Because he’d offered her anything she wanted in exchange. And she had chosen Annette.
And now she wanted to hold the Beta’s baby. Jacques pulled her closer and wasn’t sure if he could love her more. Precious, brilliant, virginal, and innocent. His mate. “Shall I have Annette bring him here now?”
“Now?”
Finally, he’s startled her out of her malaise. Watched her tuck the edges of her robe tighter around her bandaged throat and adjust her sore bottom on the soft seat. “Yes, mon chou. Now.”
Golden eyes darted to the windows, to the night view of his city. They measured, that mind of hers ticking until the feelings that had left her in misery were washed away with logic, with calculations, and with what an Omega should rightfully feel. Appreciation.
He thought to please her further. “Upon your next estrous, I’ll give you a baby of your own if you want it.” He carded his finger through her too short hair. “I suddenly find the idea very appealing.”
The idea was ignored, his mate choosing to answer the initial question. Embarrassed as she tried again to use the robe to cover her excessive marks. “Babies sleep at night, do they not? I’d prefer to see him tomorrow.”
“First thing. I’ll escort you to the nursery.”
“Annette will be there?”
“Tending the nursery is her duty. Yes, she will be there.”
Like an impenetrable iron wall falling between them, that blossom of hope he’d sensed in his Omega slammed shut. She went utterly cold, eyes fading into unfocused distance. Alpha annoyance reared up to take her enthusiasm’s place. “This isn’t a fight you want to pick with me, mate. I would have set aside my wife for you in an instant. Don’t begrudge any Alpha for loving the other half of his soul.”
Irritation. He’d take any emotion over vacancy, and she fed it to him in spades. “You don’t have a wife.”
“But I do.”
Was that jealousy? By the Gods, Jacques latched onto that hint of perfection in his love and held on for dear life as he licked at her ear.
“She’s old enough to be my grandmother. We were married when I was fifteen, and the hag never bore children. Bloodlines, and negations, and the prevention of civil war… I wasn’t favored heir then, only valuable enough to offer in peace to a rival for my father’s power. Once I took that title, she was banished.” Sagging breasts and breathy night sighs, Jacques was still repulsed by fair-haired women. “I’ll have her removed from the records. You’ll be my first wife. Our offspring will rule.” Laughing at the inevitability of what would follow, he said, “After they kill one another off for the honor of keeping a hundred-million people alive.”
The Omega’s face went ashen, her feelings curdling to hear the truth of Bernard Dome’s politics. Another thing he’d slowly ease his timid love into.
“It was a joke, mon chou.” He kissed her nose, pulling her fully into his lap. “I’ll make sure the birthing contracts are so solid there can be no usurpers. Our children will know their place and be all the safer for it. Had my father been more cautious, my brother might still be alive.”
3
Access to Annette had been bought with an act, unnatural and uncomfortable. Painful.
Estrous had been something unworthy of memory. Something to lock in a box in her mind and never think of, lest she drown in shame.
A bit more pressure in just the right place and she was going to spilt right down the middle.
Yet this male demanded so much. And so soon.
And she was foolish and unprepared for the desires of a Centrist Commodore.
The way Jacques’ hand wooed it from her, how he’d murmured and worked to seduce warned her sensibilities to reject such touch. But she could see inside him now in a way that was blinding and overwhelming. And though he asked, cajoled, and purred, no part of him was willing to allow her to deny whatever it was he desired.
On a spiritual level, that’s not how he’d been reared.
Unlike her, who’d lived all her years, developed into a perpetual servant of the greater good.
“There are things that can soothe that ache,” he’d said. “I don’t want his seed inside you. If you let me wash it out, I’ll give you anything you want… within reason.”
Reason? Logic. Mathematics. Physics. Languages of science constantly blooming in her mind. They had no home in Central or this bond.
Shivering despite the heat of the bath, Brenya latched on to the only thing in this awful place that had ever made her feel good. “I want to visit Annette.”
The Alpha’s internal debate was loud, though she could make out none of the words. It was loud in his poorly concealed displeasure, in his craving to have his way, in his delusion that all he desired was to please her.