Chapter 14: Touch me, Alpha

KANE

Midnight, and the room is too quiet again. Too large. Too much of discomfort. I can’t sleep. The sheets have my print on them from tossing and turning.

It’s like this every night. I am not bothered.

I pace the length of the bearskin rug like a caged thing, wine sloshing in the goblet I haven’t even bothered to sip.

And sleep—

Sleep is a joke.

It means the nightmares come, in the form of my father’s open throat, in the form of my mother’s limp body, and my sister's charred skin.

All of their faces. Ever so haunting.

Others complain that they forget what their dead ones look like, cry that they can’t imagine their faces anymore.

I am the opposite. I remember too much, all the gory details. Whose eyes shut when.

Who stopped breathing first.

What their screams sounded like.

The torture is all too clear.

So, I drink it off until the dark goes soft and I can finally black out then wake up a beast. That’s the way of survivors.

Tonight, even the wine tastes like failure. It reminds me of Zephyr and that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Traitors die. It’s the rule.

Draven’s latest report lies open on the mahogany table. Eight more bodies at the border, their hearts carved out, throats torn open. All of them allies, as expected.

Someone is painting a very clear message in blood, and I am the bullseye. I have enemies older than some kingdoms, but this feels personal in a way that makes my skin crawl.

They aren’t coming for me.

They are coming for my people, taking me on from the inside out.

The door creaks. Daciana slips in wearing a silk robe the color of fresh bruises. Her fair hair hangs loose on her shoulders, lips painted like she’s dipped them in blood.

I don’t bother hiding my disgust. “Who told you about the birthday celebration?”

She smiles, slow and poisonous. “Walls have ears, your Grace.”

Of course they do. One of my guards is warming her bed along with her ego. I already know which one will be missing a tongue by morning.

Daciana lets the robe slide from her shoulders. It pools at her waist, and she cups her own breasts like she’s offering me ripe fruit. “We should start thinking about heirs, Kane. The pack needs them. It’s been long enough.”

I look at her and feel exactly nothing below the belt. “Get out. I’m not in the mood to pretend your tits do anything for me.”

Kol stirs in the back of my skull, laughing like the bastard he is. Never shows up for strategy but present for cunt and fight.

‘If that had been Nyx’s little hand wrapped around her own throat, you’d already be inside her.’

“Shut up,” I snap aloud.

Daciana flinches, her blue eyes flashing. “Excuse me?”

“Not you.” I wave a dismissive hand. “Just conversing with the voices that have better taste.”

Her face crumples into that familiar wounded-princess mask. “I’ve been your wife for three years, Kane. Three years of sleeping alone while you fuck half the kingdom and look at a slave like she hung the moon.”

I open my mouth to tell her I don’t owe her my cock or my explanations.

Then I hear it.

Kane.

It’s silent. Hushed. But loud, succinct. My breath holds.

I hear it not with my ears, but inside my chest, in the bond that’s been yanking at my ribs for days.

Help me, Kane, please.

Kol snarls so loud my vision whites out. ‘She needs us. Now.’

The bond flares, an inexplicable phenomenon, and suddenly I know exactly where she is—the kitchen yard, cornered, terrified.

The pull is physical. My feet pound before my brain decides to. Daciana doesn’t get to finish her next sentence.

Walls skitter in blurs. Grey. Grey. Grey. Until her scent is strong enough to taste.

I round the corner and see them. Two of my guards, one grabbing her—Luke, also Daciana’s errand boy, while the other fumbles at his belt, both poised to rape.

Her eyes are closed, tears cutting clean paths down filthy cheeks, and she’s screaming my name inside her head so loudly it rattles my bones.

I don’t think.

My hand punches through the first guard’s back, fingers closing around his beating heart. I rip it out in one clean pull.

The second one has time to turn and open his mouth before my claws open his throat to the spine. I hate the moist but like the feeling of their slowing hearts pounding on my palms.

Two bodies hit the ground, and Nyx’s eyes snap open, wide and glassy.

I step over the corpses, my chest heaving. I feel a strain in my pants from watching the faint shade of pink rise up to her cheeks.

Her green eyes are bulgy.

Little mouth quivering.

‘Mark her,’ cries Kol. ‘Take her.’

I shut him out.

I’m hard and tortured. My cock wants out. How she looks helpless. Desperate. Yearning. This bond flickers, electric coursing my veins.

I just killed two of my best for her, and I’d do it again. Again and again. No one is to touch what’s mine, whether I despise it or not.

“You called.” My voice is rougher than I intend.

Nyx is shaking so hard her teeth chatter. She clutches her torn dress—at this point, I’ll have to wear her one made of steel— and she backs away like she beholds a monster.

Not my first rodeo.

The lifeless hearts hit the floor in a plop. I strip off my cloak, wrap it around her trembling body, and lift her against my chest like she weighs nothing.

“Only I get to touch you,” I tell her, mouth against her ear as I carry her back toward my chamber. “Only I decide when you bleed, when you break, when you come. Remember that, Omega.”

She doesn’t resist. No sarcastic response or glare to injure my bride. Nyx merely buries her face in my neck and wets my chest with tears.

And I let her.

For now.

I don’t get many opportunities to play knight in shiny armor.

When we reach my chamber, Daciana is pacing around and snacking on her nails. When she sees Nyx, she gasps, rushing towards me.

“What’s this? Why do you hold a diseased slave so?” She questions, her tone accusatory.

“Leave us,” I command.

Daciana turns beet red. “Kane!”

“I said leave!” I roar and she flinches, staggering back with her eyes locked onto Nyx’s, brimming with hate.

The moment the door slams shut, Nyx lazily climbs down from my hand. Her fingers brush my chest to steady her steps and blood rushes further south.

Mate bond’s bitch.

Her eyes are tired, weak even. “You… heard me?” She asks, voice unsure. “When I called for you, you heard me?”

Something in her tone makes me gentle and I hate it. “Your clan must practice witchcraft. Daring to summon the Alpha? That’s new.” I squint. “Refreshing.”

“I didn’t choose to be mated to the Alpha. Didn’t even know I could—”

“Could make me do your bidding?” I scoff, my bottom lip trapped between my teeth. I am just as surprised as she is, but what do I gain from her awareness? “Your cunt must be honey. All my guards seem to want a taste.”

I brush past her and reach for my goblet. I need something else to burn beside my cock.

“Thank you…” she whispers.

I don’t turn around. Can’t. She’s not here to shake me. No one can.

“Thank you for saving my life,” she repeats, waiting for a reaction.

I feel her eyes burn the back of my neck. Then my cloak drops with a shrug of her shoulders. She’s leaving.

“Stay the night, Omega,” I blurt, surprising myself. “You won’t make it past the kitchen with that stamina.”

I twirl to a pair of shocked, green eyes boring into me.

“Pick a spot on the floor. Be an obedient little girl and survive the night.”

Her mouth opens in protest. “But—”

“I command it.”

‘Do you know what you are doing?’ Kol cuts in. His tone is sarcastic. I need to kill Kol.

The question lingers heavy, but yes,  I do. It’s more fun to pull a prey closer before breaking it.

Nyx nods in resignation and finds a corner in my room at the far end of the bed. She curls up into a ball and lies on the floor, quivering without words. I toss her a blanket even though I don’t have to and she drags it over her small, pale body.

Weak, pathetic people sicken me. I sit at the edge of my bed because I know I won’t sleep a wink till morning light.

I go to the bathroom to wash my body clean of blood. When I walk back into the room, Nyx is fully asleep. I swallow hard, studying her dainty features.

The moon goddess has decided to mock me with this shame for a mate.

I sigh.

It’s going to be a long, hard night for me. And for my cock.

Two, three hours have passed and I am in the middle of counting the two-hundredth bump on the wall. The corner of my bed suddenly bends with the weight of someone.

Nyx.

Her eyes are still tightly shut and she sways as she climbs up the huge bed. Anger curls up my lungs. What the hell is she doing?

A slave. ON. MY. BED.

I sit up, watching in aggravating silence. She winds her way through the blankets without opening her eyes, curls up to my side, and lies there, fitting perfectly into the little space.

Her back presses against my chest and her perfect little ass protrudes, mashing into my very active manhood.

Nyx pats the bed until she finds my hand. She takes it and places it on her hips.

But she’s not done. She anchors it further, sliding it sideways from the luscious skin of her hip, to the moist between her legs.

“Touch me, alpha,” she whimpers.