Chapter 44
Their deadly rut
The alphas grab the metal bar locking the door and yank on it, but it doesn’t loosen; it doesn’t even move. I stare at it and then up at them. One of them growls and backs up a few steps before running at the glass.
I let out a scream and stumble away, but the heat grips me, and I collapse to the ground panting. My nipples are rock hard, my core clenching, my traitorous body embracing the heat that I have spent so many years denying myself.
I squirm on the ground while my slick soaks through my pants and leaves a puddle on the floor.
My head is still clear, though, and the fear of what is going to happen is deep inside, a growing core of panic, but I can’t seem to control my body.
They slam into the door again, this time, one after the other, three loud bangs as three demonic alphas charge it.
And then, to my surprise, Mordecai is there. He wraps a thickly muscled arm around the alpha and twists his head. The body drops to the ground, and he steps over it, his furious gaze finding the other two.
I stand up, rushing to the glass.
“Alpha,” I murmur.
His eyes flick over me, up and down, and find me unharmed and unmolested, so he turns back to the growing pack of alphas.
“Come inside. I need you,” I call to him in a desperate whine.
He ignores me and fights the alphas until the glass is bloody, and I can’t see anything anymore.
A massive shape slams into the glass, and I scream, stepping back, further and further. The glass cracks and shatters, falling in an explosion of sound. The alpha stalks in, his tendons stand out, and his teeth are fixed in a snarl.
He’s not my alpha.
I pick up a piece of wood, but a wave of heat has me dropping weakly to the ground. He scoops me up and rushes back to the window.
The massacre on the street is something I have never seen before. There is blood and body parts everywhere, and even though the alphas are slipping in their falling allies, they still fight.
I let out a scream, a shrill, panicked sound that catches the attention of the two dozen alphas that are still alive.
Mordecai turns, his expression deadly. “Put my omega down.”
I shiver, but the alpha that’s holding me just tightens his grip, leaving bruises.
All around me, I can smell a wild scent, forests and flowers and moonlight.
That’s me, I think absently. But beyond that, I can smell them. Alphas, dominant, strong, musky, and my body responds to them.
Mordecai picks up a brick and hurls it with deadly accuracy. The alpha and I tumble to the ground, and as soon as I’m free, I scramble back from him.
Mordecai grabs my wrist and yanks me up.
“Do exactly as I say,” he commands in a bark that’s impossible to ignore. “Run. Do not let go of my hand.”
I run, managing to keep up with him, despite the pain.
Cadel and Jarek fly past us, intercepting the alphas who are being driven out of their minds by my scent.
Mordecai runs but not far. He finds an office building and finds the emergency stairs. They are blocked up and down, so it’s just a room, a tiny, empty space that was once a landing.
“Alpha, I need you,” I cry out, my piteous whimpers falling into the air. “Please, help me.”
“No,” he says resolutely. “I’m not going in there to go into a rut. I’ll kill you. I can’t hang on. Listen to me very carefully, Omega. You don’t come out. Do not open this door. Not if you hear me beg, not if you hear me scream, plead, cry. You do not open this door.”
“Mordecai,” I whisper, reaching out to touch his arm. He flinches back from me.
“I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m not going to let anyone else hurt you. Kaida,” he says my name with weary affection. “I’m falling into a rut. I can’t stop it anymore than you can stop your heat. So, save us both and stay in this room.”
I let out a sob and step towards him, but he steps out of the room, looking up when he hears footsteps.
His expression changes, turns hungry and violent, and he growls. The sound is deep and lifts the hairs all over my body. Need drives me, and I lose all reason. I reach out to him, but he pulls the door shut, not even looking back at me.
For ages, I throw myself at the door, beating it, screaming, but he doesn’t open it, and I can’t wrench it open.
I go to the back of the room and curl up on the ground, trying to ride the waves of the heat and survive. I bury my fingers in myself, but it just makes it worse. My whimpers turn to sobs and back to almost silent moans. I just curl tighter, ignoring my body's demands.
Outside the room, I can hear Mordecai fighting for our lives, his savage growls an erotic tease that my body reacts to.
It goes silent, and I wait as long as I can before I stand up and walk to the door.
I turn the handle, to my surprise, it opens a little, but not much.
I gasp when I see the entire foyer covered in blood.
It’s on the ceiling, in pools on the ground, and covers every inch. The stench of it makes me gag.
I slip out and look over the piles of dead alphas. Where is he? Where?
I turn around and find him pressed up against the door. His eyes are closed, but when I land beside him, he’s breathing.
There are people out on the street; I can see their furtive movements in the fog.
I grab Mordecai under the arms. He’s so heavy, and the heat is still rippling through my body, making me weak, but I manage to maneuver him into the room. I grab another body and pull it across the doorway and pull it closed, sealing us inside.
I approach him cautiously.
He’s still asleep, so I check him over, searching his body, but I can’t find any wounds. I think he’s just exhausted. I lay down with my head on his chest, curling myself around his body.
His body heat helps with the aches in my muscles.
I don’t know how long I lay there when I become aware of the change in his breathing.
“I thought I gave you an order?” Mordecai snarls.
He rolls us, and I’m suddenly under him, with him between my legs, my hands pinned beside my head. His eyes are still almost white, his lips twisted into a sneer. His hair hangs around his face, tangled. But he’s my alpha, and he looks like home.
“You were hurt,” I say defiantly. “I’m not leaving my alpha to die.”
“You know what rut means, though, don’t you?” he snarls and slams his hips into mine. His huge erection presses against where I am most sensitive.
My eyes roll, and I moan, writhing against him, panting.
“Of course, I know what it means, but extenuating circumstances.” Begging is on the tip of my tongue. Whines, pleas, desperate bargains all being held back by sheer willpower.
“I don’t think that’s a good enough reason,” Mordecai snaps. “What if I hurt you, rut you like an animal until you’re dead?”
“You won’t do that,” I say confidently.
He thrusts again, dragging that bulge against me. A whimper slips out, and I arch my back, thrusting my breasts up as I try to spread my legs wider.
“How do you know?” he almost roars.
“Because you protected me, fought off your rut for me, and you’re Mordecai. You won’t hurt me.”
“You barely know me,” he snarls.
“I know enough.” I stare at him and lean up, pausing when he flinches. Anger spins into me, twisting into my scent. “Do you want me, Alpha?” I say in a seductive croon. “You can have me. Rut me, fuck me, anyway you want, you can have me. I want you, too.”
“I’m covered in the blood of everyone I just murdered. I don’t deserve to touch you.”
“You’re perfect, Alpha. I need you, and I want you. It hurts, and you’re hurting. Let me make it feel good. Let me reward you,” I whisper and lick up the side of his jaw.
He snarls as I press a soft kiss to his lips, and when he doesn’t move. I lean up further and nuzzle the spot at the join of his neck and shoulder where his scent is pouring out of. Steadily, I coat myself in it.
If he won’t claim me. Then I’ll claim him.
“Kaida,” he growls, and his pupils have expanded until his eyes are almost black.
He abruptly moves his body, and I gasp at the feel of that massive length grinding against me, but before I can think, he leans down and crushes my lips with his.
The cold steel and leather scent intensifies and presses on me, leaving me feeling warm and safe. His mouth tortures mine, morphing the kiss into a languid and unhurried assault that has me falling dizzy into the heat that is still simmering in my blood.
“I didn’t want to do it like this. I wanted to wait until I could earn your trust.”
I scoff at him and lock my legs around his hips. I’m not going to let him escape me again. “You killed for me. So many people dead just to keep me safe. Mordecai, at my most vulnerable, you have saved me twice, killing the people who want to hurt me. I trust you.”
He closes his eyes. “I don’t deserve it.”
I snarl and bite his bottom lip, drawing blood.
“I guess it’s a good thing I get to decide who I give it to, then, isn’t it?” I snap and try to free my hands.
The doorknob rattles, and before I can think, he’s up and flying towards it. Jarek just manages to duck his punch and slip into the room. Cadel comes in and pushes the door shut while Mordecai growls at them.
“I could have killed you.”
“I think you killed all the survivors.”
Mordecai shrugs. “They shouldn’t have tried to get our omega.”
Our omega? I whine and rub my thighs together.
Jarek looks at me and takes a step, but Mordecai blocks him and growls. The sound is so savage and wild that Cadel grabs Jarek and yanks him back.
“What is it?” Jarek asks, confused.
“He’s still riding the rut, and he’s not,” Cadel waves a hand at me, “sane.”
“Well, if you’d waited, it wouldn’t be a problem,” Mordecai hisses with a rage that makes my blood boil in the most delicious of ways.
“Alpha,” I call and writhe on the floor. “Come and punish me some more.”
“So, do it now,” Cadel says, staring at me in hunger.
Mordecai stops growling and shifts uneasily. “In front of people?”
“We’re not people,” Jarek says happily. “We’re your pack, and I, for one, am dying to see this show.”
To my absolute disbelief, he sits down, gets comfortable with his back to the door and perches his chin on his hand and watches.
My pussy spasms, and more slick pools out. Yes, I like this. I like this a lot.
Cadel sits down and closes his eyes. “You can either pretend we’re not here or use the fact we’re watching to get you hotter, but we’re not going anywhere. I’m exhausted, and Jarek almost got killed.”
I glance at Jarek in alarm. Anger flickers and burns the air.
“He exaggerates,” Jarek purrs. “Focus, darling, I want to see how you please an alpha.”
Ooh, challenge accepted.
Mordecai runs his hand through his long, black hair and mutters something I can’t hear. I stand up and approach him warily. I’m just about to touch his shoulder when he whirls, shoving me up against the wall, a thick thigh between my legs.
I moan when he lifts so I’m standing on my tiptoes, all my weight balanced at the place between my legs. He slides a massive hand up to my breast, squeezing roughly.
“I don’t have it in me to be kind and gentle right now, Omega.”
I smile at him. “I’m not afraid of you, Alpha, stop trying to scare me, and knot me already.”
He yanks off my clothes, throwing them away. Jarek snags my shirt out of mid-air, putting it to his nose and inhaling deeply.
“Mmm, you do smell good, Omega.”
I snap my teeth in his direction, but Mordecai steals my entire focus when he strips out of his clothes. His body is liberally coated in blood, but every part of him is hard, defined muscle. He’s thick and wide, and he seems even bigger now that we are both naked.
His eyes drop down my body, and I shiver at the way I can feel them move over me. He looks at me like I’m something precious, valuable, something that’s going to make his life worthwhile.
Mordecai steps towards me but spins me around, grabbing my wrists and planting them on the wall.
“I don’t want you to move.”
“Okay.”
His heat disappears until I suddenly feel his breath between my legs. I arch my back, presenting myself better, cringing at my needy behavior. He exhales hot air on me, and then licks from my clit all the way down to my pussy, circling before he presses his tongue inside me.
Clinging to the wall isn’t going to work; I’m going to collapse; my knees won’t hold me.
His lips trail down the inside of my thighs and come back up, licking up all the traces of my slick.
“I'm never going to get sick of this taste,” he murmurs and stands up. “I’m never going to have enough. Not of you. Not in this lifetime or any other.”
What?
But I don’t have time to ask anything. Mordecai picks me with two arms under my thighs and then suddenly impales me on his cock. I’m so wet he goes in easily, but the shock of having such a massive cock in me has me crying out.
Why have we waited so long to do this?
He thrusts hard. He doesn’t hold back. His fingers on my hips slam me back down on his cock before pulling me up and almost off. I lean back against his chest, moaning and whining. The wet sounds of his slicked up cock pounding into my drenched pussy fill the room.
“Harder, Alpha.”
He hisses in response but moves faster, harder. My breath saws in and out in keens of sound. His growls are the perfect accompaniment, thrumming against my back as one hand leaves my thigh and grips my breast, squeezing hard.
I arch, pushing down onto him, feeling the pressure of his knot. My mouth waters, my mind falling apart.
“Give me your knot, please!” I squeal.
Mordecai bites the side of my neck until I whimper. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Yes!” I almost shout. “Yes, I need it; I want it. Please, Alpha. Give me everything.”
My head feels dizzy, I’m out of my body, but then he starts to move, and I can feel everything, and he is mine, and I am his. The pressure is intense. He pushes me down, harder and harder.
Mordecai knots me, and I scream into his hand as I’m hurtled into a release that rearranges who I am.
I fall into oblivion, but he’s there catching me.