MADDOC
Maddoc growled at the pain that tore at his shoulder. He had been stabbed with a sword before, but didn’t recall it being so painful. It was always a risk fighting the king's guard, but he had been trained better than them, and so had most of his highcloaks. This injury happened by accident on the part of his attacker—he got lucky. It was unfortunate for him he was no longer alive to brag about it.
He groaned again. It was as though his shoulder was being trampled every time he moved, and while Raine was doing her best, he had the feeling she wasn't saying something. "What is it?" he finally growled.
Her mouth twisted as she looked at her chart and then dripped two drops of a foul-smelling liquid into the wound. "You are lucky. The sword went through the joint. It didn't hit anything major that will cause any difficulty in your arm."
"But?" Maddoc sensed something coming.
"You've lost a lot of blood, and from the way in which the skin is reacting around the wound, the sword may have been poisoned."
Maddoc was quiet for a moment. That was bad. "Do you know which one? There are antidotes to many of the poisons available."
Raine nodded. "I think so, but it would be difficult to determine, and I don't know how long this one will take.” Her voice lowered. “We need our healer, Maddoc.”
“We cannot use her right now. She trained you for a reason.”
“Yes, but I’m not an expert with this! Your life is too important for me to guess, Maddoc.”
Maddoc said nothing. He simply stared at her until she calmed down. Raine managed to control her outbursts most of the time now. “How has escorting Ana been?”
Raine made a face. “You want to talk about that now?”
“You know why I gave you that task, don’t you?”
She sighed. “Yes.”
“Has it helped?”
Raine shrugged while mixing some of the ingredients into a paste. “A bit. I’m trying to find the right time to talk to her.”
“My experience is that there is never a right time. You just pick one and make it work.”
Raine snorted. “That might work for you; she’s weak for you.”
Maddoc smiled at that.
“But it wouldn’t work for me. She practically screamed at me to take her back into the house today.”
“Why?”
Raine suddenly stilled, as though realizing she said something she shouldn’t have and was backed into a corner. “She wanted to know if her betrothed is still alive,” she said finally.
Maddoc growled. Ana was still concerned about him?
“It’s been a lot on her to take in, Maddoc,” Raine said after he’d been growling for a few long moments. “The people she thought were good people have turned out to be the opposite. I understand that she wants to know if—”
Maddoc served her a look that made her stop speaking. All the progress he thought he’d been making with Ana was now in question, all the nights he’d spent apart from her, all the times she’d looked at him without the hatred in her eyes. That had been fucking progress. He didn’t like senseless killing, but finding a way to kill that fucking duke was making a lot of sense right now.
Raine sighed as though she could sense his murderous thoughts and went to rinse out the cloth in the basin. She returned and dabbed it into his shoulder. "The good thing is, if the poison is what I think it is, we have a bit of time," Raine commented. “If it had hit any major organs, we would have needed to do something quickly.” She glanced down at his body. "It’s pretty lucky he got you here. It’s not as though there isn't enough of you to get." She laughed at her own joke, but Maddoc said nothing.
Even a lucky shot was bad if it was poisoned. He trusted Raine to patch him up and even trusted her analysis, but it might really need their healer to return to be on the cautious—
A presence in the tent made him tense. He looked over at the entrance, and at the same time, the most wonderful scent reached him, beautifully raw and so erotically sweet it made his cock hard instantly. Ana was here.
She stood just inside the entrance, her jaw clenched, glaring at both Maddoc and Raine.
"Analisa." He was about to order her back to the pavilion, but something shining in her eyes and a slight heady bitterness in her scent made him stop. He frowned at her, noticing that her gaze was locked onto Raine. Glancing at Raine, he saw she already had her palms up and was backing away from the table slowly. The women’s gazes were locked onto each other.
He glanced back to examine Ana and realized she was furious. The hardness of her gaze suggested she wanted to rip Raine to pieces—but what had Raine done? She hadn’t mentioned anything happening when she escorted her.
"What is it, Analisa? he asked. She didn't answer.
As Ana came farther into the tent, the more Raine slowly backed away, and Ana’s scent was so powerful, it swamped the tent. The power of bitterness within it, the aggression that dominated it, shocked Maddoc. His sweet Ana, mild and unassuming, was bitterly angry about something that involved Raine.
And as she reached the table, Raine reached the back entrance of the tent and quietly slipped out.
Maddoc reached for Ana's cheek to console her now that Raine was gone, but the aggression had not left Ana's face or scent. She began to undress, shocking Maddoc to the core.
"What are you doing, Analisa?” he asked, his voice hoarse. If she undressed right now, revealing that incredible body of hers, he wasn’t sure he could keep to his rule. His cock had been jerking wildly from the moment she stepped in.
But it seemed he didn’t have a choice.
Ana climbed on top of him, naked. Maddoc’s mouth watered at the sight. He rumbled with pleasure at seeing her climbing up his form, and he reached out with his good arm to squeeze her breasts.
But Ana did not stop climbing. Scooting up to his chest, and then farther up, she straddled his head, positioning her pussy over his mouth.
Maddoc groaned as her scent enveloped him. He never thought she could smell any better, but this rich, luxurious aroma was beyond any experience of her he’d had. He undid his pants to give his cock relief and then grabbed her hips and pulled her pussy down onto his mouth, suckling on her lips and her clit and licking everything he could reach. But then she moved again.
Wriggling on top of him while he tried to tongue her, she moved farther up and he took the opportunity to bite her ass cheeks and wriggled his tongue over each perfect round cheek and everything he could reach. Ana wriggled her hips above him in the sexiest way, and he couldn’t help but groan, then she wriggled back down to his mouth where he latched onto her clit and began to work it gently with his mouth. The moans coming from her throat made his cock leak, but nothing prepared him for the sight of her above him, her swaying breasts, the bliss of surrender on her face coupled with a fierceness in her eyes that made him want to fuck her raw. She gripped his hair as she rode his mouth, her hips writhing and jerking as she sought her release.
Maddoc had never seen anything sexier. He loved dominating Ana, truly brutally using her body and feeling her accept him the way that he knew she loved, but something about this drew on an instinctual need that satisfied him more. He couldn’t understand it yet, but right now, he didn’t need to.
Her climax wrecked her body, jerking her hips harder against him, blasting screams from her throat, and spasming her right leg. She dug her hands into his scalp as her pussy gushed its succulent sweet release, and when her clit’s throbbing on his tongue began to wane, she moved off his mouth and wriggled downward. Her knee pressed close to the wound on his shoulder, but he ignored the pain as he watched his Omega scoot down his chest to get more of what she needed. A trail of her fluids smeared his chest, and suddenly he realized what she was doing.
His Omega had been claiming him in the most animalistic way. She’d rubbed her pussy all over his face and his chest to mark him with her most intimate of fluids to warn off other women—namely Raine.
He didn’t know why she thought Raine was a threat—he would have laughed out loud if he wasn’t so intensely aroused.
Ana might not be talking to him, she might fight him and resist their attraction, and even deny everything he says, but her most basic instincts told her to take steps to claim him in a way that he could never have anticipated. And when she sank herself onto his cock, her tight, wet channel drawing him in so beautifully, there was nothing that could stop him from lifting off the bed and fucking her the way she deserved.
Their mating was loud and rough and raw, the grunts, panting, and yells from both of them filling the entire tent as she rode him on her toes, her slick squirting all over him, the bed, the floor as she took his cock. Maddoc squeezed her neck with one hand, and grabbed her hip with the other, fucking her down onto him with all the force he could manage. When her back arched, he flicked her nipple with his tongue, and nibbled and bit until her guttural moans were yelps. She braced herself with a hand on his wounded shoulder, her nails digging into the wounded muscle.
The pain had no impact on the savagery of their mating. Both of them instinctively understanding the need for all potential threats to be eliminated. For Maddoc, a kindling of hope bloomed in his chest that Ana would come around to understanding what they mean to each other. He had never heard of Omegas doing anything like what she had done, but it was clear why she did it. The entire tent now smelled of her, of them, and no scent of Raine remained. And he was getting the fuck of his life.
When she orgasmed again, he bit down harder on her nipples and twisted her hips as he pummeled her, each soaking slam equally as loud as her screams. He took all the pleasure he could from watching her body, and he lifted up and she tilted into another orgasm straightaway. The pain in his shoulder tried to get his attention, but he was too busy watching his Omega as she climbed another peak, soaring, the most beautiful expression on her face.
His orgasm was the strongest he’d ever had. Grabbing her ass, she slammed down on him, once, twice, three times as her groans became raspy and gruff, and he bellowed as his knot smashed in stretching her clenching pussy wide, connecting them in a way that only an Alpha and Omega could.
He held her in his arms as they both panted, contentment blending with his lingering orgasm as his Omega lay limp and exhausted in his arms.
Maddoc watched her fall asleep. She couldn't deny it now; she belonged to him, and she wanted him to belong to her. It didn't matter what she said or did, she had just taken steps to claim him, and she couldn’t explain away that behavior.
So when she woke, it was time to discuss his real plans with her, and she would talk to him, whether she liked it or not.
* * *
The next morning, as Ana stirred awake, Maddoc pulled her tight against him and kissed her deeply.
She responded slowly, threading her hands through his hair and sucking on his tongue, a whimper on her breath as their mouths locked.
He pulled away and looked down at her. “Good morning, Analisa.”
She stared at him for a long moment, an unreadable expression on her face. Her eyes were different now. There was no defiance in them. No fire or hardness. Something had certainly changed, but if it didn’t produce a different result, then it remained unacceptable.
Maddoc tugged at her chin until she looked back at him, a hard edge in his voice when he spoke again. “I said, good morning.”
Various expressions flitted across Ana’s face that Maddoc couldn’t decipher, but she remained silent.
He growled, sitting up and yanking her up with him. He pulled her into his lap and looked her in the eye. "Do you know what you did yesterday?"
She nodded, her eyes lowering, face glum.
“And you are still choosing not to speak?” Maddoc exhaled harshly, grabbing her and pulling her closer. "You cannot have it both ways, Ana. You cannot rub your pussy all over me to warn off other females and then be unwilling to talk to me! How long do you think I will allow this?” He grabbed the back of her head and yanked her back. “Do I really need to fuck other women until you admit it?”
Ana’s mouth trembled, but she didn’t move or answer.
"Answer me! How can you continue with this behavior after yesterday?"
Finally, her eyes rose and met his, but they were filled with tears. "You killed him."
Conflicting emotions spiraled in Maddoc’s chest, both tempering each other, both bringing about a realization that he did not want to accept. "Your father was deeply involved in every atrocity you have witnessed in the last four days, and many many more you haven’t."
She nodded, tears spilling onto her cheeks. "But he was still my father."
Maddoc growled and released her. “So you will allow his crimes and keep a false memory of him to mourn, but you will not accept what is real between you and me?”
Ana shook her head. “It’s not that.” She slid off his lap and sat cross-legged on the bed. Maddoc forced himself not to drag her back, if only so she would speak. "I can't deny anything you’ve said," she said miserably. "I can't explain what is happening between us. All I know is that I feel and behave differently with you. I am… confused by it. It doesn’t fit with anything I know or recognize. But that's not the only confusing thing. Everything is different now. My life, the life I knew, has been so distorted by what you’ve shown me… I don't know how to view it anymore. What is my life supposed to be?"
"Your life is with me, Ana."
"Is it?" She shrugged, pulling her knees up and hugging them. "How do I know? For years, I thought it was with Ryden. Since I was born, I thought it was the court. I thought my life would follow the footsteps of my father. Now you are saying it is with you, when the first thing you did was use and humiliate me, then you hurt the people I care about, and now you keep me here."
“You were never used,” Maddoc said sharply. “You were reporting to your parents. There were things I couldn’t say, and you wouldn’t have believed me anyway. It may seem harsh, but certain things had to happen, Ana.”
“Like Milly’s home being attacked? Her husband being killed?”
Maddoc scowled and got up from the bed.
“That was when I decided I couldn’t trust you,” she said quietly. “When I realized you willingly hurt innocent people to punish others.”
“You still think they are all innocent?” Maddoc bellowed, anger blazing in his chest. “Even now? Milly’s husband knew what would come eventually, Ana. All of them do. That is why they are so afraid of me.”
A frown flickered across her face, but he continued.
“You are here because this is where you belong. Do you think you can somehow go back to the court and play princess again? Do you intend to take your place among murderers, thieves, and rapists? Is that why you yearn for that fucking duke?"
“No,” she shot back. “I do not. But I also don’t want to be here watching young children like Trea grow up to kill, to see this never-ending cycle of killing and abuse. All that bright light in her will be put out if she has to witness those things.”
Maddoc was silent for a moment. “That will not happen. Trea will never be a highcloak, none of the children here will. This will not be a generational fight, Ana. That’s not the plan.”
"Then what is the plan?" she cried. "You are the only one who knows it. Am I supposed to live here in the middle of the Oakenshire while you and your men save some of the commoners from the houses? What about the rest of them? The Allandis people are supposed to be my responsibility.” Ana pushed herself up to her knees, her voice breaking. “Do you know how hard it is to see those crimes happening to them? That is not what the crown was supposed to be about, it's not what the royal houses were supposed to be about. All my studies and training have been against this, my father was against this. And without him, I don’t know why it happened or how to correct it.” She shook her head, closing her eyes and holding in the sobs that threatened. “I made a promise to myself to still be a princess to those people,” she whispered, “to uphold everything the crown stood for. It was the only thing that helped me get out of bed when I first got here.” She opened her eyes. “I have no purpose anymore. So if you want me to be your little pet Omega, to take your cock and tell you pretty things, and do whatever you say, I’ll do that. I’ll be anything you want me to be. But I'm still my father's daughter, and you killed him."
Sobbing, she lowered onto the bed, curling herself into a ball.
Maddoc held back from comforting her, the sinking feeling in his stomach tingling around his whole body. He had done this all wrong.
When they didn’t have their third night together, too many things changed from his original plan. He had overwhelmed her with the wrong information, and now she couldn't even see the way forward, or that her way forward was with him. He’d been relying on her to trust her instincts, but she never would, because she’d been cocooned in an environment that taught her not to. The same environment that taught her never to trust him or anything he said.
He needed to correct that, and he needed to do it in a way she understood.
Clenching his jaw, he turned to the entrance of his pavilion. “Tonight, you will go home.”