Chapter 11
Brenya was on her sixth bite of fish when the pitch of an impatient female sounded outside the only access point to the space, her demand for entrance blunted by the sealed door.
One that was opened by Jules’s black-clad soldiers.
Because she was expected.
That’s why the fourth place-setting waited.
For Lucia.
A vision in a trailing pink gown. Black hair pin-straight, so perfect it moved like water. Lips scarlet, face flawless.
Beautiful.
Even the sound of her steps against the concrete was elegant, the woman walking into the room with the type of confidence Brenya had never possessed.
And never would.
Swaying in her chair, mouth full of fish, Brenya was hunched, rattled, and embarrassingly aware that she had the posture of a wild animal over its meal.
“Forgive my tardiness.” Lucia’s cheeks blushed as if she hated admitting a shortcoming, yet did it with grace.
“I fell asleep waiting and was only just notified that breakfast had become lunch.” Taking the seat across from Brenya with a winning smile, as if this family breakfast were a delightful engagement, Lucia added, “And I see it is good I already ate. This is dry, and the sauce is broken. Commodorina, don’t eat that. We’ll get you another.”
It was as if the room was hers to command, Lucia waving at the frightening guards like they were her personal servants, demanding fresh food. “Tell the chef that Commodore Havel and his wife require fresh plates.”
Growling from his cell, the sound muffled by the glass, Jacques leaned forward, studying Brenya’s dish and loudly snarling to see the intruding female was correct.
To Jules, he barked, “If you had not brought my mate three hours late, her food would have been perfect. We had an arrangement, Havel. Her food is dry at the edges. The sauce is broken.”
Male complaints ignored, Brenya found she was unable to look away from the gorgeous female, the desirable female, the female with power.
Not because she was dazzled by Lucia, nor because she disliked her. It wasn’t that the woman was gaunt. That she poorly hid a roiling nausea at the scent of fish under heavy makeup.
It was because Lucia had fucked her mate.
And there was a golden knife in Brenya’s hand, a knife she had used for other, more difficult tasks.
A new sound, deep, deep, deep in her chest, rattled. So low no one but she could hear. The imaginings in Brenya’s mind so graphically violent that they should have horrified her.
Three more heartbeats and they did.
The bite of fish still in between her teeth, Brenya slowed the working of her jaw, noting the exact moment Lucia really looked at her. As if the other Omega had avoided it thus far.
How there was a flash of something in the intruder’s dark eyes quickly hidden away, Lucia placing her napkin on her lap before leaning forward to pull Brenya’s plate away. “Really. Don’t eat that.”
But those shifting dark Omega eyes were measuring her too—the blood on Brenya’s jumpsuit. A small missed smear on Brenya’s cheek.
But… the exhausted sigh straight from the Omega’s red lips coupled with the eye roll? It felt forced. It felt badly acted.
She was performing.
“Brenya, if I have to burn every Beta jumpsuit in this Dome to get you to properly dress, I will do it. I will burn them all.” Smiling sharply, as if chastising a younger sister, she gestured at the blood soaking her collar.
“And the blood. Why are you smeared with blood? Every time I see you, there is some ordeal.”
It could have been theatrical, the way Lucia seemed to catch herself, how she slid her pretty eyes to Jules, as if considering, even smiling as if in on a secret. “Unless the blood…. Perhaps, you are to be congratulated?”
Jules observed, nothing more. Every movement, every breath, sitting back in his chair. Unreadable.
Yet his ocean was warm as it flowed where it shouldn’t.
“Well?”
Commodore Havel addressed the loud, opinionated woman as if he knew her every secret. Every misstep. Every fear. “Good afternoon, Lucia. Do not touch my mate’s food again.”
The warning was ignored, with a light laugh and a wink. “Maybe better than good. I see your shirt has blood on it too… in a very, hmm, suspicious place.” A playful smirk as if she were the greatest of friends with the Beta terrorist, Lucia patted his hand. “Did she…?”
“Did she what?” The sound of a livid Alpha male. One who had been silently seething with such rage that Brenya squeezed the golden knife again. “Did she what, Lucia?”
The warm sea bubbled higher, washing away the other male’s rage. It disrespected her shore, soaked the sand. It made Brenya swallow her fish and wish she had a bite of Beta shoulder between her teeth again.
The Alpha’s external outburst was ignored like that of a naughty child, while Lucia gestured that Jules should open his shirt as she announced, “It won’t scar properly if you don’t let it breathe.”
“Noted. Thank you, Lucia.” Perfect manners, Jules’s face moving in the proper expressions, but inside, his sea was not so peaceful. It was positively churning…
…with pleasure.
The polar opposite of the male behind the bars, straining to see what exactly they discussed.
And for some reason, Jacques was heartbroken.
Eyes bloodshot, his expression shattered, he pressed his mutilated hands to the glass and said just for his mate, “I love you, Brenya. I do. Whatever he told you, whatever he did to make you—”
He’d never once looked at her that way before.
On the verge of tears.
“Don’t let Jules trick you into anything else. He won’t stop, so you must stop him.” Fingers testing the too-small holes again, Jacques tried and failed to reach her. “Please… just come closer so I can smell you. There’s so much cum and blood that the real you is buried. I need it. I’m going mad…”
Did he hear the clicking too?
Is that why Brenya leaned toward the glass?
“You really should have brought her here sooner, Commodore Havel.” Said as Lucia reached across the table and set her fingertip under Brenya’s chin, turning her away from the suddenly grinning Alpha so her face might be inspected.
“I’ve never seen separation sickness this advanced. Both of them are a mess.”
Jacques wasn’t banging on the glass again, but he might as well have been. “Brenya, tell him you want to be with me! Tell him to let you in so I can take care of you!”
And before Brenya might slap away Lucia’s hand or cover her ears to drown out Jacques’s growing volume, Lucia began to gag.
“I’m fine—” Voice faltering midsentence, she scrambled to collect one of the discarded covers, vomiting loudly into it.
Brenya had seen this kind of nausea in sisters that had been assigned gestational duties.
Though her stomach was still flat, Lucia was pregnant. That was why she mated with Jacques. Omegas needed tending in order for the fetus to survive. Jules had said so.
Lucia wanted her baby to live… and Jules had arranged it all.
So that Brenya would not have to take Jacques’s cock again.
Lucia was helping. She was a brick in the wall between her and Jacques.
So, Brenya would have to reconcile herself with that, or she might be the one forced to take his knot.
And… what if Lucia didn’t want to? What if it had been awful for her?
The ticking stopped.
A mental switch turned on the rational part of Brenya’s brain, honey eyes running all over Lucia’s uncovered arms, shoulders, and neck, looking for bruises. Looking for marks left by rough hands and a sucking mouth.
Sure… she’d felt Jacques’s pleasure, his efforts to manipulate her through the bond and friction found in Lucia’s pussy. And Brenya had been so caught up in her own suffering, and shame, and physical response, that she had not spared much more than loathing for Lucia.
Which was wrong.
Deeply wrong.
So Omega fingers put down her golden knife. They reached instead for the glass of water and pressed it into the struggling woman’s grip. Voice soft, Brenya urged, “Drink. Little sips.”
And Brenya could acknowledge the very real fear hidden under Lucia’s carefully manicured expression as she panted and worked to obey.
Only to vomit again. More that time.
It didn’t matter that Jacques was watching her like he’d love to eat her right there, clothes and all. It didn’t matter that Jules stared, unblinking. Brenya rose from her chair, circled the table, and helped Lucia hold back all her long, soft hair.
She even patted her back in a way she hoped was helpful.
“You’re gestating. You should be in bed,” said the female who knew little to nothing about babies or how to grow them. But Brenya did know standard protocol.
“No.” Grabbing Brenya’s wrist, Lucia forced the woman’s hand to the tiny, hard swell of her lower belly.
Made her feel where Ancil’s child grew. “We must have our breakfast every day. It is important. You have duties now. Precious wife to Commodore Havel, mate to the Bernard founding family’s offspring and beloved Alpha.
And as Jacques’s official mistress, it is important that we are seen together.
It will make the Dome more peaceful, yes? Yes.”
That one gesture may as well have been a scream in Brenya’s ear, a silent plea and warning all at once—Lucia’s child would live or die depending on her compliance.
One rap on the glass, the Alpha no longer in his chair, his body was flush to the bars as his protests came out muffled.
“Brenya, she means nothing to me! Do not think I would touch her by choice. Look at me, please! He promised me I would get a chance to explain.” The male started panting, running his fingers through his hair as it mussed up his scalp and further distorted the badly platted braid.
“Look at her face, Havel! You have made her sad by bringing that slut here. I told you that bitch was unnecessary!”