Chapter Twenty
Kele sat alone in a cell under the fighting ring. The battle noises drifted down until she could focus on nothing else. Was that Peder’s howl of pain? Or his snarl? She sat by the barred door and pressed her face against the cool metal. Sometimes a guard would pass but none paid her heed, except one who’d told his comrade that she belonged to Timothy and wasn’t to be touched. She took small consolation in his words. After this event, she doubted the cat shifter would keep his word.
Dread anchored in her stomach and weighed her down. No matter what happened, she would not lie quiet like some omega female. They’d meet an alpha in training when they tried to touch her body. She held no illusion that she’d escape her fate but at least, she could travel to the dark and meet her goddess with her head held high.
If the Goddess existed…Kele wanted to pray. She found solace in it, but if prayers fell upon deaf ears—or nothing at all—she just couldn’t muster the strength to even try. The Goddess had turned her back on her people long ago and the last hope of her return had died in Kele.
Heavy footsteps treaded to her door and Timothy crouched in front of her, his dark gaze angry. “Goldie did well in the ring, but he’s hurt.”
She scurried to her feet. “I’m a healer. Let me tend him.”
His gaze narrowed.
She fell to her knees and bowed her head to the dirt as if he were her alpha. “Please, master.” Anything to see Peder, to care for him, as he’d done so many times for her. In her soul, she knew he’d fought for her, that he believed Timothy would keep his word about not raping her. Peder had such a noble heart, even after everything he’d been through.
“That’s better.” The lock clanked and the door squeaked open. “Come with me. Behave and I’ll let you tend to his fucking wounds.”
She walked next to him, silently urging him to hurry his steps, but the waves of fury flowing off his body held her tongue. She fisted the sides of her torn dress, somehow managing to swallow her sharp-edged words. For all she knew, Peder was bleeding to death. Alone.
Outside the arena waited a cart pulled by a mule. Nahuel sat inside.
She hurried to look over the edge. Peder lay on his side, his head cradled in Nahuel’s lap and his skin awash in smeared blood. “No.” She leaped into the cart and ran her hands over his bared chest. Someone had tossed his kilt over his hips but had not belted it.
He turned his head at her cry. “I’m fine.” The words came out strained and less than fine.
“You know better than to lie to me.”
He gave her a weak sheepish grin. “We won.”
Timothy whipped the reins and the cart rocked as they started forward.
Superficial cuts, the start of a few bruises, and swelling around his left eye. He didn’t look like he’d won. Where had all this blood come from? She rolled him on his back, even though he protested with a groan. There. A long slice ran along his flank. “He’ll need stitches.” The wound wasn’t deep enough to bleed this amount though. He shouldn’t even be conscious. She glanced at Nahuel. “What about you?”
He gave her a wan smile. “Nothing serious.” She noted his skin was covered in blood too. He caught where her gaze traveled. “Peder saved my life. He killed both hunters.”
Peder’s dull stare remained pinned to the side of the cart. “They were both mad and had to be put down.” The words sounded hollow. Sometimes when a shifter remained in his feral form too long he forgot how to act civil. And sometimes shifters were just born that way. They were usually killed as pups because of the danger to the pack when they grew too big and strong.
She stroked his matted hair. It couldn’t have been easy for him. He probably hadn’t taken another’s life before, but secretly, part of her was proud of him. This was an act of an alpha. Nahuel hadn’t felt the urge to kill, but Peder had.
They pulled into the slaver’s compound. Timothy rested his arms on the edge of the cart. “You both lost me a lot of money tonight.”
Peder snorted. “You sent us in to lose.”
“You proved me wrong. Didn’t you? Taught me a lesson about betting against my own. And on top of it, I have to pay for those shifters you killed.” He spat on the ground then gestured to his guards. Pointing to Nahuel, he said, “Take him back to the pen. Put these other two in a single cell and give her what she needs to fix him.”
She warned off the guards from touching Peder since she didn’t trust them to be gentle. “Can you walk?” Sliding her shoulder under his, she helped him to the side of the cart.
“Sure.” He stood and weaved, but with her guidance they made it to a hall parallel to the holding cage. Single cells much like the arena’s lined one side of the wall, all of which were empty.
She led them into the closest one and blinked at the cot. Why didn’t they give the slaves these cots if they weren’t being used?
Peder melted onto the bed and sighed as if bone weary.
“I need something to stitch his wounds, clean water, and bandages. Oh, and some hard spirits.”
The guard raised his eyebrow. “Anything else, princess?”
“No.” She waved him away and turned her back on them so they wouldn’t see how the title hurt. Peder had called her the same the first time they’d met, except he’d meant it as a compliment. She wouldn’t let them turn that endearment into something she’d hate.
Kele sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his hair. “I’m going to take care of you.”
Grabbing her wrist, he brought it to the gland behind his ear and gave her a temporary mark. It was how a male of their people let a female know he was interested in her as a mate. If she refused him, she only had to wash it off.
She stared at the spot where his scent now permeated her skin. No male had ever marked her.
“You’re mine, Kele. I mean it. I killed for it tonight.” A new darkness surrounded Peder. She’d seen it as soon as she’d laid eyes upon him in the cart. “They almost killed Nahuel when we stepped in the circle. But that’s not what made me do it. I needed to keep you safe and those shifters wouldn’t have cared about a silly ring in the dirt.” His glare never left hers as if he dared her to flinch as he told her what had happened. “When I attacked, I went straight for the kill. I didn’t even give them a chance.”
“You couldn’t have. They were a danger to everyone in that arena. It was foolish for the slavers to let them fight.” She brought her marked wrist to her nose and inhaled. He smelled of sunshine-warmed Eorthe, and she recalled what her father had said in one of their last conversations. Sometimes alphas have to kill to defend the pack. She wouldn’t have killed Tegrathe since their pack needed her, but Tegrathe would have killed her even though she was the pack’s only healer. At the time, she’d thought Tegrathe the better hunter, and maybe she was, but now Kele understood that she was the better alpha.
He leaned up on his elbow. “Do you truly believe that?”
“Being alpha means doing what’s best for the pack, not what’s best for you.” She caressed his cheek. “I know if you could, you would have spared them.” It was a mercy, not a crime, to have let those tortured souls free of their mad bodies. Staring into his spring-green eyes, she saw a part of her omega die and her heart broke. She loved him so much and unless they escaped, she wouldn’t be able to keep him. Just the thought of another touching him almost sent her over the feral edge.
The door to the cell opened and the guard set the things she’d asked for on the floor, along with a tray filled with food.
Timothy stood behind him. “I need him healed. We’ll begin battle training in the morning.”
She picked up what she needed to mend Peder. “That will tear his stitches. He needs a few days of rest first.”
“Stitch him well then because he only gets tonight.” Timothy closed and locked the door, leaving them alone with only the torchlight outside their cell for her to sew by.
“Bastard,” she shouted out the door.
“Kele.” Peder sat on the edge of the cot and waved her to him.
She hurried to his side. “Don’t move yet. I haven’t looked at your other wounds.”
“I don’t have any other wounds, just that one on my side.”
“But…” She gestured to all the blood and understanding finally dawned. “It’s all theirs.” She swallowed the hard lump in her throat.
“Something hungry lives inside me, Kele.” He set his hand over his heart. “I glimpsed it tonight and didn’t like what I saw.” He rubbed his chest.
“I feel bad.”
“Yeah, so do I.”
She grabbed a cloth and soaked it in the water then washed the cut in his side. It had stopped bleeding. “You were placed in a bad situation.” Seizing the bottle of hard spirits, she grimaced. It would sting and she loathed adding to his pain. She poured the fiery liquid over the open cut.
He hissed as it splashed over his flesh, then snatched the bottle and took a long drink.
She threaded the needle, then splashed more alcohol on it as well as her hands. Susan had explained this process to her and it had helped reduce infection within her pack.
Peder sat still as she sewed the edges on his wound together. He remained quiet throughout the process, just like when the vampire slaver, Huan, had branded him. “How do you do it?”
“What?”
“Not feel the pain.”
“Who says I don’t feel it?”
She stitched him again. “I do. You don’t even flinch.”
“If I start to scream because I hurt, I fear I’d never stop.” He took another swig of the bottle. “And this helps, though I know I’ll regret it tomorrow.”
She set aside the needle and examined her work in the flickering torchlight, deeming it satisfactory. She then wet the cloth in the bucket. “Stand.”
He gave her a confused look.
“I’m going to wash you and don’t want to wet the bed.”
He seemed to draw into himself but he rose to his feet without comment.
She started at his shoulders and worked her way over his fine-muscled back. His shoulders carried so much pain, no wonder they seemed strong. She ran the cloth down along his narrow hips and hesitated over his firm ass. With her hand, she caressed the smooth skin that covered the hard muscles.
He jumped and tossed her a heated look over his shoulder.
“What?” She fluttered her eyelashes like she’d seen so many omega females do in her den. “I was curious.”
“What else are you curious about?” He flashed her grin so charming her dress almost melted off her body.
She shook her head at his open invitation. “You’re hurt.”
He laughed, the sound so delightful in such a terrible place it seemed almost a sin. “You really are sweet, Kele, if you think that makes a difference to a male.” The welcoming heat in his gaze intensified.
She licked her parched lips and his gaze darted to her mouth. Kele resumed washing him before she succumbed to temptation. She had to let him heal like Timothy said. The slaver wouldn’t be easy on Peder in the morning. She washed the backs of his legs and moved to the front.
His cock jutted out and curved to his stomach, almost touching his navel. He caught her stare. “Do you want to touch it?”
“You’re incorrigible.” She rose and washed the smug grin off his face. “Behave.”
“Impossible.”
Now she was grinning. What a fool she’d become. A happy idiot slave. Goddess save her.
He rested his hands on her hips. “You’re beautiful.”
She washed a clean line in the center of his chest. The cut lines of his muscles drew her gaze like a lodestone. Hunters of her den were similarly built yet she hadn’t had trouble looking away when they’d been naked. She slowed her washing pace to fondle his chest through the cloth.
The nub of his nipple slid under the rough material and he moaned. “Bite it.”
She glanced up at him, unsure. He never appeared this tall before tonight.
He nodded.
A nervous laugh slipped from her lips. “Okay.” She sucked the rock-hard pebble in her mouth and rolled it between her teeth.
“Yes, like that. Now nip, but don’t bite it off.”
She did as instructed and sensed him arch his back. Kissing her way to the other one, she repeated the process.
Peder’s lips were parted as he watched her with intensity. Everything she’d dreamed of in a male was within her arms, dangled before her but unable to be kept. Cruel, that was what their Goddess had become. Unforgiving bitch finally granted her wish but only for single night.
Kele retreated from his arms and rinsed the cloth. Better to have one night in bliss than a lifetime of oblivion and what-ifs. She knelt before him and washed his legs again. Slowly. All the while his cock hovered close to her watering mouth.
“You’re killing me.” Peder moaned and rolled his hips. “Touch me, Kele.”
“I have been touching you.” She leaned forward and blew a light breeze over his shaft. Heat radiated from Peder and he shivered. With her tongue, she traced from base to tip.
One night, not long ago, she’d come across Ahote in the den’s inner gardens. An omega female was on her knees, sucking his cock. Many said omegas were the least powerful in a pack, but at that moment, the expression on Ahote’s face revealed he would have given her anything to never stop. That was a power in itself and she wanted to see that look on Peder’s face—except she didn’t have that female’s experience. It appeared simple enough.
Her heart had been transformed into a terrified bird, taking to fluttering uncontrollably within her chest. “I want to try something.”
“Anything.”
“Are you sure?” She rested her hand on his stomach and rubbed her cheek against his groin.
He sucked in a sharp breath. “You can’t do anything to me that I won’t like.”
“You’ll need to guide me. I want to do it right.” She angled his cock toward her mouth, sliding it inside along her tongue.
He hissed out a breath and stepped closer, burying his fingers in her hair. “There is a Goddess.” The skin covering his iron-hard shaft felt velvety soft.
She imagined it penetrating her body as it did her mouth and she moaned. The tip hit the back of her throat and she gagged a little. Horrified, she glanced up.
He didn’t appear to have noticed.
She slid him out and back in, increasing her pace.
“Use your tongue, Kele. Caress me with it.” He pushed the hair away from her face and watched her closely. “Oh, fuck.” His hips moved a little, matching her rhythm.
Molding her tongue to his cock, she licked and sucked until she saw Peder’s look.
“Oh Goddess, Kele.” He closed his eyes as if he couldn’t bear watching her take him in her mouth anymore. “I want more than this.”
She hesitated. She didn’t know how to give more.
He pulled out of her mouth and lifted her so fast a wave of dizziness spun her head. With a few quick tugs, he guided her dress over her head and yanked her into his strong arms, slamming his mouth to hers. This wasn’t like last night’s kiss, full of exploration and passion. Tonight, Peder took her like he was a male dying for breath and she was his only air. Hungry and savage, he claimed her. Nails biting into her skin, hard cock pushed against her stomach, and the throb of desire pulsing in between her legs.
Lying on the bed, he turned her around and laid her on top until she straddled his face. Where were they going with this? She tried to catch her breath when his tongue probed between her labia going directly for her aching entrance.
To her dismay, she mewled and arched into his unexpected touch. She fell to her hands, her forehead resting on his stomach as he kissed her between the thighs just like he had her mouth. “Peder.” She stretched the cry of his name, not caring what the guards outside heard.
His cock rubbed the side of her face as he thrust his hips in the air.
She guided it back to her mouth, needing to be connected to him in the same way he was to her. Needed him to be as wanton. A bead of moisture dripped from the tip of his cock and she moaned at the eorthy taste.
Peder moved his mouth over her aching bud, massaging it with his hard tongue, and slid his fingers inside her.
Like a knot loosening, she came undone. She climaxed so hard she howled, and so did he as he came as well. Exhausted, she flopped on top of him.
He guided her limp limbs until he held her against him. Burying his face in her hair, he made a satisfied noise. “I never want this night to end.” Like a protective cocoon, he wrapped his arms and legs around her. “Thank you for taking care of me.” He sounded wistful. “I’m usually the one doing that job.”
“Not with me. I will always do my best to care for you.”
“A hunter taking care of an omega? Sounds like a mating.”
She cupped his face in her hands. “There is nothing omega about you, Peder.”
“You think I’m hunter trained now?” He gave her a teasing smile.
“No, I think you’re something more.”
“That’s the sex talking. Maybe after a few more rounds, I can get you to call me a god.”
She laughed and clapped her hand over her mouth. “Stop that. I’m being serious.”
“I know you are and you’re sweet to think that.” He kissed her forehead and curled around her once more. After a quiet spell, he whispered in a sleepy voice, “Will you keep my mark?”
“For as long as I can,” she mumbled back.
“Good.”
The next morning, they were roused by the clang of the cell door swinging open and hitting the wall.
“Rise and shine, Goldie.”
Peder rolled on top of her and covered her nudity from Timothy’s prying eyes.
“There’s more to you than your good looks. Time to train.” He clapped his hands loudly. “I gave you your night. Now it’s time to work for your keep.”
“And hers.” Peder glared at the slaver.
“No, you’re not that good, wolf. She’ll have to earn her own keep from now on.”