parents acted like polite friends, not bonded lovers.
They were pretending a bond. They were only partners in a contract marriage and nothing more. Her sister wasn’t bonded to her alpha either.
Easing into the leather couch he’d provided, Naya studied her mate. Every movement stimulated her swollen flesh. She could feel him inside of her still. But not just the dampness between her legs he’d left after the morning's activities—his entire soul. He lived inside her now.
He would no more touch another female than he would cut off his own foot. She knew it.
It rocked her. Shattered her conceptions of reality.
Her mother's pristine home; the stiff, careful way the woman acted around her father; the clinical manner in which she had prepared her two daughters for their futures; the subtle suggestions from all the females of Naya's acquaintance that she choose an alpha she could control, or who was at least disinterested enough to let her keep control; Naya wondered if she knew any happily bonded omegas at all.
The romance of the 12 Sectors’ First King and Queen was legendary. There were many books and stories about it. His heir, Constantine Kane, was similarly celebrated.
Naya had been a teenager when the bonding was announced. His mate had come from the slums, snuck into his home, and boldly risked everything to choose him.
It was so beautiful and romantic that Naya had sighed and dreamed over that story for months. Her mother had caught her with one of the books and warned her not to let the fantasy go to her head.
She had never been allowed to meet her sister's omega-breeder friend who had accidentally chosen two mates instead of one. But she had read her writings, infused with joy and contentment. Dionndal's biological instinct had forced her to choose and led her to happiness. Led her to two alphas of her very own.
Monster had been standing by the windows, typing on a data pad. He looked up at her rather suddenly. "Naya? What is it?"
At his question, tears burst forth, unwelcome, ridiculous. She wiped at them as he crossed the room.
He cupped her face in his big hands. She could feel the claws on his right hand, and on his left—the hand he'd removed the claws from for her—she felt only callused fingertips. This brought on more tears.
"Treasure. What is it? Are you hurting?"
She gave him a watery smile. "I'm so thankful I met you. You changed the course of my life." She gazed into his dark eyes. "I just realized how much, that's all. I'm okay."
The dark slashes of his eyebrows lowered in confusion.
She giggled at his expression. "You are the best thing to happen to me, Nothonal Darre, and I just realized it. Now go back to work." She held up the knitting in her hands. "I have a new blanket to make."
He made a grumbling noise, as if he wasn't sure to purr or growl at her declaration. Bending himself in half, he kissed her until her toes curled.
"Silly little girl,” he murmured against her mouth, nipping her lip. Straightening, he looked at the data pad in his hand. "It seems there are strangers in Sector 2. Men asking about you."
"Oh?"
Had her family found her? How long had it been? It felt like months. She knew that she’d been held in Tenbel's compound for a week or longer, but the days had long-since blurred together. After Tenbel had come her heat, lengthened by Monster's rut, and now she wasn't sure how long she'd been missing. Two weeks? Four?
"And two men were here yesterday also, saying they had information. I think they were fishing."
Eyes on the plain, raw wool she worked with, Naya asked, "What will you do?"
"We will go to the pits tonight. They can talk to me there."
"Don't kill people looking to help me, please," Naya admonished. She didn't think he would, but she remembered the blood from their first meeting. She couldn't be sure.
"We'll see what happens." Something in his tone sounded amused.
She glanced up to find his focus on her, his lips curved at one corner. "What?"
"You are amazing."
"Thank you."
He barked a laugh.
*
They spent the day together. Monster showed her all of the twelfth floor, including two secret exits.
"The guards know about this one,” he explained of the first. But they didn't know about the second, which went up instead of down.
"If something happens to me, use the second. Don't trust any male if I am not alive. I'll need to show you a way out