The Golden Line (Knotted 1)

Where was the wildcat who’d grabbed up a piece of sharp debris days ago?

If I get you angry enough, you will kill me more quickly.

Those had been her words when the Beta translator had been summoned.

Maybe he had not taken her words as seriously as he should have. Relying on their bond to ease her considerable distress, spoiling her with gratuitous fucking—it had changed nothing.

She was more skittish now than when he had brought her home.

Simin even wondered what she would do if given the opportunity to leave. Would she flee, seek another protector? Would she hate him as it seemed she did now?

This was beyond fear. This was spiritually unhealthy.

A featherlight skim of fingertips traced the outline of his shoulders, his Omega seeking out the spaces where muscles met so a practiced touch might knead tension away. God how he tried to be pliant, to soften all that musculature so she might be done with her unnecessary show of… servitude.

Someone had trained her to do this—trained her so deeply she could not allow him to bathe her until she had satisfied some unknown ritual.

There was no give and take, she would not even allow him to wash her beyond a quick scrub of her chest.

Simin wanted to touch her in this way, to knead the tension from her knotted muscles, to ease her into deserved contentment. No Nierra slave he’d taken to bed had ever acted in this compulsory way his mate did. Some were skittish—many slaves were—but this was…

What had they done to so wonderful an Omega?

Irritated by his unruly imagination and the horrible things he knew his vanquished enemy capable of, he took the sponge from her fingers, barking an order for her to cease scrubbing him and sit back.

It was the exact wrong thing to say.

She withered. She who had been so determined to show him this thing she could do.

Female skin going green, watching her throat work, Simin was certain she was going to be sick. His own mouth watered with the sour precursor of vomit just seeing his mate so ill.

“Kor’yr, you did well.” Insulting tradition by washing me first. “But I am Alpha and you are Omega. I provide and you accept. In exchange, you give me great joy by cherishing our pair-bond and nest.”

The sunken tub could have housed five grown warriors of merit, offered enough space to frolic, to rinse, and to relax, even to fuck if they wanted too. But now it was a big bowl of steaming misery.

There was no joy here because she was blind, blue eyes brimming with sorrow, and skin sweating with fear.

And he was failing.

Purr stilted by shoulder deep water, Simin stood so the female might feel the true depth of the comforting sound he offered and approached where she’d sunk low. Chin skimming the water, golden hair floating about her like spun tentacles of sunshine, she gazed up.

She gazed up and looked utterly lost.

It crushed him, enraged him, and stirred up a searing burn behind his ribs he’d never known before. Cupping that chin under the water, drawing her to sit up, to present herself, he took care to wash, massage, tend and soothe every part of her in a gentle pantomime of sex. Of adoration and solace. Simin did everything he could to express how he wished her to be happy.

And she stank of misery the whole time. Worse, she tried to lie by smiling, chirping out her language the more he frowned.

When he took her back to their nest, he broke his word and did not take her body as he’d said he would. Instead he laid her head upon a pillow of green silk, covered her with the smooth slip of satin, and purred at her side until she slept.

Then he slunk away.

While she slept, he found all the shattered pieces scattered in his rampage and hid them out of sight. He cleaned like a lowly slave. He prepared food so that when she woke it would be ready and there would be no awkward, wordless fight over who would make it.

He sat before his view of space and pondered deeply.

And for the first time since he’d brought her into their home, she slept the whole night through. She slept, he knew, because he was far away.

“I will fix this.” A vow from a Heidron was unbreakable.