Page 173 of Ruled By The Alpha

“Saw what? What became clear?” he asked when he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Omega biology. Omegas don’t spontaneously go into heat. They’re like clockwork in that they go into heat in the spring. It’s why the King’s Festival is in April. There’s only one time and one reason that omegas go into heat out of season.”

Again, Clarence stared at Jacob. Jacob felt like he should know the answer, but he had no idea what the alpha was suggesting.

Sighing like Jacob was disappointing him, Clarence said, “Their mate. The only time an omega will go into heat outside of the spring estrous cycle is when they scent their mate for the first time.”

Jacob’s eyes widened.

“Do you see yet?” Clarence asked, reaching down to take Jacob’s wrist. Shifting the manacle farther up his arm, he bared the omega symbol that hadn’t been there before Jacob had entered the omega’s tent. “Another piece of knowledge lost. Even before the omegas started dying out, true mating had become a myth.

“An alpha can form a soul bond through his claiming bite, but only a true mated couple form the alpha/omega marks. The alpha is marked on his wrist…” Clarence raised Jacob’s arm slightly in case he still hadn’t realized what he was talking about. “…and the omega’s mark appears right above her pussy. Guess where we camped the night the omega went into heat, Jacob.”

Still in shock, Jacob couldn’t bring himself to say anything.

“Right on the edge of your property.” Clarence shook his head ruefully. “Can you imagine the odds? Suddenly, it clicked. We were in the middle of nowhere, but a scent, a seemingly random scent, set off her heat. I sent Stephan into town to investigate any alphas who would have cause to be in those woods. He found you, an alpha belonging to what had been the richest family in the county. A true alpha who is the last of his line.” Clarence leaned back on the crate, which creaked under his weight.

“Ithadto be you,” he continued. “We were on your property. There were no other alphas around for acres and acres. I could have everything I’d been hoping for, but it all depended on you. I needed to get you here. I needed you to come to me. I needed you to come into my world. So a plan to draw you here was quickly put into place.”

Then he laughed. “That we were able to make a shit-ton of money off a bunch of desperate alphas was just icing on the cake. Plus I had to be sure it was actuallyyouwho had sparked her heat and not just some random alpha we’d passed on the road.

“You see, an out-of-control, snarling omega isn’t much of an attraction. Once her heat is over, especially now that she’s scented her mate, her slick will dry up. She’ll only respond to her mate now.” He shook his head ruefully, then brightened. “But an omega who can slick at any time with just a growl from her alpha? An alpha/omega breeding pair? Well, you saw how much alphas were willing to pay tonight for just a taste. How much more do you think they’d pay to knot your omega? How much to taste her slick once she’s round with cubs in her belly? Fertile omega pussy… mmm.”

Clarence ran his tongue around his lips as if he could already taste the sweet slick. “Just imagine the price the offspring from a true mated alpha/omega pairing would fetch. Did you know true mates are three times as likely to birth omegas?”

Jacob’s eyes widened with horror at what Clarence was suggesting.

“Good, good!” the little alpha said. “I can see you are starting to understand. Now we just need to discuss the terms. We can do this the hard way, or the easy way. But make no mistake, Jacob, the alphas in the tent think you were killed for losing control. They’ve already spread the word that you’re dead. You are the last of your line. There’s no one to mourn you. No one to seek vengeance. You belong to me. The only difference will be if you choose to cooperate, or if you choose to become part of the exhibit yourself.

“Amazing, really… omega heat-inducers or suppressants are nearly impossible to find, since there aren’t really any omegas to use them, but alphas… There are plenty of ways to send an alpha into rut and keep them there.

“Also, the security isn’t cheap. She has to be guarded at all times, especially when she’s putting off such a delicious scent. If someone were to be… uncooperative enough that I couldn’t pay them, then I might have to give the security team a break. Who knows what might happen if some crazed alphas found their way into her tent?”

Clarence stubbed out his cigar carefully so that a stray spark didn’t ignite the trampled straw. “I’ll let you think it over. It’s a lot to take in, I know, but look on the bright side: You’ll be the envy of every alpha male who pays to finger and fuck your mate.”

Laughing cruelly, the alpha kicked the crate aside and ambled to another cage directly across from Jacob. As Clarence pulled off the cover, Jacob sucked in his breath at the sight of his…hisomega.

She was curled up on the bottom of the cage, still naked. Jacob could see the red marks on her thighs where rough alphas had scratched her tender skin. On her bare hip, he could see the marks where his own fingers had dug into her. She layunmoving, but her dark green eyes stared at him, tears spilling down her cheeks, his grandmother’s golden mating bracelet glinting around her tiny wrist.

Her heat hit Jacob’s senses like a mule kick. He lifted his head as he inhaled her scent deep into his lungs. He felt his cock lengthen and harden as it filled with blood, and his muscles tensed as his rut overtook him. While he vaguely knew there was something he had been upset about and should be angry over, everything was pushed to the side as his vision sharpened and narrowed on the omega across from him.

Mine, a newly awakened part of him whispered.

He growled.

The omega whimpered and shifted restlessly.

The alpha rose onto his knees as he reached out to touch his mate. When the door to her cage opened easily to his touch, he wrapped a big hand around her ankle and drew her slowly to him. He ignored the rattling of his chains as they didn’t hinder his reach, but he snarled as her neck was revealed to him. He found the unmarked skin of her neck offensive. His mark, his bite, needed to be imprinted there for all to see.

The sound of the floor creaking and the smell of tobacco briefly caught his attention, and he glanced to the side to see the little alpha settling back onto the crate. A mewling whimper from his omega made him forget everything but her lithe body now under his bigger and harder frame.

With his teeth clenched around a cigar, Clarence wrapped his other hand around his cock, and Jacob sensed Clarence’s full attention focused on the writhing female dripping slick onto the rough floor of the moving wagon. Jacob snarled under his breath as smiling in both lust and greed, Clarence settled in to watch, but when the female underneath him turned her head to look at the other alpha, Jacob redirected his growl toward her.

No one else should exist for her. Ever. He was her alpha. Her slick, her body, and her submission belonged only to him.

Leaning down to put his nose in the hair by her ear, the primal part of him whispered, “Mine.”

Chapter 5

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