Corrupted (Alpha's Claim Book 5) Page 13

  “You need a title. What else would I call you? Brenya? That is too familiar for the mate of a king. Next, you’d expect me to allow servants to call me Lucia.”

  Distracted, calculating the why of what was before her, Brenya muttered to the distraction, “He’s not a king.”

  Speaking of the not king…

  “Brenya!” The name was shouted with a bite, sailing down the halls as if Jacques had cracked a whip toward the entire party for insolence.

  Raging as he rushed, physically puffed up and eyes threatening murder, the Commodore roared, “You were ordered to escort my mate immediately to me, under the highest level of security. And I find you loitering in the halls!”

  Standing at attention, the guard standing point said, “Sir, our orders expressly state that we may not touch or speak to Brenya Perin unless her life is in imminent peril.”

  “It is!” Viciously, Jacques Bernard shoved the armed Alpha aside. As the guard careened off the wall, the Commodore made a rough grab at Brenya’s arm.

  She had witnessed Jacques in various terrifying states, but she had never seen him like this.

  The physical effect was inescapable. Eyes wide, she backed away.

  Or tried to. He had her so tightly there was nothing to do but swallow her racing heart and try to keep up as he outpaced the party.

  When her feet caught on her skirts, he dragged her, practically ripping her arm from the socket.

  Behind them, the guards and a suddenly silent Lucia trailed.

  Once the racing party reached a door flanked by further security, Jacques pulled Brenya around so he might take account of the panting, startled woman in his grip.

  It was only then it seemed to occur to him that he was hurting her and that she could hardly breathe.

  His grip on her arm altered from cruel to gently kneading. As if he might chase away what smarted. As if he wanted to offer her comfort.

  Drinking down her wide-eyed expression, he quickly smoothed her hair back into place with an expertise that outweighed that of Lucia.

  Accent heavy, the Omega interjected, “Great Commodore, she refused cosmetics.”

  Snarling at the interruption, the Commodore turned his attention from Brenya to the supplicating Omega. He measured the woman with her eyes demurely turned to the floor, her head at a subtle bow. “You have done well enough, I suppose, Lucia.” Addressing the guard at Lucia’s side, Jacques barked an order. “Escort this woman to the security chief’s residence. Lock her in.”

  If there was any disappointment having her short-lived freedom stripped away, Lucia did not betray it. She curtseyed, and she obeyed.

  In a much softer tone, Jacques blended a purr into his words. “Brenya, I need you to catch your breath for me. When you walk into this room, you will walk in as a queen. Remember that you represent every life under this Dome. That you have made an oath to them. I caution you to choose your words well, and think of how much you love…” It seemed as if he was going to say “me,” but the Alpha hesitated and offered, “your people,” instead.

  The violence, the rushing, the lack of sleep, Brenya’s failure to free Jules Havel or see Annette and her baby safe, the disappointment and the regret… the entire night was impacting her ability to think straight.

  Worse was the anxiety tolling through the pair-bond. His anxiety. It pinged about her throat, weaving itself into her confusion… because he didn’t seem angry with her.

  The way he was petting and fretting, how he obsessively touched her face.

  He seemed afraid for her.

  And he was still fidgeting with her clothing and organizing her hair just so, tucking loose strands behind her unpierced ears—forcing her necklace to lay flat where prongs had snagged the lace across her chest.

  Cupping her cheeks, Jacques urged her to meet his gaze. “You look like a queen. Beautiful. Everything any man might desire in a mate.”

  Blinking, unsure what to say, because none of this made sense, she felt him place a soft kiss on her mouth. It lingered, followed by another on her forehead, before he tucked her into his elbow and ordered the doors to be opened.

  The small, plain room was crowded, yet heavy silence waited.

  All this fuss for nothing but a cramped COM room?

  Ancil was there, scowling. The set of his ticking jaw a clear threat. Other faces were familiar to her, Brenya having seen the men at the state dinner. The tense crowd each wore an embroidered coat; each had whatever hair they grew on their heads caught in a tight braid. All of them stared at her. Expectation, judgment, dislike, intrigue.

  Brenya had nothing for them. No explanation. No apology.

  They deserved nothing from her.

  So her attention went elsewhere as Jacques led her to the center of the tight space. She observed communications panels far more advanced than any she’d ever seen. The layout of the instruments was complex, the interconnected workings of the machines outside her forte.

  These weren’t like the glorious interworking of a clock. They were not engineering marvels. They were outside of her scope and training. Nothing like the controls of the ship she had stolen, there was no intuitive understanding of what those knobs and consoles might do.

  It seemed a strange room for judgment and pomp.

  A man cleared his throat. At her side, Jacques tensed in response.

  Odd.

  Yet it stole her attention away from the communications panel.

  “Good evening, Brenya.”

  That voice did not belong in that place with those people.

  It certainly didn’t need to affect courtesy, as if the Beta who’d spoken possessed any measure of kindness.

  Blood running cold at the sight of Ambassador Jules Havel politely nodding her way, Brenya refused to play whatever game this was. Voice cutting, she let him know exactly how she felt. “It is not a good evening.”

  It had been one of the worst evenings.

  How he had gone from starved, unwashed prisoner who’d had nothing but a bucket to relieve himself in, to a polished and finely dressed free man who appeared to command the room did not compute.

  Looking upon him, knowing that he did not forgive, that his bitterness cost Annette and her child a chance for life, she saw nothing but a living amalgamation of her disappointment with the world. And Brenya let him know it when honey eyes met shocking blue.

  With a dip of his head, it seemed the Ambassador agreed. “I know you are tired, and I concede that you are correct. It has not been a good evening for some.”

  “That is enough, Ambassador,” Jacques growled in warning. “Brenya Perin has been brought as was requested.”

  Smirking, Jules stared right at her. The unwavering void of him yawning open, as if he mentally flicked a finger for her to approach.

  She did not.

  Rooted, she stared right back at him, seeing all the way right into the emptiness of such a man.

  It was from that place he spoke, honest in his evil. “Specific events of the evening, and fruitless attempts at negotiation by the leadership of Bernard Dome, have done nothing to spare you this moment.”

  “I never asked you to spare me.” She had asked him to save Annette and her baby. “I begged you to spare my people. I offered—”

  “Be quiet.” It was as if his order had come from inside her and not from the male’s lips. She jerked back from the force of it, pulling at the collar of her dress as if he’d stolen her breath.

  Turning his horrible, burning gaze away, Ambassador Jules Havel spoke to the screens. “Chancellor Shepherd of Greth Dome, husband to Queen Svana, may I introduce my mate.”

  How had Brenya not noticed what waited on the screens? Their display of a massive male practically blotting out the sun behind him. That there shouldn’t even be sun, because it was the middle of the night. That the insignia on the wall was in a language Brenya could not read, and that the man himself had similar black marks edging from his collar and up his neck as one Jules Havel.

&
nbsp; She knew who this was. Titles meant nothing. Four words were enough to name him. “You destroyed Thólos Dome.”

  Though his projection towered over the party due to the height of the screens, Brenya was certain he would tower over them in person as well. And he seemed pleased with her statement, though it didn’t show in his reaction. It was in the way he held her gaze—that he allowed her the time to look upon him and absorb all that could be measured from a projection. That she might memorize the color of the walls behind him. The simple lines of a functional desk so unlike the filigreed furnishings of Central. There was a lack of embellishment or ornamentation in the man’s clothes.

  He wore a gold band on his finger.

  The men packed and loudly breathing in the room looked ridiculous in comparison: powdered and painted and dripping with shiny things.

  Fingers still hooked in her collar so she might take a full breath, Brenya understood at last why she had been brought here. “I stole your ship, abducted your Ambassador, and attempted to fly to Thólos. Once there, I intended to make repairs on the Dome.”

  The man on the monitor, his voice impressively deep, lacking all melody yet interesting on the ear, spoke. “Why?”

  Such a simple question with such complicated answers. Swallowing, sad, Brenya said, “Because I had yet to understand that there is nowhere to run.”

  As if the response were satisfactory, the Chancellor across the world scowled at the Alpha standing at her side. “Step away from her, Jacques Bernard. I will confer with the mate of Jules Havel without your interference.”

  19

  To Brenya’s utter astonishment, Jacques obeyed an order from a male oceans away. Low warning growl emanating from the Alpha at her side—the male aggressive in both posture and scent—gently untucking her fingers from his arm, he gave her a lingering look. One Brenya did not return.

  Her attention was solely focused on the man who could command a Commodore.

  This Shepherd stared at her with the same acute attention.

  This man who Jacques confessed he could not defeat in war.

  Which in itself was a bizarre concept.

  Brenya had not put much consideration into the whispers Jacques lavished on her ear when she was under him. There had been greater concerns to address since she’d woken with her head split open for two relative strangers to pick through.

  Staring, Brenya had already cataloged every last exposed scar on this Shepherd’s flesh, noted that his hair fell at altering angles. Patches of skin had been torn from his skull, upsetting the pattern of growth. His knuckles were ragged from repeated breaks and no doubt ached deep in the bone.

  His nose had been damaged on more than one occasion.

  Shepherd’s lips—like the pulled flesh under her eye—did not lay properly. His top lip dragged upward. But unlike her own face, Brenya did not imagine people would consider his imperfection a disfigurement.

  Leaning his mass closer to the camera, Shepherd said, “You are not afraid of me.”

  Maybe she should be, but she wasn’t. Not that she didn’t comprehend that her next breath was in this man’s worn hands. As Lucia said, Brenya had been brought here to be judged. Just not for the crime she had assumed.

  Standing in the center of a crowded COM room, dressed in white that contrasted the black walls of a work zone. Men at her back, at her side, staring with scorn, entreating, smelling, ruining the air of the room with their blended loud stench.

  The Ambassador, dressed in black, the simplicity of his clothing a beacon in a room of artifice and glitter, came to stand at her side.

  Stealing the space that had been Jacques’ only moments before, he addressed the man across the seas. “She is not afraid of you.”

  Maneuvering whatever it was that made up a pair-bond—an attachment that didn’t belong to him, that should not have existed at all—the Ambassador’s statement only disclosed a fraction of her thoughts. She was plenty afraid: for Annette, for the baby, for the friend whose name was not permitted to pass her lips.

  Whatever Thólos had done to earn this man’s temper, Brenya would not see it done in Bernard Dome. Not because of her mistakes. “I am responsible for the situation regarding Ambassador Jules Havel. I did not know he was on the shi—”

  The Alpha on the screen interrupted. “Do you understand what a pair-bond entails?”

  No. “In theory. It has been described to me as something that would help me find happiness in what it means to be Omega. The moment it was forged was painful, and I have had little time to navigate the mental….” Brenya could not find a word. What did her opinion on a pair-bond matter anyway? “As I was saying, if I had not stolen Jules Havel’s ship, he would not be inside me. Nor should he be. Your Ambassador should be free to return home.” There was really no other way to put it.

  Had her voice just wavered? Why was it so hot in that room?

  A brush of another’s hand came to the back of Brenya’s fingers. A reminder that the man she had harmed stood at her side, that he was watching her in place of acknowledging the man.

  The warmth in the room, the only scent that was not laced with tension, came from him.

  Gathering up her fingers as if it were normal for them to touch, Jules held them tight.

  As if he had not just mocked her when she’d come to save him. As if he had not refused to help good people leave a bad place.

  Behind them, Jacques growled, he cursed, yet he didn’t step forward and tear them apart.

  Brenya found then that her eyes had moved to where her fingers intertwined with a stranger’s, that she was confused at the fact that something so simple offered comfort. A man who had promised to hurt her.

  It was clear who held all the power in the room. It wasn’t the Alpha on the screen, it was the Beta silently urging her to meet his poisonous gaze.

  Eyes should not be that shade of blue.

  “You were kind to me on the ship when I was frightened. You offered explanations no one else had. You kept your distance when I was, um…”

  Jules, his voice deep and smooth as a flowing river, said, “In your first estrous, Brenya Perin.”

  Cheeks red from shame, she nodded.

  “The men of Bernard Dome do not understand what took place that day any better than you do. Through a stupid act of pride, in manipulating an experience that can never be undone, they have earned an enemy. And no, Brenya Perin, I will not grant them mercy. But I will demand that you understand that the consequence these men must face is not because you stole my ship when you thought to escape an abusive Alpha. It is not because you were ignorant of the situation in Thólos and the agreement between two governments that no aid might be offered to survivors of that fallen Dome.”

  Soft threats in gentle words, no emotion or mental signal. A clear threat.

  Because she was correct. No pair-bond would keep this man from hurting her.

  Everyone was watching her, because whatever happened in this room hinged upon her completely. He was still holding her hand in both of his, and now she understood the gesture. It wasn’t comfort; it was control.

  Of Jacques Bernard who could do nothing to prevent the Beta from touching her, though he seethed through the link.

  Facing him fully to say what no male in the room had dared, she laid her free hand atop his grip and said what they had left to her. “Jules, what was done to you was wrong, and I am sorry for my part in it. I thought I could make it right, and I don’t truly understand what to offer or how to undo it. Teach me how, and I will try. But if you attempt to hurt my people, I will kill you.”

  “Ms. Perin,” the man on the monitor with a voice of coarse rocks and scars called. “A moment of your time, please.”

  She would not have looked at him, not as she waited for Jules to address a threat from a woman he understood was capable of things no one else in that room might grasp. Yet Jules pulled one of his hands from between hers and lay a finger to the side of her chin so Brenya might break their extended
stare and turn her attention to the looming Shepherd.

  He was still watching her in that way of his. The same way she watched.

  Unblinking.

  “Five men in Central died tonight from Red Consumption. I released the virus into Bernard Dome in response to your government’s treatment of my Ambassador and failure to uphold our agreement regarding the exchange of Omegas for orange trees.”

  That was why the city was in lockdown! It wasn’t because she’d been caught. In fact, neither Jules nor Shepherd had informed the leadership of Bernard Dome of what she’d tried to do.

  Why?

  Holding tighter to Jules Havel’s hand as if he might give her strength instead of pain, Brenya shook her head. Because the things she was hearing could not be true.

  Shepherd continued, “It was a controlled release, fully contained—the virus has been destroyed by incineration protocol and will not spread from that location. So understand that the day Jules Havel dies, so too will every last soul in your Dome choke to death on their blood. Be cautious of your threats.”

  The screen changed to display an accelerated recording of five horrible, choking deaths, the bodies left lying in their fluids for ages before a delayed incineration protocol began. The camera burned, and the story ended. The story was so much more than the deaths. It was the very terrifying fact that a terrorist who had already destroyed one Dome for reasons she didn’t know, had conquered another, and now had power over hers.

  She didn’t even know why she said it, the words small. “I have never seen anyone die.”

  “So long as Jules Havel thrives, you will not see it again.”

  All Brenya could think of was the Beta servant on the screen who had done nothing but her duty. How she had reached out for help and the men had ignored her. How her death would be explained away as reassignment.

  Not one of her sisters in Beta Sector would know to mourn her.

  Tears spilling, Brenya freed her hand from the Beta’s and gave her back to Chancellor Shepherd to snarl at Jacques Bernard—a full, threatening growl that would have seen her aggressively raped were Jacques in the situation to punish her. “You told me that the Bernard Dome could not defeat the leader of Greth! Yet you thought to leash a rabid dog as if there would be no consequence. You said Jules Havel could never hurt me, while you were hurting me. You forced both him and myself into a pair-bond only you desired. You starved and imprisoned a person you described as a terrorist. A man who had already destroyed an entire civilization. Jacques Bernard, this is your fault! You allowed dangerous men inside my home for OMEGAS! For sex! Every one of you in this room is the reason that Beta on the screen died terrified, away from her sisters. Your greed.”