Chapter 11
The Pretty Little Thing
Cliff
I can't figure out what the fuck this woman is.
She looks like a beta. Everything from her height to her build and even her lack of pheromones all says beta. But everything else is wrong.
No beta I've ever met acts like this. Betas don't go glassy-eyed and feral. They don't claw at alphas like they'll die without contact, and they sure as shit don't produce slick.
Even kissing her is weird.
Her taste is dripping with sweetness, alive and real and undeniable, but her scent is a wall of absolutely nothing.
And the disconnect between the two things is incredibly jarring.
“Alpha,” the woman groans as her hands rest on my chest, palms flat, fingers splayed, sliding up over my collarbones to my neck. She pulls at me, trying to drag my body down onto hers, her legs hooking around the backs of my thighs.
My cock twitches, but my confusion edges out the lust…barely.
Desperate to make any of this make sense, I lean down and push my nose into her neck, scenting her again, but all I get is a weird chemical aroma. It's a flat, sterile nothing that coats her skin like plastic wrap.
Shifting slightly, my nose grazes the soft, swollen gland right below her ear and she reacts like I've touched a live wire. A whine builds in her throat, high and thin and animal, and she rolls her hips upward against nothing, grinding into empty air because I'm not close enough.
She’s definitely an omega, but why the fuck doesn’t she smell like one?
But then the realization slams into me as the omega hugs my neck, holding me closer: Scent-blockers.
It’s the only explanation.
She must be covered in scent-blockers.
I can only assume it's that industrial grade shit the market uses when they transport the omegas. It's clearly layered incredibly thick, sitting on top of her skin like a lid, sealing in everything underneath.
Shit.
I freeze up as another thought hits me.
Is she one of the poor omegas meant to be auctioned off?
Am I about to fuck the “merchandise”?
My gaze darts to the pile of black fabric tossed to the side. There, pinned to her torn scrub top, is a plastic ID badge. I can see the edge of a tiny photo of a dark-haired woman and a name printed in block letters beside it.
Elowen Pérez
Did she steal that uniform?
But my thoughts are cut off when the omega—maybe Elowen?—grunts in pain. Her hands move, fisting my hair. She yanks my head back. A sharp sting blooms across my scalp as she forces me to look at her.
Her teeth are bared. Her upper lip is curled back, chest heaving, and her eyes are wild. Feral. Blazing with something that isn't fear or lust.
It's rage.
Pure, cornered-animal fury radiating off her, her jaw clenched so tight the tendons in her neck stand out like cables. Her grip twists in my hair, and she snarls at me, a sound that has no business coming out of a body that small.
She looks like she wants to eat me alive.
“Fuck me,” she demands with a growl.
Then, without any warning, her legs lock around my ass, and her ankles cross, holding me to her. With a guttural cry, she lifts her hips, driving herself upward and impaling herself on my cock in one brutal, fluid motion.
The pleasure is blinding, a white-hot flash that sears through my nervous system.
The grip on my cock is so intense it borders on pain, a sharp, exquisite agony as her incredibly tight heat sheathes me to the hilt.
A high, thin keen tears from Elowen’s throat, a sound of pain and overwhelming pleasure all at once. Her body tenses, fighting the intrusion for a split second before she seems to melt, her muscles relaxing and accepting me.
A soft purr slips from the omega’s lips, and that’s all it takes.
The last thread of my control snaps.
The questions about the badge, the uniform, her scent…they all evaporate, burned away by an inferno of pure alpha instinct.
My hips move, pulling back only to slam into her, nice and deep. I can’t help it. I pound into her with punishing thrusts that jar her entire body. Her response is instantaneous, a desperate moan as her back arches, pushing her breasts against my chest.
“Yes,” she moans as she lifts her hips to meet mine.
She feels incredible.
Hot, soft, and trembling beneath me, her body responding to every deep, possessive stroke.
I set a brutal pace, driving into her again and again, fucking her into the dirt floor of the tent.
Each thrust is a claiming, a primal act of possession that obliterates everything else.
The omega is wild beneath me, meeting every stroke with a desperate upward roll of her hips, her slick heat gripping me so tightly it's a sweet, exquisite torment.
Her nails rake down my back, leaving burning trails that only spur me on, the sting a perfect counterpoint to the overwhelming pleasure.
The world shrinks to the feel of her, the sound of our bodies, the scent of our rut, and the overwhelming, undeniable truth that she is mine.
But I still can't smell her.
And it's driving me insane.
My nose is buried in her neck, and I'm pulling air through my lungs like a drowning man, but I'm getting nothing.
Nothing but that flat, chemical wall. I should be drowning in her right now.
Every instinct I have says her scent should be everywhere, thick and sweet and soaked into my skin, claiming me the way I'm claiming her.
But there's only that sterile blank where she should be, and it makes me want to put my fist through something.
A snarl rips from my chest, and I drag my teeth along her throat, biting down on the muscle where her neck meets her shoulder. Not to mate her, but to ground myself.
Elowen cries out, and her body clenches around me so hard my vision blurs. But still nothing. No scent. No trace. She’s like a fucking ghost.
So I kiss her instead.
I crash my mouth down on hers, trying to taste her, trying to find the source of the sweetness that's drowning my senses.
I lick past her lips, sweeping my tongue against hers, and it's there.
A burst of overripe pear and warm vanilla.
It's faint, buried under layers of chemical nothingness, but it's real.
And the moment I taste it, something feral and possessive rises up from the base of my skull.
"Fuck, you taste like heaven," I snarl, breaking the kiss long enough to nip her jaw, making her yelp. "Like fucking candy. All for me."
She preens under my words, her body arching like a cat, a smug, satisfied purr rumbling in her chest. "All yours," she gasps, her hands fisting in my hair again, pulling me back down for another kiss.
I give her what she wants, then take it back, my mouth moving down her throat.
I lick and bite my way to the swell of her breast, my hips never stopping their punishing rhythm.
I'm fucking her harder now, deeper, my cock pistoning into her tight, slick cunt, the wet, filthy sounds of our bodies echoing in the small tent.
Every drag of my shaft against her walls pulls another desperate sound from her lips.
"You like that, don't you?" I grunt, my voice ragged. "You like being fucked raw in the dirt like a little animal?"
"Yes," she cries, her head thrown back, her throat a long, vulnerable line. "Yes! Yes, please!”
"Please, what?" I demand, gripping her hip and lifting her ass so I can drive even deeper. I hit a spot inside her that makes her whole body seize, a sharp cry tearing from her throat. "Tell me what you want. Tell me you want my fucking knot."
Her eyes fly open, wide and dark and wild. "Your knot," she whimpers, her body starting to tremble uncontrollably. "I want your knot, Alpha. Please, give it to me. Fill me up until I can't move."
But the truth is, I can’t knot her. Not without mating her first, and I have enough control not to do that…I hope.
But my own control is fraying, the base of my spine tingling with the tell-tale pressure. The instinct to bite, mate, and lock us together, to breed her until she's marked and claimed and screaming my name is overwhelming.
"Greedy little thing," I snarl, but my voice is thick with my own impending release. "You're going to take it all. Every fucking inch. I'm going to fuck you so deep you'll feel me for a week."
I shift, hooking one of her legs over my arm and spreading her wider.
The new angle lets me fuck into her with short, powerful grinds, the head of my cock battering against her cervix.
Her slick is everywhere, soaking my thighs, dripping onto the dirt floor, the scent of her arousal and my rut so thick it's suffocating. It’s the best thing I’ve ever smelled.
"Look at you," I pant, my gaze fixed on where we're joined, watching my dick disappear into her body again and again. "So fucking pretty taking my cock. Messy little omega. All mine."
Her answering moan is shattered, broken. Her inner walls start to flutter, a series of tight, rhythmic clenches that signal her orgasm is about to break. I can feel my own knot beginning to swell, the base of my cock thickening, stretching her impossibly wide with every thrust.
"That's it," I growl, my rhythm becoming erratic. "Come for me. Squeeze my fucking cock. Show me who you belong to."
Her orgasm tears through her with a sound she swallows at the last second, biting down on her own lip hard enough that I feel it against my jaw.
Her body bows off the floor, her cunt clamping down on me, and her hands find the back of my head, fingers twisting in my hair, pulling my face down into the curve of her neck.
She presses my mouth against the soft, swollen skin of her scent gland, insistent and desperate, like she needs my mouth on that exact spot more than she needs air.
And my brain switches off.
Something beautiful and primal takes over, and my hold on her tightens.
Her scent gland is hot and swollen under my mouth, even with her odd, muted scent.