The Golden Line (Knotted 1)

When she chewed even slower and a bulge bumped from her belly from too much food, he fed himself the scant remainder on the plate. Eyes on the view, content and growing more confident in his approach, he spoke of all their lives would be and confessed that he’d been lonely for her, had made great, secret offerings to the higher power so he might find her… wondering to himself if he was only willing to admit it aloud because she could not understand and think less of his prowess for unmasculine sentimentality.

Every Alpha desired an Omega mate, but to find a kor’yr was something not one in a billion might accomplish. Simin had found his propped up in a glass cage as if the gods themselves had set her aside for him.

The arm around her supple body grew tighter, pressing them into one being.

***

He had fed her raw meat. Raw.

Morgaine still wanted to cringe just thinking of it. Did these people not know of parasites and bacteria that could rage through a colony and massacre half a settlement? One bad well had poisoned over twenty people when Morgaine had still been a child.

A single wrong sip of water. Dysentery. Burial.

Yet he had partaken in the meal when she was painfully full with smiling lips and sounds of satisfaction. The juxtaposition of this place and their barbaric customs set her head spinning. He looked like a savage, spoke like one, yet possessed the finest rooms she’d ever seen.

That plate was bone china, if not some kind of cut milky crystal. The furnishings were immaculate.

Where was the leather, the bones, the carcasses of his latest kill roasting over an open fire?

How did the male who shattered the glass of her enclosure, who had penetrated her the first time while she still slept, equate with this?

How did he know how to touch her to make her mindlessly spread and howl for more?

When was he going to mutilate her? In what ways?

Would he kill her after? Share her?

What was she going to do?

Dizzy with horrible, circular thoughts, the pounding behind Morgaine’s eyes grew. The male was still talking, his ugly language croaked so deep the one speaking sounded like a cross of a toad and a thunderstorm. And as he talked, he touched.

Light strokes to her brow, across her cheeks, running those calloused fingers between her bared breasts to jostle her ribs until she jumped. No coerced laugh broke past her lips, Morgaine determined to bear the tickling rather than face his ire.

Becaus

e her life was in his hands and she was so thrown by the last few days—by the pain that still lingered muscle deep where a cane had lashed her, and the loss of everything she knew—that she had no idea where to turn.

Her cunt, and that was the name it had been reduced to, ached. And even aching, it still wept that horrible fluid.

Part of her even wanted this awkward meal to end so he might take her back to the nest and twist her mind back into that stark white place of feeling. That place where she forgot her name, her inhibitions, where she felt free in the loss of who she was because there was nothing to mourn if she was nothing at all.

Scarred, older than any courting boy she’d received flowers from, older than even grabby Esin. His fingers still sticky with the parts of her body they had delved into and the raw meat they had shared, the crazed male Sergeant Uriel and his commandant had given her to, smiled. It was lopsided but displayed healthy teeth too straight to be natural.

Back home, dentistry was expensive. Morgaine was missing a molar near the back that had gone rotten in her teen years. Tonguing the empty space, a little self-conscious her teeth were a bit crooked, she felt even worse for such shallow concerns. It wasn’t her teeth this man wanted her for.

It was the deceptive slut of a slit between her legs.

Chapter 17

Who could imagine it would be so difficult to bathe a single, tiny female? Especially one who clearly needed the relaxation of a deep soak, warm water, fresh soap, and doting hands to tend where she was most likely sore. They had fucked a great deal, and no male of his worth—even in the deepest rut—would allow his mate to grow filthy with crusting fluids.

Considering that she was an untried virgin who had let him do as he desired, Simin was doubly sure she could use the luxury.

Yet his kor’yr had grown so agitated with the experience she’d started to grind her teeth and leak silent tears. It had come to the point he’d let her break tradition and wash him just to keep her from losing the tattered remains of her failing composure.

The feel of her hands on his body had been wonderful, but the very significant reason she did it was anything but pleasurable.

Every time he moved, she flinched as if preparing to accept a strike.