Epilogue – Part 1
KANE
She was his.
Her breeder's blessing, her love, was a live wire twitching under his skin, not simply a direct connection to her heart and feelings, but an unending power source. She made him stronger in every way. He had known she would.
It had been no small thing for her to disguise herself and sneak into his compound.
He'd had to severely punish his men for their failures.
Kane ordered more training, but he doubted it would have changed anything.
He'd sensed the special in her that first day when he lifted her little sobbing body into his arms and took her to his office. She'd proven it time and time again.
She was unusually gifted at hiding, almost able to disguise her scent and mask herself in a way he’d never seen matched.
He'd seen surveillance recordings of her in line at the checkpoint.
Despite her delicious smell the day she tried to leave him, she would have been able to pass through if she hadn't panicked, Kane was certain of it.
She didn't know she had the ability, and he wasn't going to be the one to tell her. Her unpredictability was already legendary among his men, and there was no reason to give her more fuel with which to terrify them.
On that first day, it wasn't until she started weeping that she smelled like anything other than a drone child.
He'd noticed the change when he opened the door to Holding One immediately.
Sweet, sweet breeder innocence overwhelmed him in waves—the smell, and the emotion triggering his protective instincts.
When he asked to see her mark, and she'd removed her clothes to do it, Kane had to keep himself from tearing about his office and demanding to know everyone who had been involved in setting the mark there.
His self-control had been threatened by a compulsive need to be a shield and sword to the breakable little girl with the big, twilight eyes.
Then he found the Administration Registration Clerk who'd handled that tattoo. The man was dead now. They didn't live long without their hands.
He was glad she didn't know how many people had lost their lives for their crimes against a breeder—crimes against her—but when the number reached double digits, he started getting calls from his family wanting to know why he was on a rampage.
He couldn't have her mother killed again. Already more dead than alive when his men got to her, her end was quick. Unfortunately, the father, Edin Dover—that weasely bastard—had already been killed.
If his bones hadn't been burned, Kane had been more than prepared to dig them up and burn them again. The man was the kind of monster Kane hated most—one who preyed on those weaker than himself and used subterfuge to stab those stronger in the back.
If he could find Merrick, who had been searching for Sasha when his men went to her pub, he would string him up by his toes a thousand times and peel the skin from his dick and balls himself.
Merrick, whose real name was Merdion, was a King's Army deserter, youngest son of Rhineholth the King of the 12 Sectors and Kane's baby brother.
He had known the boy was in the slums, fucking betas left and right and making deals to establish himself outside of Kane's reach.
He had ignored him because of their mother's pleading.
He hadn't gotten around to telling Sasha of the connection.
There would be time for those conversations, as well as time to go through her father's chest and examine the depth of Edin Dover's machinations against his daughter and her breeder mother, who he had raped and stolen.
Kane knew there were record books and savored the thought of hunting down each and every drone slaver he could get his hands on.
The man's need to keep records would be evidence that Kane could take before the king. He would have to tell Sasha that her father set up Maura and her previous husband to be killed, though.
He suspected Edin was the reason two of Maura's sons had died in an ambush while on duty as well. Kane knew for a fact the male had raped Maura repeatedly before getting her pregnant and taking her to the Administration to claim a marriage bond.
Once a stunning beauty, many alphas had competed for Maura's attention.
Sasha's father had wanted Maura long before he was able to arrange to get her. His obsession was the reason Maura became clinically broken. Kane’s own feelings for Sasha made him understand her father's obsession with Maura. He'd seen photos in Sasha's file.
More than just the tempting hourglass of an omega breeder, Sasha had inherited a body made for fucking, made for lust and pleasure.
Her luscious tits defied gravity and her tiny waist demanded to be spanned by the hands of a worthy male.
That bitable ass of hers was a heavenly sight from behind.
Her slit was wonderfully puffy, with a clit that swelled and begged for attention.
Her core fit him tight and was always hungry for him.
She was the perfect cradle for his hardness, with soft, glowing skin and deliciously sweet pink nipples.
He had nearly gone mad waiting for her.
After she’d survived her first heat, the biological catalyst between childhood and adulthood, Kane had to escape her. The smell of her, the way she had boldly taken ownership of him, the soul-annihilating trill of her feminine purr—it had all threatened to rob him of his self-control.
He’d left the compound and thrown himself into finding Merrick and settling every work crisis he could. Want and worry for her kept him awake late at night, so he used the time to plow through his calendar, knowing that her second estrous was coming. This time, he'd be ready.
He'd been handling it.
Until he’d had her taken to Holding One for punishment after she’d tried to leave him.
He'd not meant to touch her. Before walking into that room, he had taken a sense inhibitor to dull his instincts and a dose of shine to calm his nerves so he didn't inadvertently hurt her. He'd whip her, leaving red marks only, just to teach her who she was and how their relationship would go.
But then he saw her, hanging there without any fear at all, displaying such complete trust in him. He’d cut her clothes off and seen her scars, and he’d been unable to do anything but pleasure her. The overnight changes to her body brought him to his knees.
After he’d destroyed the image she’d had of her father, she’d fallen asleep in his arms. Snuggling close to him, branding him—setting him on fire.
Leaving her had been a torture like no other. Muscles quaking, his eyes wild, he’d forced himself away from her, dick hurting like a bitch. He’d crawled out of bed, but this time, he couldn’t bring himself to leave the compound. He couldn’t be that far away.
He wasn’t able to function after that. Sleep only came when he was highly medicated. Food wouldn’t stay down. All he wanted was to fuck Sasha or to kill something.
Since he couldn't have her, he'd thrown himself into the arena, using the rut to his advantage.
Calling an open challenge, Kane invited every alpha and enemy to come and take their shot at him by fist or by sword. Men who'd long been waiting for a chance at his throat arrived from all the 12 Sectors in response to the challenge.
He’d hoped that his brothers, the two who still gave him the most trouble, might come. He’d take them down, force them to submit, settle the old issues once and for all, and bring unity to the Sectors.
But the stubborn asses ignored him.
The rest thought his offer was made out of weakness, that his ripening age meant he was ready to step down. He fought all comers and shared the videos to every data pad in the area. He wanted the world to see the warlord predator in his element. He was no weak man.
His instincts played tricks on him, made him think the challengers wanted Sasha when they didn't even know about her. He attacked them with a savage passion, cracking open skulls and removing limbs. Let them see the killer who could not be defeated even after countless battles in the ring. Might makes right, and he’d proved himself on a pile of bodies as a worthy mate just as he had proved himself a worthy alpha in his youth.
And when Sasha was ready, they'd understand the power and value of the breeder who had tamed the hundred-and-eighty-eight-year-old untouchable alpha.
There was no better way to demonstrate the value of the breeder laws by showing his people the breeder's blessing in effect.
He'd never doubted that Sasha would give everything of herself to him.
Clever, empathetic and loyal, there was no chance that she was a manipulator only after a position as wife of First Administrator.
She wanted him, and him alone, with nothing to do with his position or linage.
The alphas would see what a willing relationship with a female could be.
They'd covet it. He hoped they would finally get some self-control and learn it was better to seduce a wife than force her.
His beast was in full control when Sasha claimed him. Just as he had known she would, she had taken all of him. He gave her his monster, and she accepted him. He used her heat to work out weeks of waking dreams and fantasies on her delicious, perfect body.
She was marked up good when they stood before the 12 Sectors to finalize the claim and show the world. He'd saturated her in his smell and left evidence of his touch all over her body, lest anyone doubt who she belonged to.
He'd kept her away from the mirrors so she couldn’t see how much of a mess he'd made of her. When she faced the crowd and staked her claim, not one person would think she had been coerced or that she was afraid.
Breathtaking, fuckable beauty that she was, Kane knew he was envied, not because she was a breeder, but because she was a woman who enjoyed the attention of her alpha. She gave all the males hard dicks with her territorial hissing, and every unmated male who saw her do it would now want the same.
He had waited two centuries to be chosen by an omega breeder.
She was worth the wait.