Born to Be Bound Read online

  Claire had been forced into hiding the very next day, when the unrest inspired the lower echelons of population to challenge for dominance. Where there had been order, suddenly all Thólos knew was anarchy. Those awful men just took any Omega they could find; killing mates and children in order to keep the women—to breed them or fuck until they died.

  "What is your name?"

  She opened her eyes, elated he was listening. "Claire."

  "How many of you are there, little one?"

  Trying to focus on a spot on the wall instead of the large male and where his beautiful engorged dick was challenging the zipper of his trousers, she turned her head to where her body craved to nest, staring with hunger at the collection of colorful blankets, pillows—a bed where everything must be saturated by his scent.

  An extended growl warned, "You are losing your impressive focus, little one. How many?"

  Her voice broke. "Less than a hundred... We lose more every day."

  "You have not eaten. You're hungry." It was not a question, but spoken with such a low vibration that his hunger for her was apparent.

  "Yesss." It was almost a whine. She was so near to pleading, and it wasn't going to be for food.

  The prolonged answering growl of the beast compelled a gush of slick to wet her so badly, she was sitting in a slippery puddle. Doubling over, frustrated and needy, she sobbed, "Please don't make that noise," and immediately the growl changed pitch. Shepherd began to purr for her.

  There was something so infinitely soothing in that low rumble that she sighed audibly and did not bolt at his slow, measured approach. She watched him with such attention, her huge, dilated pupils a clear mark that she was so very close to falling completely into estrous.

  Even when Shepherd crouched down low, he towered over her, all bulging muscle and musky sweat. She tried to say the words, "Only instincts..." but jumbled them so badly their meaning was lost.

  Starting with the scarf, he unwound the items that tainted her beautiful pheromones, purring and stroking every time she whimpered or shifted nervously. When he pulled her forward to take away the reeking cloak, her eyes drew level with his confined erection. Claire's uncovered nose sniffed automatically at the place where his trousers bulged. In that moment all she wanted, all that she had ever wanted, was to be fucked, knotted, and bred by that male.

  Only instincts...

  Shepherd pressed his face to her neck and sucked in a long breath, groaning as his cock jumped and began to leak more to please her. He had gone into the rut, there was no changing that fact, and with it came a powerful need to see the female filled with seed; to soothe what was driving her to rub against her hand in such a frenzy.

  The words were almost lost in her breath, "You need to lock me in a room for a few days..."

  A feral grin spread. "You are locked in a room, little one, with the Alpha who killed ten men and two of his sworn Followers to bring you here." He stroked her hair, petting her because something inside told him his hands could calm her. "It's too late now. Your defiant celibacy is over. Either you submit willingly to me where I will rut you through your heat, or you may leave out that door where my men will, no doubt, mount you in the halls once they smell you."

  A knock came. Shepherd rose up tall before her, staring down with open demand that she submit and obey. Dominance established, he went to the door and pulled back the lock. Claire saw the same soldier, the smaller Beta with the far too vibrant blue eyes, and found him sniffing the air in her direction, growing openly excited at the intoxicating blend of pheromones her slick and sweat were pumping into the air.

  Shepherd was right. He had taken her from what would have been a mass rape, saved her from damage and most likely death. He'd listened, though he had not answered her, and men were already salivating in the hall. The understanding of the situation passed openly across her face. Claire nodded, estrous clouding her judgment.

  Something was muttered between the men, ending in, "...only Betas on guard."

  A tray was handed over, laden with food, another armful piled with bedding and pillows, and she went white. They had already known Shepherd would have her, and had prepared accordingly. The little chat had no purpose but to make her think she had a choice. He saw her expression and the rumble of his purring returned.

  She had to eat... he had to feed her before it began. The tray was set on the floor where she crouched, his order loud enough to grab her attention away from where his pants bulged. "Eat."

  As she picked at the unseen food, he began to undress. All armor, every under-layer, was carefully removed and organized, the man having no shame about the state of his Da'rin marked body or the jutting cock proudly on display. But more than the visual, it was the smell—the scent of a rutting Alpha, aroused and swollen for her—that made reason completely flee her mind. Everything hummed in that incessant purr, reminding her that he was what her body needed, and she was salivating for it... even if she was scared.

  Shepherd began to pace, naked, rolling his shoulders as he prowled, all the while watching her and sniffing the air over and over. "Eat more... drink the water."

  Voice downright nasty, threatening, Claire hissed as if he should have known Omegas could not eat during estrous, "I don't want food!"

  No, she wanted the thing that was supposed to happen. He was supposed to be fucking her. Why was he waiting? She came to her feet and he was there, the dominant male growling so loud her eyes rolled back in her skull.

  A rending of fabric preceded cool air over fevered skin.

  He was all around her, tugging away unnecessary things like clothing. The smell of him, the raw sweat, sent her cunt to seeping. Sucking in great panting breaths of the fertile Omega, Shepherd sought out to stroke uncovered flesh, a bit surprised all her body hair had been permanently removed—recognizing the precaution the Omega had taken to help mask her scent.

  She was so far gone, her little tongue already licking at his skin, completely high on the taste and smell, that when his finger swiped drops of his leaking pre-come to run over her lips, she moaned loudly and sucked it deep into her mouth.

  Claire was so small compared to his mass, easy to move where he wanted. Her back hit the bed, Shepherd standing between her slender spread legs, staring down with wide, hungry eyes at the river of slick that came forth. Little pink lips were spread, the swollen glans of his cock lined up where she seemed far too small to accept an organ so large. With one hand on her chest, petting the twisting thing, Shepherd pressed forward, breaching her slippery womb, and gave a full body shudder at the sound of her desperate cry.

  The woman had not lied... she was so tight it made his cock pulsate more fluid to aid her. He only got halfway before she began to whine and squirm. Alphas were big and Shepherd was huge, his girth massive, and there was only so much space inside her body.

  "Open for me, little one," Shepherd growled, using his thumbs to stretch her lower lips further apart, thrusting forward, gaining hard earned inch by inch while the female watched a cock as thick as her forearm slowly disappear between her legs.

  When the expanding thrust bottomed out, when all her tightness enveloped that hard length... utter bliss. She needed it, was moaning and arching, grinding her sex against his pubic bone. The stretch was divine; the vibration from his purrs, the smell. When he began to pull out, she showed her teeth and snarled at a man many times her size. Shepherd seemed amused, and then snapped his hips, burying that massive cock to the hilt, knowing she would squeal.

  Claire learned quickly that he liked her little spurts of temper, but it was Shepherd who dominated the exchange. He rutted with the vigor she needed, hard and fast, building up that furious pulse in her core. When she began to roll her hips, eyes closed and lost in the insatiable need to mate, he took her by the scruff of the neck and barked at her to open, to look at the male fucking her, to recognize his prowess.

  Those harshly snarled words sent her over the edge. Perfect fulfillment exploded. Claire felt every s
ingle muscle in her pussy jump to life, saw his eyes grow vicious and feral, felt his knot expand as he ground in, hooking behind her pelvic bone, locking them as deep as he could go. Jerking under the intensity of the orgasm, she felt that first hot gush of semen, heard him roar like a beast while she screamed. Shepherd came again, more of that copious fluid, her body's need finally met, and with his third liquid surge she blacked out.

  It could not have been long before she woke, as his knot was still binding their bodies together. But he had shifted them. He lay below her, her body sprawled on top, Claire's ear to his heart. The serenity from the mating was fading and the impulse to fuck was back again. The urge, the only thing that defined her at that moment, grew beyond her when her tongue darted out to lick the salt of sweat from his chest, to entice the tattooed male to begin again.

  The instant the knot began to diminish she registered the loss of precious fluid, felt his seed leaking out of her, and whined. As if knowing her thoughts, Shepherd dragged his fingers in the little river and brought his ejaculate to her mouth. The smell alone drove her wild, the taste a thousand times more.

  "They would have broken an Omega so small." Shepherd watched, fascinated, as she greedily sucked his fingers, explaining quietly as if educating a female who should have known better, "Not shown restraint at a scent so overpowering."

  She didn't want him to talk; she wanted him to fuck her again. A large hand came to her hair, rubbing at the scalp of the female, soothing her with pets and purrs while the knot slowly abated so he could thrust against her jerking hips.

  The second mating was much less frantic, far more fulfilling, and when he had filled her again, Claire began to lose the edge that was making her so ferocious. It was his hands, maybe, lifting and lowering her at the tempo that made her cunt sing, or the look in his eyes, the unabashed lustful pleasure.

  So that's what it was like to mate an Alpha.

  He seemed to know her thoughts, and by the crinkles at the corner of Shepherd's eyes, she could tell he was amused with her. He cupped her face, tender and gentle, and she didn't feel overpowered or forced... She felt mistakenly safe in the delirium.

  It was not until a day later, when he took her from behind at the peak of estrous, his full weight on her back, that she sensed trouble. The high had not faded, the slow building fervor of her heat nowhere near breaking... but he roared, began to squeeze and bruise; to restrain her. Fighting the hold, writhing, Claire had a sobering fear the tyrant might bite her so savagely it would scar—that he intended to leave claiming marks.

  Worst of all, instinctively, she wanted him to. Her estrous-high mind wanted to bond to the monster that had destroyed Thólos and made her life hell, simply because he was the one who was fucking her.

  "And you will!" he growled in her ear.

  She told him no, panting it over the sound of his skin slapping against the fleshy mounds of her ass. Sharp teeth came to her shoulder, Shepherd's knot growing bulbous until the Alpha could no longer thrust and she could not squirm away. She screamed in pain and pleasure, sobbing as his teeth ripped into her skin, Shepherd growling long and low with her flesh torn from his bite.

  She climaxed from the claiming, rhythmically squeezing, drawing the jets of fluid from his dick while he crooned at her and lapped up the blood.

  Claire cried even as he purred and petted, wept from the hazy recognition of the total loss of control she'd so carefully cultivated in her life. When ten minutes later her body sent out signals it was time for Shepherd to fuck her again, he pulled her beneath him and was gentle; caressing the woman he'd stolen even though her tears fell throughout the whole coupling.

  When it was over, when he had wrung out another explosion that chased away the urge of chemical madness, a calm descended on them both. Claire briefly slept against a man she did not know, pressing as close as she could, in the exact place the brute expected her to rest.

  #

  In the end, it took three days to break the starving Omega's heat. She was sleeping, nesting deep into the blankets covered in his semen and her slick—blissed out. Toying with a strand of her sooty black hair, Shepherd mulled over just what to do with what was now his possession, impressed that the little female was plucky enough to dress in corpses' clothes and parade into a pack of Alphas just to speak to him. And she would have died if he had not found her scent worth killing for.

  Claire would also be sore now that estrous had ended and her mind was not clouded with the insatiable drive to mate. He was certain she would also be resentful of the binding he'd forced. But that was the lot for Omegas, the way of nature. He wanted her, he took. End of story.

  Silver eyes ran over the lithe dancer's body she possessed, the Alpha growling at the obvious fact his Omega was underfed. It was getting him into such a mood that when a knock came to the door, he covetously grabbed what was his and roared.

  The commotion—being jerked against a mountain of heat—woke Claire, and she hissed in discomfort. Everything felt sticky, a male pawing over bruises that did not appreciate the attention. The words he spat were in another language—an outskirts' lost tongues, she assumed. Remembering who he was and what he'd done to her, she pushed away from Shepherd's chest, only to feel his arms grow impossibly constrictive. The conversation between the Follower on the other side of the door and her captor stretched on, Shepherd tightening his grip each time she squirmed.

  When it was over, Shepherd swung his skull her way, barking, "You need to sleep more." It was not a suggestion and she could clearly sense he was provoked.

  "The Omegas." That was the reason she had come to him... not to have him knot her for three full days.

  Mercurial eyes diminished between narrowed lids. Shepherd sniffed her once, then he growled, "Your assumption it would be plausible to have a private distribution of provisions is flawed. It would only draw attention to your group. All Omegas will be delivered into my care and segregated from the population in the Undercroft. Should any come into heat, an Alpha will be chosen from amongst my followers. Most will be bonded at their next estrous."

  "What? No!" Claire's voice was pure horror. "That's not what we want. They need food, not to be made into slaves."

  "This is best. You are Omegas, fragile, and it is not your place to decide such things."

  Everything about the male was suddenly repulsive. Claire wanted him off of her and tried to scoot away. "I won't tell you where they are."

  As he smirked, a scar across his lips made the expression sinister. "Then they will starve and be picked off one by one. That is your decision, little one. If given to me they would be protected."

  "From whom? The very men who are raping and knotting girls who have not reached maturity are the same you surround yourself with."

  Shepherd was petting her, touching her hair as if she were not upset, as if she didn't loathe him in that moment, and it was setting her into a temper. When she tried to bat his hand away, he snarled and pinned her beneath him. His teeth went to the crook of her neck and he smelled, growling at the sweetness while using his thigh to pry her legs apart.

  Claire felt his cock pulsing against her belly and grew frightened. There was no estrous, no abundant slick, and she was sore. Shepherd didn't care. He reminded her who was dominant in one sharp thrust, taking his Omega with no purrs or caresses; knotting without her climax to urge his seed forth. When the powerful spurts bathed her womb, there was no settling peace, only frustration and tears.

  When he seemed to have caught his breath, the unwelcome press of his mouth came to her ear. "You will sleep more."

  His fingers went back to toying with her hair while Claire cried herself beyond exhaustion, embraced by a man who lived up to his reputation as a monster.

  Chapter 2

  It was dark the next time she woke. Though Shepherd was not physically there, he was still humming inside her. The new bond stuck like a greasy string to her ribcage, burrowing steadily. Claire had only heard descriptions of the pair-bond and read
about it in the Archives. Each Omega experienced the link differently. Some compared it to a wellspring; an endless offering of cool water—others to a knife wound that tore and twisted their insides. Hers felt like a worm, writhing and going deeper; a subjugation and a leash. She already hated it. It was unwelcome, invasive, and something she could not ignore.

  At that moment, it hummed in an off-putting, out of tune twang. Like a bad note on a violin.

  Feeling her way around the walls in search of a switch, Claire stumbled into unfamiliar furniture and cursed. The feeling of the bathroom door came under her fingers. She went inside and flicked on the light.

  Her reflection stared back at her.

  Naked and so covered in Shepherd's semen it was caked in her hair, she looked shattered. In the hazy, blissful high of their frenzy, he'd fed it to her, rubbed it into her skin—saturated her inside and out with that viscous liquid. If he had not spent so much time running his fingers through her hair, she was certain it would have been a matted mess.

  Disgusted, Claire approached the stranger in the mirror. In the months since she'd last seen her body reflected back at her, she had become so thin. Her ribs protruded, the bones of her hips stuck out. She'd grown skeletal. But it was not the emaciation that won her attention; it was the inflamed bite mark on her shoulder, the swollen red scabs throbbing.

  Shepherd had bitten her so deeply she would carry the scar of his claiming forever.

  Tracing a finger over the two crescent wounds, Claire felt shame in her ignorance. She didn't fully understand how the bond was formed; a lifetime of concealing her nature had made it dangerous to ask too many questions. All she'd known was that it involved marking and an Alpha's initiation of the act.

  Maybe it was just instincts.

  Only instincts...

  A sinking despair grew in her belly, made worse by the still thrumming string her body was trying to reject. Claire pulled in a deep breath and scanned the rest of the simple lavatory. Either the man was fastidiously tidy or he had an underling clean for him. The sink was gleaming white, the mirror polished, not even a speck of toothpaste on it.