14. Chapter 14
14
“Storm's comin’.” Ruck hovered near the fence, slapping his hat against his thigh. He’d been solicitous ever since the confrontation with Hale. They’d all seen the marks Daniel carved into my skin and listened to my story. I accused Ruck of not being able to show his support in front of Hale, but the admission unshackled Ruck from his loyalty to his older brother.
The air was thick enough to wade through this afternoon, and I sucked in a heavy, hot gulp. I blistered from the inside out, wiping away sweat from my brow, only for it to spring up again. Voluminous gray clouds covered the sky, darkening the horizon. Dalton snorted behind us, giving his keeper a baleful eye.
“How is he faring?” I asked, curious about the wild stallion. Ruck had been working with him for an hour and sweat drenched his coat. His flanks trembled with tension. Even so, Dalton wouldn’t capitulate.
Ruck snorted and shrugged. “I’m wondering if I caught the prince of mustangs because he’s too bold to be broken. See how he shows me his behind?” Dalton deemed us unworthy, turning to show us his backside. His tail swished with a sharp flick.
“I didn’t have the time to invest in him over the summer, and he’s grown wilder. I’ve got a halter on him, although he tried his best to rid me of my fingers before I managed it.” Ruck laughed, turning back to Dalton. “But I’m not going to let him rest. I want a saddle on him in the next couple of days.”
Dalton’s dark coat glittered with sweat, and it made him look majestic. Dalton was a horse made to run. I was an omega made to be free.
“Would you teach me how to ride?” I couldn’t keep the longing from my voice. It’d always been a passing fancy, something I never let myself entertain in Breton City. I could barely walk down the street without unwanted attention. I wasted so much time staring out of the window, and I was envious of the women I saw on horseback. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if I rode a horse properly. Not sat upon a docile pony as someone led them around on a rope. Ruck cleared his throat, and my shoulders slumped. He was going to reject me.
“It would be my pleasure.”
My body whipped straight and thrummed with uncontainable energy. I wanted to throw myself over the fence and into Ruck’s long arms. I knew what his embrace felt like now, and it was like dessert wine. A warmth that started in the pit of your stomach and crept out into every inch of your body. His arms held me when Hale turned his back on me again. Whatever feeling I nurtured for my husband shriveled in my chest. Especially as his brother scooped me up and tucked my head into the crook of his neck. I’d cracked myself open, hoping to prove my character. The cliff’s edge of honesty was lonely, and I was thankful for Ruck.
I refused to feel guilty over his offer of comfort.
He’d run his fingers down the naked line of my spine, crooning out soft noises. I should have pulled away. It wasn’t right. I was a married woman in the arms of someone else. It was only comfort, nothing else. Ruck’s scent reminded me of the ranch, taking me outside of my horrible memories. I was alive and free, for now. His scent was sumptuous leather, the hay starched with summer sun. I caught a whiff of it now, and it brought a flush to my cheeks.
“You would do that for me?” I clasped my hands together.
“What is he doing?” Hale interrupted us as Bram clattered to stand on the fence beside me.
I didn’t answer him. He’d proven he didn’t want to listen to anything that came out of my mouth. My filthy omega words.
I reached out and ruffled Bram’s hair, and he rewarded me with a wide smile.
“You look pretty today, Esta.” He said, reaching out to twine the peach-colored ribbon on my bonnet around his finger. Hale scoffed but inched closer.
“I agree, Bram, the color becomes her well,” Ruck added, his lips twitching in a lazy smile. Hale hovered in the corner of my vision, tense and taut.
“What are you doing, Ruck?” Hale growled. He wanted to know what Ruck promised me, but also why he was talking to me. Oliver slid by us, his green eyes fixing me with an intense look before they dropped to the ground.
“Hello, Oliver. How are the cattle?” I called out, bolstered by Ruck’s support.
Another harrumph from Hale. I wiped droplets of sweat off my forehead as I waited for the quiet man’s reply. His nostrils flared.
“We’ll have to watch them close this winter. We found wolf tracks on the far side.”
Ruck perked up, tucking his whip under his arm. I shivered at the thought of wolves coming anywhere near the herd. They were such gentle, trusting creatures with big brown eyes that made me want to spend all day petting. Bram launched into a detailed description of what the paw prints looked like until Hale cut him off with a frustrated wave.
“The storm will be here soon. If there were things that might get wet, it would be best to get them off now.” It was the closest he’d come to speaking to me directly since our conversation about my scars. The washing line was full of sheets, and I needed to get them off before the storm. His eyes still didn’t meet mine, and he scuffed his boot on the dusty ground. I touched Bram’s shoulder.
“Can you help me? You can tell me more about these wolves.”
My lungs expanded with sweet oxygen as Bram trotted beside me, happily launching into conversation again. The back of my neck prickled with three sets of eyes boring into it.
“I’ve never seen one, but Ruck has. He said it was shaggy black, with glowing yellow eyes. Its teeth were as big as my thumb. Hale says they’ll eat me whole.” He brandished his thumb for size, and I shook my head in disbelief.
He held the basket as I released the wooden pegs. I pulled the crisp white sheets off, shaking off the remnants of dust. Nothing was ever truly clean in the wildlands, there were just levels of filth. I preferred it to the sterile life I lived in Breton City.
“I think he was trying to scare you. But I couldn’t imagine coming face to face with such a creature.” I chided with soft humor. Bram went ahead of me, and I marveled at the change in the young man. He’d combed his hair, and the only dirt marring him was from his work in the fields today. Ever since Hale renounced me, he seemed to rebel against his brother’s unsaid edict. Seeking me out whenever he could and chattering with a bright, loud voice.
“I believe him. Hale doesn’t lie.”
No, he didn’t lie. But he wielded his truth like a bludgeon, thumping with disregard for damage.
I wiped my hand over my forehead again, my armpits slick with prickly sweat. The house burned like a furnace, and the kitchen was even worse. I’d banked coal in the stove in readiness for the dough proved on the bench. I peeked underneath the muslin. It looked good. I’d become a proficient cook in these past few months, and each meal filled my chest with a glow I’d never experienced. My hands had rough calluses now, far from the untried, soft skin of the Esta who lived in Breton City.
“Can I spend some time with Charlie now?” Bram bounced on his toes.
I waved him outside, using his absence as a moment to collect myself. The cow had grown exponentially but was as tame as a puppy. There was no reprieve from the sudden heat, incongruous with the rolling dark clouds that took over the sky. Perhaps I shouldn’t have given permission for Bram to play with Charlie.
I leaned against the window to see Hale pointing at the barn and Bram’s sulky pout. He stamped his foot and led Charlie back into the barn. Hale looked up, his expression mutinous, as he caught sight of me. Ruck and Oliver weren’t there to temper his fury. Dust spun in his wake as he strode toward the house. I plucked at my high collar, soaked in sweat and clammy as the first fat raindrops fell. They slid down the glass with a heavy weight. The scent in the room was thick as syrup and rich with sugar.
“What were you thinking? Letting the boy take the damned cow out to the field when there is a storm coming?” A crack of thunder punctuated Hale’s rage-filled words as he swept into the room.
His expression twisted, flittered with frustration as the rain intensified. Raindrops marred his hat, and he tossed it to the side, running his hand through his flattened locks. The warmth inside me rolled to a boil, shooting fire through every vein. I opened my mouth in a hopeless pant. Sharp pepper coated my tongue, and my mouth filled with saliva. I swiped at a tickle on the side of my head. Sweat dripped down my cheeks. Was I sick? My thoughts were sluggish and hazy. Hale took a step toward me. His nostrils flared as he sucked in a deep breath. He launched forward with a soft growl before staggering back.
“Y-you need to go.” His fingers scrambled for the doorway, and his knuckles turned white as he gripped it.
I rose on unsteady feet and teetered toward him with my arms outstretched for balance.
“My stomach hurts.” I focused on taking small steps, keeling over as a cramp wrenched at my insides. The pain blinded my vision with white stars, and I sunk to the floor with a whimper.
“It’s not sickness, Esta, it’s your—damn.” He cursed, shaking his head at my crumpled form. “How do you not know this?”
His scent was stronger now that I was closer, and my gaze snagged on the shadow underneath his jaw. I wondered if his scent was stronger there if I could tuck my nose and breathe deep. Another debilitating cramp roared through me. The pain echoed down my thighs. I gasped, flushed, sweating, and undone. My hair escaped its bonnet and hung haphazardly. My fingers scrambled at the ties at my back. I needed to breathe. To have cool air on my skin. Hale made a noise, a half groan, half sob.
“You smell so fucking good.” Hale’s foul mouth should have shocked me, but a thick fog suspended all thoughts, and words didn’t penetrate. Only Hale’s delectable scent existed, and my need to have it imprinted on my skin. My ties tangled, and I tried to wrench them free, but they only knotted further. In between, my legs pulsed. The heat was unbearable.
I whined.
A high-pitched call to action, one I couldn’t verbalize. I needed something. I didn’t know what specifically, but Hale did, and he lurched forward onto his knees. His hands caught under my armpits and hauled me onto his lap. My nose went to the hollow of his throat, and his scent crashed over me. I went limp; the fugue deepened. Hale’s hand clamped on the back of my neck. The perfect weight. He kneaded the scorched flesh, and the cramps inside my stomach dissipated.
“Thank you. Ugh that feels good.” I wriggled closer to him. “This sickness hit me out of nowhere.”
“Gods Esta, you truly don’t know? It’s your heat,” Hale scoffed through gritted teeth.
It took a moment for his words to sink through the thick molasses of my mind. I sprawled out of his lap. A cramp clenched my insides as my body peeled off his, wanting to be melded to his hard lines.
My heat.
It couldn’t be.
Hale mocked me for not knowing what went on between partners in the bedroom, but I knew what a heat was. The omegas I’d spoken to after church explained it, in vague terms. An overwhelming need to procreate. They tittered from behind their hands, refusing to answer my curious questions. It was natural, our duty.
My body demanded I satisfy its desires, to take Hale between my legs where the fire raged the hottest.
It was Daniel who inadvertently educated me about what really happened during a heat, making it sound like a nightmare. He squirreled his hand up my skirt and cupped, whispering filthy promises. He’d take me for days, fill me with his release, and there would be no chance of a child. I would beg and plead for him, again and again, searching for viable seed.
Biologically, omegas existed to breed, and humans weren’t compatible.
But Hale and I were.
The idea of him touching me the way Daniel planned made me whimper again. It would be different with Hale. I wasn’t operating on logic right now. My body cried out, and he was answering. Hale fought it, but his pupils dilated, and his fingers trembled as they fisted my skirts. Keeping me from moving away from him.
“Mr. Hartlock, if you take me to my room, I can try to smother my scent.” Even speaking the option aloud made me want to sob. Being away from Hale right now would be like tearing apart my very soul. He shook his head, and I slumped in silent relief.
“I can’t do that. Do you know what will happen if you deny your heat?” He clenched his jaw. “You’ll scream yourself hoarse for days, dehydrated, inconsolable, and wild for an alpha. I-I’ve heard it, and I never want you to go through that. I-I’ll do my duty as your husband.”
His words poisoned the warm glow. Paused the incremental inch I made toward him. He didn’t want to do this; he hated me. Hale would give me what I needed, for now, and afterward? Would he put me on a train and send me back to Daniel’s waiting clutches? I would rather endure the agony of a denied heat than see his eyes go cold and slide over me like glass again.
“No, you don’t want this, and I don’t want your duty.” I pulled myself to my feet, limbs shaking with effort. They trembled, more liquid than muscle, the bones like blistering fire pokers. Hale’s fist tightened in my skirt. He shook his head. Was he trying to scatter the heady call of my scent or trying to refute my denial? I wanted to wilt into his hold, to let him quiet the hunger scraping away at my nerves. But I wouldn’t do it, not until he told me he wanted me. Not to do his duty. Because I knew in the end, when my scent settled, he would hate me even more.
Conniving, manipulative omega.
I didn’t mean to, but I was doing the very thing Claudia had. Turning his own body against him.
“Please,” my voice cracked as I tried and failed to free myself. “I’m trying. I’m trying to save you.”
At that moment, I felt like a villain, abused by my body and taking control of his. My mind thick with a chanting desire to throw myself on Hale. Take the begrudging relief he offered. Hale released me, and I stumbled toward the doorway, only to find myself bundled in his arms. He pressed my nose to his neck, making soothing noises as I struggled. I jostled against him, jelly and heat, as he took the stairs two at a time.
“If you wanted to save me, you never should have got off that train. Dammit, Esta, it’s too late to save me. You’re my wife. You’re mine,” he moaned.
My lungs screamed for air, and I had no choice but to fill them with his grounded scent, softening despite myself. My arms looped around him, tugging at the curls of hair. The weathered cord of his neck called to my lips, and I brushed them against the tanned skin. Carved of sun and earth. He gave me roots like a fledgling seed sinking into fresh, tilled soil. My head spun with all-consuming need. He lay on the bed, not relinquishing his tight hold.
“Mr. Hartlock, please—” his deft fingers strayed to the back of my dress, unknotting the tangled ties with surprising speed. What was I pleading for? Thoughts were fragmented, charred from the gaping maw of hunger that pulsed inside me, between my legs, my nipples, every inch of my skin. My lungs filled with precious air, drenched with Hale. I slumped, dizzy with the effect it had on me. His fingers tugged at my dress, divesting me of it with ease. He worked on my corset, pausing momentarily to shove his nose along the line of my neck.
“Hale.” His voice was gravel against my pebbled skin. “Call me Hale.”
We were really doing this.
He flung my corset across the room with a growl. He fiddled with the ties at the front of my chemise, pulling them undone with a tender slowness. My heart smashed against my ribs. His hands strayed to the heaving, creamy top of my breasts, a low hiss escaped from his lips.
From what he’d said, Hale was out of control when Claudia went into heat. Giving into the wild, becoming an animal. He was crazed enough to be imprisoned by it. But his considered caresses were gentle, tentative even. The black pupil of his eye swallowed the hazel, and I could see the sharp point of his canines as he panted.
Everything about this was wrong.
Hale hated me, but his fingers dragged with such longing, it brought a lump to my throat.
Everything about this was right.
Our scents married to each other, our human vows a predicator to the possibilities of this moment. His canines were exposed, ready to claim me. To sink into my skin and link us. I floated on a blissful cloud, suspended in his careful hold.
“Hale, you can still go.” He bunched my chemise up over my hips. My skin rippled with the scrape of his callused hands. “Lock me from the outside. I will endure. I don’t want you to hate me.”
I want you to love me.
Hale pulled the chemise over my head and tossed it to the side. I spread my legs as he shuffled down the bed, shivering from the puff of his amused, soft laugh. His fingers darted over the laces of my boots. He stroked the arch of my foot, and my stomach clenched again. His touch was more necessary elsewhere. My hand drifted between my legs, unable to bear the cool exposure any longer.
“I couldn’t hate you, Esta,” he rumbled, leaving my stockings on and kneading my calves as he kneeled between my legs. “I want to, but I can’t.”
I didn’t catch his last comment or the flash of shame because my fingers were sinking into my warm opening, insides clutching at the minuscule intrusion. I shoved them deeper, too far gone to be embarrassed by the wet sound the movement made. Hale splayed his hands over my upper thighs, spreading them wide until my legs ached. Rain pelted the window, filling my ears with its furious thrum.
“Your touch isn’t enough.” His lip quirked under his beard.
“It’s not.” I agreed, my fingers moving on their own. The need increased, flaring hot as Hale leaned over and took my breast in his mouth. His tongue swirled around my nipple. Tingles covered my body as he sucked. His mouth latched onto my skin was indecent. Perfect liquid warmth and it made the need in my stomach coil tighter. It pulsed between my legs, the pleasure dulled by a sharp edge of pain. It spiraled as Hale switched sides, giving my other breast the same attention.
“Do you want my help? Shall I ease your heat, my wife?” He trailed hot, wet kisses over my collarbone and sucked on my neck. The gland there flared, and my entry clenched on my fingers once more. I choked out a needy sob, an almost whine. I needed him more than anything else in my life.
“Please, I don’t know what to do.”
Hale had been incredulous about my naivety when he’d found out I was an omega. But now he seemed pleased, his hands convulsing around my thighs.
“This is all so confusing, isn’t it? You’re naked, in bed with an alpha.” There was a slight taunt to his tone, but his thick fingers found somewhere between my legs that had me gasping. Words fled as he circled the sensitive flesh. His hand bumped against mine as I worked my fist inside myself. Slick drenched me, dripping down the crack of my buttocks. If I was in my right mind, I would have been mortified. Slick had always been a source of embarrassment, but I’d never released this amount before. It filled the room with my sweetened scent, like my whine, designed to call in a worthy mate. When I didn’t reply, Hale pulled my hand from between my legs and pushed it toward me.
“Put it in your mouth and let your alpha take care of you,” he growled.
I did as he told me. There wasn’t a world in which I could stop this now, and when the taste of my slick hit my tongue, it dragged me further down the path of ruin. Thick sugary syrup, sunbaked peaches soaked in honey, and with dollops of cream. I moaned around my covered fingers, my tongue seeking each drop as Hale shuffled between my legs. My fingers were half jammed down my throat when I felt him. The warm, soft press of his tongue on the epicenter of nerves. I clenched, empty, and aching until his fingers took the place of mine. So thick, hard, and determined. So much better than my desperate fumbling.
“It feels too good.” I arched my back, breathless with pleasure. Hale’s moans hummed against my tender flesh, but he didn’t stop his assault. “Gods.”
“They surely favor me,” Hale said as his fingers curled inside of my hot channel. His head dipped again, and I fluttered around his digits as his tongue found that perfect spot once more. I rocked my hips against his willing face, seeking more of what he was giving me. And yet, it wasn’t enough. My need became ravenous. Greedy, selfish, it built inside of me, expanded between my thighs, traveled down my legs in riotous shivers.
“Something is… ahhh,” I couldn’t finish, but Hale knew what I meant. He was my alpha, and he took such good care of me. The lap of his tongue was sweet torture, and I let my cries fill the room. Slick soaked the bed, gushing over his fingers as the sensation crested.
“That’s it, wife, give me all your sweetness. You need to cover my cock with it so I can fuck my name out of your mouth.”
I panted, staring at the white ceiling as the room spun in lazy circles. My body gleamed with the remnants of what Hale had done to me. He called it fucking, but that sounded so vulgar. This felt soft like silk, a luscious, languid heat that I wanted again. And again. And again.
Right now.
My stomach cramped, and I lurched upward, my hands latched onto Hale. His flew to my waist, and he held me still as he rolled up to sit. My bottom lip dropped in a pout, and he let out a husky rumble.
“I need you.”
He froze for a moment, his jaw clenched tight. I was past the point of logic, though, urging his hand up my body to cup my breast. He rolled my nipple between his fingers, and I jerked as sharp pleasure shot down my spine. The tension smoothed out of his face as he pressed me flat on my back. His hazel eyes were like a tangled forest, thick with shadows but thrumming with life.
“I have you.” He whispered, but it was more like a reprimand to himself.
His palms skimmed my feverish body, and I writhed under the touch. Too much, not enough. I spread my legs, hoping he would touch me where I needed it most. The roaring, pulsing throb between my legs. He didn’t use his fingers, though. The head of his cock pressed at my soaked entrance. I cried to the ceiling, lost in a cloud of undeniable lust. This was what I needed.
He knew it. I knew it.
But his entry was slow, inching inside me until I wanted to tear my skin off. Sparks crowded my vision as he let out a low growl. Slick flooded in response.
“Please, Hale. Please.” I begged for something with hazy knowledge, more of the stretch, the encompassing weight and power.
Hale made my body bend to his will. He plucked at my nipples, circled the nub between my legs, all while sliding achingly slow inside of me. I was a writhing mess as he bent over me, chest heaving. I tried to touch him, to give him what he was gifting me, but he snapped his teeth at me.
“Hold on to the bed, not me.” His voice was guttural, a warbled strain.
I did as he asked, my chest a gaping hole of fear he would leave me wanting. Now, he was inside of me, I didn’t know if I could give him up. But he wasn’t leaving. He stared at the junction of our meeting bodies with a furrowed brow and desperate gasp.
I winced at the press of muscle that demanded entry into my swollen channel. The pressure rolled like a wave. This was what he’d been talking about. At the base of his cock, the knot swelled, impossibly large. I tried to move up the bed, away from it, but Hale growled, clamped his hands on my hips.
“No, wife, you gave up your choice when you begged for my help. This is the only thing your sweet pussy wants.” He grunted as he thrust forward.
My sensitive flesh stung and flooded with warmth. Obscene amounts of slick dripped over us both. Hale gathered some and slammed his hand over my mouth and nose. I sucked in a startled breath, flooded with my scent.
Arousal, thick like fog, descended over my mind like a haze. My legs fell open, and a muffled mewl escaped me. Hale held his hand over me as he worked his knot inside me. But I wasn’t fighting anymore. I was floating above our naked, twisted bodies. My primal instincts shifted to the forefront of my brain. All I wanted was Hale. The knot he ground inside my greedy channel.
“That’s it, gods, you feel… I could live between these perfect thighs.” Hale muttered, his hand slid off my mouth as he lost himself to the sensation.
The knot slipped in, and we shared a cry entwined in pleasure. Hale’s hair hung as he panted over me. I rocked against him. The knot limited our movement. But each tiny thrust was enough. It dismantled me, and I gave myself over to the sensation. Wanton, out of control. I arched my breasts to the ceiling, wrapped my legs around Hale. Cried out with throaty encouragement.
Hale shuddered, more reluctant in his pleasure. His jaw remained tense, and he slammed his eyes shut. But his moans slipped out of his bloodless lips, and he couldn’t keep from holding my hips. Hale moved me for his use. I let him, panting as I spiraled higher. Sweat trickled down my forehead, sticky and salty. The heat demanded, and I capitulated. Hale slammed into me, pulling back as much as he could with the knot and pushing deep inside.
“You feel too good. I knew you would.” The tendons in Hale’s neck strained as he roared to the ceiling.
Warmth flooded inside of me, and the jerky, stuttered thrusts of Hale’s cock took me there. My channel clenched around him, and I gasped at the fire, the fullness. Hale collapsed on top of me. His weight made me sigh. I loved the feel of him, the erratic thump of his heartbeat and the ragged suck of his steamy breath in my ear. His sweat mingled with mine, and I wanted to lick it off his skin. To see what we tasted like together. The haze simmered in my stomach after what Hale gave me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and Hale came back to himself, jerking away from my touch. I whined, and he shook his head.
“Ah, gods, what have I done?”
Nothing could cut through the fog that turned my muscles to liquid, but in the back of my mind, bells chimed a warning. Why was Hale tense again? Did he not feel the way I did? The rightness of our bodies together.
We were married, and this was how it was supposed to be.
But Hale tugged his hips backward. The knot kept us locked together and his release inside of me. For children. If I hadn’t been heat-addled, I would have been more disturbed, but hormones hijacked my thoughts. I wanted his children.
But the blissful thought shattered as Hale wrenched his shrinking knot free and stumbled off the bed. Warmth flooded out, and my first instinct was to cup between my legs to stem the escape. I gasped as itching heat slammed into me. Without his knot, need roared inside of me. I whimpered, reaching for Hale, who threw his clothes on. He stumbled over one pant leg, hopping to the door in his haste to get away from me.
But I needed him.
My body burned for him.
I whined, and Hale strained toward me, his knuckles white on the doorframe.
“I can’t.” He tossed a look of utter terror and, before I could argue, ran. His feet clattered on the stairs, a furious escape. I tried to follow, but my arms collapsed, weak with a raging need.
“Hale.” I cried, my fingers drifting between my legs. Where the fire was a furnace. Sweat poured down my body, and each breath felt uncomfortable and hot in my lungs.
But Hale didn’t reply.
He didn’t return.
Hale abandoned me after stoking my heat to unbearable levels. I couldn’t do this on my own, but now I had no choice.