Chapter 8 #4
This had been a horrible idea. Silas was right—coming to Merrick’s enemy for help had been stupid. This place offered a different torture than what Merrick and her mother had planned, but she would still be miserable.
She needed to find an Administration House and file for Selection immediately. It was her only hope to find a worthy male to protect her and everything she loved.
She was down the steps and jogging through the main hallway when an impatient bark caused her body to seize, freezing her in place.
That damn alpha voice of his.
"Come, Sasha. This way."
She groaned and hung her head.
"Sasha,” he called again.
With a little growl, Sasha turned, following the beastly male.
Absently he grabbed her hand to pull her down a different hall, through a large room, and out a set of doors into a lighted entryway.
His strides were long, and she had to take three steps to every one of his.
The space was cavernous, white stone floors underfoot and a high arched ceiling with a glittering glass chandelier suspended from the center.
Another magical room stolen from a storybook.
Four uniformed guards stood in the corners, each of them armed with guns.
As she and Kane approached a side door, it opened to reveal another man—a beta, his arms full of things obviously meant for Kane. A belt holster with two guns on it, a heavy coat, and a sheathed sword nearly as long as Sasha was tall.
Sasha eyed the guns. One needed special permits for them, signed directly by the king himself.
Their manufacture was on a need-to-use basis only.
Guns, explosives, and audio deterrent devices—any weapons that could be used by drones to subdue breed—had been regulated in the 12 Sectors since Restitution Day.
She knew what they were but had never actually seen one.
Yet here, in this compound, all of Kane’s men carried them. It was unheard of.
"I thought we were just going to the doctor's?"
Dropping her hand to dress himself in the weapons, he didn’t bother to respond. "Coat," he said to the man in front of him.
Sasha received a quick assessing glance before the guy went back where he came from, returning with a coat in hand. Sasha started to smile and thank him, but Kane got in the way, taking the coat and putting the soft, wooly thing on her as if she were a child who couldn't do it for herself.
He manipulated her arms, pulled it over her shoulders, then turned her to tie the three big bows on the front over her chest. When he finished, he scooped up her hand in his massive paw and pulled her through the doorway.
A transport waited outside for them with a man on each side, one obligingly holding the door open. Kane followed her in.
The interior was dark, as fine and fancy as everything she’d seen so far of this man and his home. From the layers of scent in the air, it smelled to her like Kane used it all the time.
It was the first transport Sasha had ever been in, reserved as they were for the rich and powerful. It was comfortable enough that a family of four would find it a nice living space where she came from.
At least it would if none of them were as big as Constantine Kane. He took up all the room, spreading out, filling the cab with his very presence. Though the seat they were on was clearly divided into sections, his arm touched her shoulder and his leg invaded her space to lean against hers.
Sasha pressed herself against the opposite side to get away from him, looking for a way to lower the window and let some air in so she could breathe. He was suffocating her in his scent.
"Can you open the windows?"
"Are you over-warm?"
"Just want some air on my face."
"Then no."
She breathed through her mouth. His smell rolled over her tongue, making her mouth water and her gums hurt. Pain surged in her head, sliding down her spine and spreading through her bones.
A wave of heat poured over her, hot and thick like boiled honey. Sasha didn't move, waiting for the unexplained sickness to go away.
"Sasha."
"What?"
"Look at me."
He had his closed, full self-control face on. No expression. No feeling. But now she knew he could feel. He had a whole range of feelings: impatience, anger, curiosity, pleasure.
She let her eyes pour over him, his hair, his face, his neck and shoulders—to pick out details to savor later. He was a remarkably masculine and handsome male.
As she looked at him full on and fearlessly for the first time, she saw another one of those expressions of anger start in his eyes and spread to his lips and cheeks. His nostrils flared, and he inhaled deeply. He leaned closer, sniffing.
She wanted to lean closer too.
"Fuck. Fuck no. I am going to kill Terasa. If you hadn't been in that fucking room…"
She flopped back away from him, fingers working at the bows he'd tied on the coat.
She had no idea why he was cursing and making death threats.
She wanted the coat off. Suddenly it was much too hot.
She couldn't breathe. Her skin hurt. Her blood was boiling and her bones ached. She wanted the coat off, now.
Her hair was everywhere, sticking to her cheeks, tangled in her fingers, a maddening irritation. A feral growl escaped when the pretty blue bows became ugly knots that she couldn’t undo to save her life.
Gently nudging her fingers away, Kane said, "Stop, Beauty. Just relax. You're okay."
"I'm not okay. I can't breathe. I'm trapped in a net made of too much damn hair. This freaking torture-chamber coat you made me wear won't come off."
Kane rumbled.
"Don't laugh!"
"Let me help, then."
She huffed, her whole body jerking in frustration before she surrendered dramatically.
His help was efficient. "We are almost there, Sasha. The doctor can give you medicine to help you feel better."
Feeling snappish, Sasha glared at the warlord alpha. "Can he give me a decent night's sleep?"
His cheeks reddened at that. Was he blushing? Could she use last night against this embarrassed alpha?
"That was a mistake, Sasha. Terasa will apologize to you and be punished for it." He said it with cool relish, as if he were savoring the taste of blood.
Being sick made Sasha lose all sense of self-preservation. It was the only thing that could explain her current boldness. "It's not her fault you came into the big room and used every female there but me, is it?"
"Did you want me to use you, little Beauty?" He drawled in an almost growl that reminded her of his sex voice.
She huffed at him, gripping the seat hard to keep herself from an irrational need to claw at his skin. "Fearing for my life, I had asked you to marry me a few hours earlier. Don't you think your answer was insulting?"
"I gave you no answer."
She felt her hackles rise like a ruffled chicken. What was wrong with her? The sight of him, the smell, overwhelmed Sasha. She had to look away from the massive, beautiful, primal male that he was.
"You are worse than Merrick. Five women. Hours and hours. I live with strippers and prostitutes because of Merrick, and he uses them. All. Day. Long. But never like that. What was that?"
There was a voice in the back of her head begging her to stop talking. Her mouth had taken over. It wasn’t the first time. Bad things had happened then too.
His eyes went cold. "Merrick is a posturing little boy. Did he touch you?"
That was what he was worried about? She got mouthy, and he got a sudden need to be alpha-possessive because of Merrick? The dense male had missed the point.
Sasha pulled her hair, combing fingers through it and separating it into three sections for a braid.
Yes, Merrick had touched her. He was the alpha in charge. Pinches on her bottom, the insides of her arms, wrapping her braid in his hands and using it to pull and drag her. The whipping. He was king in her home.
He'd not raped her, or even seen her fully naked since the day her mother brought him home and forced Sasha out of her clothes as an introduction to him, displaying Sasha's mark and worth.
But he touched her every chance he got. Sometimes she had nightmares about him lurking in dark corners, waiting to claim her.
She felt Kane's stare and pretended to ignore it, rubbing her hands over her sweaty face. She needed out of this vehicle.
"I have never been sick like this before," she moaned, her arms and legs twitching restlessly.
"I never get sick. I must be allergic to something.
I bet it's you, Warlord Kane. I'm allergic to giant, head-popping, bossy alphas.
Don't pop Terasa's head on my account. You should have explained clearly what you wanted.
A few extra words make everything work more smoothly. You should try it sometime."
Would she feel better if she just took everything off? She was so hot. She didn't want these clothes on her skin. They were nice, but they were wrong. Everything was wrong. She was going to regret coming to Constantine Kane for help for the rest of her life, she knew it.
She felt the man's eyes. Felt them. Felt his breath, his pheromones. Did he have something to say to her? He’d better not.
A big hand invaded her space. Tanned. Scarred knuckles. Marked up and slightly hairy with nicely manicured fingernails, trimmed and clean, but thicker, and darker than a human. His hands and his teeth gave away his altered DNA and breed nature.
The hand grabbed her fussing ones, pulling them apart. She saw the dark tattooed mark of his registration number. "Come, Beauty." He pulled her to him gently, and she found herself willingly going along.
He brought her into his lap just like yesterday, caging her, cradling her. He surrounded her small body with his large one, and because it was what she’d wanted from the moment she saw him this morning, her whole body relaxed into him with a sigh.
After a moment his voice rumbled over her head, vibrating through her body. "Sasha, why do you smell like a fruit basket?"