Page 5 of Bred By the Barge

My hackles rise. I can’t ignore the insult.

As I stalk to her, her eyes widen, and the first trace of fear enters her gaze. I flatten her against the pole and yank her head back by her hair, using my forearm to buffer the torn flesh of her shoulder.

“Call me a pirate again, tiny treasure, and I’ll plunder your depths right here, right now, in front of everyone.”

Her brows scrunch.

“Everyone?” she asks.

I call out to my second-in-command and enjoy the emotions playing across my tiny omega’s face as people emerge from between the ancient shipping containers.

All color drains from her face. Her pupils shrink. She meets my eyes and swallows.

“I’m not a pirate, little one. Don’t call me one again,” I snarl.

Her warm blood oozes down my arm in stark contrast to her wet, frigid clothes.

“Who are you?” she asks.

Taemin, my second in command, answers for me.

“He’s The Barge. If you’ve never heard of him, it’s because he’s never left any survivors behind.”

After years of eating, sleeping, and working alongside me, the tall beta male is wise enough to keep his distance while standing in my line of sight.

“So you are a pirate,” she hisses.

I growl and wrap my fist around her throat.

“I told you to be careful with your words, omega,” I say as I lean my weight harder against her and tighten my grip on her throat.

Her breath hitches as my cock hardens against her stomach.

“If you’re not a pirate, then what are you?”

“He’s the captain of this ship, and a right good one at that, so you should heed his warning,” Taemin says.

I flick him an unimpressed glance. He gets the message and clamps his mouth shut as he takes a step back.

“I’m the one in charge of your future, so choose wisely, little one. Want to call me a pirate again?”

She shakes her head as much as my grip on her hair and throat allows. I rumble my satisfaction and enjoy the way her eyes lose focus and the fresh flush of pink on her cheeks.

“Good. Now be still,” I demand before releasing her throat and grabbing the hose from Taemin.

She gasps as I turn on the water, no doubt expecting it to be cold, but she closes her eyes and turns her face away in quiet retaliation. I yank her head back by her hair and rinse the worst of the salt from her scalp before getting her face, arms, and upper torso. She doesn’t move when I step back and spray her lower half before moving around her and rinsing her back.

With the sun beating down on us and the water much warmer than the ocean, she no longer shivers from the cold, but she shakes from shock and exhaustion.

I toss the hose to Taemin and growl a low command before pulling my knife from my belt. As the males disappear between the storage containers, beta females descend on the table.

“No! Don’t touch h—”

I push her head forward and twist my fingers deeper into her tangled locks before fitting the tip of my knife into the shredded material over her shoulder and slicing all layers to the bottom hem. The pearly expanse of her lower back tests my control, but the crimson seeping from her torn shoulder and the bruise spanning across her upper back fill me with fury. I try to cut the shoulder seams of her shirts, but can’t with only one hand, so I snarl as I shove my knife back into its holster and carefully extract my digits from her mass of curls.

“I told you,” I rip her right shoulder seams, “to only,” I release the fabric and enjoy the revealing of her pale flesh, “worry about,” I grab the fabric over her left shoulder, “yourself.”

I wrench the material apart and step back as it falls to the deck.

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