Tape had been wrapped over her split knuckles. Jacques had put it there. He had kissed the wounds tenderly making sure each little cut had been cleaned and covered. He had taken such care of her, one would think he was the gentle, loving man he pretended to be.

She’d given him a black eye, a bloody nose, and a bruise on his jaw. He wore them like a badge of honor.

In fact, he seemed to be very proud of his fractured female.

The wall was silent, the picture of George fucking an unsatisfied blonde Omega gone, but it was burned in her mind forever.

Brenya had thrown up.

It had not happened until after he’d caught her hands and held them before her. It had not happened until the full measure of his knot receded and what he’d put inside her gushed out. Gingerly, he’d lifted the struck woman… the one who could hardly breathe… pulled his cock from her, and set her beside him on the bed.

She was like a puppet, she didn’t fight. She hardly even blinked.

When he’d gone to brush her hair from her face, she’d doubled over and ruined the bedding.

“I know it was harsh.” Rubbing her back, he let her heave, unconcerned with the mess. “Punishment is not supposed to be pleasant.”

A small voice dared, “Why would you do that to him?”

“He asked your permission to submit a mating invoice so he could fuck you just as I did.” The man’s voice grew disgusted. “Since he saved your life, as you believe, I spared his. I was even generous enough to grant his modified request. Gabriella… the blonde Omega you thought to foist on me… will have some small relief in estrous. When all is said and done, your tech will not think of you in lust again. He’ll think of her.”

Brenya could not bring herself to raise her head. “Are you going to have him terminated?”

“Don’t contact him again, Brenya, and you’ll never need worry about his health.” His arm slipped under her knees, Jacques pressing her to his chest so he might stand. “Come now. You need a bath. It will make you feel better.”

And bathe her he had, just as Annette had done not so long ago.

Through it all he purred, and pet, and told her she was loved. She was not once chastised for striking him, though he clucked over the wounds.

When he carried her back into the bedroom, fresh bedding already awaited. Locked in his arms she was made to lie down, facing the opposite wall where she’d seen the horror, and blinking in the dark.

Jacques sang her a lullaby, stroking her arm with the back of his fingers. It might have been his voice, the purr, the sweep of his fingers… it might have been utter mental and physical exhaustion… but Brenya grew still.

She could not bear to think, pretending instead that she was taking apart the engine of the cargo ship again. That was a safe place… the Thólosen ship brought here by a Greth Ambassador.

She was going insane.

Staring straight ahead, a hollow voice sought answers. “You told me that Thólos fell. What happened there?” Why was one of their ships in Bernard Dome?

Turning her to face him, the Commodore put her ear to his chest. “What a question for this hour.”

“I don’t understand the world at all.”

He began to stroke her hair, kissing her crown as he swore, “I’ll keep you safe from the world. Your innocence is beautiful, and I’d rather you never know what has become of that place or the people who live there.”

“Live?” Brenya wanted more. She wanted answers. She wanted anything that might tie that ship to a way out. “You said they were all dead.”

The man grumbled, closing his eyes for sleep. “Their Dome is cracked, exposing survivors to the elements. Soon they will be.”

How would one repair a cracked Dome? That was a question Brenya could answer in exact detail.

The Alpha beast began to snore.

Flexing her sore fists, she dared to think forbidden thoughts and let her mind run wild with the fantasy that very well could be a reality… if she dared to slowly reach for the shackles left lying on the sheets.

She was never going to survive this. She had to get away from him. She had to get out.

There was a faint click as she closed the first around his wrist. The male’s second arm was much more difficult. It took her an hour to feign organic movement that turned his body to meld with hers. And then it was done. He was chained as she had been.

Scooting away, heart in her throat, she parroted his words from earlier, “Wall unit, order four.”

The desperate moans of the Omega in heat had grown even louder, as had George’s grunts as he thrust like a maniac. Jacques’ eyes flew open. It only took him a moment to recognize what she had done.

“Mon chou, I strongly suggest—”

She stuffed a wad of bedding in his mouth, tearing at the soft fabric so he would not be able to easily spit it out.

One strong yank on the chains, and he found he could not bring his hands together to unlatch them. Roaring behind the gag, Jacques went wild, shaking the bed with such force that Brenya flew back and pressed her naked body to the wall.

No one would hear him over the sounds of manic sex, but it was only a matter of time before he broke the bed frame.

Scrambling to enact a reckless and poorly thought out plan, she took his clock and smashed it on the floor. From the wreckage she scooped up the largest cog, some broken metal fragments, anything she might use as a tool. Two minutes later, she had the ventilation panel parted from the wall and was scrambling like a rat through the air ducts.

He would not be able to follow through so tight a passage, not that it gave her courage. She knew when he broke free, his wrath would come down upon her like a hammer. There would be no talk or punishments. It would be the true end.

One way or another tonight was the last time he’d twist her with his games.

It was dark in the city, but the pink tinged refraction on the glass warned dawn would be breaking soon. An unclothed female would draw attention. Fortunately, ventilation went everywhere, the paths intuitive to someone who’d spent years maintaining them.

She made remarkable time back to the Thólosen ship. It was almost too easy.

The gangplank had sealed, and she didn’t know the access codes to open it. It was sacrilegious to damage such a perfect machine, but Brenya pried open the mechanics and crossed wires that would make the door surge. She only needed it to unhinge enough to squeeze through, throwing her body weight against the hatch until it gave.

Straining to pry it one more inch apart, Brenya plunked her bare foot to the hull. With just enough leverage she was able to lift her body to where the gap was widest and fall gracelessly inside the ship.

The hatch sealed behind her, leaving her in the dark.

She did not need to see to remember where the cockpit lay. She ran, she ran as if the ship was hers, built by her hands and yipped in triumph when her hands found the shape of a door.

The lever was thrown, mechanics whirring, and then she was there, looking over the controls, just as the sun broke the horizon.

“You’ll never get out, you know.”

Screaming, Brenya rounded on the voice, holding out the sharp edge of a cog as if it might save her.

On the other side of the cargo door was nothing more than the shine of eyes in the dark. The Ambassador was there, watching, easing closer by the second.

It could not end this way, not after what she’d done. “You weren’t supposed to be in here.”

His voice was steady, the complete opposite of her high pitched panic. “The same could be said about you.”

Flying forward to catch the door before he might reach her, she threw it closed and jammed the lock.

She didn’t have time to think through her actions, she had to get the ship off the ground. These things were built to fly themselves, but they could not take off without manual control—just as she would not be able to exit the Dome without overriding the passcodes.

In the captain’s chair she gave herself a moment to look over the knobs, buttons, levers, and stick. Machines made sense, she understood their language better than the spoken word, and reached forward to flip a red toggle.

The engine shuddered, thrust coming online. There was only one bay the ship might have fit through, and she knew exactly where it was. Jerking the stick, she threw the ship into the sky, Brenya overcorrecting before she upended the vessel. Her next attempt was smoother and then glass was all that separated her from a Dome full of lies, and air that smelled of jasmine.

Codes were entered, codes she should never have known but had picked up over years of making the descent. The panels parted and she shot out of Bernard Dome and into freedom.

Brenya smiled.

She smiled despite the sound of a man attacking the door at her back. The Beta would not get through that much metal… not unless he knew how to take it apart.

He didn’t.