Chapter Five
It was nearly an hour later before he spoke to her again. Azaria had spent the last sixty minutes in silent agony, wondering what he would do or think now that he knew. He’d claimed her in front of Aldrich, and in light of the fact he had destroyed the mobster, it seemed like overkill. She couldn’t discern his motivations or why he was doing what he did in any respect.
He hadn’t even given her a choice, though she supposed if she’d said no, he would’ve let her go. At that moment, locked in his arms with him about to bite her, the last thought in her mind had been rejecting him. It had felt so right, and now she wondered how she’d deluded herself so thoroughly.
It was obvious he didn’t want an Omega, and she didn’t want him. She barely knew him, and what she knew of him wasn’t appealing. So, what if he had all the qualities that made a good Alpha? He also didn’t seem to care about taking care of her, and he clearly didn’t want anything to do with loving her. She and her baby would be better off at the convent. “I’d like a ride back to Paladin please.”
He froze for a moment before looking at her. He grunted. “No.”
Her mouth dropped open, and she scowled at him. “What do you mean, no? You don’t get to tell me no. I want to go home.”
“You are home. Adjust.”
She was perilously close to screaming at him in rage, and she did her best to pull it back with several deep breaths. “I think it’s obvious you acted in a rash moment back there. You didn’t want to claim me, and I didn’t want to be claimed. Just take me home, and that’s the end of it.”
He scowled as he looked at her, turning his chair and finally focusing on her. It was a bit daunting to be pinned under the intensity of his expression. “Have you ever bonded with an Alpha before?”
She shook her head. “No, of course not.”
“Do you understand the bond at all?”
She hesitated for a moment and then shrugged. “I dunno. Not really. I know it’s something an Omega should try to avoid at all costs.”
He snorted. “I can’t exactly argue with you there. Unfortunately, once the bond is established, we’re stuck with each other. It’s a physical connection, but it goes deeper than that. Too long of a separation can cause either one of us to go mad. If I’m not continuously renewing my claim on you, you lose the protection of carrying my scent too. I won’t allow you and the child to take that kind of risk.”
She tipped her chin. “It’s not yours, you know. After all, you had a vasectomy.” She tried her best to sound confident and scathing at the same time.
His eyes narrowed, but he simply lifted one side of his lip, which could’ve been a curl of disdain or perhaps amusement. “Don’t be ridiculous. We both know it’s my child, though I should consider asking for my money back on that vasectomy.”
She crossed her arms over her chest as she glared at him. “If you ever really had one. Maybe you just said you did so I’d be forced to carry your seed. Isn’t that your biological imperative?”
Any sense of humor disappeared from his face. “The last thing I’d ever want is to impregnate you. It’s been done, and now we have to deal with the consequences. It’s my role to keep you and the child safe. We’re stuck together, so adapt.”
She leaned back with a huff, looking away from him. “When you phrase it like that, how can a girl resist?”
The sound he made was ambiguous, and he looked away from her, returning his attention to the computer. “We’re heading to my home planet.”
She wanted to argue, but she realized it was just to be contrary because she was still angry. She didn’t have a better destination in mind, since he refused to return to Paladin. “Where is it?”
“Less than a day via ionospace. We could speed up travel time with a boost gate, but I’m not inclined to pay the toll.”
She shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter how long it takes. What’s it like?”
“There are a couple of larger cities, but I live in one of the smaller outlying ones. There’s not much to do there, but I don’t spend a lot of time there. The rent’s cheap, and it gives me an address to register my ship with the Coalition. It has a comfortable enough house, so you won’t be living in squalor or misery.”
Something about the way he phrased that raised her hackles. “I? Where will you be?”
“I’ll be there too. I live there. I have a salvage operation to finish up though.”
“I’ll go with you.”
He shook his head. “No, you won’t. I want you somewhere safe.”
She glared at him. “What happened to that drivel about not being separated for long?”
“A couple of weeks isn’t going to cause either one of us to go mad. I was talking months and years.”
She prodded at him for the next hour, trying to get more information or convince him to allow her to travel with him, though she wasn’t certain why she wanted to. The idea of being stuck in the small ship with him for weeks on end didn’t sound appealing in his current state. He was a bastard, and she mourned that she was tied to him. Even if he hadn’t claimed her with his bite, the child still would’ve been a link, though she hadn’t ever fully committed to the idea of telling him.
“I’m glad you called me.” They were the first words he had spoken to her in more than an hour.
She jumped, startled. “What?”
“When you got in trouble… I’m glad you called. It’s my duty to take care of you, and it will be easier for both of us that you recognize it.”
She glared. “It won’t be easier because I don’t recognize that. I can take care of myself. Normally, anyway. Being kidnapped by a bunch of Alphas was a different prospect, and that’s the only reason I called you.”
His lips twitched as he looked at her for a moment. “And you just happened to have my frequency in your contact list?”
Her mouth dropped open, and she closed it quickly as she glared at him. “I looked it up because I thought maybe I should tell you about the baby at some point.” She looked away from him, heat flooding her face as she refused to admit there’d been even a hint of anything more to it.
“I hope you would have gotten around to telling me eventually,” he said with a hint of bitterness.
She looked at him again. “Don’t try to be angry with me. You don’t deserve a say in anything. You fucked me and cut me loose, and that was it. You didn’t want to be my Alpha, and I didn’t want to be your Omega. I thought I couldn’t get pregnant based on what you said. This child is mine, not yours.”
He looked at her for a long moment, his expression impossible to read. “It’s mine whether you like it or not, and I’m going to look after both of you. You might as well accept that.”
“Sure, after you dump us for who knows how long.” She looked away again, too angry to continue the conversation.
Maybe he felt the same way, because he subsided into silence, and they barely spoke for the rest of the journey.