Corrupted (Alpha's Claim 5)

Jacques had been so proud.

Watching it, though he had viewed this moment dozens of times, made his cock pulse to life. Proud and throbbing against his trousers, his erection leaked, waiting to be choked and drained. Always ready for her, and Jacques had nothing but pleasure in knowing the Beta could see but not touch.

“You can feel when she climaxes, so you’ll know that once I return to the nest, I will take her in this exact way and prepare a new projection for you. There is no shame in pleasuring yourself, knowing such a generous gift will arrive. Eat, and I will see that you are furnished with a slick-drenched pillow from her nest and a Beta to fuck on it.”

13

It should have occurred to Brenya sooner. In Palo Corps, her duty had been to identify defects and repair them. Rarely was the damage as simple as a poorly fitted connection or faulty wiring. Yet even if it was, when an engineering grunt made the descent, their duty was to know that every moment they risked exposure, everyone under the glass depended on them.

The entirety of the infrastructure had to be considered. During the climb, if dust was found on a solar collection, it was the grunt’s duty to polish it in passing. If the wind had carried some bracken that stuck to the glass, it would be removed.

Mated to the Commodore of Bernard Dome… her days were now spent under the weight of a large Alpha with a constant erection. She braced. Trying to survive—knowing George had suffered, knowing the lives of Annette and her baby might end at any moment, hiding as often as she was able in the mindscape of such utter darkness, Brenya knew what Jacques had failed to grasp.

It wasn’t just George, or Annette, or little Matthieu.

Everyone under the Dome was in danger, and it was Jacques’ doing.

And it had to be undone.

She could have told the Alpha these things, but he had proven himself incapable of listening past his own flawed judgment. Her voice to him only mattered if it was to please his ego, to thank him for something she had not asked for and didn’t want.

That is what it meant to be the most powerful woman in Bernard Dome. It meant diamonds locked around your neck and silence in the presence of Alphas.

White dresses, sweet wine, boredom, unease, and the constant job of supplicating the male who had admitted he hurt her during sex so she would fight back.

Because she had not touched him when he was inside her? No one had told her she was supposed to touch him. Ancil had strictly ordered her to bend over and brace.

Annette was right, there was nowhere to run. Jacques would always follow.

This was going to be her life, until the life went out of her.

And it already felt like she was being pushed to the wayside by Jacques’ mental invasions and Jules’ yawning emptiness. An overbearing presence in juxtaposition to a man whose soul had been scooped out.

Gnawing hunger that grew worse by the day. The dust on the solar collector she had missed. A total failing in her duty to the Dome.

Ambassador Jules Havel was starving.

And she could feel it as real as if it were her own guts crying out for sustenance.

The same man who had witnessed her public warning to Annette not to eat the Beta rations she had been served at his state dinner. The Thólosen terrorist knew the food wasn’t clean.

Jacques couldn’t see the endless unfeeling void of the man like she could. He didn’t understand that poking his rabid dog was going to kill them all. Jacques didn’t know that Jules had a Rebecca.

And if he was even as slightly obsessed with the woman as Jacques was with Brenya, the Dome was going to suffer all the sooner.

“You are tormenting me with your indifference.”

The moment Brenya understood how much she had overlooked by wallowing in her own unchanging misery, she set down her golden fork. Abandoning the remaining pasta Jacques had served for dinner, she couldn’t bear to look at the man for another moment. “I think I am going to be sick.”

The Commodore’s complaints about her lack of engagement when he mounted her and her indifference to his existence evaporated, Jacques rising from his chair as if coming closer to her would be anything other than unsettling.

The purr was loud, forceful—rapid in a way that almost leaned toward panic. Yet his arms were oddly gentle as he helped her stand.

The dinner was deserted to the evening air, the golden fork with so many possibilities forgotten, as it had been forgotten each night. After all, every maintenance panel hidden behind the papered walls of the Commodore’s bedroom had been sealed beyond her ability to open them.

Not that Brenya had tried. She could smell the epoxy.