Page 172 of Ruled By The Alpha

Chapter 4

As he slowly awoke, Jacob first felt the sharp pain in the back of his head. His vision swam, and he blinked to clear it. Raising a hand to where his head throbbed, his attention was diverted by the clanking of a chain and the weight on his arms. Blinking again, Jacob struggled to focus on his wrists. Both of them were wreathed in a thick, rusted manacle attached to an equally rusted, but solid steel chain. Without moving his head any more than necessary, he followed the chain to where it was fastened to the wall.

What the fuck? Where was he? What had happened to him? Why was he chained up like an animal?

Where was his omega?

He could still taste her. Smell her heat.Hisomega. Why was he still thinking of her as his? She couldn’t be his. She belonged to Clarence.

No, a little internal voice said,she’s ours.

Now he was hearing voices?

Ours.Take her.Knot her.Breed her.

That was why he was chained up. He was obviously losing his mind.

Alpha, the voice in his head whispered.We are alpha.

He had flashes of what had happened after he had put his mouth on the omega. He’d drunk her slick like a man at a desert oasis. When they’d tried to separate them, he’d lost his mind and tried to rip out Clarence’s throat.

But why was he still alive? Taking an inventory of his body, the only pain came from where they’d hit him on the head, his still throbbing wrist, and his back from lying on the hard floor.After losing his control, he was surprised that a bump on the head seemed to be his only real injury.

A grating voice followed the creaking of a door somewhere to Jacob’s left. “Oh, you’re awake! Good! I was hoping they hadn’t damaged you when they knocked you out.”

Grimacing, he turned his head to see the little alpha from the circus walking toward him. Clarence grabbed an empty crate and set it down next to where Jacob sat on the straw-covered floor.

“What the hell is going on? Why—”

“Now, now, alpha. We’re going to talk about all that, but let’s take a minute to go over some facts. How much do you know about omega biology?” Clarence asked in a business-like tone.

Jacob gaped at him. Omega biology? What did that have to do with why he was sitting on the floor?

“They go into heat. They slick. They take a knot.”

“Yes, those are pretty much the basics.” Clarence’s chuckle grated on Jacob’s nerves. “There’s more to it than that, though. It’s really quite fascinating.”

He lit a cigar that he pulled from his pocket, then continued after exhaling a ring of smoke. “The story of how we acquired the omega wasmostlytrue. Imagine our surprise upon finding an omega in the wild. Of course, it was a little crazy there at first. It makes a good story to think that we all got along and worked together to come up with a way to use the omega. However, when we found her, there were several alphas in our circus. Other than the wolf-boy, I’m the only one left. They fought for her, and it was a bloodbath.

“I used to be one of the freaks. ‘Come see the littlest alpha!’” he said with such bitterness that Jacob could taste his anger. “The irony is that being in that cage saved me. The alphas killed each other for the chance to fuck her. Afterward, I took a chanceand ordered the betas to let me out. Without the other alphas to countermand the order, they released me.

“She’s tempting. I know.” Clarence nodded with a mournful air. “But I saw a chance at something more. I took over the circus and hid the omega. I tried to growl for her. Nothing. No slick. No begging for cock. Just a stare filled with hatred, and an unspoken promise to kill me as soon as possible. She refused to use words, but those eyes speak volumes.

“We maintained the circus schedule, but I kept her hidden. I had a vague idea of what I could do with her, but I needed to learn more. While we traveled, I read every scrap of information I could find about omegas. I finally had the beginnings of a plan, but she wasn’t cooperative. The only person she tolerated was the wolf-boy. Anyone else who tried to touch her or got too close paid for it in blood. She’s a feisty bitch.”

Jacob wondered if the alpha knew he said that with pride in his voice—the pride one might have for a favorite horse or dog, rather than a human.

“Then we stopped outside of your little shithole village, and everything changed,” Clarence chuckled. “One of the betas reported that the omega hadn’t eaten. That she’d refused food and she looked sick. I went to check on her, and I’m sure you can imagine my surprise and delight when I realized she wasn’t sick.”

“She was in heat,” Jacob supplied.

“Indeed. Slick covered her legs, her pupils were dilated, she had torn off her clothes… I growled for her. Before she would just scream curses at me, but this time… this time, slick flowed from her pussy.” Jacob could hear from his tone that Clarence was reliving that moment.

Clarence turned so that he was facing Jacob, and Jacob could see that the alpha’s eyes were dilated with the memory of that first rush of slick.

“I couldn’t help myself; I reached out to touch her. She’d never let me touch her before. She moaned when I tasted her slick. That was when I saw the future, and it all became clear.”

Jacob waited for him to continue, but Clarence just stared at him like he was waiting for Jacob to guess.

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