Broken Captive: A Reverse Harem Omegaverse Dark Romance (Wren's Song Book 3) Page 4

  The life he’d paint for her… how many years had she dreamed of such things? It was as if he plucked the thoughts out of her head and offered them to her on a silver platter.

  But all that sparkled in his display was poisoned. And she knew that.

  Knew better.

  Because there were no decent Alphas.

  And she would never get to go up top. Never sit at a fancy restaurant’s table. Never smile while draped in diamonds.

  But Toby in his unintentional cruelty was also relentless.

  Once when she was still aching from Kieran’s attention, when she was tired and frightened and lonely for her boys, Toby’s ministrations and his measured promises of the perfect life cracked her armor.

  Wren had cried.

  Toby had seen it.

  But instead of raging at her for breaking character, he set the brush aside and pulled her to his chest.

  Purring, he let her splinter, felt her desolation through the tenuous link, and did nothing more than hold her.

  More importantly, when she was finished and shaking, scared for what she’d done, he promised not to tell.

  Caspian and Kieran didn’t need to know.

  But the First Alpha had felt her wretchedness through the link, and came in a high temper to see what had happened. By then, Toby had dried her eyes, kissed her lips swollen and pink, and left her exactly the way Caspian liked to see her best.

  Clean. Virginal.

  Shy.

  Nervous.

  The distraction slowed Caspian’s angry breath.

  With a stroke down her smoothed hair, Toby said, “It was a coughing fit. Nothing more.”

  “She’s supposed to be getting better!” The First Alpha paced the length of his room, openly angry at the intangible thing that kept her chest ratting despite breathing treatments, special food, and a smorgasbord of pharmaceuticals.

  Truthfully, Wren was.

  Though her chest still ached, she could draw in a deeper breath than she had been able to in years. In the last ten days, her body had begun to fill out, breasts ripening and rear getting plump. She’d always been extremely pale, but now her skin was no longer sallow and sunken.

  There was still ample mending to be done, but her health was much improved, considering…

  For the first time in years, she was actually sick of a eating the same thing day in and day out. A luxury of feeling only the well-fed might ever know.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” Toby pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. “Be a good girl, sunshine. Caspian’s had a hard day.”

  Caspian… who brought his other whores to the den she nested in. Who would barge in and throw back her covers, so he might reach for and stroke her ankle while he looked her over every single morning.

  Whatever he saw determined which woman he’d summon to service him.

  Usually it was Rosie, days on her knees having left their mark in rug burn and scrapes. But Wren had also seen a lovely black-haired doll. A red-head with smiling lips and a vacant expression. And others who’d faded into the background.

  Some arrived obviously high, eyes half-lidded and swaying on their feet. Some came reeking of perfume, their clothing already mussed from another male’s use.

  Not a single one of them looked at Wren, as if ordered to ignore the mangled Omega and her mockery of a nest.

  But Rosie, she always snuck a glance when Caspian wasn’t looking.

  Usually after the First Alpha had sent her sprawling with a shove, and stood over his healing prize, splashing the jets of warm cum Rosie’s hard work had inspired over Wren’s bared tits and cunt.

  Zipping up, he’d leave Wren coated in seed, ignoring where Rosie gathered herself from the floor, and went about his business.

  Until his cock would grow hard again, and Rosie, again, would be ordered to her knees to drain him. Sometimes he bent the blonde over in half, ass up at the edge of the bed so Caspian’s mouth could sample the delights of his caught prize while he fucked a pussy he could pound with all the violent enthusiasm Wren knew he wanted to pour upon her.

  She wondered why he even bothered to play a game that clearly made him miserable.

  When all three of the males gathered nightly to share her as one, the trio were savage, snapping teeth and guttural grunts. It was only in these private moments Caspian seemed cautious.

  After hours of this charade, after he’d fumbled through papers and worked via the data relay on his arm, the flavor-of-the-day would be ordered away with a blunt, “Get out,” and only when they were alone, would Caspian creep into Wren’s nest.

  The cock that had been in another woman’s mouth or pussy would then be buried between her thighs, the brutal First Alpha struggling to take her as gently as a barbarian might. When he knotted, felt her traitorous cunt’s pulsating and eager response, a low whine always intermingled within his moans.

  Only once he’d done this, forgetting Rosie was still in the room.

  The blonde Omega had watched the entire exchange, her face blank of all emotion. When Caspian’s knot had subsided, when he’d kissed the back of Wren’s neck, licked at the scars he’d left on her throat, and praised her with the filthiest words he might find, he left the nest to take a piss.

  His eyes had caught on Rosie.

  The look he’d given her was… callous.

  As if she were as insignificant as an empty dish, he continued forward and left the women alone together for the brief time it would take to drain his bladder.

  “Monsters, all of them.” Hard words from a hard woman, Rosie slicing through Wren with a razor sharp gaze. “Wipe that look off your face. Never let an Alpha see.”

  The look in question was shame. Wren was inundated with it.

  For coming so hard the world had gone fuzzy. For mewing and urging the male who’d just used another woman to show her his physical affections. For wanting the woman who had pleasured him with her mouth for hours to see that it was really her cunt he craved. For debasing herself. For enjoying it. For being a petty bitch who was so fucking riddled with secret jealousy she wanted to tear every woman who’d known Caspian’s attention limb from limb. Who knew that such thoughts were evil and tried to stuff them down so far she felt nothing, saw nothing, but the way he looked at her as he used them.

  Who was slowly going insane with worry for her boys.

  And whose fingers were still trapped in splints. Who was silent and anxious, yet still got wet when the First Alpha gave her that look.

  Pouring a glass of water, Rosie brought it over and held it to Wren’s mouth. “We’ll never be friends. Don’t look to me for help.”

  The door opened, Toby walking it to find Rosie at his mate’s bedside.

  Before he might reach over and snap her neck, Rosie said, “Your Omega can’t properly nest under these conditions. This bedding is filthy. The mattress reeks of other women. Take better care of your things or put her in the pen where she can take care of herself.”

  And like a truly uppity bitch, she tossed her blonde hair, and walk right past the seething male.

  Within the hour, the mattress, pillows, blankets, all of it, had been carted away and replaced with new. Toby, with Caspian lingering near his work, stood by and watched Wren build a real nest. Both of them leaning on their portion of the link—aware that despite her blank expression, she was elated to be free of the horrible smell.

  The new nest was the finest she’d ever built.

  Chapter 7

  These sensations, inside and out, were entirely new. Even the pitch of her purr was on a scale Wren couldn’t recall having producing before. Lush and indulgent, it hummed from her chest while she let herself do something as silly as burrow.

  As if she were happy—safe, and separated from the nightmare of her life.

  Cocooned in snowy white cotton, weighted down with blankets stuffed with fluff, she allowed herself a moment of bliss.

  In a nest.

  A perfect nest made from wonderful things.

  Yet the precious moment ended when a warm hand reached under impeccably arranged covers to seize her ankle.

  Purr stuttering to a complete stop, Wren braced, found her heart beat far too fast, and forced out a different purr. The expected purr.

  “It’s rude not to invite me in, mouse.” The male teased. “And what happens to bad girls?”

  They get fucked. Hard. Without the growl or sweet lies.

  They get shown that they like it.

  Reminded they were made to be a whore.

  Yet, it was the little moments, Wren reminded herself. The little moments hidden within the bad one had to treasure. And even though it had been short-lived, she had enjoyed her fresh nest while it had really been hers.

  Would dream of it. Hold it in her mind just as it was now.

  Before they spoiled it.

  Pulling her leg from Caspian’s grip, Wren maneuvered like a fish in water. The bedding above her peaked as she flipped. Where his hand waited, her face appeared.

  A little mouse peeking out of her hole.

  Because she could not bring herself to reach for him, Wren looked to his fingers. Veined and rough, she set her teeth to a knuckle and bit down hard enough to sting. Leading a chuckling monster in as if carrying a kitten in her teeth, Wren brought Caspian into a sacred Omega space.

  It seemed the male would pretend respect. He didn’t immediately make a grab for her breasts or shove his thick fingers in her cunt. Instead he settled exactly where he should.

  He rested, pulling her weight into the nook at his side.

  Looking down at the intruder, blankets tented by her head, she blinked.

  The man just lay there; arm behind his head, eyes closed.

  A moment later, it seemed he snored.

  Slinking from his chest, Wren went back to her secret preening, her rolling about, and her sighs—finding that the scent of an Alpha had only enhanced the comfort found in soft sheets.

  Even if the Alpha was Caspian.

  Her natural purr returned, there was even a soft smile playing at her lips with so much clean slipping against her skin.

  Until he pounced with a growl… and she squealed.

  And laughed.

  An honest-to-God laugh that rode the high of her surprise.

  Dedicated male lips went to the mark on her neck, stubble scraping delicate skin as he lavished her with unexpected, tender attention. When he nipped, and played, pressing her down into a mattress that did not reek of decades of sex. When he smiled back where no one could possibly see, a twist knotted in the bond. Right in her guts.

  A belly flip.

  One that fell abruptly away when the First Alpha lost his grin. “It’s time for Alec’s punishment.”

  Reality smashed her pretend world to bits.

  She was going to be sick.

  Moving her mouth as if words might come out, she so wanted to ask if her boy could be spared.

  Had she not played house well? Did she not allow them all to screw with their new toy in whatever way they saw fit?

  “A whipping.” Touching his nose to hers, Caspian purred. “He can keep his hand. This time.”

  Swallowing, she nodded as if promising there would never be another time.

  “And you will stand before my men, and watch. At my side.” Voice dropping in tone and thickening with warning, he added. “A loyal, marked Omega.”

  Cold, teeth rattling, Wren nodded again.

  “Don’t disappoint me.” That final warning given, Caspian threw back the covers to show that both Kieran and Toby stood near enough to grab and pin her down. And both of them wore unyielding expressions, measured her, ready to spar.

  “Come.” In his hands, Toby held clothing. A luxury they had denied her since dragging her chained from a cage. “We don’t have much time.”

  ***

  The dress was white, bridal. Completely inappropriate for the grungy Waterworks or the disgusting crowds gathered within. Already the dragging hem had grown saturated, lace catching on old cement and sodden from the pooling water caught in uneven slabs. It clung to her figure.

  A shroud that left her bitten arms bare to the cold.

  Still she sweated.

  Nerves gnawing at her guts, banked by a stalwart Caspian and an unsmiling Kieran, mist rained down on her head.

  Damp hair began to curl into itself, to stick to her skin.

  Several levels below, Toby, wielding a bullwhip, had her boy chained to a wall for all the Syndicate to see.

  Crack.

  She’d twitched at so loud a noise.

  A tickle, he’d told her. Some blood for show.

  Yet her boy was screaming, every cell in Wren shouting for her to kill all who stood between her and her child.

  Crack.

  So much blood. The ear-piercing screams of an innocent.

  And she could not go to him… because those who had gathered had not come to this place to see a kid tortured. They had come to stare at her. The defeated Omega Caspian had bitten. The wild thing who had survived her Omega rampage and been cowed by their great leaders.

  To see if she’d snap under pressure and entertain them once more with her death.

  Crack.

  The unbroken pinky finger of her left hand curled around the nearest living support. Wren took the hand of the man responsible for her boy’s torment, held it with all she could, because she could not bear this alone.

  The intimate touch before his men… Caspian allowed it.

  Just as he allowed her silent tears to run free, the convenient mist concealing every trace.

  Crack.

  Four strikes and Alec had lost the ability to stand, hanging from chained wrists like a broken doll.

  Crack.

  Voice grown hoarse, the boy’s screams no longer reached her ears. Though his shoulders shook with visible sobs.

  Crack.

  Lavender eyes turned away from the rivulets of blood running down the flesh of her beloved child. They settled on a muddy brown gaze.

  Caspian, the arrogant and deceitful king, saw everything.

  Unmitigated despair.

  Crack.

  Squeezing the tiny finger she had hooked to his palm, he offered. “It won’t kill him.”

  And that justified this?

  “The kid came to me. He took an oath when he joined, swore to forsake all family. That was his choice.”

  Crack.

  “Which means”—significance burned in that treacherous gaze—“that he is no longer your boy. He belongs to me.”

  Always. Alec would always be her boy.

  Even when he was old and gray. Even after her body had long since decomposed in the mud, Alec would be her boy.

  Crack.

  Love, she felt pure emotion even in that horrible moment. And Wren knew Caspian could feel it churning in her. And knew that the Alpha was well aware it was not for him.

  Crack.

  His eyes narrowed, a less than subtle reminder that this was her punishment too. A test that, should she fail, would be the end of more than just her life.

  Alec who suffered. Mikael who healed. Both were nothing to him.

  Crack.

  That was why she’d been paraded before his slaves, his servants, his whores, and his Syndicate. An Omega. A woman he’d defeated at her most dangerous. Who he’d mounted in abject victory. Who he had marked in a frenzy of violence that would never leave her skin.

  Crack.

  Each lash might as well have been lain to her flesh.

  “That’s enough!” Caspian’s voice boomed across the massive space. Loud enough that even a thousand gallons of rushing water could not drown out his bark. “Punishment has been served.”

  Panting from the exertion of wielding the whip, Toby cut a glance over his shoulder. Then he turned, bare chest covered in a myriad of tattoos. He looked right to her.

  The way her bones vibrated, Wren knew he called through their link, demanded that she give him her attention. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t lift her eyes away from the weight of Caspian’s stare.

  She would never be able to look at Toby again.

  “It could have been the kid’s hand. Remember that, pretty mouse, before you hold a grudge.” It wasn’t Caspian words that made her flinch, it was what was buried far beneath them—a hint of regret.

  It was as if even a megalomaniac of his proportions had finally recognized that what he’d done had… eternal repercussions.

  As if the thought had never occurred to him.

  As if his unsettled feelings were foreign, uncomfortable.

  What vibrated from him was too subtle to be called guilt, and too selfish to be culpability.

  His concern was utterly selfish, the male bothered by the loss of something he’d never had to begin with.

  As if to offer this recognized deficit that lingered between them, he spoke over her head. “Kieran, have the boy taken down and put somewhere dry.”

  Her face was so warm, the splints binding her fingers creaking from the force she’d exerted gripping Caspian’s hand for support. Which had to be why her bones protested when she let go, her fingers slipping from Caspian’s grasp.

  Chapter 8

  “No.”

  No?

  Back in Caspian’s den and away from the eyes and ears of his men, Wren had wept. The ugly kind of sobs that left one rocking themselves and breathless.

  Curled up in the corner, sopping wet from the waterworks downpour, her dress was no longer white.

  Dingy, like the Alphas’ whole fucking hive, it suited her.

  Stuck to her skin, marking the floor where she’d plopped down in a puddle, it gave her a barrier to shut out the males when she buried her face in her knees.

  After she’d purged, hiccupped, and hated, silence stole over her thoughts.

  Everything felt fuzzy, disconnected—as if she’d floated beyond reality and watched from a distance.

  Toby’s hand on her shoulder, the very hand he’d used to wield the whip that had mutilated her boy, didn’t so much as make her flinch. She’d hardly felt it at all.

  Whatever he muttered to her, was lost.

  But she was not lost.

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