Chapter 17

 

Who could imagine it would be so difficult to bathe a single, tiny female? Especially one who clearly needed the relaxation of a deep soak, warm water, fresh soap, and doting hands to tend where she was most likely sore. They had fucked a great deal, and no male of his worth—even in the deepest rut—would allow his mate to grow filthy with crusting fluids.

Considering that she was an untried virgin who had let him do as he desired, Simin was doubly sure she could use the luxury.

Yet his kor’yr had grown so agitated with the experience she’d started to grind her teeth and leak silent tears. It had come to the point he’d let her break tradition and wash him just to keep her from losing the tattered remains of her failing composure.

The feel of her hands on his body had been wonderful, but the very significant reason she did it was anything but pleasurable.

Every time he moved, she flinched as if preparing to accept a strike.

Where was the wildcat who’d grabbed up a piece of sharp debris days ago?

If I get you angry enough, you will kill me more quickly.

Those had been her words when the Beta translator had been summoned.

Maybe he had not taken her words as seriously as he should have. Relying on their bond to ease her considerable distress, spoiling her with gratuitous fucking—it had changed nothing.

She was more skittish now than when he had brought her home.

Simin even wondered what she would do if given the opportunity to leave. Would she flee, seek another protector? Would she hate him as it seemed she did now?

This was beyond fear. This was spiritually unhealthy.

A featherlight skim of fingertips traced the outline of his shoulders, his Omega seeking out the spaces where muscles met so a practiced touch might knead tension away. God how he tried to be pliant, to soften all that musculature so she might be done with her unnecessary show of… servitude.

Someone had trained her to do this—trained her so deeply she could not allow him to bathe her until she had satisfied some unknown ritual.

There was no give and take, she would not even allow him to wash her beyond a quick scrub of her chest.

Simin wanted to touch her in this way, to knead the tension from her knotted muscles, to ease her into deserved contentment. No Nierra slave he’d taken to bed had ever acted in this compulsory way his mate did. Some were skittish—many slaves were—but this was…

What had they done to so wonderful an Omega?

Irritated by his unruly imagination and the horrible things he knew his vanquished enemy capable of, he took the sponge from her fingers, barking an order for her to cease scrubbing him and sit back.

It was the exact wrong thing to say.

She withered. She who had been so determined to show him this thing she could do.

Female skin going green, watching her throat work, Simin was certain she was going to be sick. His own mouth watered with the sour precursor of vomit just seeing his mate so ill.

“Kor’yr, you did well.” Insulting tradition by washing me first. “But I am Alpha and you are Omega. I provide and you accept. In exchange, you give me great joy by cherishing our pair-bond and nest.”

The sunken tub could have housed five grown warriors of merit, offered enough space to frolic, to rinse, and to relax, even to fuck if they wanted too. But now it was a big bowl of steaming misery.

There was no joy here because she was blind, blue eyes brimming with sorrow, and skin sweating with fear.

And he was failing.

Purr stilted by shoulder deep water, Simin stood so the female might feel the true depth of the comforting sound he offered and approached where she’d sunk low. Chin skimming the water, golden hair floating about her like spun tentacles of sunshine, she gazed up.

She gazed up and looked utterly lost.

It crushed him, enraged him, and stirred up a searing burn behind his ribs he’d never known before. Cupping that chin under the water, drawing her to sit up, to present herself, he took care to wash, massage, tend and soothe every part of her in a gentle pantomime of sex. Of adoration and solace. Simin did everything he could to express how he wished her to be happy.

And she stank of misery the whole time. Worse, she tried to lie by smiling, chirping out her language the more he frowned.

When he took her back to their nest, he broke his word and did not take her body as he’d said he would. Instead he laid her head upon a pillow of green silk, covered her with the smooth slip of satin, and purred at her side until she slept.

Then he slunk away.

While she slept, he found all the shattered pieces scattered in his rampage and hid them out of sight. He cleaned like a lowly slave. He prepared food so that when she woke it would be ready and there would be no awkward, wordless fight over who would make it.

He sat before his view of space and pondered deeply.

And for the first time since he’d brought her into their home, she slept the whole night through. She slept, he knew, because he was far away.

“I will fix this.” A vow from a Heidron was unbreakable.

 

***

 

“I feed her, heal her, pet her, wash her—I have given the Omega days on end of my company.” Simin stood stolid at the threshold of an unwelcoming portal, Morgaine wide-eyed, tense, and glued to his side.  Before them, an old woman, one blocking the way forward even as Simin made his plea, did not so much as smile. “Omega Superior, I have knotted her so many times she has passed out. The stink of fear has not diminished. Her desire has not once urged her to reach for me in comfort. My kor’yr does not recognize me.”

The gatekeeper looked to the girl in question as she clung to his arm, and Simin knew she found more than the smell of anxiety hanging in the air. She saw the same broken look in cerulean blue eyes that he had. The golden-haired outsider was cloaked in a look of soul-dead hopelessness, cowering behind her Alpha as if to hide from one unknown female, yet terrified of them both.

Though small in stature as Omegas were, the elder female was large in presence. “A pair-bond will crush her misgivings and shape her affection to your will. Why bring her here when you are in full rut and she smells close to her time?”

To be questioned was not something a Heidron—a favored Omari Prince—was accustomed to. Nor were conversations of such private matters openly held in the halls of his squadron’s flagship. “She does not speak our language, was a virgin in captivity before I freed her. Upon her retrieval, repeatedly the Nierra referred to her as feral. I do not know what this means. I do know that she was beaten under their care for refusing.”

“Refusing what?”

“Male attention.”

Dressed in loose robes in the same style as Simin’s unhappy mate, the Omega Superior warned, “You take a risk in bringing her here still lacking a pair-bond, Heidron. Your rule does not extend past this door. The Omegas might not give her back to you.”

“Do not speak to me as if I were some pup!” The snap in his voice did not move the gray-haired woman blocking the portal, but behind the Alpha, his mate startled and made a horrible noise. Immediately increasing the already loud vibration resonating just to soothe her, Simin growled, “Her needs come before my own. I have tried and failed to reassure her. I cannot tolerate the smell of another male in my rooms, even to help translate. An Omega so near her nest at this point would be a threat to her. And even if I had the luxury of sharing our words, I do not think she will tell me the true way of things. Look at her; she’s frightened, even of you. I seek assistance. Return her to me smiling and eager to know her kor’yr, and the tithe I will offer in exchange will buy worlds.”

“Your riches mean nothing to us.” The woman offered a sardonic half grin, stepped back and swept her arm to the side. “But, by all means, lead her inside.”

Trouble began the instant they were through the unadorned door and a gallery of opulent color, of embroidered cushions, of laughter, of trays of rich food, and nothing but beautiful females came into view.

Morgaine began to lowly keen.

Simin’s foreign Omega began to frantically rattle off in her language, to plead in a tone that set the women in the room to their feet. Holding onto the Alpha’s arm, she dug in her heels in a sorry attempt to slow his steps, and then she fell to her knees, weeping so mournfully he did not know how to calm her.

Female arms clasped around bulky male thighs, sobbing, Morgaine refused to let him go. He had to pry her off, forced to ignore her terror, and leave her under the care of those Omegas who had rushed forward to help.

Morgaine began to scream.

He could do nothing for her now, not when there was a golden tiled mark on the floor designating how far an Alpha might tread in that sacred room. To cross that line meant instant death. The Omegas would kill him, whether he was their Heidron or no.

Unable to bear watching his mate be bodily dragged away, he turned his back, obeying the Omega Superior’s orders to leave at once.

Never had he imagined he’d see that old battle-axe startled.

 

***

 

There was no chance in the twelve hells that Simin would return to his rooms. He waited outside the door of the Omega sector for hours on end. At first, he’d heard his kor’yr screaming even through the thick metal portal. Caught up in the sound of her fear, he’d tried to get back in, to rush to her, but the females had wisely sealed the gate.

And then silence.

Even with his ear pressed to the door, he heard nothing.

A great warrior was to be patient, but for those hours waiting, he was anything but. Pacing, sitting, standing at attention—nothing helped.

He’d never expected Morgaine to respond as she had. Though he should have suspected when she was unimpressed, and then flat out shaking at his first offering of fine clothes. Clothes he’d had specially made in his family’s colors and crests. Clothes crafted from the finest silks and encrusted with gems worthy of a Heidron’s mate.

She had backed away from the folded green fabric, shaking her head, as if she knew he was dressing her only to take her away from the nest.

Flat out ignoring when he’d called her name, she’d started pointedly cleaning the nearest item she could reach… with her hair.

Gentle as he could be, he’d forced her to stop, dressed her, and took her straight to this place that left his mate broken and sobbing.

And now he could not even see her. Without the pair-bond, he could not feel her. Utterly at a loss, he felt an unprecedented stinging behind his eyes, and hung his head.

Then the door opened.

It was not his mate waiting for his attention, but a young Omega of rank—a translator by the marks on her robes.

Abrupt, he demanded, “Tell me.”

The woman smelled shaken in her own right, but did her best to appear calm. “Morgaine is under the belief that you have brought her to something the Nierra refer to as pleasure chambers… that you have grown bored of her and left her here to be used at will by other males willing to pay your fee. I do not think I need to describe what she anticipated would be done to her in these rooms.”

Simin’s face went ashen. “What?”

There was much to explain and the hall was not a proper location for what had to be shared. The Omega, her hair shorn close to her skull as a sign she refused to take a mate, led him to a small waiting room and gestured for him to sit.

When he obeyed, she sat across from his bulk, smoothed her robes and was openly trying not to tremble. “The pleasure chambers were to be her fate for at least two years had she remained in Nierra care. In fact, it was the fate required by the male who was to have her for mate. By their law, he could not pair-bond to her until his rank had increased. After gathering powerful supporters, the weight of his claim outweighed all potential rivals. She learned of this while on display for the males already signing up for their turn. They made demands to see her body, growled to encourage her arousal against her will. She was shamed.”

The glass cage was a bidding area? The defeated soldiers in the Nierra’s ship, the ones he’d paraded naked before to shame them with his utter lack of fear had been signing up to abuse his kor’yr? How had he not considered this? Her clothing had been there, it was the reason he knew just what waited in that cage.

The scent of her had wafted toward him even in a sea of the enemy’s stink. For the first time in his years, he had lost composure before his men. It had taken the whole mob to drag him from the enemy’s ugly chambers.

He’d maimed males he’d known his whole life. For this woman.

To get to her. To care for her. To take her to his heart and tie them in a pair-bond that would be sung of throughout the ages.

The fire in Simin’s eyes when he snarled at the wispy translator confirmed the threat. “I’ll destroy every last Nierra, see their women despoiled and make slaves of their people. As of this moment, the treaty is dust.”

“There is more.”

Forcing his rage to quiet so he might know everything, Simin swallowed, steadied his breath, and demanded, “Tell me.”

The nervous habit of running her fingers through her short brown hair showed itself for the third time. “The things they taught her, that they made her watch…”

This Omega was outside of her sanctuary, snapable neck within his reach. “Tell. Me.”

So shaken was the woman that she failed to see the very real threat before her. “I do not even know how to describe the damage that was done, Heidron.” She closed her eyes, openly disturbed. “Morgaine has no concept of estrous. She believes a pair-bond is equivalent to sex, and that all interaction she has shared with you any Alpha could inflict on her. Before today, she had never even seen another Omega. She… was told you would mutilate and rape her.”

Foreign women were not protected by the Omari code of honor, and such things did happen in war. In battle, any subjugate people could be taken as slaves. Once under ownership, new stock was protected from savagery. An Omari cardinal rule existed. Omegas could never be enslaved, only pair-bonded, and yes, often by force at the onset of estrous. But, from the moment the bond was established, they were considered Omari citizens under the protection and care of their mate.

The mateless Omega before him continued. “She thinks you bite her when she’s done something wrong.”

That could not stand. Voice unbearably sad, hardened by pent up rage, the Heidron snarled, “I mark her to reassure her that when estrous arrives I will forge the bond. It was done to make her feel safe in moments of her fear. It was done so she would know to trust me.”

Compassion glimmered in the upturned golden eyes of the woman across from him. “We know… but that does not change our verdict.”

Simin’s expression turned deadly. “She’s mine.”

“She does not recognize you.”

Rising to his feet, vibrating with the need to rend the Omega messenger limb from limb, Simin curled his lip. “I am Heidron of this fleet, your prince, and I will challenge the Omegas to have my kor’yr returned to me.”

Brave, unflinching like the best Omari woman, the Omega stood her ground. “A handful of days ago she was taken by force from her mother. This was after years of evading the Nierra who raided her village. She fought through the pain of pre-estrous out of hatred of Alphas and love for the woman who birthed her. She suspected they would one day take her, she didn’t know why, but she knew it was only a matter of time. In punishment for hiding her daughter, the mother’s face was disfigured with a brand and Morgaine was listed as feral.” Smoothing her robes then her hair, the Omega sat back, displaying so much sadness that even the enraged Alpha took notice. “Having spoken to her, it is an apt term. She is completely wild, totally ignorant, and indeed very scared.”

Grinding his teeth, already imagining how best to bleed this woman, Simin hissed, “Why do you think I brought her to you?”

“We will allow you to court her for one hour each day.”

“That is not even enough time to pleasure and knot her!”

Standing, meeting the eyes of her king’s fifth son, she said, “Sex will not be allowed unless Morgaine initiates it.”

They both knew that would never happen. Smoothing dark hair off his face, chest expanding in a full breath, Simin stared her down. “Until she learns our language, I have no way to communicate with her outside of physical acts. What am I supposed to do? Sit here and stare at her?”

“You claim she is your kor’yr.” The Omega translator had done her duty, and chose to stand, leaving the room in a soft swish of robes. “Prove it.”