Chapter 8
Terrible things?
Yes, Jules would do terrible things. Enjoyed it when necessary.
Found it deeply satisfying.
Caressing his mate as he uncuffed her throat, clever fingers trailed over her breasts, delighting in Brenya’s beauty.
Kissing three times along her jaw as he made his way to whisper at her ear, “I know you think I am horrible when I say such things. But I don’t mean to scare you, not in the way you imagine. I love you. Understand that.”
Obsessed. Starved for. Curled around mentally and physically in all ways possible.
She was his hoard, and he the dragon.
“And I will tell you I love you every day. I will show you I love you.” Forearm to the mattress, Jules hovered over the breathless Omega he had caught, studied her features, his eyes running over Brenya’s jagged yet wonderful scar.
“These moments of terror will waste away into nothing. I’ll assure it. Because I know that you love me too.”
Sure fingers danced over her breastbone, tapping where his claim was buried deep—where he and she were one.
“Emotions are layered and complex. The chemicals released retarded by the Beta suppressants you ingested from birth. Now, they flood you, overwhelm you, because you don’t know how to identify each one.
How to explore them. But this one, this warm, bright, knowing you feel here? This is your love for me.”
His touch traveled lower, Jules palming the vulnerable, concave belly he’d worked so hard to fatten up over the last months with simple food for a complex woman.
Possessive, insistent. “And here. That’s where I am inside you.
Where you know. Where your instinct lives.
Listen to it. Trust that this will never lie. ”
Because he would.
He would lie to his mate.
But not today. Today was a long-awaited conjunction. Today was their first true day as husband and wife.
“And because you love me, I beg you, Brenya. Please do not test the lengths I will go to preserve you. Not even in a passing comment. You cannot die.” His cheek to hers, a gentle nuzzle, careful his scruff did not abrade her delicate face, Jules pressed her into the mattress and turned her head toward the light.
Silken words at the shell of her ear, he told his deepest truth.
“You cannot die if you want the world to live. And it’s so little I ask.
Just thrive. Take the happiness you deserve, because I will give it to you. ”
He didn’t have to look hard inside her to feel the confliction, the thready grasp she had of what was actually happening between them.
He teased at that thread, subtle, soft, knowing brute force would never serve when it came to his mate. What point would there be in flooding her, in compelling? What satisfaction would blossom in a mate he had to constantly control or maneuver?
He’d made that mistake before.
Brenya had to come to him, not because he created the perfect world around her, but because she craved him. Not sexual pleasure. Not a lifestyle. Not power.
Him.
Until she could not breathe without relishing the feeling of him inside her.
Where he would germinate.
The seeds of his psyche already wending their way into every last part of her being.
Weaving them together as one, by her own admission.
If….
Expression one no other would ever see, Jules flavored her feelings with melancholy, with this emotion she had yet to learn the name for as he cupped her cheek, slipping between the pillow and her skull.
The hand that had just been inside her fully.
“Now, give me your word that you won’t leave the Dome, ever—not by ship, not by foot—and I will make a vow in return to protect your people at all costs.
So long as you live. For you. I will even tell you where I have hidden the Red Consumption. Every last location.”
Turning her head so she could meet his eyes—those unnerving eyes that left grown men weeping.
He relished showing her the full ugliness of his insides and the beauty of his exterior.
The honesty of every word flowing through the link.
“I want your happiness above all things. So much so that I will give you complete power over me. The Dome. My life. Pleasure. Comfort. I’ll give you peace, Brenya. In your world and in your thoughts.”
His voice came so soft, a whisper of devotion and obsession.
All of the darkest parts of him folded under and between adoration so they might go unnoticed.
“I’ll show you what estrous should be. Fill you with children.
Teach you everything you desire. We could build Bernard Dome to be anything you wish. ”
Jules smiled, his practiced, most gentle expression down at his beloved mate. The one he would only ever show to her. The one he’d designed for her. “Give me your word, and I will give you mine.”
In the last decade, he’d personally tortured countless men and women.
Knew how to craft a string of words into a blade.
How to disarm, to divert, to break. Placed phrasing in precise order.
Savored the flash of confusion in Brenya’s eyes at his intentional mention of children… how it muddled the rest of his offer.
Distracted his brilliant mate.
He’d seen the recording of her with Jacques, after all.
How she’d panicked and kicked him fully in the chest when he’d made a mention of the children they would have.
How she’d ran and hidden in the bathroom. How Jacques had aggressively punished her.
Jules savored her rapid-fire mental calculations as his Omega accurately discerned that it was the second time he’d brought up children in the last twenty-four hours.
Noted that she avoided the topic as if it might vanish—though it ate up her mental processes, her mind dancing right into his offer with a tentatively spoken, “Why would I try to leave the Dome?”
Again. Why would she try to leave the Dome again.
She’d already tried twice. Once by ship. Once on foot.
That was the key to this.
Another smile—a real one—the tendrils of his mind itching to dig deeper as he held them in check.
“Why would you climb a building naked to rescue a known terrorist?” he countered, kissing the tip of her nose. Keeping his tone easy. Filling her with light, a froth, and feelings of reassurance.
Just enough to encourage her to sample each. To let her feel them, experience them, and make them her own.
She needed to learn to name these sensations. To study them. To learn what they were and what they were not.
Jules watering the seeds he planted. So that when she muttered, “To save the Dome from you,” he could lightly respond, “And now you can.”
Another kiss. A skilled thing placed upon her lips. Not to entice her sexually, but to build more of that delicious affection in her heart.
“You could rule me with one vow.”
It could not be that easy.
Those were her thoughts, her expression utterly unguarded. Innocent. Every last thought of skepticism, of hope, the complete tangle of navigating unmedicated emotion drawing her closer to where he needed her to go.
She looked so perfect, felt so perfect, as she said, “If I stay inside the Dome?”
“Forever,” Jules answered with a nod, excitement, actual feeling fluttering where their bond was seated in his chest. “You remain inside the Dome and survive. You take care of yourself. You do not take unnecessary risks. You try.”
“Try what…?”
There it was. She’d found his bait, her voice full of hope and fear… but mostly suspicion.
That was the question, his mate beautifully trotting down the path he’d laid for her.
To soften the blow. To cement what was necessary.
Another smile, a purposeful blink to humanize himself.
“Being ruled by your slave, hmm? You are an Omega, waking up to your nature. Still ignorant of what that fully means. But I am not. Your needs, your anatomy, I understand them.”
More than understood them. “I was the surgeon who led the team that rebuilt your vaginal canal. An expert back in Thólos. Celebrated. I’ve written medical textbooks on the topic, performed thousands of operations.
Of course, that was before… my specialty was redirected. My skillset repurposed and… expanded.”
There was no hesitation in his mate to believe him. Nor was she particularly impressed. That’s not the way jobs worked in Beta Sector. Every job mattered, none was above the other.
But she was analyzing what this meant.
After all, he’d shown her with a few sexual acts just how precise his understanding of Omega anatomy was. And he had not even given her a taste of advanced pleasures yet.
She even seemed to soften into his tale, her breath slowing, as she admitted, “I like the idea of you as a healer.”
Not that he’d pursued a surgical career for altruistic reasons.
He’d wanted Rebecca.
Needed power, money, and access to keep her.
To give her the life she deserved. Attained advanced knowledge to entice her.
Had chosen his path, dedicated his life to learning everything there was to possibly know about Omegas.
Studied, perfected, enhanced. Outshined his classmates.
His peers. Set himself apart from Alphas…
who needed him to repair their own mates.
Grew rich, well connected.
All because he’d set eyes on a dark-eyed, dark-haired girl when they were both just children—certain the petite female would grow up Omega.
Had to have her. Understood that in society she would be taken away were he not prepared to outshine all other potential romantic partners should his designation not be Alpha at the onset of puberty.
Pragmatic Jules had not been willing to gamble that one day he’d be able to knot. He’d never gambled a day in his life.
And he’d presented Beta.
But he’d been prepared. And Rebecca had known no other male than he. He’d assured that too. So when he proposed, they were married that afternoon.
His childhood best friend becoming his wife.
“Then let me heal you, Brenya. And I can if you tell me I don’t need to worry.” She was so perfect, the way her eyes grew big at his artistic pleading. How easily compassionate and good she was. So sweet and loving and gentle and kind. His brilliant, good girl. “Please.”
And though na?ve through and through, his mate was not stupid. She knew there was a hook in his bait, but could not and would not pin it.
No, it would always be he who pinned her.
Like he pinned her now into their nest, cuddling her, arranging her with subtle shifts of his body, knowing it was safest this way, considering the fire that burned within her. A fire she had yet to realize.
Her gaze slipped to the side, her sweet mind picking apart his words and finding nothing to reproach. She even meant every word. “I don’t want to leave the Dome.”
“Good.” He cocked an eyebrow, giving her that look. The one that said she owed him a vow. “So swear it.”
Her hesitation showed how smart she really was, the Omega softly asking, “And you promise to protect my people… from what?”
Rich purr in each word, Jules explained as if she’d asked the right question, “Jacques. Central. The virus. You must be safe. And, before you verbalize that sparkle in your eyes, know that regardless of how you answer, you never need to worry that I will punish your people because we argued. And we will. It is natural.”
He had her, was soooo close. “I am aware it will be impossible for you to accept your love for me with that axe always hanging over your head. You can be yourself when we’re together.
The real you. The you who’s waking up. Yell at me, fight with me, disagree.
Tell me all your feelings and fears. I want to hear them.
And understand, I am not going anywhere.
I’m yours. And I ask for a simple promise that you, who I stole—who never agreed to be my mate nor wife of her own free will—that you will give me just this one thing despite how we got here.
And in return, I will give you the Dome. ”
Her eyes changed, honeyed uncertainty altered with a blink. An immaculate mind’s attempt to understand, to rationalize such an uncharacteristic outpouring of words. Her quick assumption that maybe he longed for acceptance, that her terrifying Beta mate had his own fears and worries.
Good.
Tickling her senses with a fluttering of well-applied anticipation, he asked, “Will you?”
She was every bit the innocent maiden he’d coveted and stolen, every bit the woman who’d taken his breath at first glance, as she timidly asked, “You really promise to never release the virus in Bernard Dome? Because, yes, if you swear it, I vow I will stay here forever.”
And just like that, she signed over her life to him, unaware of what she’d done.
A promise not even Rebecca would have made.
Purring, lips curving into an honest smile, Jules kissed her as he poured his ocean of regret all over her light, knowing she would cleanse away the grime and make it clean.
And then his lips went back to her perfect ear, where he whispered nine secrets. Unassuming locations throughout the Dome where the virus had been tucked away—knowing a mind like hers would never forget a single detail.
It was vital she remember.
And when he got to the tenth hidden nook—a place no one would ever think to look—when he whispered where he’d tucked the most dangerous world-ending nightmare, his full weight upon her body, Brenya was too distracted memorizing every word that spilled from his lips, too taken in by dark secrets, to notice his hands were already about her wrists.
Pinning them beside her head so she couldn’t strike him and accidentally hurt herself.
She understood.
Her whole body went rigid, her eyes wide.
The way she shrieked…
It was everything he needed, everything he’d orchestrated, because now she would be safe forever.