, and she hated herself for the weakness. Tears burned her eyes as they fell, soaking her cheeks just as the slick coated her thighs. Her days were spent in a state of suspended animation as if she floated through the days with no true awareness of when one hour flowed into the next.
But these stolen moments where she finally allowed her thoughts to turn to her Alpha, let him into her mind, were all that stopped her from succumbing to despair and completely giving up on life.
And she hated herself for it.
A clenching spasm squeezed her insides and a pool of slick gathered in her palm. She wanted to rub the fluid onto her skin and let the heady scent permeate her body. But the facilities were limited in the warehouse and a bath even harder to come by then these brief moments of privacy. Enough conscience awareness remained that she recognized giving into the impulse would leave her stinking of her own slick for days.
Instead, she brought her body’s offering to her own lips and licked her palm clean, the hesitant swipes of her tongue no comparison to the lathing quality of an Alpha. All of this was a poor substitute for what she truly wanted, but the compulsion remained.
The fingers of one hand worked at the bundle of nerves above her opening, strumming the ball of flesh until spikes of pleasure curled down her spine. Her other hand moved further down to push two fingers deep into her drenched channel that clenched in response. But she craved a fuller stretch and a deeper penetration than what could be managed on her own.
Castor’s face swam in her vision, countenance stern like the vision of a vengeful god. An awareness of him danced on the edges of her senses, almost convincing her he could sense what she was doing and responded with angry longing.
She desperately wanted him here, shoving hardened flesh deep inside her until the painful stretch almost overwhelmed the pleasure, almost but not quite.
A third finger pushed inside did little to sate the need for turgid flesh to milk with the spasms of her inner walls. She needed an Alpha knot swollen large enough to fill her completely. Despite the pleasure of frantic fingers rubbing at her clit, the feeling of emptiness as her cunt clenched on empty air was enough to make her sob.
So she worked herself harder, desperate for enough physical sensation to drown out the agony in her soul that only seemed to respond to other forms of pain. She plucked at her clit with her index finger, curling it enough that the sharp edge of her nail scraped the sensitive flesh, sending a shock of pleasure pain rocketing through her.
Aura came on her own fingers with a force that left her heart pounding, as if it would burst from her chest. In the shining aftermath, she felt empty of any thought or feeling, blissful and floating in a dreamy haze.
It did not take much time for reality to come crashing down on her once more. The dirty walls of the sleep chamber were indistinguishable from those of a prison cell. Nothing adorned them, no hint of color to distract her from the oppressive gray. Bedding littered the floor in haphazard piles of dingy white linen so that the dark blue carpeting was revealed only in a handful of places.
Not for the first time, she wondered if she had simply chosen to trade one form of captivity for another.
The sound of her name being softly called roused her from a doze that was more an inebriated lack of awareness than it was restful slumber. She raised her head to see one of the other women standing hesitantly in the doorway.
“Some of us will be preparing dinner. Are you able to keep an eye on the children?”
Aura rose stiffly from her nest without providing a response, her silence more a function of survival than rudeness. If she opened her mouth, it was likely that the only sound she produced would be a tortured scream.
Sympathy briefly touched the woman’s face as Aura passed, but the Beta refrained from saying anything more. Although she did not understand what precise circumstance had brought the subdued Omega to their door, the claiming mark on the girl’s shoulder and haunted quality in her eyes told their own story.
When a comforting hand touched her arm, Aura fought the urge to release the sobbing cry trapped in her throat. She didn’t deserve their kindness, and it only became another reminder of her own weakness.
She had not been strong enough to protect her family on the station nor determined enough to resist the compulsion of the Alpha who claimed her.
For now, she could focus her attention on caring for children that were not her own then spooning tasteless food into her mouth at dinner that turned to dust on her tongue. Nothing else remained. And she would continue this way, drifting from one moment to the next in whatever pursuit momentarily kept the pain and loss at bay.
She could not bear the thought of living the future Castor had imagined for her, but life without him seemed hopeless and pointless. And the impossibility of reconciling these different visions would destroy her. Eventually, she would succumb to despair and fade into the ether like salt dissolving away into the ocean.
