It was much later than he had intended when he finally made his way back to his chambers, as what he had imagined had happened amongst his men had been worse than he'd thought. He was down an entire cohort—the one she had risen from—and most of another. The plans he'd intended to undertake, that were absolutely vital for the survival of this place, were going to have to be put on hold, at least until he could recruit—press gang—and train some more men.

In truth, he had been distracted all day, at a time when he could least afford it, and she was at fault in both cases.

All he could think about all afternoon was sinking himself into her again—and this time, he intended to bring her to her full pleasure. He wanted to hear her scream for an entirely different reason than she had before, not that he deluded himself into thinking that she was simply going to lie back and accept what he intended to do to her.

No, she was a fighter, and Zerk was surprised to realize that he liked that. She was so different from his sweet, biddable Moia. This one was much more of a challenge.

He frowned again as he worked all of the locks. She never had told him her name. Tonight, he would wrestle it out of her, one way or the other, he promised himself.

But as soon as he opened the door, he knew that all of these plans would have to be put on hold, too. She was gone.

His body shuddered once, hard, with a feeling he hadn't experienced very often in his life—fear. It wasn't as if she was a babe in the woods out there—he knew she could defend herself. But she was uneducated about what she had become, and he knew it was very likely that every man she met would attack and try to have her, especially since he hadn't succeeded in creating the kind of bond with her that he wanted to. That he needed to, if it came right down to it.

Zerk shed those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings with a shrug, turning his attention to what was important—getting her back. Since he knew there was only one other way out of his flat, she had to have found the secret behind the bookcases, for which he silently applauded her. Either that, or she had been faking being unconscious, but he was pretty sure it was the former.

Considering how long he'd been gone, he knew he had to act fast. Grimacing, he acknowledged baldly to himself that it was quite likely she was dead by now. Or wishing she was. Neither situation was acceptable.

As he gathered more weapons than he usually carried from his closet, tucking them into the hidden pockets in the long duster he didn't wear very often any more, he realized that one of his sets of uniforms was missing. Not that they were what anyone in the much more civilized eras gone by used to think of as a uniform, he knew, but in this world, it was often better to blend in as much as possible, although he'd still needed a way to easily recognize his own men in a crowd, sometimes, on more covert missions. So, they were all issued the exact same outfit, no matter what their rank—well-worn black work pants and black short sleeved t-shirts with a thin gray stripe, no bigger than a quarter inch, on the hem at the biceps. Easy to ignore when looking, but if you knew what you were looking for, hard to miss. Even the armor they'd all made for themselves had that small stripe over the bicep.

Hence, the nicknames the civvies had given them—Gray Stripes. Zerk sewed them on himself, handing each new man his clothing when he was brought into the fold. No one got into his own private little army without him having vetted him, in his own way. Those closest to him could recommend candidates, but he had the final say about who was allowed to join.

His smart girl had taken his clothes, even though she must've been swimming in them. Not only would they cover her nakedness—several times over—but they might well provide her the protection of his scent, too. She hadn't taken a clean set, but rather had disturbed the ones he'd put together in order to take specific pants and shirt—the ones that smelled the most like him.

And, he noticed, she'd not left any trace of the bindings he'd used on her, either. He wondered if she'd chewed them off or what, shaking his head at her ingenuity—not that his grudging admiration was going to get her out of a severe punishment once he had her back—as he headed out down the labyrinth of what he generously referred to as hallways, some barely wide enough for him to get through.

He shook his head at himself as he set off. It was his fault she'd gotten away. He should have made sure she was much better secured. She was not Moia; that gentle woman had made him soft. Before he'd lost her, she'd had the run of the place, rarely misbehaving, but sometimes still getting punished, because—although he knew she'd never admit it—she enjoyed it at least as much as he did. Or perhaps it was more the way he soothed her afterwards that she craved. He hoped it was both.

In some ways, his new omega would have the advantage of him in this rabbit warren of a place. Zerk knew for a fact that there were some he couldn't get through and hadn't gotten around to widening, as he would have had to do the work himself. He hadn't let even his top men know about the existence of these tunnels, which had long since been forgotten. Some of the older folks in town knew about them, too, but they were no more interested in anyone else finding them—or being found in them, especially by him—than he was. Thus, he could count the number of times he'd run into anyone else back there on one hand. And it had never been anyone he didn't think he could easily take, if he had to.

Expanding the tunnels had had to wait. He hadn't been able to tear himself away from either the administration side of running a small, highly dysfunctional military-camp-wanna-be-city or riding herd on a band of men who were just as likely to use their weapons on each other—or him, if they thought they could replace him and wanted to die that day—as themselves, especially if there was a woman involved. And a highly prized omega, to boot. He was frankly amazed that he'd had any men left at all when he'd gotten to the meeting.

As he moved, he scanned the floor for any kind of clue she might have left as to what direction she'd taken but found none. Not a scrape of blood on the rough walls, not a scrap of pants material that had to be dragging on the ground with every one of her steps, not even the body of some unfortunate who had happened upon her. There was reasonable chance that she was still in there somewhere, considering how much of a maze this place was. But she was too intelligent for her own good, and he thought she probably had gotten out. So, as he stalked through, he tried to determine where she'd go, once she made it out. And he tried not to think about what might have happened to her when she did.

He only hoped that not looking or, in her case, the more important—not smelling—like an omega would have allowed her to survive long enough for him to find her.

But where?

Perhaps it was because he'd bonded with her, but he was relieved to realize that he was able to—just barely—catch a whiff of her scent, and he allowed his nose to guide him when he'd made it out what he thought was the same door she had taken. Perhaps it also helped that it was his own smell she was using to cover hers, which he couldn't smell. He didn't much care what it was—he was just glad to have some kind of clue that would bring him to her.

In the end, he spotted her, with her back to him, leaning nonchalantly against a wall in a dark alley, near a stable that offered horses for sale and for rent, not far from the busy town market. She was obviously looking for the hostler to look away long enough for her to steal one of the horses.

As he approached her, he slowed down, not wanting to startle her, his mind automatically considering her carefully. She looked entirely unharmed, for which he was more grateful than he was comfortable with. She'd done a good job fitting his uniform to herself as best she could, he had to say, tucking in the long shirt, using a length of rope for a belt, and even going so far as to blouse the hems of his pants at her trim ankles, above her bare feet—no doubt using the lengths of leather that had kept her captive to do so. It wasn't as if anyone had tailored clothing, so, with her short hair covered by a beaten-up cap and the large, long knife she seemed to have appropriated from his collection of weapons, she looked to a casual observer as if she was an older boy or a very young man who might have been considering buying one of the horses.

Although she still looked—especially to him—like a little girl who had dressed up in her father's outfit, and he thought she'd probably be outraged by that idea.

The closer he got to her, the less her enticing essence was concealed—particularly to him, her mate—the more aroused he became, although he did his best to dismiss it from his mind. It was a nascent connection, and he had forgotten how powerful that could be. But, as he slid his hand over her mouth, the overwhelming feeling he had was one of utter possession. She was his, and she would never be any other man's as long as he drew breath.

But he couldn't revel in that feeling. As his other arm wrapped securely around her waist to lift her and hold her against him as he began to back them away from potential discovery, he couldn't resist a whispered tease, "You look ridiculous in my uniform, quita."

She knew the slang—a bastardization of one of the predominant, old-world languages that had melded into an amalgamation, in town, at least. "Chiquita" was a little girl. It was annoying, but nowhere near as bothersome as the fact that he had simply lifted her off her feet, leaving her dangling from the arm around her waist.

She opened her mouth to scream but closed it again almost immediately.

Zerk had to grin down at her, not that she could see it. Again, the smart move. Neither of them wanted to draw anyone's attention. Not that she wasn't doing her best to get away from him—she was. She was doing so as quietly as she could, but since he'd already relieved her of her knife at the same time he'd captured her, there was very little she could do to get him to release her.

Her silence didn't help either of them, though, when he backed into the sharp point of a blade that was neither of theirs.

He dropped the baggage immediately, hoping she'd have enough sense to just lie there while he dispatched their would-be robber and/or murderer.

Zerk had dressed in an old set of street clothes he didn't wear much anymore, hoping not to be recognized, especially now. When he decided to go out and about in the city he virtually owned, which wasn't very often as he was a simple man who had no real appetite for that kind of recognition, it was almost always in uniform, in his capacity as the de facto mayor or governor, although he eschewed both of those titles—any title but the one he'd actually earned—Commander. He might not have liked the adulation of grateful citizens who didn't have very many amenities, although they certainly had more than those who dwelt in the outlying areas, but he knew that showing his face, every once in a while, was the right thing to do.

So, he seriously doubted that the person holding the knife knew whom he was threatening. Dropping her had distracted the scum a bit as he tried to discern her scent from that of the clothes she was wearing, and Zerk took the opportunity to kick back at him, aiming for the man's vulnerable knee. He hit near enough to that painful spot that the knife fell from the amateur's hand as he screamed and reached for what was probably by now his broken kneecap.

Just as the big man turned, his fingers clutching his own much larger blade to finish the asshole off, the woman who was supposed to be the one he was saving came up behind the man, who was now on the ground, and slit his throat with her—his—own good sized knife.

The two of them then squared off, the lifeless body of the would-be robber bleeding out between them in the alley.

Unfortunately for her, most of all, the man's yelling had accomplished what they had both been assiduously trying to avoid. Although she only took her eyes off him for a moment to see an angry mob of people bearing down on them, Zerk again seized the opportunity, and the girl's wrist, and began to pull her back down the alley, with her resisting him the entire way and with all of her might, as if she would have much preferred to have been torn apart by the crowd rather than to go with him.

At first, it had seemed as if the rabble just wanted to avenge the man's death, but then he saw the men beginning to sniff the air, as if they were scenting something they couldn't quite identify.

And he wasn't willing to give them the time to discover what—or rather who—it was that was tantalizing them so. He simply picked her up again—this time heaving her over one broad shoulder, as if she was a sack of grain, and began to run, long legs eating up the ground much more readily than any of the civvies could ever hope to match. As soon as they got away from the market area, no one paid them any mind at all, but he didn't put her down. She was a lot less bother in this position.

Occasionally, he reached up with his other hand—he was equally strong with either, unfortunately for her—and gave her bottom a hearty whack. She was good—she didn't squawk, even at that, but he could hear how hard she was fighting the urge to do so, small groans escaping her every time his palm connected with her behind as the breath sizzled into her lungs between her clenched teeth.

Zerk made his way as quickly and as unobtrusively as possible to the nearest entrance to the maze of corridors that were hidden within the building that housed his headquarters, spending a certain amount of time looking around to make certain that no one saw them disappear behind the well-hidden door.

She thought he'd put her down then, finally, but apparently not. She waited for quite some time as he jog-walked with her in that terribly uncomfortable position, his shoulder jamming itself into her stomach with every footfall, but he seemed in no hurry to do so. And it also seemed to be taking him much more time to get back to his room—if that was where they were heading—than it had taken her to get out of the building. Was he taking the scenic route or what?

So, she did what she could to let him know that she wasn't interested in remaining in this position any longer—she pounded her fists on his back, trying to concentrate on the area over his kidneys, where it was likely to hurt the most, and she did her best to kick her legs up, too, but his hold on them, just above the backs of her knees, was too tight for her to do that.

When he finally stopped, she tried to steel herself to hit the ground—and not necessarily with her feet. But she was entirely unprepared for him to rip the uniform off of her body as he did so, leaving her completely naked as he carefully put the clothes into some kind of bag that he'd been wearing on his back when he'd found her.

Worse than that, he didn't even put her down! Instead, he swung her down his big body, only enough to catch one leg on his hip so that her legs spread as he moved her. He'd apparently already released his cock, managing her so neatly that her other leg very naturally fell into place on his other hip, seconds before he rammed himself into her at the same time. Enormous hands then locked themselves beneath her bottom until he could press her back against the wall and didn't need to hold her any longer.

She wasn't going anywhere. She was well and completely pinned—stuffed so full of him that she thought she was going to choke from it and spitting mad—literally.

Outraged at finding herself in this position—taken by him for a second time, just as effortlessly as the first, it seemed when she'd spent her sparse free time vowing to herself that she'd never let him do that to her again—she screamed, not caring if the entire population of the city descended on them! She'd rather that than having to do this horrific act with him again!

"Get the fuck out of me!"

There was that insolent, insufferably self-satisfied grin.

She was so incensed at having been captured by him again that she actually did spit in his face.

The grin dissolved as if it had never been there, and she knew that she had gone too far. She'd seen that look in a man's eyes before.

And in that moment, it was her fervent hope that it would be the end. That he'd just kill her and that would be that. She'd lived every day of her life since she'd become sentient expecting to die in one way or the other. In a way, it was a miracle that she hadn't long since, so she was well prepared to go.

But long beats of time passed without him moving an inch as she literally watched him conquer that particular beast within that she knew wanted him to do what she had been resigned he would, and she had a flash of stunning intuition that she had just condemned herself—with that relatively small act—to something that would be much, much worse for her.

He raised his hand—but not to beat her, although she humiliated herself by cringing away from it just enough for him to notice. She could have endured it, too; a beating would hardly be a new experience for her. Although he was big enough to do serious damage, she'd live through it. She always had before.

Instead, he used it to wipe his face off, then made a grab for where her hair should have been—where it was on pretty much every other female in existence. Finding none, Zerk settled for the nape of her neck, turning her around to face the wall rather than the wall of him, which was just as unyielding and unforgiving, without losing his connection to her in the least. She found her right cheek pressed hard against the cold cement as he kept his hand on the back of her neck.

While she struggled and fought futilely as he brutally forced himself even further into her as far as her body would let him, her loud grunts of discomfort only added to his pleasure. He spoke to her in a tone that was so calm and matter of fact that it was chilling. Especially when—try as she might not to—she had to scream again when he used his intimate knowledge of an omega's anatomy to deliberately lodge that fleshy hook of his into her in a way that he knew would be the most agonizing for her as he spoke. And judging by her outright howling, he was right.

"No, Quita, I'm afraid I'm not going to allow you to goad me so that I'll give you the escape you're so obviously courting. I'm not even going to beat you, at least, not in the manner I think you're expecting. You've unexpectedly proven much more valuable to me than I had originally thought you'd be, and, although I won't punish you as if you were one of my men for that disrespectful act—because you are no longer a soldier—I think you'll quickly come to realize that the methods I will use with you will probably be even more effective."

She wanted to concentrate on that speech; she tried to ponder it and dissect it. But her body wouldn't let her. Despite how much pain she was in, despite how uncomfortably stuffed full of him she was and how much she hated the position she found herself in, her flesh rejoiced at his possession, and it seemed that the rougher it was, the more he hurt her, the more she craved it.

It felt…right…to her, in a bone deep satisfying way that her mind rejected completely, but her weak-willed body welcomed to an extent that she found utterly terrifying.

Her secretions had abated a bit once she'd gotten outside, but, as if her rebellious flesh had known that he was looking for her, she had begun to weep copiously minutes before he caught her, and once he actually touched her, there was a veritable flood. There must have been a pool of it in the pants he'd ripped off her—she could have literally been wrung out of them.

So, although he had stabbed himself up inside her roughly, her cunt welcomed him doing just exactly that, blatantly aiding and abetting in her own possession, in her own degradation, and in her own complete subjugation—not to mention the agony that seemed to be built into every step of the process for her. She'd been through a lot of pain in her life, but none of it had to do with…that part of her. She'd avoided dealing with anything about that area of herself—to her, it was a mere inconvenience.

And now, here she was, reduced to just those parts of her, as far as he was concerned.

She was soldier, not some Alpha's mindless, heat-addled mate.

But at that moment, as she felt her more animalistic side take over, she knew that she much more closely resembled the latter than the former.

"Please continue to fight me as you have. I do so love subduing my little omega."

Her mind was screaming at that smug pronunciation, but it didn't come out of her mouth. In truth, she wasn't sure what to do about that. She had to fight him, didn't she? Even if the bastard enjoyed it?

"It's too bad you chose to behave so naughtily, little one," he whispered as he began to fuck her quick and hard, his knot already forming and making her keen and whimper as her nearly virginal opening was stretched well beyond her comfort in order to accommodate him. "You have yet to experience the fullness of our bond, although I promise you that you will, eventually. But not before you are punished for your misbehaviors."

Again, she wanted to think carefully about what he was saying and hopefully respond with an insightful insult, but she couldn't corral her errant thoughts enough to do that, except to register how much she hated it when he called her such things, speaking to her in such a condescending manner. But that wasn't helpful to her situation at all. Her thoughts were everywhere she didn't want them to be—thinking about how wonderfully big he was, how wonderful it was to finally be filled pretty much past her capacity to accept him. Whenever that part of him grew to those painfully gigantic proportions, hurting her with the way she had to stretch around him, he had to jab himself as far into her as possible, nudging several very sensitive spots as he did so and moving that atrocious, spiky thing he'd embedded into the inside of her walls.

The whole thing was horrible and agonizing and embarrassing and entirely unacceptable.

And yet—that utter loss of control over herself, over her own body, the way her intimate self was being required to conform to his invasion, how it felt to be mastered by an Alpha, surrounded by his intimidating, authoritative presence as his sexual scent filled her nostrils and set her body on fire—all things which she staunchly detested—made her almost itch for something that was the epitome of all of those things combined. It seemed that, when he did this to her, there was always something about it that was just beyond her reach, something nebulous and tantalizing, something that made her want even more of him and the awful things he did to her, however stupid that fantasy was.

Once he was locked into her, he startled her by lifting her away from the wall, one arm around her, holding her in place. Giving the place a close inspection—despite the demand of his throbbing genitals—to make sure they hadn't left anything behind, Zerk rode her all the way back to the hidden entrance to his rooms, stopping occasionally. When he was no longer able to ignore the urge to take her delicate throat into his big, callused hand and pump himself into her fiercely, he kept himself on the edge of coming until he had her back on his bed, on her knees, facing away from him.

He was mounting her like a dog in the streets! Her mind fumed, but it was from a great distance, and she couldn't make herself care about it much, because her body was compelling her to press her hips back into him in lewd submission, arching her back and laying her cheek on the bed between hands that were gripping the bedclothes spasmodically.

Zerk chuckled, pulling himself slightly away from her and loving the sound of the whimper she emitted as he avoided her attempts to entice him. "Someone's attitude has changed a bit, hasn't it?"

But then he said nothing more as he surrendered to the overwhelming urge to breed her, driving into her relentlessly, and she couldn't keep herself from panting and moaning as she had to lie there and accept what he was doing to her. To her horror, she was even beginning to enjoy it a little. She blushed brightly all over while chill bumps rose on her flesh. She was hot and cold at the same time, striving for something, actually meeting his thrusts, reaching for something that was—as yet—intangible, and therefore, imaginary, but she wanted it nonetheless.

When he cried out, she thought that would be the end, but it seemed as if it was just the beginning as she felt him flooding her with his seed, feeling it beginning to trickle out from between their seal just as her own essence had throughout, feeling herself fill up with the sheer amount of come he was spewing rhythmically within her.

And then he reached beneath her, between the legs that he kept spread obscenely open around his own, to touch her where no one else ever had—where she'd barely ever touched herself, except when absolutely necessary.

He seemed to know something about her that she didn't know about herself, because he found a place on her that was utterly foreign to her and began to stroke his big fingers over it slowly, using a combination of their spunk to ease the passage of those insistent fingertips up and over wherever—whatever—it was that he had found on her.

Sensing that this was another true danger to herself and her ability to retain at least some control over herself, she marshaled what was left of her mind, forcing herself to buck his fingers off her, to writhe away from them, to dislodge them in any way, even for just a second, but they remained glued to her, and she recognized with great humiliation that her hard won efforts only looked weak and, worse, as if she was trying to entice him.

Nothing she did, even as she began to pant from the exertion of trying to frustrate his intent, gave her even so much as a second's relief.

All the way up and all the way down, slowly, deliberately each time.

"Feels good, doesn't it?"

She heartily wished he would stop talking to her, but she didn't say that, not because she didn't want to, but because she no longer had the ability to. All she could do was lay there, his hand on her neck again, just to add insult to injury, reinforcing the knowledge she must already have had that she couldn't get away from him. She heaved and shuddered and shivered like a horse that's been ridden hard and put away wet as he continued to torture her in a way that she neither wanted nor had the capacity to deal with, all while experiencing the ultimate in bliss, himself. And it only added to his arousal to tease her this way.

She had no idea what awaited her when he finally allowed her to come, and he liked that fact—a lot. He wouldn't hold off too long on that, wanting to bond her to him as thoroughly as was possible, but he wouldn't do it until she'd been punished.

This was just a little fun indulgence for himself. What was an omega for, if not to be teased and tortured with her own pleasure, on occasion?

He'd make sure that they were facing when he finally brought her off. He wanted to see it happen to her—his proud, fierce warrior omega, who had the skills to not only be one of his soldiers, but to actually become his captain! Zerk reveled in the fact that he was going to be the one to tame her—introducing her to the severe restrictions of her new life and disciplining her whenever she stepped out of line. She'd been independent for longer than an omega had probably ever been allowed to be, but he would bring her to heel, and he was going to love every second of it.

It was those thoughts that allowed him to last much longer than he usually did as he emptied himself into her, his knot very slowly deflating during the process.

Still, they were sealed pretty tightly merely because of his size, and he would swear that there was a slight "pop" when he finally dismounted and removed himself from her.

There was definitely a gush of fluid from between her legs that left a sizeable pool between them as it flowed quickly, at first, then began to drip steadily out of her.

She surprised him by not moving in the least when he left her. She remained in exactly the same position as he washed himself up quickly, not daring to take a shower unless he took one with her, but he didn't want to allow her that privilege at the moment, either. He wanted to drown her in them—in their scents, in their spunk, in the culture of her new life, in everything about them. He didn't intend to allow her out of this room again for quite some time while he taught her her true place in this world.

So, when he was finished, he tossed the damp cloth into the bathroom to deal with later, then turned to her, hauling her up and off the bed by her wrists, which he then bound together expertly, along with her ankles.

She put up a bit of resistance but much less than usual. He wondered if she was tired or had given up or what. More likely tired, he mused. She didn't seem at all like the "giving up" type, or she would never have gotten as far as she had. As he'd thought before, she wasn't the type to handle being a sex slave very well, although there was much more than that to the relationship between an Alpha and his omega.

Before she knew it, she was hanging upside down by her well bound ankles from a hook in one of the beams in the ceiling, her hands caught by another one that was well concealed in the floor, and no matter how she thrashed around, she wasn't going to escape from either of them.

Knowing she'd gotten a good look at the one in the floor, he mentioned, almost casually, "I think that one kind of looks like the barb at the end of my penis that I know you've been caught by, too."

Her horrified gasp was definitely its own reward.