Red's Mate (Alpha's Woman Book 3) Read online

  His humiliatingly superior forces had gone marauding through the town, looking for something that was obviously of great importance to them. Not that finding her had stopped them from finishing the job and killing everyone and everything they encountered, including those who had cared for her and valiantly tried to help her survive in this savage world.

  If the enormous brute who was dangling her above the floor did indeed know what she was—and she would have bet he did—she would be subjected to various unpleasant versions of a fate worse than death and might well end up searching for ways to bring about her own end because of it.

  And if he didn't, she could be killed outright very easily—he could simply drop her on her head and break her neck. He could rape her, then kill her, or give her to his men, who would kill her in a much slower, more torturous fashion. Or he could sell her for what she knew would be a staggering amount of gold and goods.

  But the hardest things she was fighting were by far herself and her own instincts, which were trying to convince her to simply surrender herself to him, her own rampant needs shoving her intellect aside and making that idea seem quite enticing.

  She'd scented a multitude of Alphas while they were being raided, but his was, by far, the strongest and most potent, making her head spin and her body automatically begin to prepare itself for his possession—utterly against her will.

  She had vowed that, since it seemed that she was going to die anyway, that would never, ever happen. She would resist him with every fiber of her being—or whatever few she could rally to her mind, and she had a feeling that wasn't going to be easy, either.

  Her entire body ached abominably with both the urge to allow him to do anything to her that he might want to and the effort of trying to keep herself from doing just that. Ebby might not have been actively fighting him, but she was growing more and more exhausted just hanging there, where—she was horrified to acknowledge—her entire lower body was contracting heavily, on its own, as it had been since he'd stepped into the room. There didn't seem to be any way to stop it. Her body had already deserted her useless tries to commanding it in favor of complying with her desires, instead, which would inevitably lead to her demise, in one way or the other, she was sure.

  Nor did there seem to be a way to stop the worst, most damning—and shamefully obvious—evidence of how she felt—which, even in this position, was leaking in a steady stream out of her, causing the overflow of her own juices to find its way in either direction that was so naturally and readily available to it. As he breathed down over her, he highlighted the wet trail of her own powerful essence as it created a path down to the top of her labia and onto the flat of her lower belly in front and up the small of her back, almost following—and filling in—the indentation of her spine in back.

  She forced herself to try to concentrate on what she had been taught all her life. Ebby had lived surrounded by other women, Omega males and castrati all her life. She had heard their dire warnings as they had taught her how to fight, to physically defend herself, hoping it might be enough to save her. But nothing could have prepared her for what was happening to her now—what was clouding her usually quick mind, overpowering it in favor of white hot passions that were so strong, so fierce, they terrified her. They filled every nook and cranny of her mind, and had long since laid waste to any modicum of control she might have had over her body.

  Through sheer strength of will, though, Ebby somehow managed to almost control her thoughts and her fears, well enough, at least, for her to take another deep, calming breath; not that it did her any good.

  When it seemed as if he was going to hold her like this forever, Ciaran lowered her to the ground and let go of her, standing a bit away from her and watching her, as if he expected her to entertain him.

  Ebby felt as if she was slogging through sand as she sat up and, with her free hands, began to work at the knots in the ropes that held her legs together, looking nervously up at the giant every few seconds while she fumbled ineptly at the task, as if she'd never loosened a knot before in her life.

  And he just stood there and let her, which only made her that much more suspicious about what he intended to do to her.

  She shook herself mentally—as if there was any doubt as to what he intended to do to her!

  Ciaran wasn't about to discourage her from freeing her legs. Why not? It would aid his cause quite considerably. If she hadn't killed so many of his men already, he'd've offered her one of his knives.

  When she was done, she didn't immediately get up and run, nor did she cast aside the perfectly good rope. She kept it, wrapping the ends around each hand a few times, leaving a good, useful length between them.

  Only then, did she rise, assuming a fighting stance in front of him, but he merely smiled outright at his would-be assassin.

  He was about a foot and a half taller than she was and a descendant of a breed of men who were created to be much bigger, stronger, and faster than the average male, and he had at least a hundred pounds on her, all of it muscle. Even without those advantages, he'd spent his entire life being trained as a soldier, having come up through the ranks by virtue of his own considerable skills—both physical and mental.

  In essence, the puny scientists who created his kind had been actively inviting their own decimation. He was an Alpha, through and through, brought up in a military camp that was built on the remains of what had been the Army's at one time, since they kept the name for their own fighting force. No one really remembered it anymore, and it didn't really matter anyway.

  When the End had come, in the aftermath, the survivors, who were inevitably those who had not naturally evolved here—the bigger, the stronger, and the faster—continued the only existence they had known, taking over the good-sized military base in the wasteland of what had once been fertile land and rolling green hills but hadn't been for a long time. Eventually, because of their military prowess, the camp grew into what passed for a thriving city-state with a large, well-trained fighting force, which ran the camp efficiently and ruthlessly, sending out raiding parties like his who would be on campaign for years at a time, collecting anything—or anyone—they thought might prove useful, either to them at the moment or to the camp, eventually, when they returned.

  Most of the survivors of the apocalypse were male—the majority of them his type of man—which had almost immediately reduced women to what they had been for almost the entirety of their existence—chattel, sold and traded, but these were ordinary women who were not really made to fulfill one of what they knew was their true purpose—to breed more of themselves.

  The children of an Alpha and his bonded omega were—besides being incredibly rare and precious—more likely to be omegas themselves

  The mutation that had created the Alphas had had a wholly unexpected effect on some of the female children that were born to Alphas and regular woman. On rare occasions, an omega female was born—an Alpha male's true mate, born to be his, her one true purpose to receive him when he wanted to breed her, which was very frequently. Alphas wore most regular women out quickly because of their sheer size, and sex with regular women was only somewhat satisfactory because it was not a true mating, as they could not complete the bond that would bind them together—in every possible way—with anyone other than an omega.

  And any unbonded Alpha male who caught scent of an unbonded omega—regardless of his training or intelligence—could be very easily overcome with the need to take her as his mate and would risk anything to get her.

  Omega females were surprisingly small and delicate, considering the size of the men who would dominate them, but they were also quite strong in some ways—built to survive—and even thrive—under the thumb and sharp eye of her Alpha. They were hopelessly overpowered and utterly controlled by their mates, their little bodies stretched and pierced and flooded to overflowing during a mating ritual that they couldn't deny on their end they nonetheless desired. Then, when they inevitably became pregnant—usually afte
r being brought into heat by repeated breeding by their Alpha—they would be forced to struggle through long labor and birth of what could be a large male child, who would grow up to be an Alpha himself. The cycle would repeat itself for the rest of her life—she would be brought into heat and bred again as soon as was medically feasible.

  Sometimes sooner, depending on the Alpha's attitude towards his omega, which was usually protective, at least, because of how precious she was, but was not always—not even often—loving or affectionate.

  The omega standing in front of him was a rare breed indeed, and again, he had to admire her. She'd obviously been trained to fight by someone who had a general idea of what he was doing, although he could have helped her with her stance and the way she held the rope if he'd had a mind to. But he was ashamed to admit that every inch of him was bathed in her arousal—as she was soon going to be in his if any more of that potent nectar seeped out of her. Ciaran was frankly surprised she wasn't standing in a pool of it by now.

  So far, she was managing to resist her own deeply imbedded instincts, as was he. But he didn't intend to continue resisting them for too much longer. The sooner he bonded her to him, marking her as his own, the better.

  "So you intend to strangle me with that rope, little one?" he asked casually, his hands behind his back again as he moved towards her, watching her carefully as she skirted around him and only occasionally lunging at her—not even moving his hands when he did, as if taunting her with potentially easy access to his thick neck.

  But the smart girl didn't fall for it, biding her time, waiting for the right opportunity to strike. He was big, but she was small and quick, and she had the rope.

  One of them was going to go down and—seconds later, before she really even registered what was happening, he struck—and it was her.

  On one of those teasing lunges, his hand shot out, quick as a snake, grabbing the middle of the rope and giving it a yank.

  She should never have wrapped the ends around her hands, she realized much too late, as she was pulled forward, colliding with his solid wall of a chest hard enough to knock the wind out of her. While she was trying to recover her breath, he was busily binding her hands again with the very same rope, and no amount of trying to reclaim them got her anywhere at all.

  And when he was done, she was much more securely bound than she had been before. It would take her quite a while to free herself, not that she wasn't going to try.

  As soon as he had finished, his hands returned to where they had been. He looked insufferably proud of himself. So Ebby reeled her head back then rammed it into his breadbasket as hard as she could, hearing him give an incredibly satisfying "oof!"

  With him off guard a bit, she turned to run for the door to the tent, but he wasn't anywhere near as incapacitated as she'd assumed—hoped desperately—he'd be, and he simply stuck out a big booted foot, causing her to trip and land face down on the rug.

  Still unwilling to admit defeat, she hit at the floor and instantly began to crawl as quickly as she could, only to feel, after she'd only made it a few feet, long, rough fingers closing around one slim ankle as he pulled her back towards him slowly.

  Ciaran didn't touch her anywhere else for the moment. He used his other hand to make only the adjustments to what remained of his uniform that he considered to be blindingly, painfully necessary, setting free the long, thick cock that had been torturously confined for much too long around her. As it immediately began to increase dramatically in length as well as girth, the broad, almost purple head began dripping his own tribute to her presence onto the carpet beneath, while she left a dark, impressively damp trail of her body's undeniable answer beneath her on the rug.

  He didn't jerk her to him—as everything in him wanted to with a blinding need. Instead, he squatted down and drew her to him with inexorable patience, watching her futile attempts to save herself with immense enjoyment.

  Ebby turned herself over as far as she could to claw at the rugs, but she found herself too far away from where she needed to be, and the material was too heavy and well made for her to sink her nails into—besides, she kept them too short for them to do her any good, anyway. Nevertheless, she bloodied her fingertips trying to grasp at something—anything—while at the same time attempting to use her free leg to try to leverage herself away from him. But he was much too strong for her to be able to get anywhere unless she wanted to leave her captured leg with him.

  But she never stopped fighting him and the fate that he represented. The old women in town who had hidden her had told her that they were keeping her safe from Alphas. And she knew with a heavy heart that some of them had died defending her. They had told her that being claimed by an Alpha—being bonded to one—would mean a life that was even worse than that of a slave. She would not only completely lose her mind—how so was left a bit of a mystery that had been starkly solved by his mere proximity to her—but she would also lose her freedom and her autonomy to whatever brutish, feral Alpha staked his claim on a body she could no longer trust to do her own bidding.

  And, at this moment, she was being dragged closer and closer to the most enormous, most untamed barbarian imaginable whose intent was plain in the threat of that fierce looking sword that jutted out menacingly from between his legs.

  Chapter 2

  He was so large that he very quickly filled her entire field of vision. He had a shock of long, unkempt wavy red hair and a full—but surprisingly well trimmed—beard of the same color. Starkly blue eyes never wavered from hers, although he managed to casually counter every move she made while trying to extricate herself as if she was broadcasting them to him, somehow, through silvery hazel ones that couldn't seem to look away from the part of him that she knew represented her downfall more so than any other.

  Forcing herself to look anywhere else, her gaze rose over him. His face bore scars of other battles, undoubtedly—a long, ugly one by his left eye that hinted at the idea he might well have come close to losing it, and another, deeper looking one on his cheek, the end of which was buried in his beard.

  She wondered—erratically—how many others his facial hair covered.

  He was solid muscle from the neck down, shoulders and arms bulging with them beneath the clingy shirt he was wearing that seemed barely able to contain them. It was holey and ripped and appeared to be made of much less than the best of materials, which, if she had been in her right mind, would have made her curious. He was obviously a successful man—why would he choose to wear inferior garments?

  "Do you like what you see, little termagant?" he asked with a grin.

  Embarrassed that he'd caught her staring, Ebby furiously tried to work up a mouthful of spit to hurl at him, but she was too dry for that—and she wasn't sure whether or not that was a good thing.

  She thought he was going to lift her into the air again, but then she had to abruptly discontinue her highly improper inspection of him because he was gently but insistently turning her ankle—not so subtly implying that she should turn onto her tummy if she wanted to avoid a broken ankle.

  And, although she resisted as long as she could, she knew she couldn't afford any kind of serious injury if she was ever going to get away from him, so she capitulated as quietly and efficiently as she could, somehow ending up feeling even more vulnerable than she had when she was naked on her back before him. It turned out that that was for good reason, since he didn't stop tugging on her until she was close enough to lift onto a knee he'd bent specifically for that purpose.

  Before she knew it, Ebby was bent in half, hanging over his formidably thick thigh. He was so tall—and she so small—that her extremities barely touched the ground, even when he carefully placed his other leg over hers, trapping them against his bent leg, reaching down to clamp a hand none too gently at the base of her skull, rendering her essentially immobile with an ease that made her want to cry.

  She wasn't at all sure what it was that he was up to, but she was relatively certain she didn't want
to find out, especially since this position—so close to him and so terribly vulnerable—was causing her to want to rub herself indecently against him just to find some kind—any kind—of relief from the aggravating, mind-numbing ache that was pulsing between her legs.

  And then she felt it and couldn't control a startled scream as his hand began to connect with her bare bottom in what quickly became a frightfully consistent rhythm.

  "This is but a taste, little girl," he rasped down at her. "You're going to get a thorough spanking just to let you know what you can expect any time you don't obey my orders to the letter."

  With that, he said nothing else as he relentlessly assaulted her small but generous behind and down the backs of her thighs as far as he could reach above his other leg. Each one came very close to making her cry out again—especially the longer it went on—not in surprise, but in pure pain. But Ebby clamped her teeth together and refused to make another sound, no matter the provocation.

  To her deep humiliation, she was only able to honor that vow to herself for another few minutes as he slowly, relentlessly dismantled her ability to resist vocalizing her distress. At first, it was soft whimpers as he continued that horrible rise and tremendous, cracking fall of his palm against flesh she couldn't cringe away from him, as much as she wanted to. He kept her bottom exactly where he wanted it and her the perfect, helpless target.

  From whimpers, it was a very short step to cries, and even sooner, moans. And, although she managed to keep herself from pleading with him to stop—barely—she was wailing loudly with every crisp, stinging swat that landed long before he stopped.