Page 52 of Shadowlands Omega

“You can’t do this,” I whisper.

“Do what?”

“Use my Omega nature against me.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t say no.”

“No. Do not use your Omega nature againstme, Kiandah. You are unbonded. You can speak freely. Do not place blame where it does not belong to make yourself feel better that you are letting a male you are half in love with eat you out like a beast, even though you pretend that you don’t like him at all.”

I open my mouth, but I don’t know which of his comments I’d have responded to first, if he’d given me the chance. But he doesn’t. He hooks his hands underneath my knees, wrenches my hips forward, and then leans in and rips a hole through the crotch of my linen pants with his teeth. Warm air, his breath, caresses me.

I tense up, arch my back, stab my fingers through his hair. I push him back — no, no I don’t. I drag him up against me and rock forward until I’m nearly sitting on his face. He bites me and I gasp, panicked that he’s broken skin and bonded me, and I jerk back wildly, violently. My arms knock into the doors and my head knocks into the wall behind me. My feet kick and my toes smart when I kick the underside of the bench seat across from me. My hips are still locked into place by his arms until Yaron growls and releases my inner thigh from between his teeth. Teeth, not fangs. Blinking rapidly, I look down to see my fingers tangled in his hair and his nostrils flaring as he inhales very deeply at my center. He glances up at me with those violent and demanding eyes and I tense. Everything within me immolates.

He reaches towards me and I flinch, but he was only moving to touch my cheek. “One day, you will realize that you are more than a member of a family. One day you will realize that you are only a peasant in the gaze of the weak. It is on that day that you will command me to bond you.” He leans up and forward, nose just barely grazing my cheek. “I look forward to that day.”

He returns to his seat and turns his gaze to the world outside of the open window, but not before sparing one last glance at the open crotch of my pants and releasing a low, almost inaudible growl.

I shiver with need. Yaron smirks and I scrunch my nose, annoyed with him in a way I’ve only ever been annoyed at my brother. “I love my family.”

He balks. “No one in their right mind would think otherwise.”

“It’s not wrong to have love for your family.”

“No one would suggest that, either. However, do you not find it a little peculiar that a family full of pretty girls and boys would have no children? No partners? You’re all of birthing age and yet, the family line has died with your generation.”

I feel my face flame. “It’s not dead yet. We’re just taking our time.”

“You may tell yourself whatever you like, but the facts still stand. I said it before and I will say it again — your family is so wrapped up in itself, it would be impossible for a partner to gain entry into that. The bonds are too strong. The walls too thick to scale. What mad man or woman would want to compete with a love like that?”

“You seem to want to try,” I shoot back, tone nastier than I’ve ever heard.

Lord Yaron seems unfazed. He just smiles that cryptic smile. “I am Lord of the Shadowlands. I have no fear because I know I will not fail. You will give me what I want. I could keep your family in chains and still get what I want from you.”

“I would never.”

I feel the wagon start to slow, but as he speaks, he takes his time. “Your love is strong. Your ability to hate is weak. I could stab your father in the heart before your eyes and still make you fall in love with me.”

I strike him before I realize what I’ve done. I feel heat in the backs of my eyes. In the back of my heart. My pulse is pattering fiercely and my mind won’t slow down. “I shouldn’t have done that…”

“No. And I look forward to punishing you for it.”

“You’re a bastard,” I whisper.

He grins cockily with one edge of his mouth, just enough to flash his teeth. His canine is sharper than it should be and I feel myself grow warm. I hate him, I decide,but only because he’s right. I don’t hate him. I really don’t.“For you, I will be the villain. A hero would have no chance with you.”

“Why are you saying all this? Why are you being soharshwith me?” He was so gentle yesterday, obeying me as he did, bringing me my sister and food.

He gives me a look I cannot interpret at all as the wagon rolls to a final stop. Then in a flourish, he shoves the door open on a creak and walks out, leaving me sitting there alone. I have a choice — remain where I am or follow — and when I look out of the window, I see a crowd forming. We’re near the main town square, the stone Berserker still lunging up out of the stone fountain at the sky, like he’ll swallow the sun. It’s disappeared again behind the clouds, but when I take a shaky step down from the carriage, I can still feel its residual warmth.

The people of Orias Village are gathered, but not in commerce or trade, like they were yesterday. The stalls have been cleared and the doors of the shops closed and barred. Everyone is outside, gathered here. There are so many people gathered in eager and curious bunches, I wonder if he hasn’t summoned the entire village here.

They stand against the closed storefronts, low awnings shading some while the rest spill out into the square. Yaron and I aren’t alone in the space cleared out beside the fountain, though. Crimson Riders cross the space and my family stands at the fountain’s edge. I go to them.

“Kia…”

“Kandia…”

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