Predawn light barely crept over the horizon as the black skycar drifted down to the lower levels. It was too early for much activity in the Astropolis, but the slums had already come alive as shopkeepers threw open their doors and listless workers headed toward jobs in the beryllium mines or to the few factories that still utilized manual labor.

The seat creaked underneath her as she tried not to notice the softness of the leather. These little tastes of luxury just underscored the life of bare subsistence that she lived, a reminder that not everyone had to exist in the dirt as she did. Her head leaned against the window, glass cool against her cheek.

Ianthe felt too exhausted to move, but her mind raced.

She had experienced nothing like what had occurred in that high-rise apartment. Even though barely an hour had passed, the memory already felt fantastical, as if she had imagined the entire thing. She had expected to be humiliated and forced to endure things that she never had before.

She had not expected to like it.

The skycar landed in an empty patch of dirt near her building. She exited quickly, ignoring the stares of passerby as the obviously luxury vehicle lifted away with a huge gust of air.

Ianthe watched it go with a strange mix of relief and regret. Chances were slim that she would ever see that Alpha again, and she wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Her credit chit was still clenched in her fist. She had not let go of it since being escorted from Eros House. The paper felt like it burned into her skin. It was the purpose for all of this.

She should just be happy that she had escaped with both the payment and her secrets intact. If anyone at Eros House had discovered her true dynamic, Ianthe stood to lose much more than her freedom.

So why did an incomprehensible sensation of wistfulness curl inside her heart?

Shaking off the strange feelings, Ianthe stole into their small unit. Eaon’s gentle snores were the first thing that greeted her as she entered, coming from where he lay on his tiny pallet in the front room.

“So, it worked?”

Ianthe startled at the sound of her sister’s voice breaking the silence. She shouldn’t have been surprised that Circe had stayed awake to wait for her. She would have done the same thing if their positions had been reversed.

“I suppose it did.”

“Thank the skies above.” Circe stood from the little chair in the corner, arms crossed over her chest. “That was a risk. And the credits I used for the extra doses of suppressants were practically as much as what they paid you.”

A weariness that she felt to her bones settled over Ianthe. “You’re exaggerating.”

“Maybe. But I’ve been up all night wondering if I would see your face splashed across the CommNet after they arrested you for dynamic fraud.”

While concealing her dynamic was a punishable offense in the courts, Ianthe was sure that a worse fate would have awaited her if someone had discovered her in Eros House. “We’re okay, it’s over.”

And why did that thought fill her with an inexplicable sense of longing?

“How was it?”

The silence was profound. What words could she possibly use to describe what had occurred? She couldn’t say anything that Circe would understand when she didn’t understand it herself.

“Fine.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“Not in the way you’re thinking.” Ianthe was very aware of the fact that she had not showered since her encounter with the Alpha. The scent of altered slick and pheromone hung heavy on her body. “It was fine, really.”

Circe raised an eyebrow. “Are you sparing me the gory details?”

“There’s not anything to say about it, Circe. Really.”

A strange expression crossed her sister’s face and disappeared almost as quickly. It twisted her features into something that almost looked like envy.

“You should get to bed,” her sister said finally, voice tight. “You have work in the morning.”

With that, Circe turned and disappeared into her room, the door closing behind her with a decisive click.

Ianthe had let her sister have the larger bedroom when they moved into the apartment. She had taken the small one in the back that was barely large enough to hold a bed and her CommNet terminal.

Pulling her dress over her head, Ianthe slipped between the coarse sheets and closed her eyes. She desperately needed sleep, but slumber proved elusive. The Alpha’s scent still permeated her skin so being huddled in the thin blankets almost made it seem that he was in the bed with her.

She wanted to wash both him and the night away but using the rudimentary shower facility would certainly wake Eaon. The last thing Ianthe wanted at that moment was to explain her current state to her little brother.

Every time that she closed her eyes, she heard the crash of a too-large hand against her skin. Her insides clenched in memory of the earth-shattering orgasm that he had given her, way more potent than any she had ever achieved on her own.

Ianthe pushed up from the bed, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hand. Clearly, her mind could not be forced elsewhere through sheer will alone. She didn’t want to acknowledge the effect that the encounter had on her, reminding herself that she had never suffered the attention of an Alpha before. It shouldn’t be a surprise that it would take some time to recover. Omegas, even chemically altered and suppressed ones, were biologically designed to respond to Alphas.

It was simple biology, nothing more.

She sat at the CommNet terminal, connecting to the information portal in an attempt to distract herself. But the moment that her fingers touched the pad, she keyed in “eros house” as a search term. It returned no results.

Maybe she had just imagined the entire thing.

And it wasn’t even possible for her to look up the Alpha that had paid for the privilege of spanking and fingering her. Without a name or even a position, he was completely anonymous. That was likely deliberate on his part.

Next, Ianthe searched the archives for information on Omega dynamics. She had avoided her mother’s lectures for years and, even after her parents’ deaths, never bothered to educate herself further. After that first heat cycle, she’d had no intention of ever living like an Omega so what purpose could there be in learning what that entailed.

Omegas had always been relatively rare. She knew that only an Omega could give birth to one, regardless of the dynamic of her partner. Apparently, there had been a few cases in the past of male Omegas but that was even rarer than an Alpha female, which rarely occurred.

But widespread poverty in the lower levels had killed the birthrate, greatly decreasing the number of any children born, but especially Omegas. Even with that, fewer Omegas were born with each passing year even when the total rate of births remained unchanged. Different theorists had laid claim to the reasons for the decline — pollution, dietary changes, government conspiracy — but they all agreed on one thing: Omegas were slowly dying off as a dynamic.

Which only made them that much more valuable.

There was nothing in the records about why she had responded in the way that she did. Nothing about why her body had been so ready to commingle pleasure and pain. All the articles that she could find agreed that Omegas responded to Alphas in a way that was biological, completely outside of conscious control.

That was why the Central Command had made the decision to strip a citizen of certain rights when the Omega dynamic revealed itself, like the right to choose a mate, own property or make medical decisions for themselves. Omegas were seen as slaves to their own biology, unable to be trusted with higher-level decision-making.

It was disgusting and the primary reason that Ianthe worked so hard to keep her dynamic a carefully guarded secret. The idea that Omegas could not control themselves was infuriating and laughable. It was Alphas who lost control, rutting and raging, leaving devastation in their wake. The Alpha scum who murdered her parents was the most obvious example, but certainly not the only one.

Frustrated with herself, Ianthe shut down the terminal and climbed back into bed.

She would sleep tonight away and come the morning, the only part of it that would still matter would be the credits burning a hole in her purse.

Her hands were bound high above her head, held in place by a hand large enough to make the circumference of both her wrists. The muscles of her shoulders screamed in protest, but he wouldn’t release her, no matter how much she begged.

Ianthe was robbed of sight, the room so dark that she might as well be blindfolded, heightening her other senses. From the creak of his boots on the floor as he loomed over her naked form to the heady smell of arousal that hung in the air, she was acutely aware of every scent and sound.

Her arms twisted against his grip, which did not loosen even a scant distance. His bent leg kept her thighs spread wide, and she was pressed back against an unyielding surface at her back.

She ached from his attention. The dozens of small hurts coalesced into a twisted pleasure, more intense than any other sort she had ever experienced.

Terror and exhilaration mingled at the realization that she no longer controlled her own body. She was open to him — for him — held in suspense for his pleasure.

He finally touched her, then. Searching fingers stroked gently down her chest, but the sharp edge of his nail dragged across one nipple. The tender flesh tightened to a hard point as she let out a pained gasp.

His fingers moved lower and she held her breath in anticipation, making her lightheaded. The pressure of his touch was so light that she could have imagined it. An eternity passed as he waited for her to beg.

“Tell me what you want.”

She didn’t have the words for what she wanted. “Please…”

Then he plunged inside her, larger and harder than anything she could have prepared herself for. He bottomed out, hard steel wrapped in the softness of her cunt that could not stretch enough to accommodate his massive size without pain.

And it did hurt, gloriously so. She twisted beneath him, screaming from pain and pleasure, and fought to move both further away and as close as she could get. His free hand pushed hard against her chest, keeping her in place as he shoved in and out. Cock large enough that her own arm would have easier passage, he gave her no quarter, fucking into her as if he wanted nothing more than to tear her apart.

And she did come apart, begged for a relief that would only come at his hands.

Sluicing fluids did little to ease his passage, and she felt every individual inch. Slick ran down her thighs, her scent soaking the air and enveloping them in the aroma. He responded to it like a drug, growling low as he increased the tempo of already manic thrusts.

Ianthe whined beneath him, so tight that it caused the muscles inside her to twitch as they were forced to stretch wide. She looked down between their bodies where his flesh disappeared into her. When he retreated, she moaned in protest and then squealed when he forced himself in deep again until he butted up against her womb.

She quickly figured out that he wanted her to fight, buck against him in some futile attempt to get away. He wanted to hold her down and force her to take all of him. When she snapped her teeth and growled, he only responded by thrusting faster and harder.

The smell of their scents commingled drove her wild. He seemed equally caught by the fervor, using his free hand to grip the back of her head and wrench it painfully to the side. Sharp teeth pressed against the tender skin of her neck, the burst of pain another punctuation to the pleasure.

And then, impossibly, the strain inside her only increased as he somehow grew even larger. This was what she had dreaded and yearned for, the Alpha knot that could only be properly assuaged by the squeeze of Omega cunt.

At that moment, they were no more than a pair of animals in a rut. He roared at her, snarled words that were nearly unintelligible, that she was his, that he fucking owned her.

Ianthe fell over the edge of the precipice, each nerve-ending alive and on fire as her body shuddered into orgasm. Every muscle in her body twitched and spasmed as his knot expanding impossibly large and hooked just behind her pelvic bone, locking their bodies together.

He could no longer thrust but his hips continued to move compulsively back and forth, tugging at the place where they locked together, sending sparks through her belly like shooting stars across the night sky.

Hot semen splashed her insides, burning the already tender flesh. She screamed as he roared like an animal staking his claim. She was no longer inside herself, her mind and body having become separate but intertwined entities.

Instinctively, she knew that they were not finished. He pulled at her, bruising skin with fingers incapable of gentleness as he yanked her somehow closer. He held her down even though it was already impossible to get away.

His mouth moved to her neck, biting down so savagely that she screamed in true pain that was not accompanied by even the smallest bit of pleasure. She fought him then but to no avail, caught to him by both the bite at her neck and the knot buried in her cunt.

She sobbed, but the pain was not enough to stop the rhythmic clench of her internal muscles, milking another burning jet of fluid from his cock. She came again and again, each squeeze of her flesh, drawing more cum from his knot while he tore at her flesh, claiming her.