There was a chair nestled in a corner near the bed. A Louis XV, beautifully preserved… a treasure. He’d had it brought into the room the very day he’d seized his Omega off the Beta Sector streets. The amount of time Jacques sat in that chair, the hours upon hours in the dark where he’d watched her sleep…

He knew it was unhealthy.

He knew he was dangerous.

But sitting in that chair was the only barrier, the only restraint he could manage when his need raged uncontrolled.

Brenya Perin, Unit 17C, lay sprawled, covered in their combined sweat and fluids, asleep. Had he stayed beside her in the bed, his hands would still be on her, inside her, his mouth unrestrained no matter that he’d pushed her so far she’d passed out… again.

He could not stop himself.

Even after stroking himself to climax, he was hard, his cock throbbing to be buried in her as it had been that first time in the alley. It physically hurt, made him sick to his stomach, and left the muscles jumping in his neck. His sack was so swollen that no amount of self-relief ever lessened the ache.

He held that staff in his hand, squeezing his blasted knot until his vision swam, the last traces of final ejaculation yet to ooze out and dribble down the veined shaft.

It had already been forty-five minutes since she’d screamed under the influence of the pliarator, since he’d painted her mouth in globs of white even as her eyes rolled back in her head.

And he was still hard, still in pain, and still desperately fighting with himself to remain in the chair and only look.

Don’t touch…

Grinding teeth, he threw back his head and fought to control himself as another prickling wave washed from base to tip of an angry, denied cock so close to omega cunt.

Leave her be. Let her sleep.

She’d need the rest so that tomorrow she could be focused, so she could come further. She needed the rest so she would feel less afraid.

Every single thing he did, his every breath, frightened the woman soon to be his mate.

There was nothing to be done about that.

Eventually she would know a true estrous, the bond would be forged, and Jacques Bernard, Commodore of Bernard Dome would seal her to him for life. There was no question of his intention. Nothing would change it.

Not a single being under the Dome could challenge his claim. Anyone who so much as whispered of it he’d have killed.

It was easy enough to order a death. Easy enough to keep her under his constant eye.

But it was impossible to tolerate being near her scent, to have her richness layer over every cell in his body and not fuck her.

Even now, even under this forced distance, it was all he could think of. Her taste on his tongue was never enough. Twice he had slipped in the dark hours and lapped at her pussy as she’d slept… all the while he had fantasized about doing worse. He’d been so close to testing how much her little body could take after days stretched out by the pliarator, that he’d caught himself already crouched between her thighs, his dick in hand, rubbing it up and down her drenched slip.

He had even begun to push forward… so very close to popping his cockhead past the first tight barrier.

Shaking, breathing so hard he was sure she would hear him, he’d frozen solid. It was wrong. What he’d been about to do was wrong.

Had he woken her that way she would have never forgiven him.

He’d already raped her once. Brutally.

All these thoughts went through his head, but his hips kept pushing forward.

In a panic, he’d flown from the bed, thrown himself into the chair, and jacked off like a grunting savage. The fruitless orgasm did nothing to ease the tension. Knowing that any female in the palace would see to his needs, he’d even considered slipping out into the halls to spend his fluids on the first Beta hole he came across.

But the thought of fucking another was… distasteful now that he knew what true sex should be.

He had made Brenya a promise, yet every day it was getting harder to keep it.

If she did not give in soon, he was going to reach his breaking point and his cultivated façade of control was going to snap.

Fingers in his mouth, he let his tongue play over the taste of her that clung to his skin, imagining her kneeling between his spread knees, those delicate hands running up and down his shaft. He’d train her to relax her jaw enough to take him into her mouth. In time she’d learn to swallow his girth down her throat like a practiced Beta slut.

She would swallow every last drop of come he gave her. All of it. He’d make her.

Snapping up his head, Jacques opened his eyes and made himself look at the dreaming female. Thoughts of a darker nature were the reason he was failing in this endeavor. He had to control himself. She was a person. She was his love, his mon chou, who needed to be coddled, cuddled, cared for, and cherished through her difficult transition.

She would be more than a wife.

He may have fucked every last Beta in Central, he may have used them just as they had used him in their foolish attempts to grab for power. He’d tossed them all aside after a night. Brenya was not one of them. She was more than a warm body. More than the most delicious cunt he had ever tasted.

She was his mate. He was king, he deserved the perfect queen.

He forced his hand from his cock, took his fingers from his mouth, and made both hands grip the delicate chair’s armrests.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

This was how he spent his night hours.

Under his breath, he whispered into the shadows, “I need to fuck you, Brenya. I need to fuck you before I hurt you.”

In time, he’d even adjust her to his proclivities. She would learn to adjust to his tastes.

Just as she was learning pleasure, despite reluctance, was powerful and all consuming.

“Just one more day.” He’d said this night after night, like an addict taking one day at a time. “One more day and you’ll be ready.”

Jacques knew it was a lie… she would not be ready until estrous. She could not be with all her mind was processing, the new hormones, the mood swings, the fear.

He’d grown skilled at lying to himself. Standing from the chair, his cock finally laying down, he moved to the bed to take her in his arms for sleep. “One more day.”

She slept best crushed beneath him. She slept best trapped completely by his body. And he, he had never known more tormenting or peaceful rest in his life.

* * *

Stirring with a groan, Brenya woke uncomfortable. Tension in her neck, her shoulders, her whole body had gone beyond what could be easily ignored. Too much had been done to her, her musculature rebelling and then reveling in the sweeping shocks that bowed her back off the bed when Jacques played.

As if the man lying at her side understood her grainy complaint, a warm hand slipped to her neck and began to rub.

It felt good enough, that she dared to whisper, “I don’t think I can take anymore.”

He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, and began to pinch his way down her spine, one vertebrae at a time. “A hot bath will relax you.”

There had been no dinner yesterday, no breakfast the day before. Something had come over the Commodore since the introduction of his pliarator, and he’d hardly let her out of bed.

Though she had not even bathed in days, that could wait.

She had learned speaking seldom led to the outcome she desired, but Brenya’s stomach was rumbling and she was desperate. “I am very hungry. Any food will do, even the pastries. Can I please eat something before… anything else?”

“You’re hungry?” The male raised himself to an elbow and hovered over her submissive recoiling. He took in the state of her expression, the tone of her skin, her eyes, and answered as if her hunger had never occurred to him. “Of course you’re hungry. Food shall be ordered at once, anything you want.”

He was daring her to ask for Beta rations, and Brenya comprehended that if she did, food would not be coming… not until he’d corrected her to behave as an Omega should. “You choose and I will eat it.”

“Other females are always desperate for anything granted by their Commodore. They would have requested their favorite cuisine, something that would have challenged the chefs. Something expensive.” He was still in a moment of self-reflection, his eyes stormy as if some internal argument was being lost. “You never ask for anything.”

That was untrue. She had asked often for him to stop. “I am very hungry.”

His eyes grew untrusting.

Angering him never worked out well for her. Brenya immediately apologized. “I’m sorry.”

His weight came down upon her, lips setting a kiss at her hairline. “I would give you anything you desired.”

It twisted her feelings when he made such outrageous claims, and before she could stop herself, frustration darkened her features. “All I am asking for is food. If you continue this way, I won’t last much longer. Please, I’m hungry. Let me out of the bed, and let me eat.”

The Commodore reared back to his knees, unabashedly naked over her, and stared down as if she had burned him. “I’m going to leave the room, Brenya. Food will be brought into the parlor immediately for you. Eat as much as you like.”

He kept her feeling as if at any moment she might slip off the edge to her doom. She’d rather fall down the side of the Dome day in and day out than set off the male narrowing his eyes at her when she backed toward the headboard. “Please… I need food and water.”

His powerful thighs flexed, the Alpha backing off of the bed with his half-mast erection bobbing between them. “Of course. Wine too perhaps? Champagne? Shall I have Annette come to keep you company? You ladies amuse yourselves while I attend to state business.”

Jacques turned to a door Brenya had yet to see him open, an office of sorts. Without preamble the door closed, the sound of a lock turning like the click click click of clock cogs grinding together.

Dumbfounded, her fingers fisted in dirty sheets, Brenya stared at the door waiting for it to be thrown open. He would come back and force her down. He would spread her legs and dive his tongue into her body while saying things like, ‘You are better than any breakfast. I could feast all day’.

And then he would, while she grew too distracted by sex to remember her body’s requirements.

It was a test. It had to be. If she stepped a toe out of the nest, he’d rush in and make her stay.

But an almost instant delicious smell assaulted her nose. In the direction of the parlor was what he’d said would wait. Food.

A cramp set her stomach growling as she sat on the mattress and warred with herself on what to do.

“Brenya?” her name was called. Not by a male, not with a warning edge to it. It was called from across the apartments in the soft lilt of a polished female.

She still could not make herself move, and Annette found her that way—sitting naked and wide-eyed in bed, hair a nest of tangles, unwashed and reeking of Alpha attention.

Exposed breasts bruised, nipples chapped and ruddy, Brenya didn’t think to cover herself… all she could think of was how thirsty she was, how much she wanted to eat whatever was waiting.

“My god…” The Beta female’s composure quickly returned, Annette smiling like an angel as she offered a hand and said, “Come here, Brenya. It’s okay. I’m going to take care of you.”

Watching the perfectly coiffed woman in her clean dress, breathing hard yet feeling almost dead inside, a matching pair of silent tears fell from Brenya’s eyes. “I am so hungry.”

“Well, you’re in luck.” Annette seemed breathless, her arm reaching out earnestly toward the Omega. “There is food enough for an army waiting for you. Come now, let’s eat breakfast.”

Wet honey eyes darted to the door Jacques was behind, Brenya unmoving.

“He’s not coming back, Brenya.”

Next, Brenya’s gaze cut to the sunny balcony where the overturned table and broken china still littered the ground. The food wasted all those mornings ago rotted, untouched. Annette followed her line of sight and promised, “I’ll have that cleaned up. It will be as if it never happened.”

There was a flood of thoughts all racing to the forefront of Brenya’s mind, crashing into each other until one won out. “Did you know that Betas are never reassigned? Centrists kill them. I’ll never go back to Beta Sector. I’ll never make the descent again. For the rest of my life I will be trapped inside the Dome.”

A small hand came to take the sheet and wrapped it around the shaking woman, Annette’s voice low as if they might be overheard. “I know exactly how you feel.”