She collapsed to the floor, shaking, dazed.
“Good girl,” he said before offering a soothing purr that ricocheted down her spine, knocking every joint loose and sending her deeper into the blissful haze.
Quinn’s hum was languid at the dream that followed her into waking. The sensation of being swamped in downy softness and snuggled deep into a luxurious cloud were so real she didn’t want to open her eyes. Limbs reaching and back arching, she stretched the delicious ache from her muscles with a satisfying crackle before falling limp into a fantasy sea of warmth. Even her toes were toasty in the dream and the scents of garlic and chicken teased at her. Saliva pooled in her mouth, begging for just one taste of rich, decadent food now that her stomach had untangled from all the anxiety.
Other smells began to filter in through the murky fog of half awareness. Betas, warm and earthy and female, their sweat and fluids were subtle but too present in the mixture invading her palate. Disturbing as that was, the candy sweetness so much like her own, each with their own particular perfume, pulled her lips back into a snarl. A growl rattled in her chest, territorial and full of menace. Heavy lids struggled to become unglued to find the culprits.
Above it all the rich spice of an Alpha who had become familiar reigned supreme. Solid, heavy, and too big, a hand cupped her shoulder and rolled Quinn to her back. Heat enveloped her as the length of his body came close. The impressive bulk settling against her side made her jump, fingers smoothing over her cheek causing a flinch. Abandoning her attempts to open her eyes, she squeezed them shut to shun the sight that waited.
“You are so damned expressive,” he said in a rough whisper against her shoulder where his lips traced the tensed muscle to her neck. “I bet you’re awful at poker. We’ll play a hand later, shall we? I think you’ll like the stakes.”
“Get off of me.” She hated the quiver in her voice, despised the way her skin prickled with unbelievable sensation as the rough scrape of thick stubble rasped across her collar bone. Cursing her biology as her pussy clenched over empty air and just how much she wished it to be filled, she tried to squirm away. The Alpha caught her with ease. In an effortless move, he had her sprawled atop him with the heavy band of an arm low across her hips to keep her there.
“I don’t mind you being on top again, little bird. All you had to do was ask.”
“I don’t want…” Words turning to dust on her tongue, she trailed off. Pale grays narrowed to suspicious slits. Jabbing the sharp angles of her elbows into his ribs, she pushed up to see the male’s face. “What do you mean again?”
“This would be the third—no, the fourth time you showed your teeth and demanded it. You are a feisty little thing when you want your way,” he said in a satisfied rumble that had Quinn squirming for all the wrong reasons.
With his hands flexing in a slow, controlled way across her back that gave Quinn no doubt of the strength contained within them, she realized what her senses had been screaming at her. Linoleum wasn’t stuck to her skin in uncomfortable patches. The destroyed nest on the floor of her apartment was nowhere to be seen. Sounds of traffic and other tenants were no longer present. Instead the man held her in the middle of a bed. It was massive, covered in saturated hues, stained with the scents of others.
Turning her head, she saw what felt like miles of a shaggy dark rug before it ended at a window that spanned an entire wall. The scene framed in the glass was of a moon dark sky, littered with bright stars. The hazy glow of Alderbrook was only a suggestion on the horizon.
Mind coming to a screeching halt, her thoughts piled up into a massive explosion that spelled out one thing. A moment of insanity took hold, finding the far smaller female fighting the Alpha for all she was worth. Nails raked across flesh, teeth bit into muscle. She felt none of it, saw nothing. Until she blinked and found herself standing quivering, panting, alone with a sea of soft evergreen curling between her toes.
“You do realize you’re going to pay for that,” he said through a low growl, fingering the side of his jaw where three small dots were blooming into vivid blush. It took Quinn ages to figure out it corresponded with the piercing ache in her knuckles.
“You can’t do this,” she said, a frail whisper that begged for all of this to be a lie.
“The hell I can’t.” Flat. Dead. The deep green eyes that had so intrigued her that first night were frigid and hostile as he challenged her.
“This is kidnapping. It’s rape! You can’t do this,” Quinn tried to scream through the cottony knot of fear clogging her throat. Seeking more space between her and the dangerous predator, she edged behind a chair flanking a fireplace.
“The only time you’ve struggled in the past two days is when I wasn’t fucking you hard enough.” Hefting his weight up the bed, he leaned against the headboard with legs splayed and hands cradling the back of his neck. Exuding arrogance and pheromones that combined to make Quinn feel nauseous, he regarded her like an insect under glass.
“It can’t have been.” Quinn hugged her middle and tried to hide behind the chair. It was hard to argue with him when she could see and feel the evidence for herself. She’d been well fed and well cared for. The gnawing hunger pains she lived with daily were nonexistent, and the concavity of a stomach long abused still bulged from a large meal. Every inch of her was scrubbed rosy clean, and it wasn’t the familiar scents of cheap bath products on her skin. Light and airy, whatever he’d used did nothing to hide the sweetness of an Omega. Even her hair was decadent, smooth and soft where it tumbled over her forehead in glossy curls.
“Despite all your efforts, you’re going into heat, little bird. Anything I do to you in that state is considered a legal act.” He rose from the bed, shameless in his nudity, to stalk her. He matched her mincing retreat, coming closer despite her attempts to draw further away.
“I’m not in heat!” The gasp was almost a shriek when the chill glass of another window met her back. Cornered like the frightened prey she was, the looming monster pinned her in with an ease that was ludicrous. Straining lungs gulped air that was too thick with the male’s musky spice. Every sense was on high alert.
“Not yet, but soon,” he said, a low rumble of sound that vibrated through her every bone. Too near, his presence rolled into her like waves of heat off of asphalt.
Knuckles grazing her cheek sparked sensation across jangled nerves. Unable to meet that predatory gaze as she shivered, Quinn sucked her lips between her teeth and bit down hard. The flash of pain and the coppery tang of blood on her tongue did nothing to ease the heat building under her skin. An itch she couldn’t scratch, something his potent aura promised only he could appease.
“You’ve already lost the majority of two days, little bird.”
In a show of strength and speed, he lifted her to his chest. Limbs tangled around him in a move she swore to herself was just to keep from falling. Proving the lie almost as soon as it coalesced in her racing thoughts, her pussy throbbed, folds growing wet.
She whined as he brought their bodies flush. His cock was hard and caught between them, pushing into the soft skin of her belly to leave a slick trail as he rocked against her.
“How much longer do you think you can hold out?”
Quinn remained strong for all of three languid rolls of his hips before the twisting pain of a long overdue heat pulled her double. The rush of slick that bathed the male was obscene. His answering roar of intent was glorious. The violence he showed as he shoved his cock into the hilt even more so.
Pupils blown and snarling when the male thought to retreat, Quinn gave in to the inevitable. Clinging to broad shoulders, she undulated, working the ache from her pussy as he carried her back to the bed.
Jolted from the blackness of sleep to complete awareness, Quinn gave a growling whine of confusion. Though no immediate threat could be found, the lingering scents of other females were coarse sandpaper against raw nerves.
