Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Larissa
He jerks back like I’ve slapped him. I almost reach for him, but he’s already up, one hand gripping the towel at his waist, knuckles turning white, as he rakes the fingers of his other hand through his damp hair and begins to pace, muttering, the words low and angry.
What have I just done? How do I make this right? It’s been ten years. I presumed nobody would even know about me—just another dirty little government secret. Either way, I wasn’t exactly thinking straight when I offered up my name.
Only, whoever Rhett is, he’s not an ordinary alpha, is he? He’s an associate of Ethan Black, maybe not directly, but his brother certainly is. Lucian, whom I already know is a ruthless criminal, must have connections and power to be able to hide me.
Before I can caution myself that this is a betrayal, I open myself to read his mind.
All I get are jagged, chaotic impressions and emotions moving too fast for me to latch onto, but then they form into thoughts…
You’ve got to be shitting me. How does this happen to me? What the fuck am I supposed to do now?
He definitely knows who I am.
A motherfucking mind reader!
He brings his pacing to a halt, and his head swings my way.
Then a veil comes down over his eyes, and a door slams over the chatter in his mind.
There is nothing. No noise. It’s like someone pulled the plug on a feed.
I’ve been picking up his emotions ever since I walked into the room.
His rut has been driving me deeper into heat.
We were both triggering each other. And now it’s all just gone.
Cohen and Jenda both became experts at redirection to keep their thoughts off things they didn’t want me to know, or on things they did. Ethan did the same when he infiltrated the Uncorrupted base. But no one has ever completely shut me out. Not once. “How did you do that?”
Quiet, so very quiet. Nothing but my own thoughts bouncing back at me. The relief of not having to maintain my mental vigilance is profound.
My sob catches me unawares.
“Fuck,” he mutters gruffly, dropping to his knees beside me. “Why are you crying? Stop it. Please don’t cry. Jesus, Rhett! Could you be any more of a fuck-up?”
“I’m so happy,” I blurt out.
“You are?”
I fling my arms around his neck, sobbing uncontrollably, gulping in his scent. His arms tentatively circle me, almost like he’s afraid I might break. He draws me in, a tangle of messy limbs trying to crawl up him.
“Hush. Steady. It’s all right. It’s fine. You’ll be fine.”
It sounds like he’s trying to convince himself as much as me.
I’m so confused, reeling, trying to put the pieces together. How did he shut me down so easily? It seemed like he just decided, and it was that simple. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?” His tone is a little defensive.
“Shut me out.”
“I’m not sure,” he says. “I just kind of thought about it, and it was done. Alphas do it all the time with their mates… and controllers do it with their assigned omegas. They can project things, too, so I heard. More often, thoughts and feelings are sometimes hidden from their omega for their wellbeing. At least, that’s what my brother said.
He used to be a soldier. But that was a while ago now.
Maybe all alphas can do it. I’ve never met an omega before. Not one that wasn’t already bonded.”
That doesn’t make sense. How did I read the minds of alphas during interrogations? How did I read Ethan’s mind?
I wrap my arms tighter around him. The towel is between me and the hardness I can feel pressing against my belly. I want it. I want to push the towel away and wrap my fingers around it, my lips around it, push it into me.
I’m so hot, flushed all over.
He’s trembling slightly, yet despite the pull of my heat, he remains completely in control.
The tears won’t stop coming. I’m floating in a stormy emotional sea.
It’s like a revelation. The Uncorrupted alphas can’t do this, or maybe they don’t care to.
As for those alphas who were interrogated, they had already been beaten and broken by the time I was taken to them.
They probably didn’t stand a chance of shutting their minds down.
I snuggle deeper, my nose pressing into the crook of his shoulder and throat. He’s warm and smells so good. I nip lightly.
He groans and tightens his arms around me. “That’s not a good idea.”
I sink my teeth a little deeper.
“Fuck,” he mutters gruffly, his cock flexing against me through the towel. “Don’t bite me, baby. Really, it’s a very bad idea.”
His mind is still locked down, but his words carry honesty.
“She’s important to the government and Ethan Black,” Lucian told Rhett when he brought me here. “Putting your mark on her would be a bad fucking idea.”
If I bite him while I’m in heat, we will bond or at least start the process.
This knowledge should make me cautious. It doesn’t.
It makes me want to bite him more. And why wouldn’t I want to?
He’s handsome… kind… he’s not falling on me like a beast even though these are extraordinary circumstances.
His control, when I’ve been around so many uncontrolled alphas, is almost as arousing as his scent.
I want him. Not now, not even just for my heat. I want him, period. I want to claim him to make him mine.
These thoughts feel alien inside me. I hate the thought of those pretty betas near him with their long, beautiful hair, perfect figures, and pouty lips. I will scratch their pretty eyes out if they even look at him again.
How dare he spank someone else so casually, like it’s nothing!
My world starts spinning. We remain locked in an embrace, knelt upon the floor.
A storm has battered me for ten years. Today, in this brief interlude, for however long it lasts, I will find peace within its eye.
This time shall pass, and the storm will take me again.
If this is all I have, if Ethan returns and hands me over to the government, then I want to take every drop of joy I can here and now.
Shivers begin to wrack me as my heat burns, taking choice out of my hands. I need him to help me through this, and he has offered. He asked if I wanted him to, and his asking is a different kind of revelation.
I slowly disengage my teeth and press a gentle kiss to the skin. I would get him in trouble if I did this, and, besides, I’ve spent too long around those who take without asking. That is not me.
“Did Ethan get you out?” he asks quietly.
I nod against his throat. “Please.”
He sighs raggedly. “Do you want to make a nest?”
I shake my head.
“Okay, then. What do you want?”
“I want you inside me,” I say, shocked by my boldness in making that demand.
“You want me to rut you through your heat? You want me to take care of you?”
“Yes,” I beg. “I do.”
Rhett
She’s been a prisoner of the Uncorrupted, and somehow, against all odds, Ethan has just gotten her out. I mean, I knew he was doing something deep undercover, but this is pretty fucking wild. Lucian must know who she is.
Asshole. A little warning might have been nice. The scars on her body tell a story. They enrage me, too. Whoever did that to her, I want to fuck them up.
But that is for later, not now when she’s in heat and I’m all she’s got.
I just need to stay in control. As my brother said, putting my mark on her would be really bad.
Pissing off Ethan Black is not high on my to-do list. As for the government, I’m a hacker, and my brother runs a criminal empire; we don’t need them poking their nose around our lives.
But I find that my mind is all over the place, and primitive emotions bombard me. That wounded look she gave me makes a hell of a lot of sense. It’s impossible to imagine what she’s been through living with the enemy all that time, around their filth, reading their minds.
A sense of fierce protectiveness surges inside me. She’s in my arms, all soft and trembling, our scents and body heat mingling.
She’s not yours, I remind myself. This is possibly the most important omega in the universe, and, somehow, I’m the one.
She clings tighter, almost like she senses my conflict. Has something escaped my control?
But no, the mental barrier is still in place, and I need to keep it there.
“Why don’t we move to the bed?” …The empty bed.
It’s just a bare mattress after I stripped everything off it.
Don’t know why I feel weirdly disappointed that she doesn’t want to nest. This is temporary.
So am I. Just a dick to help her through.
This is about her, not me, and whatever the fuck is going through my head…
It’s not a personal slight against me that she’s not making a nest.
What the fuck is that about?
Focus, idiot. You have an omega with needs. Give her what the fuck she needs.
I drag the towel out from between us. My cock is right there against the pussy with her slick heat rubbing against my length. The world starts spinning.
Damn, I need to get her on the bed. I surge to my feet and drop her in the center or try to. Her arms and legs wrap tight, and she clings.
“Let go, baby. I can’t fuck you like this.”
My dick flexes. I’m leaking so much pre-cum, I can feel it trickling down my balls.
It takes a few long seconds, with her hanging off me, before her arms loosen and drop.
Her hair, a mid-brown color and really glossy, is all spread out like a fan against my white mattress.
A rattly purr erupts from my chest, so sudden and so loud it makes me jump.
I capture a lock of her hair between my fingers—soft.
Damn, she’s pretty with those pale brown freckles across her nose.
“I know you’re in heat,” I say. “But I’m going to take it as slow as I can. I don’t want to…” I have zero experience with omegas in heat or otherwise, and I don’t want to fuck this up. “…hurt you.”
“You won’t,” she says, with a confidence I wish I shared.