Page 153 of Ruled By The Alpha

The cup drained, she resettled his head and sat back on her heels.

Samson grimaced, licking the dregs off his rough lips. “Don’t you have any water? That’s horrible.”

She lifted an uncaring shoulder, “It helps with pain.”

He cast his eyes around the room, noting he was in a sizeable log cabin: tidy, but well lived-in. His Alpha senses awakened one at a time and a variety of smells trickled into awareness: a savory stew bubbled on the hearth, making his stomach growl in acknowledgement; the musty scent of animal fur in stages of damp and drying hung in the corners; but, overwhelmingly, a sweet, herbal earthiness permeated the enclosed space, speaking to him of feminine softness and biological need.Thathad his Alpha awake and interested. Was she…Omega?

AnOmegahadhimtied to a bed. This couldn’t be happening. Maybe hewasdead.

“Rosemary,” he said, savoring the way her name rolled over his lips like a kiss, “why have you tied me up?”

Her elegant neck flexed in another curious tilt, drifting curtains of white hair over her chest and shoulders. “Why areyouwandering around the forest?”

“I asked first,” he shot back, his patience thinning. All well and good to play her little game while he slumbered, but nowhe was awake and this was ridiculous. “Never mind. I don’t care why. Untieme.Now.”

He felt more than saw the cool, dispassionate regard that fixed him in place and did nothing to settle his rising ire. She seemed all too comfortable with their current arrangement.

Aggravated, Samson struggled against the bonds, refusing to believe a single Omega could subdue a full-grown Alpha, even an injured one. His side screamed in protest, torn flesh outpacing him in fury as his thrashing went nowhere. After months of journeying and sleeping rough, his Alpha strength and stamina had abandoned him.

Huffing snootily at his display, she squared her shoulders and rose to her feet. “As you’re the one who’s tied up,” she said over her shoulder as she crossed to the hearth, “you’re not really in a position to make demands, are you?”

“Listen.” Samson forced a deliberate breath in and out his nose, “I don’t know what you want, but this is not the way to get it.”

Ignoring him, she stirred the stewpot, pulling out a spoonful and blowing on it to taste. She hummed to herself, then added a pinch of something and stirred some more, tending to her cooking as if she hadn’t even heard him.

Growing up with three sisters, being ignored by an Omega in a snit was not a new experience. But he’d never in his life confronted an Omega on a power trip while simultaneously struggling to ignore her intoxicating aroma. Every loud, snorting breath he took to calm himself only drove her clean, crisp fragrance—floral, but not sweet, it sang of chamomile and violet and an early summer morning—directly into his bloodstream and sent his sanity further into disarray. Nothing stirred in his southern parts,thank god, maybe due to his injury or the blood loss, or the fact that hewas tied up for no fucking reason.

Who was this Omega, anyway? Was she all alone? What the hell was she doing in the middle of nowhere rescuing random Alphas from certain death?

As she busied herself with cooking and neglecting him, Samson scrutinized his captor. Dark, thoughtful brows arched across her golden forehead, framing a set of round, widely spaced eyes. A broad, sensible nose and a pert, expressive mouth completed the picture, all of it set off by the soft, shimmering hair that floated around her like a cloud. Not terribly large in stature, he estimated her height as on par with his sister Jezebel, coming up to his chin when they stood toe-to-toe. He knew from sibling experience that made her petite enough to shove aside and outrun when he got loose of these bonds.

Yet the thought of any kind of roughness touching the Omega—Rosemary—curdled his guts, and the thought ofhimenacting violence on her in any form made him outright ill. Regardless of whether she was currently his jailor, this Omega ought to be cherished and protected, and given body-shaking orgasms until she passed out.

Wait. No.Samson shook his head against the pillow, wishing he could jam his palm into his brow. Or slap his own face. Or punch his own dick. His current circumstance left no rational reason to be thinking about fucking an Omega, even one with magical, snowy hair who smelled like the best dream he’d ever had.

No! Shit!He needed to shake this off, figure out what was going on, and come up with a plan. Unfortunately, his solutions to most problems inevitably trended toward physicality and violence. Born into an Alpha Pack, the eldest son of the Alpha of Alphas, strength and dominance reigned in both pleasing his father and surviving in the Pack. As a strong, budding Alpha, that had all worked out fine for Samson.

Until it hadn’t. Until he’d crawled away, defeated and subdued, with barely his life and none of his dignity intact. What would his father say about the pathetic turn his life had taken? After leaving his sisters and mother behind, there would be no redemption for the likes of him. Perhaps he should’ve stayed and simply let the usurpers kill him. Look where he’d ended up: imprisoned and helpless,again, only this time to a fuckingOmega.

“Are you done flopping like a fish on land?” she asked, skewering him with her crisp, judgmental accent. “If so, I thought you might like to try to eat.”

Samson relaxed back into the bed, nostalgic for the warm, floaty feeling he’d enjoyed before the full extent of his shitty circumstances revealed themselves. For the second time in his life, physical helplessness and psychic resignation smothered out everything else, filling him with a deep, hollow despair.

The Omega returned, bringing a steaming bowl of food and her unique aroma along with her. As she knelt, he raised his eyes to hers with a hoarse plea. “What are you going to do with me?”

She paused, then lifted the spoon from the bowl. “I don’t know,” she said softly, sadness in her voice deepening his misery. “But I thought we’d start with supper.”

Chapter 3

Rosemary

The man was awake.

Outside, the usual night sounds of rustling trees, chirping bats, and the occasional owl broke the stillness. But, inside, the restless noise of her captive disturbed her own deep slumber.

Rosemary studied him through half-lidded eyes from across the open main room. Given the fatigue she’d racked up over the long few days of caring for her unexpected charge, her exhaustion ran deep.

She’d forgotten how much work attending a sick man required. This one, though, hardly counted as sick—wounded, yes, but not sick. Certainly he was afflicted with nothing like the cruel, wasting illness that felled Papa. This one grew stronger each day; after three days, his color improved, his breathing quieted, his heart rate steadied, and the horrific bruise on his face had cleared to only a shadow. Now that he’d begun to properly eat, he’d strengthen even quicker, which would complicate the situation even more.

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