Page 23 of Outcast Island

“Guðrún,” I tell him with a dialect that is native to our land. It would be an odd name for someone not familiar with the area.

“Guðrún,” he repeats, and I can feel him smiling against my throat as he withdraws his fingers from my pussy and caresses my legs again. “That’s a beautiful name, just like you.”

A blush warms my cheeks—one that makes me feel feverish again after digesting so much of Magnus’s heady blood.

“My mother picked it,” I say as I try to come up with one of the few pleasant memories I have.

“Tell me about her,” he says as he tugs me to his side. He retrieves more oils and a small towel. He soaks it before he starts washing me, starting with my neck, chest, and breasts.

Every time he grazes one of my nipples, my toes curl.

I wait until he moves to wash my fingertips before I respond. “She’s the perfect Omega. Submissive. Calm.”

“Is she as beautiful as you are?” he asks.

I smile. Her beauty would be more obvious if she didn’t hide behind her bright blonde hair. My father is the one who has darker locks, so I became a mixture of them.

My mother’s golden tones seem to annoy my father, just like the sun would.

“She’s beautiful, yes.”

“How did she pick your name?” he asks.

I recall when she proudly told me how she had chosen the name. “She said she named me Guðrún because it means gods’ rune.” I chuckle as Magnus kisses my fingertips. “Like a secret, I guess? I think she knew I was an empath before I was even born.”

She considered me something special. She had survived pregnancy because I had given her a gut feeling of warning before enemies arrived. That time had been one of heavy attacks from rival nests.

When I was born, though, my mother didn’t have any other stories of how great my power was other than she could never hide the truth from me. It was my father and my brothers who beat out any idea that I was anything other thandifficult.

And my mother couldn’t spin it any other way to at least spare me until I was older. I always knew exactly how they felt about me.

“Is she still with your father?” Magnus asks. He keeps his touch reverent and his tone quiet, but a pluck inside my chest warns me that anger is stirring in him again.

As safe as I know I am with Magnus, my curse as an empath internalizes his rage. What steps I had taken toward a true estrus are undone as my stomach painfully tightens. I frown as I adjust to the sensation.

Then I remember another reason my father had sent me to Bariloche Sector. It was because no Vampire Alpha could even force me into heat, much less estrus. Many had tried, but it had always ended the same.

My powers detected their true nature and it closed my womb, refusing to allow me to procreate in a situation where I wasn’t safe. Other Omegas might be built in a way that Alphas could capitalize on their instincts. Their mind might know they’re being forced into estrus, but their body can be fooled.

Mine doesn’t work that way.

So my father sent me to Bariloche Sector to “fix me.” I was doused with Alpha blood and primed to accept my fate.

Had I remained, it might have worked.

And my mother had hidden behind her hair, refusing to look at me when I had been taken away. She hadn’t said a word or done anything other than be a good Omega and obey her Alpha.

But I had felt her heart break when I had cried for her when they dragged me away.

“Yes, my mother is still with him,” I say honestly while Magnus massages each of my fingers with surprisingly gentle care.

Tears burn at the edges of my eyes. I let them roll down my cheeks for the first time in this kind of situation. I don’t have tohide who I am with Magnus, or what I’m feeling. When I match his gaze, I see what he wants to do.

He wants to kill my father again.

“Please,” I whisper. “Don’t leave me.”

No matter what pain I feel now, the pain of his absence while I’m slowly suffocating in a cycle of heat with no estrus on the other side is too much.

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