Because of her heat, Ciaran had had to pass most of his duties on to his legate, Kavan, who, luckily, was more than capable of taking over. He asked not to be disturbed, and the younger man respected that, only providing him with the daily reports every morning to keep him up to speed. They were becoming more and more disturbing, to the point where he wasn't sure he was going to be able to remain cloistered with her for much longer.

Luckily, her symptoms abated shortly after that, and although she didn't seem very happy about the idea of him leaving her, even though it was only for a short time, he watched her square her shoulders and lift her chin as tears trickled slowly down her cheeks.

"I understand, Sir."

Her distress caused an annoying pain in his chest that he didn't appreciate. Still, his tone was gently gruff. "I will send Dolar to you, little one, and I won't be too long, I promise," he reassured, enjoying the idea that she seemed to want him around now.

She nodded sadly. He cupped her between the legs, kissed her hard on the mouth, and left, just as a large group of men marched up to his door, headed by Kavan, who looked as if he was going to drag him out of there.

Although the long days of having her brain flooded by such a desperate need for him had left her weepy and needy—her mind in a sexual haze—while she was alone, Ebby did everything she could to try to extricate herself from the miasma she was drowning in.

Having him inside her, pumping her full of his seed was the most satisfying thing she'd ever experienced in her life. But the essence of her heat was that the bone deep satisfaction only lasted a very short amount of time. While she was with him, she had been absolutely incapable of thinking about anything else. She was ashamed to admit the depths to which she had sunk, but it was the truth.

Now that the addiction had eased off considerably and was just down to the dull roar with which she was somewhat more familiar, she began to exercise her mind again, breathing a huge sigh of relief when it did return to her.

Dolar had become a friend and was a good companion to her. After her heat, he was the person she spent the most time with, but he couldn't give her what she still needed, and if she wasn't very careful to keep her thinking where she wanted it to be, she was very restless, always having to remind herself not to put her hands where they didn't belong.

And it was his deep, bass voice saying it in that awful, chiding tone he had that meant she was probably going to be punished.

Usually when they got together, she told the young man a story or two, or he tried to teach her some strange game he wanted her to play with him, involving a board with alternately colored black and white squares and weird mismatched pieces that stood on them in a very particular order, with lots of little, ridiculous rules about where and how they could move on it.

It didn't much interest her, especially now, but she thought it might help her focus her attention away from her Alpha.

"C'mon—just one game?" he pleaded.

"Oh, all right." She perked up and offered, "But, in exchange, you have to tell me what's going on around the camp."

That suited him just fine. He moved a piece that looked like a metal race car one square forward. "Well, we've been having a bit of trouble with a group we haven't quite been able to put down yet, but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. It doesn't help that we're down a lot of men because…"

He didn't finish his sentence, not wanting to hurt her, but Ebby got the gist.

"Other than that, there's not much going on—some fights amongst us, but not people you would know. Most of the talk is still about you. Everyone is dying to see you because, well, no one but the few of us has."

Ebby snorted. "He's not likely to allow that." She moved a small, green piece that was egg shaped with one eye, a mouth, two arms and two feet.

"Not there," Dolar corrected.

Ebby frowned. She'd had entirely too much of being corrected.

She sighed and tried again.

"Not there."

Giving up, she put it back and reached for one of the pieces in her front row—a tiny white square with a strange nub on the top—and moved it one square, copying him.

"I know that. He's right to be very careful of you. Although I don't know if he realizes it, but the rumor is that the longer the two of you are bonded, the more likely it is that other Alphas will be able to behave themselves around you." He was staring down at the board—contemplating it much too closely, considering his opponent's lack of interest in the game—when he said that, so Dolar didn't see how intrigued she was by it.

Trying to sound casual and not let on just how excited she was, Ebby asked, "How long is it supposed to take, do you know?" The excitement that was coursing through her body at what he'd said helped clear the cobwebs from her mind.

He placed a token that looked like a soldier holding a gun, although he was green, up two squares and over one. "I don't think I've ever heard that there was a particular amount of time, and I doubt he'd be willing to attempt it if he wasn't absolutely certain. He's not about to risk your safety now that he has you."

"Very true."

He might not be willing to risk it, but she most certainly was, and she played by far the worst game she ever had because all she could think about was that she might have a better chance than she'd thought of regaining her freedom, and that it might—perhaps—not be quite the death sentence it seemed to be anymore.

When the opportunity to test that theory presented itself, though, it was not in the manner she had anticipated in the least. It had been several weeks since her last heat. He'd been at her as much as he could be, but the truth was that he was spending less and less time with her, and she had a feeling that the battle with the gang Dolar had mentioned wasn't going very well. Even when he was with her, he was preoccupied.

One afternoon, while she was lying on his bed, she heard a huge commotion outside. Everyone seemed to be running past the tent on all sides in a very non-military manner, much more like they were fleeing for their lives at a full gallop, going and coming from varying directions. And in the distance, she could hear the same types of noises she had heard the day she'd been captured—horses whinnying, the occasional engine, guns, out and out screams and what sounded like war cries.

She knocked on the door, calling for Dolar and Edan, who were her guards today, but she didn't hear anything from the other side besides the cacophony that seemed to be drawing closer every second she waited.

On the hunch that what she thought was happening was true, she gathered together the things she had been carefully collecting towards the day she would take her leave of this place, hiding the rucksack beneath the huge robe she'd found early on, donning sandals of his that she had cut down incredibly but had made wearable, and turned the knob of the door for the first time.

It had been months since she'd been outside, and it took her eyes a minute—that she wasn't at all sure she had—to adjust to the glaring sun. Unfortunately, that was just long enough for one of the Omega Teams to descend on her. "Colonel Ciaran has sent us to fetch you and take you to safety," their leader said.

But Ebby had other ideas and began to run away from them as fast as she could.

For a long moment, the squad stood there, watching her. The colonel hadn't said anything about what to do if she didn't obey them. Their leader had been amazed that he had been thinking enough to issue the order that he had, considering that he, as usual, was right in the midst of the fighting. The gates had been breached in a surprise attack, and he was shoulder to shoulder with his men, which was one of the reasons why he was so successful. He didn't consider himself above doing anything that would accomplish their goal, even that which the lowliest of his soldiers would do.

It was a comment on how badly things were going, or the Omega Team commander had no doubt that he would never have considered exposing her like this. Although the colonel certainly knew that they would each give their life for her, if necessary, too.

"Get her!" he commanded, leading them after her, himself.

But she'd been given enough of a lead that they had lost her. "Fan out and fucking find her!" He sensed a hesitation in his men, snorting in disgust at them and finally saying the words he knew would get them to obey him, "Who wants to be the one to have to tell our commanding officer that we lost his omega?"

Suddenly, he was talking to himself and separating proved to be the right thing to do. The leader—Paulus—and his partner found her purely by chance, though, and did so only because they saw someone in a black cloak running away from a large crowd of men who were giving chase. Because they were able to keep their heads—unlike the Alphas who were after her—they zig zagged through the maze of tents and small buildings to head her off and pull her away from the men, squeezing off two shots quickly in the air as a signal to the others in the squad that they had found her.

The rest of them rendezvoused with the two of them who were holding their thoroughly uncooperative target just outside the gates of the camp, but the hordes who had caught the scent of her were hot on their tails. Dolar used a ladder, binoculars and a series of mirrors that were hidden around the camp to track where the crowd of men were in the warren of the regular soldiers' living area while they holed up near the latrines, which were, by necessity, a good bit away from the camp itself. As he was keeping track of them, the most surprising thing he noticed about the rapidly growing, mindless mass of men was that there weren't very many of their men in it.

They might have lost a lot of men in acquiring her a while ago, but that meant the men who were their own soldiers were able to better resist her allure, whereas the vast majority of the invaders' men weren't, he explained to his men.

Considering the reality of the situation, Ebby realized that she would have to abandon her hope of leaving. She wasn't much fond of the idea of dying, either, apparently, when it came down to it. As a result, she had been listening closely to what Paulus said, and she knew she could be of help.

She knew what they should do.

"I have an idea."

She laid out what she wanted to do, and everyone contributed an idea that seemed to enhance the possibility that her wild notion might succeed—except Paulus.

"Stop listening to her!" he yelled, ignoring Ebby completely, as if she didn't exist. "Do you all want to be killed?" he snorted. "Killed—that would be too good a word for us if our colonel found out that we had risked her life like that!"

"Dead by his hands, dead by theirs—dead is dead," the youngest of them said as he shrugged. "If the camp is overrun, then the colonel is no more. I don't know about you, but I'd rather die doing something rather than hiding here. We're all here sworn to protect her, and this seems to me to have the best hope of all—or most—of us coming out of this alive. We might even save the whole camp, if it works." He looked directly at her when he said, "In any case, I would rather be dead me than live you.

Ebby, whose throat had gone dry at the stark truth of his words, rose to stand in the middle of the group. "We need to move as quickly as we can."

Within about ten minutes, they had gathered everything they needed—which, luckily for them, wasn't much—and when they rolled out of the makeshift armory an enormous armored, all-terrain vehicle that sat impossibly high, crushing everything that stood in front of them, she stood high atop it, surrounded by members of the squad holding bulletproof shields, just in case.

Not only was she perched precariously up there, but she was totally naked.

The wind was a force of its own on the land since there was now little in the way of mountains or vegetation to temper it in the least. It was constant and relentless, and for once, it was going to work for rather than against them. The driver skillfully maneuvered the vehicle to the fringes of the battle—where the wind would be at her back, blowing her unmistakable—irresistible—scent over the combatants.

Then, once they knew they had caught the soldiers' attention, they drove away from the battle—always keeping the wind to their advantage.

It was more successful than they could have imagined. Their own troops—to whom they were physically closest—might have glanced at what they were doing, but then they got right back to doing the killing they were trained to do. The gang who had conducted the surprise attack on them, and who had been decimating their numbers with each skirmish in which they encountered each other over the past few weeks, became easy targets as they abandoned their posts in favor of trying to get to her.

Ciaran himself was one of those who had turned around—just for a second, originally, to see what all of the commotion was about—and nearly died right then and there because he was so utterly horrified at what he was seeing.

But the invaders—they were completely captivated. The colonel nearly lost his life—not because the man he was fighting wanted to take over his camp, but because the man he was fighting desperately wanted to get by him to get to his woman!

Luckily, he caught on very quickly to what was happening, whistling for his stallion and mounting him as he shouted the order to stand down. Very quickly, there was minimal fighting going on between his troops and their rivals, anyway. After she'd made her astonishing appearance, the battles were among men who were following the all-terrain vehicle. The rest of what was left of the skirmish was cleaned up easily enough as his men followed behind the slavering newcomers and took them out. It was like what mowing down hay looked like in some pictures he'd seen of harvests in the old days.

Without taking his eyes off of her, he circled around so that he was in front of the truck, his heart nearly stopping when he saw her drop to her knees, spurring the horse on as he watched her slowly stand up again, the screams and cries of the men who were after her suddenly ratcheting up that much louder, their antics in trying to get to her even more fervent than they had been before, although he didn't know why because he wasn't in her lee.

Ciaran galloped his horse next to the vehicle and climbed on to one of the running boards, then up onto the roof in practically a single bound. And as soon as he was close enough to her, he knew exactly what had caused her slobbering, slavering fans to become just that much more zealous.

She was in heat.

He shouldered his way past the men who were so bravely guarding her, pulling her into his arms.

He was a soldier, not a poet, and he couldn't have come up with anything more eloquent if he had wanted to, and he didn't. "You are mine," he growled fiercely, having a hard time not fucking her right there and then, in front of all of those people, partly because he was so relieved to see that she was all right, partly as a punishment, and partly because that was what his body was screaming for him to do.

In seeing him—her Alpha—Ebby became no better than the madding crowds that were trying to reach her, only it was him she had to have. She rubbed lewdly up against him, trying to hold onto senses that were rapidly deserting her at his nearness. "Did we win?" she whispered, kissing him as she tried to ride his cammoed thigh.

"We probably did, but then we would have without this idiotic stunt," he snarled. "But you most definitely did not."

She wondered what the "probably" was but didn't dare ask.

He wanted to get her out of there as soon as he possibly could, and everything in him wanted to simply jump to the ground with her in his arms, but he couldn't make himself do anything that might not be safe for her. So, as the sounds of the slaughter increased around them—even though he knew it wasn't his men being slaughtered—he didn't waste time. Ciaran gave orders to the leader of the team—not addressing their unacceptable actions in the least because if he thought about what they'd done, he might gut them all with his bare hands. Then he left some of the Omega Team to continue guarding them but used the others to help her down, finally gathering her onto his horse in front of him and riding away, making damned sure that she didn't have the wind at her back and taking great satisfaction in using his own gun to kill those few who went after them.

As he stepped back into his tent with her, it was immediately surrounded on all sides by his men—members of other Omega Teams and his elite guard. It was probably overkill, since there weren't very many of the enemy left, but he would not take chances with her. But he felt pulled in two different directions—he had things he needed to do as commander, but he needed to see with his own eyes—and hands, and other things—that his omega was all right, too.

To say nothing of the fact that he wanted to drive himself into her more than he wanted to live at this moment.

But duty had been ingrained in him since a boy, and he would be damned if he would start shirking it now, even as he gazed at her longingly, causing her to shudder at the look in his eye that promised sound retribution.

Setting her down, he said sharply, "Don't you dare move." Then he turned towards the door. "Guard!"

A young man entered immediately. "Yes, sir."

"Have they arrived?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. Day late and dollar short, if you don't mind my saying so, sir."

"I mind," he growled. "Those men came to save our bacon, which they would have done if there hadn't been interference." He turned to glare at Ebby. "And now, I have no idea how many men they might have lost because of something that happened that I neither sanctioned nor ordered." Another angry look came her way, and Ebby's eyes slipped from his.

"Make sure they get what they need, and bring their leader to me."

"Yes, sir!"

Ebby looked confused at what he'd said. He was giving aid and comfort to the men who had attacked them? She might have asked, but he definitely didn't look as if he was in a talking mood—especially not to her.

A few very tense minutes later, during which Ciaran didn't dare go near her, there was a knock on the door.

"Come."

In stepped a man who rivaled her Alpha in size, easily as tall and broad as Ciaran was.

Even though Ebby had no doubt that she was in no danger from him—that her Alpha wouldn't allow anyone into his tent who would wish her harm—she couldn't help but give him a wide berth, circling the perimeter of the room as far away from him as she could to get to stand behind Ciaran, wishing that she felt as if she could touch him, just for reassurance.

But neither of them was paying any attention to her at the moment.

They embraced as friends, grasping each other's forearms, although neither of them smiled. "Vaudt. I am in your debt for coming when I called—and with such a formidable amount of reinforcements."

"I will always come when you call, brother Redbeard. I owe you."

Ciaran blushed at the nickname. He was aware that the men called him that, just never to his face. He slapped the other man on the shoulder. "Only in your own mind, brother. Kin does not keep tallies."

Vaudt nodded in agreement.

"I trust the…uh, unexpected appearance of my omega didn't cause you to lose too many men?"

The massive man shrugged. "If they followed her, then they were not truly my men."

Ciaran nodded. "Wise, as always."

He looked past Ciaran to Ebby, who cringed behind him. "I take it that she was not following your orders, then?"

His jaw clenched, fit to break his teeth. "She most definitely was not, which is nowhere near as unusual as it should be."

"You are fortunate. It was a brilliant move. She has the mind of a great strategist and the heart of a fighter—a true, fit mate for a warrior such as you."

The redhead turned a bit to look at his tiny woman, still much too full of fear for her life and anger at her blithe risk of it to consider forgiving her anytime soon, despite his friend's obvious admiration. "She fancies herself a soldier."

The other man almost smiled. "That's what Kosh always says about his fierce little mate—she gave him a nasty bite and fought him at every turn. He's always saying that she would make a damned fine soldier."

Those words had a familiar ring to them. "Is he not at your side?" Ciaran frowned. "I hope he is well."

"He is—he and his mate were just delivered of their second child—a second son, although I know he desired a girl child, like his omega."

"Ah. I am glad. Remind him that he still possesses a radio that I intend to collect at some time. And your Emily?"

The change that came over the other man at the mention of his mate's name was palpable. He softened considerably, looking almost approachable—not that she would try.

"She is more mine than ever." He paused, then added almost reverently, "And I hers."

Ciaran nodded, although he was surprised to hear that. The last thing he'd heard, he was having a hard time taming her—she was resisting him at every turn.

"She is still stubborn and willful, of course," his friend said, not sounding in the least angry or concerned about it. "I'm beginning to think that the best omegas are much stronger than we Alphas would like to think—or prefer to have to deal with because of the way they challenge us. But she's kept busy running a very fine clinic she browbeat me into, even though she's very heavily pregnant with our third." He frowned, and it was at least as intimidating as when Ciaran did the same thing. "No doubt she is, at this very moment, engaging in some behavior of which I would not approve." Speaking of his mate—in such loving, if teasing, terms—was what finally succeeded in bringing a smile to lips that looked as if they didn't do that very often.

A deep pang resounded through Ciaran's chest as the other man related—in so many words—how happy and contented and…in love, it sounded—although he found the concept mind-boggling, considering what he knew about the gruff, hard as nails warrior he was—with his omega.

When he replied, Ciaran's tone was more constricted than it might have been but for the way the catch in his chest affected his breath, "Congratulations."

And he was not the only one who was moved by what Vaudt had said so unabashedly about his mate. She didn't know if it was because he was another Alpha—at least as powerful in many ways as Ciaran was—but his words cut through the fog that surrounded her and made her frankly jealous of what they had together.

If she had been fully in her right mind, she might have begun to consider what that might mean for herself and the man who had claimed her, but she wasn't quite that coherent at the moment.

Vaudt hugged his friend again. "Well, I shall leave you, my brother, but you—and your beautiful omega—must come see us again some time. I know Emily would like that very much."

"As would I. You will not eat with us?"

He looked past Ciaran to Ebby. "No, you have more important things to attend to, I think."

The two giants took their leave of each other, while Ebby watched and tried to glean what she could from it, but her mind was rapidly growing too fuzzy for that.

When his friend was gone, he leaned out the door, ordering, "I do not wish to be disturbed," as he closed it behind him.

When Ciaran had put her down moments ago—he—and his horse—were already soaked in her essence, but he couldn't do anything about it because of his obligations. Now, he took her face in his hands and caught her eyes, recognizing that faraway look. "If you value your hide, Ebby, you will do exactly as you're told from this moment on and for the rest of our lives together. Lie down on the bed on your back with your head on the pillows. And you had damned well better stay there."

If there was anything that could come close to cutting through her haze of unmitigated lust, it was that tone right there. Even it couldn't get all the way through, but it made her think more than she had in her previous heat at all.

But then, in her previous heat, he hadn't been absolutely, palpably furious with her. His anger was so great it was like another person in the room with them—one who was bent on teaching her a lesson she would never forget.

Alarm bells were tinkling in the back of a mind that only wanted her to beg him to take her, but somehow they managed to prevail, and, although she had no doubt that he would never do anything that would cause her bodily harm, she still never took her eyes off of him as she obeyed.

It didn't take him very long to find what he was looking for, bringing three of the small items over to sit on the table next to his bed. An evil grin crept over his face as he saw that she had recognized what they were, her eyes round and—although still dulled—he thought he could detect edges of fear there, too.

A very smart little girl, his omega, who had taken it into her mind to put herself into terrible danger and had even managed to convince an entire squadron of his men to follow her.

He wasn't sure yet what he was going to do about them, but he knew exactly what he was going to do about her.

She had done as he had told her to do but was unable to keep still while doing it, and the closer he got to her, the more wildly and frequently those hips rose into the air. She was even chanting a soft whisper—three small words that he knew would have embarrassed the hell out of her at any other time.

"Please fill me. Please. Please fill me. Fill me. Please." He could see the pool of dew growing beneath her, and she smelled—

There were no words for how luscious she smelled to him. He wanted to drink her, to fuck her, to pin her from within and revel in the scream she could never seem to suppress, to stretch her beyond any kind of comfort and, as the storm he'd created within her raged about him, let loose inside her with a deluge of his cum until it even seeped out of her tight seal around the base of his knot.

She was his. He wanted her full of his children, and he vowed to himself that that was how he was going to keep her—smart or not—because, apparently, she was not so smart.

This time, though, he baldly acknowledged to himself that he had to hope that he could stick to his resolve and do what he felt needed to be done.

It was going to be almost as hard on him as it was on her.

Not really, though.

No, she was going to suffer more than he did.

Much, much more.

And he wasn't going to have to raise a hand to her to discipline her in the manner in which he had chosen.

Although he probably would, just so that he could get out some of the gut wrenching fear that was bottled up inside him. He knew that, any time his determination waned for as long as he decided to inflict this particular punishment on her, all he would have to do was bring to mind the sight of her on top of that truck—naked, and pursued by mindless masses of Alphas who were literally killing themselves to get to her, protected by only a small handful of men.

He swallowed hard at the thought and resolutely tied her wrists together, anchoring them above her head. There were two more strips of the strongest soft material he owned, but he would save those for later.

Then he got up and followed his routine of long standing as he got out of his uniform, although he stayed in his pants and shirt while she remained naked—as she should be.

He debated about what implement to use on her this time. He didn't like administering the belt on the bed—it constricted his swing. His hand wasn't nearly severe enough, although he was likely to start with that, which he did, moments later.

Ciaran positioned himself on his knees at the head of the bed, but so that he was facing the end of it with her on his left, turning her over and looping a big, muscular arm around her waist in order to hold her hips up. "Fold your legs under you."

The order was eerie in the neutrality with which it was issued.

Panting—in unrequited passion as well as fear—she did as she was told.

As soon as those legs were in place, the spanking began, and it was a very long while before it ended. Her thighs were out of the way, and he didn't concern himself in the least where the smacks landed. Twenty—thirty—fifty in the same spot on each cheek, then moving on to another—hardly untouched—area, each one delivered with absolutely no variance to its breathtaking strength.

He was well aware that punishing her could have the opposite effect from what he was going for, especially during her heat, when she was highly sensitive to any kind of stimulation from him whatsoever. But he took her well past that point, to where her wiggling and writhing had nothing to do with her wanting anything other than for it to stop.

But when it did, she wished heartily that it hadn't, because the next thing he picked up was a paddle. It was the kind that had been used on school children at one time, and because he had always planned to acquire an omega at some time in his life—and knowing that they could be a handful in many ways—he had tucked it away in one of his trunks.

When that goal had been fulfilled, he'd had the forethought to move it to a secret compartment beneath the table he used as a makeshift desk. He had a feeling that his inquisitive little mate was going to search the room as soon as she was given the opportunity, and several little tells he had set in various places around the room had alerted him to the fact that she had done just that almost immediately. Luckily, he didn't normally keep much in his room that he thought would be of use to her, cloak notwithstanding, and he had divested it of all weapons but those he usually wore on his person, that first night.

The paddle was deceptively demure looking—not one of the giant ones he knew the commandant of the base where he was raised had several of. The head was only about six inches long, not including the handle, but it was of solid, hard wood, and it carried quite a heft—as Ebby found out seconds later.

It didn't take but about five strokes before she was singing with each highly satisfying crack that landed. When—even as tiny as she was—he had a hard time keeping her still and not wanting her to feel punished anywhere but on those beautiful curves, he found another use for the spare ties. He set them to work holding her knees apart, tying them off to the middle legs of his freakishly big bed and leaving her legs spread widely, her privates horribly exposed.

And then he returned to his task.

Ebby was completely unable to move. All she could do was feel, although definitely not what she wanted to.

But even her elevated libido couldn't keep up with the rise and fall of that paddle. It surged forward when he raised it away from her flesh, but cringed back down when it struck. And it struck with agonizing regularity and for a horrendous amount of time.

The whispered chant she had been saying was long since replaced by crying and begging and promises and wails.

Even above being filled with him, not feeling the singular agony that was that paddle splatting down on her backside with all of his might again became the only thing she fervently desired.

And yet, when he put it away on his bedside table and returned to crawl between her legs, the bedclothes beneath her—and well beyond—were, as he'd expected despite the anguish he knew he'd brought to her, obscenely soaked.

He stripped them away and then released her knees, turning her onto her back and completely ignoring how she hissed and whimpered and tried to keep her bum off the mattress. In fact, he stretched out on top of her, which effectively drove her into it.

Ciaran's sharp gaze drifted over her face as his hands took possession of it, noticing that the fear was gone from her eyes, and, slowly but surely, watching them cloud over with lust again.

He didn't intend to say it, but it came out anyway, deep and dark and terrifyingly quiet as he gazed into her eyes. "I've killed so many men, I stopped counting. I have faced odds during a fight that were four and five to one without turning a hair. I fully accepted the inevitability of my own death the moment I picked up my first gun at the age of six." His fingers were holding her so tightly that he was starting to hurt her. "But I have never felt fear—marrow deep, shit my pants, life ending terror—until I looked up and saw my naked omega putting herself in mortal danger by exposing herself to a ravenous crowd of men who would have done anything to claim what's mine."

His mouth found her ear as he rasped, "You do not have the right to entice other men with what is. Not. Yours." He swallowed hard. "You do not have a right to imperil that which is. Not. Yours."

He had to pause for a second to collect himself, because his mind kept showing him images of things ending very differently from how they had.

"I've said variations of this before, but apparently, they didn't really sink in. Your body is not your own. Your life is not your own. Everything you are belongs to me and me alone." He pulled away, then looked back into her eyes again, knowing that, if there was any intellect left to her at a time like this, this would put the fear of him in it. "And your mind is mine, too, Ebby, because I can drive you completely out of it, and that is exactly what I intend to spend the next few days doing."

There was a pounding at the door at that exact moment, and Ciaran leapt from the bed to brandish a knife at the throat of the man behind it—his second.

Startled beyond comprehension, Kavan back peddled away from his commander, practically babbling, "I-I'm sorry. I thought you might want—"

"I don't want anything but to be left alone until I emerge from this tent again. I don't give a fuck if it all burns down around us. You have the com." His gaze sharpened as he continued to threaten the younger man. "Unless you don't think you're up to it."

Kavan swallowed hard, answering back bravely in the face of death. "You know I am."

"Good." Ciaran pushed him away by his grip on the other man's throat. "Then don't come back here unless you come heavy."

The man who was not only his legate, but his friend, could barely believe his ears, but he wisely said nothing beyond a smart, "Yes, sir!"

When he returned to his bed, he crawled into it from the bottom, right up between small, feminine thighs that fell as far apart in welcome as she could possibly move them, despite how much it hurt her to move in any way, considering the condition her backside was in.

Ebby knew that there was something about what he'd said to her moments ago that she should be scared about, but she couldn't manage to do so with him lying there on top of her, the fulfillment of her deepest wish curving up against her cleft, inches away from paradise.

Surely, he intended to take her now, since he'd punished her so thoroughly already.

She wished her hands were free. She loved the feel of him—all that strength and power and muscle called to everything feminine in her, everything omega to his Alpha.

He kissed her then—really kissed her, his mouth gently twisting over hers, one long finger stroking over a baby soft cheek as his tongue danced across hers, nipping the impudent tip of hers as she sent it boldly exploring past his lips before ending the kiss and moving a bit away.

As if her nerve endings weren't already sizzling just because of how close he was, her hips undulating beneath him, unable to move enough because of his weight to actually rub herself against him, he began a dedicated campaign of touching her absolutely everywhere, as he had done when he'd first gotten her. He felt a keen need to reinforce—again—that she was his, but he was also very careful to avoid touching her in ways he most knew she liked or in places that would add to her lust for him.

It was absolutely maddening, and his conscious omissions only made Ebby's need for him grow exponentially worse.

He spent a lot of time with his fingertips tickling along her collar bone, her lower belly, or the undersides of her breasts, and up—but not too far—the insides of her thighs. His lips found her too prominent ribs, the delicate arches of her feet, and the insides of her wrists, leaving a wet, interconnected trail amongst all of the points of interest he visited on her body.

And then he settled himself between her legs at a glacier's pace, his keen eyes on her face the entire time, watching, calculating. There was already a fine sheen of sweat on her skin, and her head was thrown back, that beautiful hair spilling in tangled waves over his pillows.

Using one hand, he splayed her lips open much like her legs were around him, watching the steady trickle of her own dew spilling out of her, every inch of her already—always—slippery for him. And then all he did was take a breath and blow that warm air over her, soft and steady.

A stranger listening to her reaction might have thought he'd brought her to climax. Her little clitty contracted once, hard, as did her cunny and even her more private place, and she groaned repeatedly, from deep in her chest.

The severe discipline she'd been subjected to had silenced everything but tears from her for a while, but this prompted her to begin to chant again. But, this time, it was just one word, because he surely knew what it was that she wanted most for him to do to her.

"Please," she whispered.

He didn't answer her.

Instead, he pressed his face against her clit and reached up to find peaks that had been sorely neglected, setting about giving them the close attentions they deserved, fingers reflecting what his mouth was doing to her clit—tugging when he was suckling, pinching when he pursed his lips around that sensitive bud, flicking when he let the tip of his tongue have his way with it and she threatened to come undone.

But as soon as that happened—as soon as he felt that she was a little too far down the line—he stopped.

He repeated this torture until he knew she was very close to bursting through. It was easy enough for him to do, having made such a careful study of her, and he took his time raising her need to a fever pitch each time. He had grown quite expert at bringing her to but keeping her from achieving, a peak, even one that would be as mild as one that didn't include being impaled—in both ways—on the spike of his that was weeping almost as avidly as she was through his pants and onto the bed beneath him.

Her "please" had become first fervent, then frantic, then frenetic as he had played his little game with her.

Still, he didn't answer her.

Then he turned her over, hearing her expel a sigh of very premature relief, knowing that she must've thought he was going to take her from behind and finally end the agony of her need.

Indeed, he made all of the motions as if that was exactly what he was going to do. He pushed her legs up and out—uncomfortably so—using his own to keep them there, so that her backside was almost hanging there, up off the bed, waiting for something to be fit up into it that would hold it there.

Ciaran reached down to open his fly only enough to allow his cock out. Otherwise, he remained covered from head to foot, and she would soon feel the rough material of his pants against a behind that looked too sore to look at, much less touch—not that he let that deter him.

He began to tease her again, slipping his cock up between her lips, following the path of that feminine groove of hers, its mere presence holding her lips spread open as he dragged the tip over her clit a few times, then moved on to pretend to dip the head into her opening as it was instantly covered in her juices.

"Please," she prayed, and he leaned all the way over her, so that he could put his lips to her ear.

Finally, he answered her question with one of his own, "Please what, omega? What do you want your Alpha to do for you? To you?"

"I'm so empty, please!" she begged on a sob.

"Perhaps if you ask me nicely, I might do that for you."

"Please, Sir, fill me!"

He kissed her ear tenderly. "Of course, my little omega. Of course."

Ciaran took his place behind her, his bobbing cock dripping with proof of both of their desires. Then he nudged its purple head against her and pressed in.

Ebby screamed and began to try to fight him, but her submission to him was much too complete by that time, and it was a feeble, pathetic attempt.

He kept advancing, even as she wept and wailed and begged him not to, not stopping until he'd done exactly as she'd asked him to. He'd filled her completely.

But not where she wanted him to.

His big, hard as iron cock was buried not in the cunny that was on fire for him, or where he would get a child on her, but in her pretty little bottom hole.

She couldn't believe what he was doing to her—it hurt like hell and served no purpose at all! His cock in her asshole didn't slake either of their desires, nor would it get him the baby he so desperately wanted from her.

But it did leave her writhing and keening wildly with need beneath him as he stretched the wrong part of her painfully open around him. She was full to overflowing with him, millimeters from where she wanted him to be, but enough out of the way—and too new and uncomfortable—for her to get even the most basic satisfaction from it.

He even reached between them to pinch her nipples and stroke her clit as he began to move heavily within her, his breath panting over her as he fucked her bottom, slowly at first, then with growing momentum. Each movement nearly caused her to lose her mind at being so close to him giving her what she was sure she absolutely had to have to survive, not to mention how painful it was to be forced to take him there—where he didn't belong, in a place that was not designed to accommodate him.

And then he began to speak, and it got worse—much, much worse.

"You asked me to fill you, little girl. Unfortunately for you, I have my choice of where I might put my cock, and I have not chosen to put it where you most want it." Even through her tears, she sounded a bit too close, so he withdrew his hands for the time being, using them to press down on her back, instead, forcing her to offer herself up to him.

"And you'd better get used to it. I'm going to keep you right where you are now—just about crazy with the need to be bred, every inch of you throbbing and pulsing with it. But, for a while, even though you're in heat, I'm going to leave that beautiful pussy of yours completely untouched and craving, gaping open for me, keeping you more than wet enough that I'll be able to use your own slick to help myself to the next door down. I'm going to take your poor, sore ass, instead, while your neglected cunny dribbles and clenches for want of what your bottom is getting. Perhaps several days of feeling uncomfortable in this very humiliating way will help you realize that I own you."

What he was doing was atrocious for her, he knew, because she began screaming almost immediately after he'd finished his little speech and kept it up every time he plunged himself into her. But it wasn't very good for him, either. He spilled himself into her after only a few short strokes—and in a drastically smaller amount than usual—because her heat kept him near peak, too. But it wasn't at all satisfying. Neither his barb nor his knot were of any use, and although it was a climax and no climax is really bad, it was nothing like the dizzying heights he attained when she was fully his.

Still, he kept strictly to his word.