Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Larissa
The poor kid looks terrified. How does this bullshit keep happening to me? I’m sick of the sight of Ethan Black. If he shows his ass here again, I’ll have the fucker kicked out.
Lucian’s thoughts are a wild jumble, and I’m too mentally weak to block them out. “You’re not going to kick him out.”
He grunts, his eyes narrowing on me.
Trouble… and fucking tiny. “How old are you anyway? Are you even fucking legal?”
I blink a couple of times. “I’m twenty-nine.” I feel my temper rise. “Does my age make some difference to my ruination?”
He snorts a laugh. Poor little omega looks like she’s swallowed her own tongue.
Still, she’s been lumbered with Ethan for a while, assuming he snatched her from the Uncorrupted’s clutches.
Long enough to put anyone in an anxiety coma.
The alphahole is not known for his winning personality.
I’ve seen a corpse with higher empathy skills.
Okay, I’m rapidly warming to Lucian. I lower my lashes, but I feel the moment when he catches my smile.
Fuck—he said she can read minds—that this is the Larissa Olsen.
What the fuck have I just been thinking about?
Right, Sasquatch. “Yeah, he’s an asshole.
But I’m not in the business of ruining omegas, whatever the fuck they’ve done and whatever their age.
Neither is Black. So, clearly, you must’ve fucked up big time to get that response from him.
You picked the wrong alpha to mess with. ”
“I know that. You think I don’t know that?”
He thinks my eyes are sad and dull. He thinks my soft voice has a measured quality to it that is oddly soothing. The rest of me, in his opinion, is plain to the point of being lifeless.
I really wish I could shut his thoughts off, but I still don’t have a clue what he intends to do with me, and I need to know.
He’s still staring at me—and now I’m starting to shake.
…but maybe I need to call a doctor? This is already a clusterfuck, and the fewer people involved, the better.
His mind suddenly shifts without warning to a memory of a grim, abandoned warehouse.
All the windows are shattered, and glass shards layer the scattered debris and the dusty floor.
A naked female beta is chained to a metal girder.
She is the image of fallen beauty, makeup running, and her body bearing the occasional cut that leaks blood in thin, gory rivulets.
Who she is, I have no idea, but I know immediately that she is someone who wronged Lucian, and this was her punishment—and at that realization I recoil. “You’re no better, though, are you? Is that what you would do to a woman who caused pain to your omega?”
His grin is all teeth. She looks like she can’t survive a strong wind, never mind ten years with the Uncorrupted.
How the hell has she caused pain to Lilly?
What the fuck has she done? His grin fades.
“That wasn’t an omega. Never heard of an omega who was truly malicious or evil. You feel you deserve to be broken?”
“No! Of course not,” I say, finding a little spirit.
“I didn’t have a choice. It was him or someone else.
And mind-reading isn’t perfect. Sometimes it helps, and sometimes it makes things worse.
” My chin lowers, and I feel his churning unease as he tries to work things out.
“She’ll forgive him—Ethan won’t forgive me.
” I force myself to meet his eyes, even though I’ve dedicated ten years to avoiding looking alphas in the eyes.
Something tells me Lucian is a man who respects strength, even from a terrified omega.
“I’m here, back in the Empire, after a ten-year nightmare.
I don’t know how an alpha might even go about ruining an omega.
” There is no mistaking the bitterness in my voice.
“If last time was any indication, I probably won’t mind what they do. ”
My stomach cramps painfully. “Oh.” Fuck! Please, not again! Not now.
Lucian’s thoughts devolve into a chaotic scatter, not that I have any capacity to unpick them.
“What exactly did you do to piss Ethan off?”
“None of your business,” I hiss, then double over with an agonized groan as another cramp tears through me.
“The fuck? Are you… going into heat?” —There is a pregnant pause— “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
I remain silent as slick gushes, saturating my panties.
His low, furious growl says he already knows the answer to his own question.