Page 23 of Ruled By The Alpha

She is dry. Dry and tight, and the stench of the other alpha soaks the sheets and her marred skin. When he brushes over something crusty, she yelps and jerks hard.

AX2 glances down. Powdery blood dusts his fingertips. The scab he has unwittingly rubbed against bleeds a little, coloring a thin strip of her pink flesh scarlet. It isn’t the only wound there—maybe half a dozen minor tears are scabbed over around her opening.

His heart gives an odd sort ofthumplow in his chest at the proof of what, exactly, has been done to her. It should bring him joy—to know that his tormentor found someone even more monstrous than she is.

It doesn’t.

Silently he pulls away, releasing her neck in the process.

She doesn’t move, and he can still hear her shallow sobs as he pushes off the bed and searches the room for something that might make him come out of this with even a shred of his soul intact.

Funny.Up until this very moment, he didn’t think he had any soul left to shred. He was sure she stole the last remnants of it long ago.

There’s a bottle of machine lubricant on a dusty shelf. Translucent mineral oil. Not ideal, but better than nothing.

He returns to the bed where she still lays, unmoving. Legs apart. Waiting to besaved.

His cock is soft and reluctant to rise, and the sight of her bruised body does little to entice it. Even the anger that had him hard before is gone.

AX2 closes his eyes and gives his dick a slow pump. It barely twitches.

Save her.

He’s fucking trying.

An unbidden image flickers at the back of his mind—the same picture he has used before, in the privacy of her lab late at night. Ofher—not the broken little thing crumpled on the bed, but the cold, cruel woman he hates with everything he is. Her surprising warmth as she brushes a hand over his naked chest. The floral scent of her shampoo.

His cock swells, and he bites back a groan of loathing.

Curse it all to goddamn hell.

Unbidden, his free hand finds the curve of her hip. She stiffens under his palm again, to the point he doesn’t know how she avoids snapping a tendon, but he doesn’t grab her. The soft feel of her skin, oftouch,is more than enough, and he keeps his eyes closed around the image of the many times she has examined him.

He pumps his cock faster, swallowing another groan as it starts to feel good, and the image of her twists into that night after his first meeting with the others. Of her warm throat against his palm, her heavy pulse. Her scent filling his lungs as he breathed her in.

“Fuck!”He bites out the curse and wrenches his eyes open to the harsh light of reality, but this time, the sight of her vulnerable and defeated does nothing to quell the need pulsing through his cock.

He keeps his hand on her hip as he grabs for the bottle of lubricant, flicks it open with his thumb, and squirts it onto her soft flesh.

She whimpers when he follows the liquid with a finger, dipping it deep to ensure the oil reaches everywhere it needs to. The squeeze of her muscles protesting the intrusion has his cock throbbing.

“Shh. I’m not gonna hurt you,” he hears himself say—a bold-faced lie. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Another lie; he wants to hurt her with every fiber of his being, just… not like this.

She makes a mewling sound—like a scared kitten pinned and pleading for mercy—andshit,he wishes it didn’t make his cock jump.

“Okay. Just breathe, girl. It’ll be over soon.”

He brings the head of his throbbing member to her slickened opening, and her sobs turn to hyperventilation, her hands fisting in the sheets.

There is no point in drawing it out.

“Ow!”Her scream rips through the room, her body jerking to expel him.

Shit!

He slips his hand from her hip around her stomach and anchors her in place as she turns wild beneath him, instincts she can do nothing to control flaring to life.

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