Savage Prince by Alison Aimes

5

The flare of agony severed Tess from the heat of blind omega lust.

She toppled back into sanity with a sickening smack.

She was pinned between the hard wall and even harder male at her back, panting as her body struggled to accommodate the massive rod rammed inside her.

“Don’t fucking move.” Voice still thick with the guttural rumble of the rut, rough hands locked her hips in place, so big the calloused heat of them spanned most of her waist and bottom.

The hands of the very Brotherhood Alpha here to take revenge against her for killing his own.

Panting in shock, she struggled to make sense of what had just happened, her behavior most of all. No unmasked, ungloved Alpha had ever touched her for an extended time and lived. This one had done far more than that.

The one thing—the only thing—Aldar and the guards had never been able to take from her was her sense of self. Yet she’d given it up to this male eagerly.

“Fuck.” He growled low, his fingers contracting around her hips. “A virgin. With the tightest little pussy. I’m not even halfway in. How is that possible?”

She answered by rote. “To control my gift, I was kept from being breached.”

“Until today.” He let out a slow breath. “All my fucking plans and I never saw this coming.”

Same for her.

She’d thought she’d have more time before her end came.

Where was Aldar? The other guards? Most likely in hiding. They would never go up against someone like Maxheim Skolov and the Brotherhood directly.

It was up to her to save herself and escape.

“Don’t even think it, omega.”

Fingers tangled in her hair.

Her head was wrenched back until her throat was bared, her back arched, and she was staring up into wild eyes that flashed from red to amber and back to red again.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

How did he know her thoughts?

“I am owned by another.”

He growled low. “Not anymore.”

“I-Is Aldar dead?”

“Not yet, but he will be.”

Her heart beat fast. Skolov was powerful enough to make such a claim and back it up.

Under different circumstances, she would have been thrilled—if not for her worry over the fate of her friends or the fact that the Brotherhood Alpha intended to do far worse to her than Aldar ever had.

“Please. You don’t fit.” She seized upon the first excuse that came to mind to get him to leave her be.

“I will.” His fangs scraped her throat. “Relax.”

The force of his will rolled over her. Despite herself, her body melted against his.

He sank in another inch. She shifted on her tiptoes, pleasure and pain mixing as her channel stretched to accommodate him.

His grunt was thick with approval. “Good girl.”

His big hands palmed her breasts, toying with her nipples, testing them, learning them, making her pussy ache and her omega instincts riot. “Not a vision. Real.” He growled low. “For once, Alexi was right.”

The Alpha’s words made no sense. It didn’t matter, though. Her body had turned traitor.

Her folds grew slicker, the throbbing in her clit more pronounced. Worse, her gift—which usually kept her safe from this kind of Alpha attention—was useless.

She’d never felt so helpless or vulnerable.

“The circumstances are not ideal.” Skolov’s fangs scraped her throat, his hips rocking against her, pushing his shaft deeper still. “There will be complications.” He almost sounded as if he was talking to himself. “But in the end, I will mold this situation to my satisfaction. I always do.”

“I-I don’t want to be molded.”

“You will.” He pinched her nipple, a slight chastisement that sent a bolt of arousal slamming through her. “We will come to an understanding. I will be lenient because I know this is new and surprising, but you will adjust. We both will.”

She’d already adjusted plenty in her life.

“Who gave you these marks?”

She tried to think past the haze of need and nerves. “I-I don’t understand.”

“I think you do.” A single claw pressed against the sensitive skin at the curve of her bottom and dragged up the length of her back, tracing the same path as the thin, barely-there silvery scars. “Who whipped you?”

Her skin tingled. She couldn’t imagine why it mattered, but she knew better than to question. “The guard you killed.”

“I should have made him suffer more.”

She startled, but there was no time to wonder at his strange words as he worked himself deeper, claiming another inch, laying siege, proving already just how easily and eagerly her body could be made to adjust.

But her mind . . . that was another story.

“Your gift is the reason several Brotherhood and Skolov associates are dead.” He spoke once more. “That’s going to be an issue. The Brotherhood wants justice. Blood for blood.”

Just as she’d feared.

Icy sweat pooled on her skin.

“I will handle it.” His declaration stole the breath from her lungs.

What did that mean? Was he about to wrap his hands around her throat and snap her neck while still lodged deep inside her?

She would never see her friends again. Never get to fulfill her promise to save them.

Worst of all, her body didn’t seem to care about the injustice of it all, her omega instincts clamoring for him to sink deeper, handle her harder.

“I didn’t want to infect those males.” She scrambled for the words that would convince him to let her live. “I had no idea who they were. I was given no choice.”

“I believe you.” He gripped her hips, tracing the curve of her pelvis with his rough palms.

“Y-You do?”

“Yes. I can sense your guilt as well as your fear and sorrow.”

But he still didn’t release her. Or pull out—and she knew it was deliberate. A reminder of who held dominance over her even now.

Still, she tried again. “Aldar is the one you want. Just let me go.”

“Never.”

Never.His verdict hit like a blow. This was truly the end. He was going to fuck her, then exterminate her.

Desperation welled. Behind it came anger. At him. At herself.

She hadn’t allowed fifteen years of slavery under Aldar’s thumb to turn her into a meek omega fuck toy, afraid to resist.

She wouldn’t start now.

“Then, stop toying with me.” She hurled each word, knowing it could be her last. “Kill me and be done with it!”

Without warning, Skolov pulled out and spun her around.

Her channel contracted, a cry of protest and relief.

But there was little time to recover.

Looming above, his hands wrapped around her upper arms.

Braced for a blow, she looked up and up.

The intensity in his gaze stole her breath. “No one is killing you.” His fangs flashed. “No one is touching a fucking hair on your head.”

Confusion slammed through her.

“You belong to me now, omega. Anyone who wants a reckoning will have to come through me.”

“I don’t understand.”

He planned to keep her alive, but toward what ends? Did he intend to punish her over and over? Use her as a weapon like Aldar had?

“You’re scared. I get it.” The Skolov Alpha’s fingers stroked across her skin. “But in time you will see the benefits of your new circumstances.”

Benefits? Separated from the friends who counted on her. Chattel, whore, and weapon to an Alpha known to be even more savage than Aldar. Plaything and punishment toy for the Brotherhood, passed around to whomever her new owner liked, Her body a traitor to her mind.

She didn’t think anything about her new future sounded beneficial at all.

“Now that we’ve settled that,” he declared, “you will tell me how to find Rav Byrel.”

She froze. “What do you want with him?”

“Don’t even think of protecting him.”

Her fear skyrocketed. Apparently, it was not just she, but her friend, who was in danger.

Moreover, she didn’t understand how this Alpha kept discerning her thoughts.

Being a slave meant having everything stripped away. Her private opinions were all she had left that were hers.

This male had already stolen her good sense and hijacked her body. She refused to allow him to take her thoughts too.

Desperate to shield her reaction, she dropped her gaze.

“You will look at me, omega.”

She fought to resist. It wasn’t easy. His will was strong, the expectation of obedience thickening every rumbled word.

“How can you read my thoughts?” The bold words popped out before she could push them back down.

He stilled. “I can’t.” There was a slight pause. “But I can feel your . . .emotions. Can’t you feel mine too?”

Her heart beat double time.

She’d dismissed it as her imagination, but it was not.

As if his words had opened a gateway, a rush of sensation arrowed from him to her: clear, commanding, intense, like the male himself.

It was faint—as if he was purposely blocking most of it—but he was right. Like the lightest of touches against her skin, she could sense his lust, anger, guilt, and his fury that he was feeling anything at all.

A sickening dread twisted through her, but she fought the idea.

There had to be another explanation.

“Look at me, Tesstala.”

Another shocking blow. Her gaze flew to his.

No one called her that, not even Rav.

Whore, bitch, cunt, slave, merchandise 101, she’d heard those labels a thousand times, but to hear her true name said aloud—the name her mother had given her and used to sing her to sleep—that was rare and precious.

To hear it rumble from this male’s throat in that deep rasp affected her as nothing ever had.

It also terrified her. “How do you know my name?”

“I’ll ask the questions. Where are my brother and sister?”

Again, she scrambled to catch up. “I don’t know.”

Even here in the outer reaches of the galaxy, she would have thought the news of a missing Skolov family member would have reached her. The Skolov’s had clawed their way up to become Brotherhood royalty. Their actions were legendary.

“I-I heard something about Nikolai Skolov taking a prime omega, but that was it. No one has said anything about any recent disappearance.” She frankly hadn’t even known there was a sister.

The Alpha fingers pressed deeper into her skin. “Did you have anything to do with the recent attack at my family’s compound?”

“No. Of course not.”

“What about Aldar and Byrel? What do you know about their part in the attacks against the Brotherhood?”

Dread curled in her belly.

She would give up the slaver in an instant, but not Rav. “I’m just an omega slave trying to survive. Same as my friend Rav Byrel. Whatever your complaint with Aldar, leave us out of it. We—”

“Do not call Byrel your friend. He is nothing to you.”

More demands. More commands.

Worse, her body was responding to his highhanded dominance, her thighs trembling with the urge to sink to her knees and submit.

It was too much.

So, survivor that she was, she took the opportunity he’d unknowingly handed to her when he’d spun her to face him.

With a snarl, she seized the weapon strapped to the small of his back. Even with her hands still bound at the wrist, it was an easy snatch and grab.

He’d never bothered to remove it.

It had banged against her calf the entire time she’d had her thighs wrapped around him, her hips grinding against the bulge in his trousers as her heels dug into his round, hard ass and she’d been out of her mind with lust.

But she was more clear-eyed now.

“Back up.” She shoved the blaster against his chest.

For an instant, shock showed on his face. It was beyond satisfying.

Until his expression shifted to a terrifying scowl.

Her arms shook.

She’d just secured her own death sentence if he caught her. But what did she have to lose?

Doing nothing meant accepting more slavery and whoredom. It meant being molded to the satisfaction of another master. It meant adjustment and subjugation. She’d had enough of that kind of living death.

“Omega, give me the weapon. Now.”

“No.” Desperation made her reckless. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”

She’d done it before to protect her friends. She’d do it now too.

If Aldar had gone into hiding to escape the very same male she was trying to flee, there was a chance Rav had been able to shepherd the young omegas away. If she could find wherever they were hiding, they could use the distraction to run together. She could still save them from the life she’d led.

“Tesstala.” Warning laced Skolov’s tone. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”

“Even if I’m thinking you could be the key to solving all my problems?”

His frown deepened.

She pressed the weapon harder into his chest. “Move.”

“This isn’t wise.” But he lifted his hands and, palms in the air, took a step back. “It is, however, brave. You’re fast for an omega, little thief.”

She raised the weapon higher. “Before my gift showed itself, I served Aldar as a beggar and a pick purse, just like all the young orphans rounded up by his gang. There’s not a lot of room for error when your survival depends on it.”

Skolov’s scowl deepened. “It doesn’t anymore.”

Did he honestly believe she was stupid enough to think she was safe with him?

She held the weapon tighter. “I’m not like the omega princesses you’re used to, Skolov.”

“No. You’re not.”

It should have been an insult, yet something about his tone made her wonder.

She reminded herself not to be a fool. “Keep backing up, or I’ll be forced to fire.”

“So,” Skolov kept his hands high, “where do you think you’re going from here?”

“Away.”

“That’s not happening.”

“I’m the one with the weapon. I say what’s possible.”

“No.” Surging so fast he was a blur, his fingers closed around her wrist.

He slammed the back of her hand against the wall.

Despite her struggle, his big body followed right behind, pinning her as the hard heat of him seared into her.

“I decide what’s possible—and I say you’re mine. I also say you’re in big trouble.” His mouth claimed hers.