Chapter 9 #2
“You lie. You deceive! You promised to keep me away from Jacques.” Voice low, a growl that warned she was moments from biting again, she snarled, barely above a whisper, “I let you…. You misled me.” But she couldn’t stop there.
Not when a greater evil had been committed against her. “You hid the virus inside my body!”
“I did.” Not one flicker of regret came from his rather active sea, Jules running the back of his fingers over her heart. “Tucked away where no one but I could ever remove it.”
Brenya wanted to rip her hair out. Violated, frustrated, outraged that he’d clipped her wings in every possible way while he’d claimed he was trying to teach her to fly. “If my heart stops, everyone in my Dome will die!”
“Yes.” How could he smile at her like that, with such regard and admiration? “It’s true. The containment will detonate should your heart stop beating. Don’t die.”
“How could you do this to me?” If anyone knew, everyone would fear her. And if they destroyed her to destroy the virus, Jules would rip the Dome apart. Frantic, she shoved at his chest. “How could you be so heartless? You said you loved me!”
“Oh so much, Brenya.” He snatched at her fingers to press her bloodied palm to his heart, more of his infectious calm working into the cracks of her thinking. “Here. I love you here. Do you feel that?”
“You made me the greatest threat to the Dome… and then you made me swear never to leave.” Her eyes welled, angry tears falling down her jagged scar, mixing with the red mess smeared around her lips. “Take it out… please.”
“No.” Spoken with so much kindness she hardly recognized the man.
The Beta killer. The terrorist. “I told you this was an invasion—my target, Bernard Dome’s control of the satellite network.
Jacques was a known authoritarian, yet left your Dome’s most valuable resource in the control of a mainframe.
Your network was easy to access. Which means we are not the only ones doing so.
I saw things. Troubling things.” His resolve openly hardened.
“Brenya, it takes a great deal to trouble me.”
It seemed so horribly reasonable, so diabolical, as he explained in calm tones, pressing her fluttering fingers to his bloody chest, and wrapped an arm around her back to pull her closer.
How he swayed with her again, making her shift her weight from right foot to left and back, a light rocking, a rhythm that slowed her breath.
“I volunteered for the mission, because it was that vital. It could not fail. And I needed leverage. Brenya, there is no greater leverage than fear of the Red Consumption. Jacques didn’t know my Followers possessed the virus, though perhaps he suspected, but Bernard Dome’s Alphas were desperate for Omegas. For ten women, he let me in.
“I needed to make sure no one could take my weapon from me if my ship was destroyed upon landing. I needed to make sure that if I was killed, the takeover would be successful regardless. So, I designed the implant myself, and it was surgically installed the night I left Greth. It’s been inside me all this time… until I put it in you.”
She had seen every inch of his body, the man covered in scars, just as he was covered in those black markings. And none of them seemed fresh. Maybe… just maybe… he was lying?
No, he had Followers here that would have assisted him with this. Hand-selected soldiers that had volunteered for this mission too.
He was an accomplished surgeon.
And he’d been her surgeon—for her face, her shoulder, and her vaginal canal. Jules and his men could have hidden that insidious device anywhere inside her!
She couldn’t take it out. She couldn’t tell anyone.
But she could be horrified. “What if there had been an accident! Everyone would have died! You would have killed my sisters and my brothers because Jacques is a bad man? No. No, Jules. Why?” Brenya could not fathom what made a man do such things, risk such things.
It wasn’t even for revenge.
Bernard Dome was innocent.
He knew that. He’d seen her peaceful people. And though Central was horrible, it was the minority when it came to the population. Less than a third.
But he would not be moved. “There are lives I care about in Greth, and in order for them to flourish, control of the satellites is required. For you to be safe, I must have those satellites. My goal was diplomacy, but if Jacques chose violence, then everyone under this Dome would have been infected and eradicated so the good men and women I am responsible for would not suffer again. They’ve suffered enough already.
More than you can imagine. Every single one of them.
Some far more than I. And I am loyal, Brenya. ”
No, this was greed. It had to be.
“To you above all. I am loyal to you. If I’d died, having that device in my body, you would have died—either of Red Consumption or from the chaos that would take place in your Dome once it was released.
My beloved, dear mate. I chose my actions with care.
I don’t put myself in situations where there might be accidents.
Such as when Jacques imprisoned me. You came to break me out, to rescue me, but I stayed in my cell…
to keep you safe. I will even concede that your plan to escape the Dome and build a beacon may have worked, but…
commandeering the satellite network was not optional.
Continuing to control it, more important than you imagine.
” Voice even, Jules’s sea inched up her shores, a soft embrace more than a rough annexation. “I need that to keep you safe too.”
Slipping out of his arms, Brenya’s gray uniform smeared with his blood, she put space between them. Trying to think in a soupy mind. “What could you possibly need the satellites for? Your people already stole Greth Dome. Now you have Bernard Dome. What more could you possibly want?”
He allowed her her rebellion, shifting his body slightly to put himself between the crystal vase of flowers and his enraged mate. “There are few Domes left standing after all the centuries. So many failed—”
“I know!” Brenya cut him off, unwilling to fall for his verbal distractions again.
“That’s why Bernard Dome feeds us Beta Rations—to keep the population content.
Jacques told me. Only twelve Domes are left after what you did in Thólos.
And you would have eradicated another one of them! Why would you do that?”
“Mon chou… please. I’m here. Come.”
One mention of the Alpha, and it was as if he was right there, behind her. His physical presence so real that she spun around, her icy fingertips to her lips in fright.
And Jules saw. He saw, and he put his arms around her again, the rocking starting again. “He’s not there, Brenya.”
But he was there, picking at her brain, that clicking back with a vengeance until her eye began to twitch, and it was so very hard to ignore him when she was so livid. Harder still to evade Jules’s mental caress.
Her back was to his chest, the light rocking swaying her as Jules wrapped strong arms around his agitated mate, careless if he bled on her clothing.
“Two Domes are known to possess weapons that can blow apart continents.
World-ending missiles… which require access to the satellites that Jacques was far too distracted with petty Central politics to pay attention to.
They are at war over mined resources, believe it or not.
Even locked in their Domes, they war. Using drones, ballistics.
I know this, because I saw it myself. The situation is escalating.
That is why I volunteered for this mission.
That is why I brought the virus here, even in my body, because this is not a mission that can fail.
If one of them fires a single large missile, the other will retaliate.
If somehow the fools release their entire barrage, everyone on the planet will die.
The fallout would end life as we know it… even with the protection of our Domes.
“And I came here and found you. My darling. And I took your Dome. I incarcerated your Alpha. Relished my bond to you, because I cannot and will not live without you, Brenya. I cut the containment vessel out of myself and hid it inside your body. And so long as your heart beats, your people will live. Not to punish you. No. But to protect you. I swore to you I would keep you safe. That includes from yourself.”
The maelstrom of Jules’s sea, his lies, his truths, and his violence. Gods, how was she to survive it? His cum was glue in her cunt, his words daggers in her heart. He’d sworn to keep her safe.
And now?
Now, she’d never put herself in danger.
Now…
She had to try.
Now…
She would be physically dragged to Jacques’s cell, all because of some Omega nightmare that required an Alpha’s presence, or her brain would not stop ticking.
Or it would eventually, because separation would drive her to her death.
A risk she could never take.
Voice small, she let out a shuddering breath. “You are a bad mate.”
To this, he did not hesitate to say, “There have been seven attempts on my life in the last fifty-three days. Should someone have succeeded, you would have died from Red Consumption. Now, you’ll be safe from the virus should I be assassinated.
And if they kill my beloved Omega, they will get exactly what they deserve. ”
Pleading, Brenya tried to talk sense into the terrifying man. “I have seen techs fall during routine maintenance. People accidentally die. We don’t want them to, but it happens. Hearts sometimes just stop.”
“But not yours, Brenya. Your heart belongs to me, and mine belongs to you.” All said as he turned her toward him and cupped her cheeks, Jules smiling as if the world was right in every way.
“Now that you know, you will make good choices. You will take care of yourself. You will eat, you will drink, and you will thrive. For your people, since you may never have done it for me.”
Gods, she’d have no other choice.
And because his cruelty seemed to know no bounds, the Beta added, “And you will eat breakfast with Jacques. Every day. For your health.”
Unable to look him in the eye, she ducked her head and rubbed her lips together in an attempt to stop her mouth.
Shrank into herself and began to chew her thumbnail, her breath shallow, her gaze darting from corner to corner, and her mind broke down each thing she had said into fragments, tiny bits that settled over every crevice of her thinking, like a fine layer of black dust she might have swept away if she concentrated hard enough.
“You have your satellites now. Have you… disabled those bombs?”
“No. I can’t neutralize the warheads themselves, only override their guidance systems. If any Dome initiates a strike, Followers will turn their warheads’ coordinates back on the source. It is up to them to manually stop the launch or blow themselves apart.”
His stature would never be colossal, not like Jacques’s, but Jules’s authority was absolute.
He moved everywhere in her thoughts, settling into every crevice, soothing her mind as if calming a spitting kitten held by the scruff.
“But it’s a single contingency. Once we intervene with a launch, they will seek to override our control.
It could take them years, but people always find ways to sabotage their best interest.” His eyes sharpened on her for an instant, the pupils contracting as if to punctuate the thought.
Deliberate, judgmental. “And you need to understand that I can’t stop Domes I don’t control from building new satellites and making mine obsolete.
It would take decades, but these threats are not simple. I’m not a god, Brenya.”
In some ways, though, he was. Her god. The creature who had complete control over her life, for better or worse.
“Are you planning to invade them too, to create a world order?”
He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “All I wish is to live my life here with you. I promised you Bernard Dome. I promised you peace. I meant it.”
Brenya could not put her finger on it, but in that moment, she felt he lied.
And she knew he sensed it. That he knew her every secret thought.
The harder she resisted his insistent stare, the louder the reemergent click, click, click at the back of her skull banged. Infernal, endless tapping warning her it would only grow more fervent, that it would mercilessly pound her skull to powder if she did not pour her submission on her mates.
Lowering his voice to a soothing whisper, Jules reached for where his clean shirt waited on the bed, pulling it over his bleeding shoulder. “Have some pity for me. I don’t enjoy doing this to you at all.”
God no! She could not handle another nightmare, her voice shrill as she demanded, “Doing what?”
What else could he possibly do?
“Taking you to Jacques.” And with that, he surged forward, catching her hard against his chest. Hoisting her up, where Omega thighs instinctively wrapped around his waist, as he carried his screaming mate out the door.