Page 38 of Shadowlands Omega

I nod, and then I close my hand around it, dousing it for good. “To be powerful and to have power…” I shake my head. “You have it wrong, Lord Yaron. You can have one without the other. I may have power, but I don’t want to use it to cause pain. I don’t want to hurt anyoneever. I don’t want to rule. I just want to live. And for everyone to live. Is that so hard to believe? That I may have power and choose not to use it? That is a power in itself, I think.”

I draw away from him and see the most spellbound expression covering his face. He looks so much less like the Shadow Lord in this moment. A softness touches him, like the wisps of fog twisting through the air. I touch his cheek wishing, for one fleeting moment, something I have no right to wish.

But I don’t dare give voice to it, because it can never be. There is no fantasy universe in which the Lord of the Shadowlands could belong to me.

“I suppose that is a lie… I say I don’t want to rule. I do. It’s just that the only thing I want to rule is you.” I tilt my head to the side, letting him hear my truth, letting him weigh it, but not letting him respond to something we both know he doesn’t want and that could never be.

My small smile wobbles and the power I felt vanishes. I rub my filthy palms together, finding them colder than they ought to be given the circumstances. I think my adrenaline is crashing and I shiver, then shiver again. “I am sorry, Yaron, that I don’t have these ambitions,” I say in a scratchy voice. “Really, all I truly want in this world is to cook for you.” So much more is loaded into my final words that I quickly reach for more levity to break the moment. It’s too heavy to bear. “And right now, to bathe.” I offer him a small smile as I use his shoulder to steady myself, turn and lift one foot, intending to step into the massive pool.

But the moment my toes touch the hot water, my feet are jerked out from under me. I yelp and laugh as he scoops me up and steps into the bath himself. “You’re still wearing pants, Yaron,” I shout, looking up at his face with a smile, but Yaron doesn’t return it.

Instead, his expression is strange — somber and strange — as he lowers us both into the tub. Hot, nearly scalding water envelops me and feels so fucking good. I whisper a moan and Yaron releases me onto the stone bench ringing the inside of the tub. I duck underneath the heat, letting it wrap all the way around me, burying its pins and needles in every follicle.

I come up for air with a tired grin in time to see Lord Yaron plastered against the opposite side of the tub, arms outstretched, hands clutching the lip of the bath in a white-knuckle grip. “Yaron?” I croak, then hiss, my smile falling. “Shit. I must have rubbed it too hard,” I whisper. There’s blood running from the cut on my eyebrow into my eye.

Yaron’s on me in a second, a rag in hand, pressing it gently to the wound. He gathers me up and sits me on his lap where I can feel the unmistakable rod of his erection digging into my lower back through the shreds of his trousers. And as he administers to me from so, so close, his fingers gently holding me around the waist, his chest a wall of heat against my weary bones, the rag light on my face, he says the last thing I would have ever expected to hear from him here, now, ever.

Voice low, he says to me, “I hope you know, Kiandah, that when the Shadowlands hosts its next Red Moon Festival and all of the other Alphas and their packs gather to claim you for their own, they will leave disappointed.”

“I…you find me so disappointing, my Lord?”

“You know that is not what I mean at all.”

I blink up at him, confused, his face so close to mine, his lips blood-red and perfect, dripping with water from the bath. I want to lick it off, but I can’t. He is the Shadow Lord and we are not destined for each other. “I… You circumvent tradition?”

He nods.

“How?”

“I am the Shadow Lord. What I will, so it shall be.”

“So, I’ll be able to live on my own? Without a master? Is it because I am still a prisoner, my Lord?”

His brow furrows and his cheeks, already warm from the bath, flood with greater heat. “You misunderstand. The Alphas will leave disappointed becauseIintend to vie for you. You will be master tome.”

15 | Yaron

Shadow Keep

The look that crosses Kiandah’s face isn’t at all what I expected.Shock, elation — I expected these, yes, and these are the emotions she wears, at first. But the disappointment? She slowly pushes away from me and reaches for a bottle of soap on the ledge behind her. “It would be a great honor, my Lord,” she says, voice sounding like a gash.

I frown. “Is that your answer?”

“You…” She concentrates on rubbing soap into her skin. “You didn’t ask me a question.”

“When I vie for you and…” — maim, claim, slaughter, annihilate — “…defeat the other Alphas who fight to have you for their own, will you accept my bond?”

“I can’t.” Her answer is immediate and the way she looks at me fills me with doubt.

She’s looking at me like I’m her villain.

I remove my trousers and toss the wet bundle out of the bath and onto the floor in the pile of other bloody clothing. My cock is fully erect and juts so high, the tip protrudes from the water when I tilt my hips up even slightly. Kiandah stares at it and then blinks again, more rapidly this time. I fight not to touch it, milk myself for her pleasure… And I will, but she must first command it — and she will again. Whatever I must do to make that happen, I will.

“Why?”

She stutters, a little frazzled, more than drained from the events of the day. I feel bad pushing her, but I need to know why she will reject me so that I can begin my plan to ensure she does not. Now that I have given voice to my desires aloud, those desires are already history. Arewritingof history, in fact. The Shadow Lord is taking a Lady. Thehowis the final missing part.

“When we…” She licks her lips. Her dark brown skin does not reveal her blush, but I know that she is blushing. “You said never again.”

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