Page 85 of Shadowlands Omega

“Then, I should stop,” I say, with no intention of doing so.

She gasps, “Don’t you dare.”

I grab her jaw and squeeze her cheeks. I nip at them, struggling not to hurt her. The desire to cause pain fills my limbs — but not her pain. I don’t want that. And already she’s wincing, clearly uncomfortable. I should apologize but I can’t seem to do that, either. I feel heat feverishly wash up and over me. A tidal wave too powerful to stand through, it takes me down. I hang my head against her collar, the blanket snaked around our legs, constricting and binding us together.

“I am not pleased, Kiandah,” I say against her neck. “You do something like this again and I will punish you in earnest.” I palm her breast, careful to keep her dress intact as she requested. I want her again. The urgency is unforgiving and I feel a spike of genuine fear. It isn’t right. If I take her this roughly as many times as I’d like, I’ll break her for sure and I have no designs of rutting this Omega to death.

I want this Omega forever.

She’s breathing hard, the muscles in her neck stiff as she tries to look at me. She makes a face and I carefully gather her against me, my hand on her lower back. I can feel her inner thighs trembling and another wave of sick, sick lust washes away the guilt I feel. I lean down and my teeth rapidly latch onto the smooth skin between her shoulder and her neck.

She jolts. “Are you going to bond me, Yaron?”

“Yes,” I hiss, digging my toes into the bed and pushing my knot even further into her. “But not today. Naughty girls don’t get Berserker bonds.”

“I wasn’t unprotected, Yaron. Cyprus was with me.”

The words I had hoped she wouldn’t say come tumbling out of her mouth. I grab her by the neck and squeeze. My rage wants an outlet — to fuck her — but I just did that and now my unspent energy has nowhere to go. It rattles around in the cage of my bones, making me wild.

“I want you to tell me every single move you made, every step you took, every person with whom you spoke, and only then will I decide how long to hang Mara and your brother by their heels in my dungeons.”

She shoves my shoulders with both of her hands. They’re hot enough to cause my beast concern. His instincts war — to fight to protect us, but never to fight againsther. I growl low in my throat. I know that to threaten her family so brazenly like this is to play with an open flame. I should have just kept my plans for her brother to myself.

“Don’t push me away.” I grab her forearm and slide my other hand around the small of her back. “You’ll hurt yourself, and right now, that’s my job.”

“You’re not listening.”

“You have my attention,” I say, but the words are aspirational as I press my knot further into her again. It still hasn’t deflated. I want to rut her with it, but I can’t. Fuck me. Fuck her. Fuck this.

“Thenlistento me.” Ican’t. “What I did isn’t important. What I discovered is. My Lord.” She grabs my face with both of her hands, pressing my cheeks. Her eyes bore into me. “Ruby City fell the night before last. Word reached Zenobia yesterday through sources she wouldn't divulge. Cyprus and I spoke to her last night while you slept. When I couldn’t rouse you, I…I acted in your stead.” Her gaze deflects. “I sent Mara and Cyprus back to the keep to convene with the other Crimson Riders. I also had letters sent in your name to all of the other Berserkers — Dark City, the Rookery, Hjiel, the Guild, Gold City, Glass Flats and the Town of Teeth — informing them of the attack. I’m so sorry, but I used your crest to seal the letters.” She points to my cloak while the shock wars with the lust running rampant through me.

Biting her lips again, she continues frantically, “Mara and Dorsten said that I should. I know I overstepped, but I didn’t write them to do anything. I just thought it was really important that the other cities know right away so they can defend themselves in case the Fates of Mirage City come for them next. And it was so confusing because Mara and the other Crimson Riders that she hailed kept calling me Shadow Lady, your Lady, and no one blinked or second guessed me when I made my suggestions. I just…I’m a peasant. It feels so wrong and I’m scared, Yaron, and I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. If you need to put me in the dungeons for it, I’ll understand…”

I kiss her hard to shut her up and also because my emotions are spiking again and my knot feels like it’s expanding even more, though that can’t be possible. My erection hasn’t faded in the slightest. My mind is a haze, my thoughts a snare. I’m fighting to care that one city has overtaken another and that both are our closest neighbors across the sea, that the undead army has grown that substantially, that the Fates have grown that bold.

I realize I’ve deepened the kiss when she whimpers slightly. At the same time, Kiandah pushes me away. The conflict does nothing but exacerbate my current state. If she had not pushed me, I’d never have been able to tear myself free from her.

“Yaron! I’m not joking.” Her voice is shrill and I’ve never heard it shrill before. She’s panting and her breasts brush against my chest on each inhale.

I shake my head, trying to drag my gaze away from the sight of her, trying to get my erection and my knot down through sheer force of will. “I didn’t think you were.”

“We need to get out of bed.”

I growl. My beast growls. I don’t restrain him. “I don’t…”Think I can. I can’t.Can’t. I have to stay here.Wehave to stay here. Gatamora be damned. Let the Fates have it…

Fuck.

I swallow and push away from her, a brush of cool air on my chest enough to rouse a very weak, very distant part of my consciousness telling me that I’m losing my mind. “How did you…come across this information?”

This is why Shadow Lords do not take Ladies. This was a terrible mistake. A decision I wouldn’t reverse for anything.

I blink rapidly and lift her hips as I move onto my knees, keeping her joined with me. She winces in pain and moans in rapture in a way that makes my blood surge through my body. Causing her this pleasure-pain is doing terrible things to me, because I feel exactly the same way she does. And the burn makes the ecstasy fucking exquisite.

I shake my head, forcing my beast forward, concentrating on animating my mane, my fangs, my snout one at a time and then retracting them with the same precision and care. The exercise helps clear my mind enough to start to feel my knot going down. I grip her hips, the claws on my thumbs creating dents in the soft skin between her hip bones.

“Yaron?”

“Do not speak.” My tone is harsher than I mean for it to be, but I don’t apologize and I don’t look at her.

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