Alpha's Temptation Page 5

  She had no real choice in the matter. He had her trapped completely under his weight. When she took a steadying breath, his gaze briefly flicked to her exposed chest.

  “Your name?”

  As she stared up at him, too overwhelmed to speak, the familiar thrum started in his chest. His reassuring purr loosened the tension in her muscles, although nothing could truly relax her now that the mating high had faded.

  “Aura,” she breathed, barely loud enough to be heard over his rumbling purr.

  He repeated her name in that same discordant way he had spoken earlier as if he were learning the shape of the word for the first time. Something had to be wrong with him. What had the Sotiri said before the crash? The men here were feral. He spoke her language, so the only explanation had to be that he was of limited intelligence. Even if he were significantly more controlled than the men he had killed before taking her.

  Questions swirled through Aura’s mind, too many to focus on any single one. There was a cacophony of a hundred voices in her mind clamoring at the same time. She settled on the most obvious one.

  “Who are you?”

  He pressed his nose into the crook of her neck and deeply inhaled. “Castor.”

  It was a start, but not the explanation that she had hoped for. “Where is this?”

  Castor paused and seemed to be searching for words. “Forbidden Zone.”

  The Forbidden Zone. There were those words again. She wondered what that meant. He seemed wholly unwilling to provide an additional explanation.

  Perhaps it was shock, but Aura found it difficult to understand what had happened to her. How much of it was real versus a delusion of her fever-addled mind. It all seemed like a waking nightmare. Only a day ago, she had been on the Citadel and waiting in line for meager rations, now she was trapped on an unfamiliar planet with a savior who was more beast than man. Her body’s responses were no longer her own.

  What had they done to her?

  “I live on Citadel Station. Please, I just want to go home.”

  Castor froze above her, the intensity of his gaze overwhelming. The purr stuttered to a stop, which only ratcheted up her fear another notch.

  “Station?”

  “Soldiers brought me on their ship,” she answered, ignoring his awkward cadence. “They were taking me to a place they called the Capital, but then we crashed here.”

  He watched her face closely as if he had difficulty parsing her words. Or perhaps he was trying to discern if she spoke the truth.

  “Where is ship?” he asked, impatience obvious even with the strange accent.

  “How the hell should I know?” Aura snapped, frustration momentarily overcoming her fear. “I don’t even know where I am!”

  Whether or not he understood the words, Castor was quick to respond to the disrespectful tone of her voice. He grabbed the back of her head, wrapping a hank of her hair in a grip like steel.

  She tried to fight him off but there was no overcoming his superior strength. Her face pressed hard against the furs as he flipped her onto her stomach and the heavy weight of his body settled over her.

  With one thrust he was inside of her, barely sparing enough of a growl to prepare her overused cunt for his entrance. The sharply acrid scent of pheromones and sweat rose up between them, heightened by the pre-cum easing his passage.

  That smell should have disgusted her, but she took several breaths before realizing how deeply she inhaled and forcing herself to stop. She wanted to resist, but each stroke brought her mind further and further into delirium. He made it clear that any sign of defiance would just be fucked right out of her.

  Desire blossomed despite her best efforts to fight it. The tiny flutters of approaching orgasm already worked their way over the muscles of her channel, even after less than a dozen strokes.

  Castor pushed a large hand beneath her quivering body until his fingers could thrum at the little bundle of flesh between her thighs. She couldn’t know if he had any concern for her pleasure or if he was just intent on making her come to spur his own release. The clenching spasm of her climax made the already tight muscles inside her close around his cock, milking it until he roared with completion.

  Aura heard the animal sound distantly as if it were something from a dream. But the hot jets of cum burning her insides were very real. She lay gasping underneath him, too overwhelmed to speak.

  He pulled away, but there was no relief as his weight lifted off of her. Instead she felt bereft, surrounded only by the stiff furs as rapidly cooling fluid leaked onto her thighs.

  “Stay.”

  He did not have to repeat himself because Aura was too overwhelmed to move. Entering her appeared to be his preferred method for ensuring her compliance. Any move toward the door would only make him pounce on her again. It terrified her to so much as shift on the furs for fear that it would only lead to another mating.

  The unwilling pleasure he pulled from her body made it feel like she was slowly losing her mind.

  She watched him stride around the small cabin, trying to shrink down into the furs when he came closer, which provided little in the way of protection. But the Alpha appeared to have momentarily lost interest in her. He bent over a small cookstove as the scent of grilling meat filled the air, not quite enough to cover the stench of spending and sweat. She would not have thought that there was a distinct smell to mating, but clearly she had been ignorant of what truly occurred between a man and a woman.

  After several minutes passed without further molestation, Aura slowly sat up as every muscle in her body groaned in protest. She was sore in places that she hadn’t known existed until that moment.

  Castor glanced up, sensing the movement. Aura froze in place as their eyes briefly met. She looked away, staring down at her hands which clenched in the furs gathered around her lap.

  He glared down at her long enough to assure himself that she did not intend to move from the makeshift bed before turning away.

  She let out a gasp of air as the heavy weight of his regard lifted from her. He clearly did not want her to move, for reasons that would remain his own.

  That didn’t leave her with much to actually do.

  Absentmindedly, Aura pushed at the furs. Something about their arrangement displeased her. She fluffed each piece until it was something more suitable for rest.

  When she reached for another piece, Aura started in surprise when she realized that Castor held it out to her. His expression was neutral as she accepted the offering and placed it along the side of the hollow she had created. He held out a plate to her with his other hand that she hesitantly accepted. And he didn’t stop watching her until she had picked up a small bit with her fingers and pushed it into her mouth. Flavor exploded on her tongue, unlike anything she had tasted before. This meat was freshly caught and prepared for immediate consumption, not freeze-dried or lab-grown like what was available on the Citadel.

  He made a low grunt of approval that sent a thrill of fear and desire shooting through her.

  At that moment, she both wanted and despised him.

  Chapter Five

  It surprised Castor to find the little Omega nesting, although the girl seemed unaware of the meaning of her own behavior. He had pieced together some of her story through the primitive language she spoke, despite the fact that she was hormone-addled and obviously confused.

  But he watched her surreptitiously as he moved around the cabin, securing the windows and door against potential intruders. He was nearly certain that he had killed any other Alphas that had caught her scent but one could never be too careful. The Forbidden Zone was a place of constant danger and it was a wonder she had survived it at all.

  Though he still had not figured out what he was going to do with her.

  The girl stayed on the furs as he’d instructed her, which shouldn’t have surprised him. Regardless of her play at defiance, the truth of what she was couldn’t be denied.

  Omegas were meant to submit.

&nb
sp; Which was why he’d spent so much time avoiding them before now, their simple-headedness had always disturbed him.

  His attention did not stray from the girl, her form always on the periphery of his vision as he reinforced the sliding locks on the door. Now it could be secured from the outside. He would ensure that she did not stray when he left her here to scout the area for any remaining Alphas.

  And Castor could not fight the slight bloom of hope that washed over him. It had been weeks since he had crashed here in the Forbidden Zone. And it had been less of a crash and more of an emergency ejection from his skycar moments before it had exploded.

  Though he did not doubt the girl's truthfulness, her understanding of what had brought her here was likely inaccurate. He had not been trapped out here long enough for things to change that completely.

  But if there was one ship then there would certainly be more following it. And that was as likely to be a potential rescue as it was a world of additional problems. He had to know which to expect. It seemed entirely improbable that he had spent weeks hiding in the wastes of the Forbidden Zone, fending off packs of wild Alphas, just to be discovered by some slip of a girl with an impossible tale.

  Aura shifted on the furs to ease the discomfort in her limbs, praying with each slight movement that she would not catch the wild male’s attention.

  Her mind felt garbled as she tried to fight off the exhaustion rolling over her in waves. She did not want to sleep again. Each time she woke, her situation seemed to worsen. This man, Castor, was entirely unpredictable.

  And he seemed even larger here in the cabin than he had when she’d first seen him outside as if the space were barely enough to contain him. She adjusted her position again but froze when his gaze flicked briefly to her quivering form.

  To her surprise, he did not fall on her like a raving animal. He growled a low warning and left the cabin, letting the door slam shut behind him. She heard a locking mechanism click into place and did not have to investigate to know that she was now trapped inside.

  Aura rose from the furs, groaning at the pain that briefly twisted deep inside of her belly. The first step was the worst as her body screamed in protest, already much too overused.

  It wasn’t just the discomfort that kept her movements cautious. Despite the complicated lock on the door that likely took several minutes for him to undo, she did not trust the large male not to reappear in the doorway and punish her for ignoring his directive to stay put.

  It had grown dark in the cabin. She used the wall as a guide to find the small basin sitting in the corner. If she could see herself, Aura knew that she would look just like Auntie Nona when arthritis bent her back and slowed her movements to a crawl.

  Aura splashed her face with a small amount of the cloudy water and then used the rest to rinse the dried fluids and sweat from her skin. No matter how long she scrubbed with a small rag, the male’s scent remained, heady and overpowering.

  She waited for the disgust, but only a deep restlessness settled over her mind. Alone in the dark, urges that she couldn’t name curled her toes and sent flutters of desperate movement through the pit of her belly. She hated the overly large man who had forced himself inside of her and made her revel in her own defilement.

  But she also hated being alone like this.

  Privacy was a foreign concept in a place like the Citadel. So little of it was habitable that the crush of bodies and the oppression of shared air were almost always unavoidable.

  She missed the feel of Kestri’s back rising and falling against hers as they slept and the murmur of Lida’s soft snores in the night. Darkness meant a family huddled together for safety, not this pained isolation while she stood trapped in the den of a monster.

  The shame that had floated at the edges of her awareness finally landed on her with full force. How could she have allowed this to happen? And why was she sitting here in the dark instead of running for her life?

  Aura made her way back to the bed, each footstep echoing in the darkness. She heard the low bellowing roar of an Alpha in the distance and huddled further into the furs. It was impossible to be sure, but the noise did not sound like it had been made by Castor. Other Alphas were nearby. She shivered with something more than fear unsure of which she dreaded more, that Castor would return or that he wouldn’t.

  Fantastical ideas drifted through her head of finding the crashed ship and somehow using it to escape back to the Citadel. But even as a fantasy, the thought made no sense. Aura had little head for mechanics but even she was smart to recognize that no ship could fly when both of its engines had broken off in midair.

  She scratched at her flesh with broken nails. Not intending to harm, but like a caged animal that inevitably turned on itself out of frustration. Or maybe she just foolishly tried to rid herself of even a few cells of the skin that remained saturated with the Alpha’s scent.

  Even in the low light from a single oil lamp, Aura could see the bruises that painted her skin. She felt removed from her own body as if it were someone else’s flesh that had been decorated with Alpha attention, another’s pain that nearly doubled her over in agony.

  Alpha. She had internalized that concept now. In her head, she replaced it with a word that was more recognizable: destroyer.

  This couldn't be her reality.

  As the minutes ticked by, Aura grew more frantic. Her hands went to her hair, ripping and pulling at the sweat-curled mass until the pain in her scalp was enough to focus her. Enough so she could ignore that she sat alone in the den of a monster.

  She was so lost in the darkness of her own thoughts that she did not hear the sound of the door opening or the footsteps approaching her.

  Castor stood over the cowering girl, his gaze inscrutable. With uncharacteristic patience, he held out a massive hand to her and then waited.

  Aura’s head lifted to face the physical embodiment of a nightmare, his size even more overwhelming from where she knelt on the furs. She distantly wondered what it would take for those overly large hands to wrap around the smooth column of her throat and squeeze until her mind escaped this torment.

  Because even now, with full knowledge of all the ways in which he had violated her, Aura still wanted him. His aggressive scent bombarded her senses and overwhelmed any resistance. Even as her mind screamed in protest at any thought of the repulsive acts he had forced her to endure, her body responded with a deep yearning.

  She could not stop the leak of fluid that dribbled down the exposed flesh of her thighs. Despite her mind’s dissent, her body prepared itself for what would inevitably come next.

  His nostrils flared at the sharp scent of the slick tantalizing his senses, but the male made no further movement. He simply waited as she stared up at him.

  The man was beautiful, despite the brutality of his features. Golden hair fell across his forehead, partially concealing eyes the same brilliant ultramarine as the stars streaking across the dark black of space. But she read her own downfall in the sharp lines of his face, one that had likely never seemed soft even in childhood. He was the physical embodiment of strength and aggression. She could barely stand to look at him without trembling in fear, and unwanted desire.

  More out of resignation than anything else, Aura held out her hand. It was seized, and she was yanked from the makeshift nest and into the hard line of his body.

  Castor looked her over, hands sliding down the exposed flesh as he kneaded and explored. But the assessment was clinical as he inspected her for injury. His hands briefly paused on each bruise, touch growing lighter when she winced in pain, but he still did not speak.

  Aura made a small squeak of surprise when the male lifted her in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all. She shifted her weight, more out of surprise than resistance, and he growled a warning until she stilled.

  Cool air washed over overheated skin as he carried her out into the night-drenched forest. She had underestimated the meager light from the oil lamp. The oppressive darkness amo
ng the trees was nearly as black as a starless sky.

  Twin moons hung low overhead, but produced only enough light to coat the trees in grays and shadows.

  For such a large man, Castor was light-footed. He seemed able to navigate a path through the forest with senses other than sight. Aura could not discern the shape of passing trees and bushes until they had just narrowly been avoided.

  Aura closed her eyes, lulled by the gentle sway of his arms as they moved through the darkness. She could almost forget that he carried her through the forest of a strange planet while they were both completely naked. That she was in the arms of a man who had fucked her more times than he had spoken her name.

  She barely remembered the frantic mating after he had dragged her back to his cabin. Mating was the only word for it. Her mind had not been her own in those moments. And to her endless shame, in the parts that she remembered, she had been more than willing. But she also remembered the sight and sounds of him ripping into the other men who had fought to get to her first. She knew those other Alphas would have torn into her body in as brutal a way as he had, likely even worse. At least he had ensured she would enjoy her degradation. But she had seen his savagery firsthand. It was only a matter of time before the force of it turned against her.

  He was capable of terrible things.

  The heat of his body protected her from the cold, but a shiver still wracked her small body. Castor’s arms tightened in response. If he recognized the unease settling over her, he ignored it.

  A cave loomed ahead, even darker inside than the barely moonlit night around them.

  The moment he made to enter it, Aura struggled in his arms.

  Terrible things happened in the darkness. He wanted to drag her down into the pits of hell and she would never return. Auntie Nona had warned her what men would do to her in the darkest places. It was an irrational thought, even she knew that. This man had made it clear that he would use her body in any way he saw fit and a small bit of light would not make a difference.