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If Nandita Bachchan had a dollar for every time someone had approached her thinking she was an Omega, she would've had enough money to splash out on a nice vacation.
She supposed it wasn't their fault. She was short, she had big dark eyes, she was soft in the tummy and thighs. More than one Alpha had approached with an eager smirk, already filling the air with their pheromones in expectation of their next fuck. Then they'd lock eyes with her, scent the thick Alpha musk hanging around her, and turn away, hurrying off into the nearest crowd. On the downside, of course that meant Omegas took a second to warm up to her, but that was always pretty quick to work itself out too.
So when Jacob Seed had her strapped to a chair and too close for comfort, she immediately recognised the disappointment that briefly washed over his face when his nose found her Alpha smell under the layers of sweat, dirt and Bliss. He shrugged it off quick enough and moved away.
That's right, Seed. I'm no blushing bitch in Heat that you can just sniff at and rut into.
Even while the pain of his Trial was unbearable, Dita could sit and endure it, smug in the knowledge that she even made Jacob Seed try for her. And hell, maybe she woke up with the worst headache of her life and the taste of something dead in her mouth, and her stomach was growling so loud it sounded like an animal. But she'd embarrassed Jacob Seed, and that really boosted her Alpha pride, even if she was going to die as the only one who knew that.
Thank god she didn’t.
“Still can’t believe you survived that chair,” Eli admitted as Dita scrubbed her face clean of two days’ worth of dirt and sweat. “Most people break on that thing.”
“I’m a 5’3 Alpha cop who picked the middle of nowhere to settle down,” Dita drawled. “I’m a little tougher than you’d think.”
“I’m not sayin’ anything against ya like that,” Eli promised, hands in the air. Appease the Alpha. Don’t make a fuss.
She shot him a grin. “Ease up, Palmer. It fucking sucked, but I’ll be ok.”
“Hope so, ‘cause we’ve got a hell of a fight on our hands,” the Beta sighed. “We could use someone like you up here.”
Dita tossed the towel aside, yanking her tank top back on. “Just point me where you need me and I’ll do the rest. You got any unmated Omegas in your Den here?”
His brow furrowed. “Couple. You’re not gonna…”
“My Rut’s due soon,” she said. “Do you have space for me or do I need to go elsewhere?”
“You can stay.” Eli leaned back against the wall. “There’s a safe room. How soon is soon?”
“End of the week,” Dita said. “You’ve got a bit of time to prep and throw me at your problems if you want.”
“Couple days,” Eli repeated. “Ok. Definitely got some places you’d enjoy takin’ on, if you’re ready to get back out there.”
Dita got hit with a Rut two days later.
If Rut was even the right word. Normally she would be surging with energy. Normally, Dita would be filled with the urge to seek out a pretty Omega and fuck them until they were both exhausted.
Instead she felt a mild buzz, a weak little prod in her mind that said ooh look, nice Omega smell, and then waves and waves of crippling shivers and shudders and shakes. There was a twist of nausea in her stomach that never developed past the mild sensation of urgh. It kept her locked in her room next to a bowl, barely eating the trail mixes and dried food Eli passed to her through the door. At least he was a Beta; they never smelt of much, but with her feeling so ill, having an unintrusive smell around made her feel better.
“You ok, Dep?” he called through the door.
“Mmmmnnnggghhh,” was all the reply he got.
Maybe it was the Bliss? Fucking with her body, screwing around with her head. Dita sure hoped not. The last thing she needed was for this to happen every time she got a whiff of green mist. Especially given how goddamn prolific the cult had been in producing it.
72 hours had elapsed by the time she crawled out of the room and into the shower. It was the shortest Rut she’d ever endured. The worst Rut she’d ever endured. Her whole body was sore from where she’d dry-heaved. And her neck felt weird, the glands hardened and scabbed over. She was going to drive around Hope County in a goddamn protective suit if that was what happened next time she got Blissed.
Eli had food waiting for her when she left the shower. His eyes narrowed at the sight of her. “Jesus, Bachchan. You look like hell. They always that bad?”
Dita grabbed a bread roll and shoved it into her mouth. “Nah,” she said around the bread, and chewed some more. “Scale of 1 to 10, 1 being vague clit tingles and 10 being feral, that was a 1, and normally I’m a 6. Didn’t even feel the Rut. Just felt fucking ill. It sucked.”
He made a sympathetic face. “You’re goin’ through it, huh?”
She chowed down on the bread. “Think it’s the Bliss messing with me.”
“Ah, yeah.” Eli nodded, pushing a glass of water towards her. “You’re not the first person to say the Bliss made it worse. I know a couple other Alphas who’ve had a Trial and said their Ruts were fucked up afterwards.”
“Did they go through another?” Dita asked.
Eli shook his head. “Sorry, Deputy. One of ‘em is still here. Jacob got the other one.”
She frowned. “Great. Shit. Guess my best bet is not to get captured again.”
“Lay low for a few more days then,” Eli suggested. “You can get back to it later.”
Her Alpha id growled at the thought of being made weak . But Dita preferred it to capture.
Laying low didn’t help. She lasted a day down in the Den before she was itching at the walls and running out at first light the next morning. The world smelt weird to her after the days she’d languished in the safe room, almost too fresh. But thankfully there was no stink of Bliss to clog up her throat.
Well, not until she blew up three wolf beacons and took down the Peggies at the PIN-K0 station and drew Jacob on the radio.
“You know, Deputy, if it were up to me, you’d be dead already.”
“You’re just pissed because when you sniffed at me I wasn’t the designation you wanted,” Dita taunted back, putting the radio back on her hip.
A slow chuckle filled the air. “I don’t want anything from you but your corpse, Deputy Bachchan. That’s the only place your purpose will lead you to.”
“Was it the big brown eyes?” she cooed. “The fact that I’m shorter than you? Were you hoping to rut some pups into me? Sorry Jakey, I’m not the right bitch for the job.”
“We’ll see what Joseph thinks about that.”
The radio clicked. Dita frowned.
“The Deputy is to be brought alive and unharmed to the Veteran’s centre for an audience with the Father.” Jacob’s voice came out almost monotone from the Peggie radio nearby. “All units converge on PIN-K0 radar station.”
Shit.
Dita scrambled off her chair, rushing for her rucksack, yanking her flight suit from the bag. Engines rumbled below the mountain as she bolted to the edge, jumping. Wind blasted her face, catching her wings, letting her soar across the skies. Trucks and quad bikes were already rushing for the mountain. They saw her, like she wanted, turned and chased her. Nothing whizzed into the air after her, so at least they weren’t firing at her.
But she couldn’t stay airborne forever.
She was losing altitude too fast. She needed another escape plan. She needed a vehicle. She needed to get the fuck out of the Whitetails.
Was that music echoing across the sky?
Oh fuck.
Dita dived for a nearby lake, yanking at the parachute cord even as red spots blossomed on the edges of her eyes. She crashed through the surface, bubbles escaping her. Even still, the water echoed with the sounds, like it was too late. And it was. Once the first few notes played, she was in its thrall, she was fucked.
Please not another goddamn Trial. Please not more fucking Bliss. I don’t want another shitty Rut in that fucking safe room.
So of course, she woke up in a cage.
Even Pratt's familiar face wasn't enough to make her feel better. Watching Jacob lead his brother over towards her prison just made her mood plummet. Scowling, she growled, pouring out anger into the air until it was thick with the acrid taste of her Alpha fury.
Somehow it was weaker than she remembered it being. Maybe that was the side-effects of Jacob starving her for a few days.
“I know you are in pain-” Joseph began.
“Fuck you,” Dita spat back.
Jacob reached for her but Joseph stopped him, a hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “All beasts lash out when they’re hurt,” he said, “and the Deputy is no different.”
She didn’t like the way Jacob looked at her after that.
“You are not the only one to be tested.” Joseph continued to approach like the stink in the air didn’t bother him, like she was a caged animal, the way she felt. “I have instructed Jacob to separate strong from weak, to gather all those who can protect our New Eden when the Collapse comes. You can choose this purpose, Deputy. You can join us.”
“I’d rather drink poison,” she promised.
“You won’t protect our people?” Joseph asked.
Dita laughed. “Fuck you, Joseph. Like hell I’ll take a bullet for any of your fucking crazies. Might as well kill me right now, because if you don’t I’m just gonna keep on putting your little cultists in the dirt.”
Joseph had reached her, reached for her, and before Dita could stop him he was touching her. Touching her neck, right over the hardened glands where her Alpha pheromones had once escaped her and now ached like she’d been punched there.
And then it hurt. Dita froze and burned at the same time because the touch of his palms on her scent glands felt like molten lava on her skin. She gritted her teeth, swallowing down the screams that wanted to erupt from her and express just how much agony she was in because how could he not know-
He released her. Those pale eyes fixed into her soul. Dita wanted to vomit even as the pain died down into a barely-there sharp pulse.
"Of course,” he murmured. “Not a protector. Not at all. Your purpose is already laid out for you. There will be pain. You will sacrifice. All as part of his test to prove that we can serve God.” Those yellow eyes were fixed on her. “No matter what he asks.”
“Wait,” Dita began, but Joseph was already moving back to Jacob.
The Father laid a gentle hand on Jacob’s chest, over his heart, leaned in and whispered something to him that made Jacob’s eyes slide over to her, hungry.
“You’ve done well,” Joseph praised, and then he was leaving her with Jacob and the box-
The glands were throbbing like newly-picked scabs when she finally got the chance to look at them almost a week later. She could still feel Joseph’s hands on them like he’d branded her, even though she could see that wasn’t true. Still, whatever he’d done to her, the glands had softened up again, almost back to normal, fresh and exposed.
Unbitten.
A shudder rocked her. She yanked her jacket on and headed out of the gas station she’d stumbled into out in the Henbane. It didn’t really matter where she went in this fucking county; she was going to run into Bliss and Peggies, and eventually Joseph, but at least here she didn’t have Jacob to raise her hackles and look at her the way he did the last time she saw him. She could cope with seeing Faith. Those were just hallucinations. There was nothing physical, no cages and tortured screams. Just open fields and hills for miles and miles.
Dita stayed as long as she could until her next Rut hit her.
Rut. Like that was actually what it was, instead of a half week spent sleeping and snacking. At least this time there were no tremors, and no nausea to keep her trapped in the bathroom waiting to lose her meals. The only reason she knew it was even a Rut was because it came from nowhere and left just as quickly. She just sweat and slept and snacked for three days and woke up to normality on the fourth.
Another word that was twisted now. Normality. Dita's normal had changed. The world smelt different, duller. The people she walked past didn't have the same feeling to her. The first thing she noticed when she found Whitehorse was that her Beta Sheriff, surrounded by a mix of Alphas and Omegas, seemed to be the same as her.
Ordinary.
"You look like hell," Whitehorse admitted.
"I feel like hell," she muttered.
"You wanna talk about it?" he asked.
I'm completely different to the woman I was before. My body has betrayed me and taken away the thing I was proud of. "What good would that do?"
"Jesus, Bachchan," Earl sighed. "And you're the one studying for a PhD in Psychology."
“I don’t even know where to begin,” she finally said. “I- feel like I’m changing.”
Whitehorse reached for her shoulder before thinking better of it. “People talk about the Whitetails like it’s hell. And looking at you, Bachchan, I think that just proved it. Stay down here for a while. Sure, we need you, but you need out of there.”
She wanted to cry, to run into Earl’s arms the way she never could with her dad, but she just nodded. “Yeah. I wasn’t gonna go back for a while anyway.”
And she hadn’t intended to go back until Faith Seed was dead, but then Joseph showed up in a hallucination with his shirt off and his eyes fixed on her and all Dita wanted was to be away from anyone who carried the same designation as she did but looked at her like Joseph did.
Dita was already sick of this place and the way it was changing her when she fled into Holland Valley. If anything was going to kick-start her senses again, it would be confronting the Seed family’s bratty little Omega brother. He wasn’t her type, of course, because the last thing Dita was looking for in a partner was someone else who came from a rich family and had Mommy and Daddy issues three miles long. But still, he was an Omega, and Dita was an Alpha no matter what fucking Bliss bullshit was going on with her.
There was no sign of Hudson. Dita missed her the most. She and Joey, they’d been the Alpha bitches of Hope County, and unlike so many others with their designation they could actually get on with each other. There was no rivalry there. Hell, she and Joey and taken off to Missoula a couple times before and ended up fucking a couple Omegas together.
There was a weird heat that flickered in her belly at the memory of grabbing a girl’s hair and pulling her face into her crotch as Joey railed her from behind and if she blinked she could imagine herself in the middle instead, taking the knot-
She was daydreaming about being treated like an Omega.
And there were Peggies surrounding her car, guns pointed at her.
Dita concentrated, willing the air to fog up with the raw scent of anger and force the group of idiots to back down. Nothing. The air didn’t swell with her fury. Instead, three Peggies yanked her out of the car and cuffed her, dragging her into a van to seat her beside three other people. Dita stared down at her hands, her mind blank. It didn’t work. She didn’t have pheromones anymore. They were gone. Stripped out of her body like an excess organ she didn’t need.
I’m an Alpha, she insisted. Alpha. I’m not going to change.
It was possible, it happened, Betas became Alphas when there weren’t enough to match the population of Omegas, Alphas became Omegas after sufficient trauma, and Omegas could do the same. But she couldn’t change, could she?
It was only when John Seed pulled her up from the river, sweat beading his forehead and blood undoubtedly thrumming hot through his veins, through his glands, his pheromones obviously scenting the air heavily and sparking through her body-
-that Dita realised that the smell in her lungs was psychosomatic, and she couldn’t taste John at all.
She remembered it from the church, that thick, potent Omega scent of fresh cotton and polished leather. He clashed with his brother, with Jacob’s heavy aura of rain-soaked pines.
And now it was gone. She could smell his cologne, absolutely. And the stink of human sweat, that too. But none of it made her body perk up and take notice . None of it made her want to tangle her fingers into his hair and bite into his neck and force him down to his knees.
Nandita Bachchan looked at John Seed and saw him the way a Beta would.
She was going to be sick.
The worst part was that when John was done drowning her in his river of drugs, he didn’t take her back for her Confession. No, Dita was bundled into a van and taken out of Holland Valley, north, into the Whitetails. It was pitch-black outside, and she couldn’t see anything except the glare of the headlights until they finally pulled up outside the Veteran’s centre. She fought the second they got the doors open, her bound hands coming up and over a Peggie’s head to catch against his throat and squeeze. She didn’t let go until she felt the life leave him, but that was all she got before they dragged her out and over to her cage.
“Deputy.” Jacob’s voice was light as the door slammed shut behind her. “Been too long. How’s the rest of the county treating you?”
Dita rolled over so she didn’t have to look at him from over her shoulder, like he was taking her from behind-
“Your fucking Bliss is a headache,” she complained, “and your little sister keeps making me see things. And it stinks of dead bodies.”
He shoved those big hands into his pockets, staying far enough from the cage that she couldn’t reach him, but close enough that she could smell him.
“Not gonna the poison the air this time, Deputy?” he taunted.
I can’t. I’ve lost it. I can’t do it anymore. Her jaw clenched. “Still high. Thank your brother for the Bliss bath for me.”
He hummed thoughtfully. “Must be why you don’t smell the same.”
“You already sniffed me once, Seed,” she snarled. “I’m an Alpha. Take it or leave it.”
He leaned in and took a big loud sniff. His face was intrigued as he straightened up. “You sure about that?” he murmured.
Dita slammed into the bars, swiping for him. “What did you do to me?!”
“Nothing.” He shrugged. “You just changed, that’s all.”
“I’m an Alpha,” she insisted.
“Maybe. You know what they call it when an Alpha is turned into an Omega, Deputy?" Jacob asked, his voice casual.
He knows.
Dita shrugged, trying to keep it casual, like she hadn’t just tried to claw his eyes out. "No, what do they call it?"
Jacob leaned forward. "They call it Bitching. As in-"
"-breeding bitch, yeah, that was obvious," she drawled. "You're so polite, I can't understand why you're still single, Jacob."
A cold smile tugged at his lips. "And I'm surprised you stayed an Alpha this long, what with Hudson being around."
Her pride stung, stupid as it was. Dita's lips pulled back over her teeth. "Joey and I aren't rivals, Jacob. Unlike your meatheaded motherfuckers, we know how to cooperate."
"Oh yeah?" The expression remained. "You do whatever you're told?"
Dita leaned forward, grasping the bars. "You're damn right I do. Joey's the Alpha bitch of Hope County, and you bet your ass she'll have your Omega baby brother under her thumb by now. Bet he begs all fucking night for her to lock up around him."
The smile dropped. Jacob's hand found her throat and squeezed just a little. "Funny, Deputy. Fucking hilarious. Really. Tell me another joke. Let's see if I laugh."
Her throat bobbed under his grip. "You think Joey is Alpha enough to force you to present as something different?"
He released her with a low laugh. "Now that was good. Nice one."
"It’s a great fucking joke,” she agreed. “Nobody’s changing, Seed. Least of all me. It’s fucking pathetic that you want me to be an Omega so bad that you’ll lie to me about smelling different. You got a fetish or something?”
“Honestly?” Jacob’s cold eyes were burning into her skin. “I just wanna see you destroyed, Deputy Bachchan. It’s as simple as that. Maybe you die in a Trial. Maybe you do change, and I get to watch as you break under your new designation. Joseph doesn’t want you dead, but me? I want you ruined.”
Dita did not like that. She did not. Her mind was not making her think about him ruining her. She was an Alpha she was an Alpha she was an Alpha.
“I think I figured out why you’re still single,” she taunted. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a creep, Jacob?”
He was leaning against the bars before she even saw him move. Dita fell back on her ass, landing in the dirt. Fear rocked her from head to toe, cold and growing.
“It’s the ones like you that are the most fun to watch, you know that?” Jacob told her. “The ones who think nothing can touch them, that they way they presented makes them immune. Watching that all crack and fall away, it’s…” He paused, musing on the idea. “It’s just showing you your purpose. And that makes it even better.”
“You listen to me,” Dita’s voice shook as she got to her feet, “my purpose isn’t to be Joseph’s soldier, and it sure as hell isn’t to become your breeding bitch. What happens to my body is my decision, not yours.”
Jacob smiled, reaching into his back pocket, and out came the music box.
“Let’s see how you feel in a week, hmmm?”
She pressed her hands against her ears because a week would kill her, change her-
And the only reason why it didn’t was because Staci Pratt pushed them both out a window.
Staci was the one who noticed them, after they both got out of the showers and wiped the dirt off, finally clean and naked after far too long.
“Holy shit,” he reached for her hands, tugging them to splay her arms wide, letting her eyes read what had been left on her.
There were bite marks on her wrists. Deep ones, hard enough to leave bruises without breaking the skin. She didn’t remember anyone biting her during the Trial. There were too many, too deep to have been left whilst she was awake. Tremors rocked her hard, and she raised her arms to look at the bites, fingers twitching like they wanted to throttle someone. Her heart gave a rapid, sick little thud-thud-thud against her ribcage. She didn’t remember this. Any of it. It hadn’t been there before the Trial.
Kneejerk, she reached up to touch her neck. The glands were fresh and open now, and her fingers came back smelling faintly of apple and jasmine, so different to the smell of petrichor. For some reason, maybe it was the dirt, maybe the Bliss, it had been buried by another scent, like a layer had been-
She faintly recalled something wet dragging along her neck. Dita didn’t allow anyone to just lick her neck. That kind of shit was prep for bonding. For biting. For mating. One time an Omega had tried to bite her and she’d snapped at the poor girl and shoved her away. And yet someone, whilst Dita was out fucking cold, had spent way too long licking and nipping at her scent gland, bathing it in their scent.
A thick, heavy musk of pine and summer rain.
A sob tore itself out of her throat. Dita hadn’t made a sound like that since she had presented at 13, since the day people had stopped looking at her and expecting a sweet, submissive Omega to emerge from her adolescence. After that she’d held her head high, bared her teeth, and the rest of the world had gone and fucked itself because Nandita Bachchan was exactly what she wanted to be, and she loved it. And yet here she was, bite marks deep in her wrists from a mouth too large to be her own. And there was only one person who would’ve, who could’ve, who had access to her whilst she was unconscious.
She sobbed again. It was dry and hard in her chest but it was loud and as Staci stood there, watching, it yanked Eli Palmer out of his war room to come batter on the door.
“DITA! Fuck, Bachchan! Open up!”
Her hands shook on the doorknob as she let Eli in. His eyes fixed on her, warm and worried, and he reached for her shoulders, grasping tightly, like Pratt wasn’t in the room and she wasn’t still naked.
“You’re ok,” he promised, and then his gaze caught the indents of teeth on her wrists and his brows furrowed. “What the hell happened?”
Jacob Seed is trying to turn me into an Omega.
It wouldn’t come out. She couldn’t let it out. She was an Alpha, a fucking Alpha, she had been born that way and she would die that way and Eli would never understand because he was a Beta of all things. She clenched her fists as Eli held her forearms gently.
“Dita,” he whispered. “Hey. Talk to me. Who did this to you?”
A few tears spilled down her cheeks. “I…”
He moved a little closer. “Was it Jacob?”
She gave him a miserable nod, her breath catching. As long as she didn’t have to say it.
“Fuck,” Eli sighed. “What the hell is he doing?! The fuck is this, some kind of Alpha dominance move?”
“She’s changing,” Staci finally said.
Dita shot him a glare so deep he flinched and started getting dressed. Eli was still watching her when she looked back.
“Bachchan?” he murmured. “What does he mean?”
Dita yanked herself out of his arms. “It’s nothing,” she insisted, “he’s just getting inside my head and it’s working. I don’t wanna talk about this.”
Eli’s mouth opened and shut. His throat bobbed. “Are they bleeding?” he finally asked.
“No.” She yanked her shirt over her head. “They’re just bruised.”
“Let me get you an ice pack at least,” he offered.
“I’d,” her voice cracked, “I’d- really like that. Thanks Eli.”
Staci followed Eli out, his head down like he was waiting for her to tear his throat out. Dita busied herself yanking her jeans back on, willing her head to go empty for once. All she needed was for it to be quiet in there. To not be whirling around with terrified thoughts about how Staci noticed she was changing and how Jacob said she smelt different and how Dita couldn’t scent Omegas.
I am an Alpha. An Alpha. It sounded incredibly hollow in the sudden stillness of her brain.
“Hey,” Eli called, approaching, ice pack in hand wrapped in a clean towel. She let him take her arm and press the pack to one of the bruises. “I’m not gonna pretend I know what’s going on with you. I don’t know what Pratt means when he says you’re changing, if he means because of the Trials fucking with your brain or something else that’s to do with you being an Alpha. But this,” he thumbed over a bite on her other arm, “this is familiar.” He was looking at her when she finally met his eyes, and his gaze was soft. “Are you ok?”
A lump swelled in her throat. The world blurred in a haze of salty tears and Dita shook her head and let out another sob. Eli pulled her into his arms, holding tight until she clung to him.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “It’s ok, Dita. Let it out. Just let it all out, I know you Alphas like to keep it buried deep but let it out.”
Dita fell to her knees. Eli went with her, and all she could do was let the high sound of her crying fill the room because she was changing, and she couldn’t stop it.
“You’ve been hiding from me.”
The radio buzzed on her hip. Dita started, jolting out of her trance on the bunk. Jacob’s voice filled the room, a soft croon that made her skin tingle.
“Come out, Deputy. You know you can’t stay in your little hole forever.”
“Giving me the option?” she croaked.
“Ahhh, there she is. Was thinking you were lying in a ditch somewhere.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” she shot back.
“Deputy, you wound me. I’d just be upset it wasn’t me that put you there.”
“What do you want, Jacob?” she growled, sitting up.
“You’re no fun right now, hiding away from my Chosen. You with Eli?”
Shit. Fuck shit, fuckity shit shit-
Dita scrambled off the bunk and yanked on her boots, doing up the laces. “Why does it matter, Jacob? Jealous?”
“Of what? Of Eli? Because he’s gotta live with you storming around his bolt-hole. I don’t think so. I was more thinking how useful it’d be if that was where you were because all I’d need to do was just flip on this little record here.”
She was already halfway out of the bunker, shaking her head at Eli when he moved towards her. Dita clipped the radio onto her hip and yanked herself up the ladder, out into the bright sunshine and fresh air.
Did it- smell different?
“I’m not with Eli, Jacob,” she told him, running for a quad bike.
“But you’re nearby,” he realised. “Huh. Let me just get this record on-”
Dita switched off her radio and switched the bike on, tearing out of the car park towards the road. She just needed to get to Holland Valley and then she could finally lie low and-
“Only you…”
God, he must’ve just set up speakers all over the place, set them at full volume so that she’d hear it no matter where she was. Why, why, why did he hate her, why did he want to change her, why couldn’t this entire fucking county just leave her alone-
The world blurred into a thick red haze as she stopped the bike and stumbled off the seat, dragging her feet along the road. The smell of pine woods in the rain itched against her mouth, her throat, her skin, and she batted at the air like it would stop it all from fusing with her body and fucking with her.
Stop. Just stop. Enough. I’ve had enough. I don’t want this I want to be somewhere else I can’t do thisanymorepleasestopthesongpleasepleaseplease-!
Somehow, she woke up in a cage.
Except it was not the same day she had passed out because it was still morning but it was earlier in the morning. Dita shot up from the dirt, staring at the empty cages all around her. There was no one else around. Not even a corpse. Somehow that felt worse than being surrounded by other prisoners.
It felt wrong.
She pushed herself up against the bars at the furthest end from the door, arms wrapping around her knees, drawn up to her chest. She did not trust this. She didn’t trust the quiet or the lack of screams. Didn’t trust why Jacob wasn’t here to taunt her or the thick scent of fucking Bliss floating on the air.
“Did you think you were free?”
It buzzed against her hip, and Dita realised her radio was there, hanging off her belt. She snatched it up with trembling fingers.
“We both know you’re never gonna let me go,” she snarled.
“Clever girl,” Jacob sounded amused, “took you long enough to figure it out.”
“I figured it out, sure, but why?” Dita asked. “You want to see me destroyed, ok, I get it, but that’s way too personal. You barely know me. You can’t hate me already, right?”
There was a long pause. “Joseph sees you walking into Eden, Deputy. And I love my family. I want them to be safe. Which isn’t something they’ll ever be around you, but Joseph insists. So I have to break whatever part of you makes you fight like that, because if I don’t, I’m pretty sure you’ll keep trying to kill us until we put you in the ground.”
“Have you ever maybe considered that I wouldn’t be trying so hard to kill you if you weren’t all a bunch of murderous psychos?!” she yelled.
Jacob just chuckled in response. “You call us whatever you want, you’re just confirming what I knew all along. You’re a threat, Deputy. Be honoured I actually look at you that way. I don’t think of many people like that.”
“I’m flattered, Jacob. Really.” She thumbed the call button. “So if Joseph wants me in the cult so badly, does that mean you’re prepping me to be his Omega?”
She didn’t like how long the silence was after that. Dita stared at the radio in her hand for several minutes. It felt like hours. It burned in her hand. Why wasn’t he answering? It was a simple question. Whose Omega would she be- assuming she did actually present and wasn’t just going to become a fucked-up Beta- because if Joseph wanted her, and she had seen the way he looked at her, surely that would make her Joseph’s?
Dita’s eyes fell to her wrists, to where the bite marks had long since faded after her time spent recuperating in the Wolf’s Den, the memory of a rainy pinewood scent hovering on her neck over her mating gland. Surely if she was going to be Joseph’s, that would have been his smell on her skin, not Jacob’s. It would have been the gentle tang of Georgia peaches and freshly-bound books. But it wasn’t.
“Do you think I’d trust you with Joseph, Deputy? You’re the fucking apocalypse crammed into a tiny dark-eyed cop from Chicago. If you think you’re gonna just fuck your way to being the wife of the Father, I hate to disappoint you.”
“Oh wow, so now I’m a social climber!” Dita rolled her eyes. “Fine, who then?!”
“Who the fuck do you think, little girl?”
Somehow those two words throbbed down Dita’s spine and between her thighs. She squeezed her legs tightly shut, a shuddering breath escaping her. She was not a little girl she was almost 26 years old she was thinking about Jacob whispering that into her ear as he fucked her rough from behind.
She wanted to sob. Instead she pressed a hand over her mouth and breathed in deep through her nose. The last vestiges of ignorance crumbled to the ground. She would become an Omega. She would present. Jacob Seed would take her as his prisoner and his mate. The moment she went into Heat, he would have won.
“So you’re a rapist on top of a creep,” she managed, trying to keep her voice even. “That was your plan all along, was it?”
“You’ll want it by the time your Heat hits,” Jacob promised.
“God, you’re that fucking cocky.” Dita’s eyes scanned the cage, looking for a way out, a loose bar, anything. “I’ve never let an Omega bite me and those little things are way cuter than you will ever be. So good fucking luck trying to get your teeth into my neck.”
“There’s no need to talk about your fellow Omegas like that,” Jacob chided. “Be polite about them. We don’t look down on you. You serve a useful purpose.”
“As breeding bitches,” Dita spat. “I think I’d rather die in a Trial.”
Jacob chuckled. “Too late for that now. You shouldn’t have taken to being broken so well. The moment your scent changed, I knew that was your true purpose. Maybe if you’d stayed a Beta I would’ve let you throw your life away, but when I got my teeth into your wrists I could taste it on you. It’d just take a second to adjust, but you’d get there.”
“You did bite me,” she whispered. “Why? I don’t get it, why?!”
“Mmm, you were strapped down and putting out this pretty scent like a freshly-picked apple, and I guess I wanted a taste.”
“You assaulted me!” she sobbed.
“Oh, Deputy.” His voice came out so soft. “I gave your body a little push, that’s all. To show it that it was gonna be mine. And it liked it, baby. Why do you think you changed from being a Beta so quick afterwards?”
“I don’t FUCKING belong to you!” she screamed.
“We’ll see.”
Dita curled up into the corner of her cage for the rest of the day. A Beta brought her food- eggs, bacon, toast for breakfast, fried chicken and some kind of salad for lunch, a burger and chips for dinner- and she ate it all alone, in silence. It was better food than she’d ever had before in this cage, and better food than she imagined even the Chosen got. Jacob wanted to keep her healthy, and keeping her diet balanced meant better chances of Heat. Omegas who starved never had good ones or good chances of getting pregnant, she knew that well. She wanted to refuse to eat just to spite him, but she also knew that she needed to keep her strength up if she wanted a chance to escape.
“You’re eating properly, that’s a good girl,” Jacob praised after the Beta had taken her empty plate away that evening. “If my nose is right, you should be in Heat in about three days.”
“I’m not a good girl and I’ll cut your knot off if you try and put it in me,” she growled.
“Easy, easy,” he chuckled. “It’s hard to accept, I know. Your mind will take a second to adjust even if your body gives in first.”
If there had been anything to kick, she would’ve kicked. “My body isn’t giving in first, you broke it. You made it think it’s something else.”
“And if you weren’t meant to be that something else, Deputy, you wouldn’t be.”
She threw the radio. It smacked against the bars, so she snatched it up and tossed it under-arm, watching it sail up into the air and over to the other side of the group of cages, behind the tarp that had been strung up to keep this section of the cages hidden from the rest of the centre. Maybe it broke, maybe it didn’t. Dita slumped down against the bars, gripping them tightly.
The sound of footsteps jolted her out of her sudden daze, and Dita realised she had been half-asleep against the bars when the Beta from earlier reappeared around the corner, carrying a blanket in his hands.
“Jacob says you’ll need this,” he told her, thrusting it towards her. “Supposed to get cold later.”
Pine woods soaked in summer rain. Take it. Smell it. Nest in it, wrap it around you and drink in the scent. Alpha gave it as a gift. You’ll need it soon. Heat is coming. The smell will help, make you feel better.
So, this was the Omega Id. It was nothing like the Alpha. Her lip curled. “I don’t want it.”
The Beta stared at her. “Jacob’s orders. Take it or I throw it in with you.”
Dita snatched it from his hand and threw it to the opposite end of the cage. The radio tumbled out of it, and she almost screamed. The Beta left as she snatched the radio up and clawed it open, tearing out the batteries. Throwing them away, she smacked the receiver into the bars again and again. The plastic cracked and dented. The guts of the little device spilled out onto the floor.
Breathless, Dita threw the useless carcass of metal and black casing into another cage near the opening of the little section, then shoved herself back up against the bars and dragged her knees up to her chest once more.
She stared at the blanket like it would catch on fire if she tried for long enough. She would not nest for Jacob Seed. She wouldn’t wrap herself in his scent no matter what her biology wanted her to do. She knew exactly what he was trying to do and Dita was not playing this game. She had been an Alpha; she had never offered an Omega a gift like that, but the symbolism was right there. A blanket to keep her safe even though he’d already told her he was only keeping her at his side to protect the others.
Dita had to hand it to him; wherever Jacob had learned his mind games and mental fuckery, this shit had layers to it.
Dozing against the cold bars, Dita woke too much later. It was dark, too dark, the lights were off, and she was cold. Her skin was raised in goosebumps. She wished she was wearing a sweater when she’d been caught. Curling in on herself, she rubbed her arms.
“Put the blanket on.”
She started at the sound of another radio. Glancing around, Dita spotted one propped up outside of her cage, too far for her to reach even when she shoved right up against the bars and scrabbled for it. Instead she went for the blanket, lifting it up to throw it.
“Put the blanket on, Deputy, or I’ll put you in an even smaller cage in my bedroom for the next couple days.”
She shivered, not just from the cold. There was something in his voice that she recognised, because she’d used it on the Heat-drunk Omega girl who tried to bite her neck once, that layered level of Alpha command. It wasn’t so potent through a radio receiver, but she knew it was there all the same. Shivering again, she took a seat against the bars once more, blanket still in hand. She would not put it on.
“You have five seconds to wrap up in the blanket, Deputy, or I come down there and take you upstairs and leave you naked in that little bird cage I have ready just for you.”
Flushing, Dita scrambled to wind the blanket loosely around her shoulders. The thick smell of Jacob was layered into every fibre. He must’ve had it under his shirt all day, several days, just to make sure it was dripping with his scent. Maybe it had been warm when the Beta handed it to her and she just hadn’t noticed because she was so angry.
“Don’t try my patience. Put it on properly. If you can’t look after yourself, I will take you in hand, understood?”
The warmth she felt both from the fabric and his voice made her sigh softly in relief when she curled into the blanket. It was colder than she had realised, and the sudden protection against the night air left her drowsy. Dita settled back against the bars, her eyes fluttering shut.
“That’s a good girl, baby,” Jacob cooed. “You see? It feels so much better when you do as you’re told, doesn’t it?”
“You really think a blanket is going to break me?” she said aloud.
“I sure hope not, Deputy. I want you to put up a fight, actually. You said I broke you, but not even close. If I wanted to break you properly, I’d do it. Be glad all I actually want is to ruin you. Breaking you would look very different.”
That was what sent her to sleep; thinking about Jacob breaking her.
“I want the radio back,” she said when the Beta came back the next morning, “and I need to take a shit, unless Jacob wants me to do it in the mud.”
The Beta looked her over, then pulled cuffs out of his pocket. Dita knew how this went and stuck her wrists through the bars, letting him cuff her, lead her out of the cage and into the centre. It stunk of Alpha, a clashing of scents that felt like they wanted to wriggle under her clothes. Was this what the other Omegas she’d fucked had felt when she and Joey came over to flirt? Surrounded?
It sucked.
She got free hands to clean herself up in the bathroom, but the cuffs came back when she needed her escort to her cage again. There was a tarp on the ground this time, and fresh food laid out on it along with another blanket that was drenched in rain-soaked pine. Her fingers twitched towards it.
“What about the radio?” she asked.
The Beta made a face, then handed her a handset. “He says if you break this one, you’ll be in trouble,” he told her when she reached for it.
“Cool.” Dita took it. “Great. Ok. Thanks.”
The Beta left. She ate her breakfast. The Beta came back. Then she was alone in the cage again, feeling twitchy. She pulled the blanket over herself even though she wasn’t really cold, staring down at the dirt.
“Sleep well?”
Why the fuck had she asked for a radio back-
“I’m outside in a cage,” she retorted. “Not exactly luxury service. Is this how you treat your Omegas?”
“I thought you said you didn’t belong to me.”
He sounded way too amused by that slip. “You seem to think it’s inevitable, so why the rough treatment? Is this part of your plan to ruin me?”
“Are you complaining? You want me to bring you up here so that you have to sleep next to me? Spend hours tied up in my office just you and me, is that what you want? Just say the word, Deputy, and I’ll bring you up.”
“You don’t have a spare fucking room I can hole up in for a few days?” she snapped.
“In case it hadn’t become obvious, Deputy, this place ain’t in great shape and we’re in the middle of a war. I can’t just find you a room. The cage will protect you until you go into Heat.”
“And what, you’re going to fuck me on this tarp for the first time?” she spat. “Seriously?!”
“Oh, you were born to be an Omega. Listen to you, already demanding a nest.”
"I am going to rip your knot off," she growled.
"Just hold tight for me, Deputy. Once you go into Heat it'll be better."
How could it be better? Dita could already feel something rushing hot under her skin. It was impossible to ignore already and she still had almost two days to go before she actually went into Heat. Her nipples were stiff and hard against her bra.
“Let me go,” Dita said.
“No.”
Her fingers trembled on the receiver. “Please.”
“No,” he said again, his voice softer. “It’s too late for that, Deputy. You’ve got your purpose. You’ll settle into it the way you always should’ve. If you’d stayed a Beta, I would’ve let you die. But you’re not a Beta. You’re an Omega. It is what it is.”
She couldn’t throw this receiver or she wouldn’t get another one. “Fuck you.”
“Behave and I will. I’ll even take you upstairs if you’re real good for me.”
“I’m going to kill you.” Dita clawed back a little of the Alpha fury she’d once felt, the way she could bark and things would happen.
“Whatever you say, girl.”
Didn’t even bother him.
That was enough to shut her up for the rest of the day. She ate a couple more meals before it got dark, and when the Beta came back with a bottle of water he was holding another blanket in his other hand.
“Take it,” he told her.
Dita took it, and the water, and lay down on the tarp, shoving the new blanket under her head. Her eyes closed. She wrapped herself in the older blanket. The scent of it wasn’t as thick as it had been last night, but the one under her head was heavy with rain-slick pine and it made her melt into the bedding with a soft sigh-
-like she wanted any part of this.
"Comfy?"
She groaned, reaching for the radio. "I think I liked it better when you were torturing me."
"I'll keep that in mind for later," he promised.
"Seriously, why are you doing this? Feeding me properly, keeping me safe. You hate me," she pointed out.
"Deputy, Deputy, I don't care about you enough to hate you. And as for the other stuff, well, you're an Omega about to have your first Heat. It should be good for you. What kind of Alpha would I be if I didn't make sure you had the basics?"
"I am locked in a cage, and you wanna act like you're a good Alpha?!" She buried the urge to crush the radio in her grip.
"I could be worse." The amusement dropped out of his voice. "I could go down there right now and force you on your knees. Make you take me until you're raw and bleeding. Is that what you want, Deputy?"
"Is that what's going to happen if I'm not a good girl?" Dita asked.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you. Give you a reason to fight back against me. Give you a sob story for everyone."
"Being drugged and turned into an Omega is already a sob story, I don't need to tell people you're a rapist. You're already going to fuck me when the last thing I want is you anywhere near me," she reminded him.
"I can make you want it," he said simply. "Sleep well, Deputy."
Make you want it? Shit, the Heat would send her into a desperate frenzy anyway, he didn’t even need to do anything. Dita curled tighter into her blanket, staring at the back of the cage like it would melt away and let her out.
“Why aren’t I up there with you?” she asked. Her voice sounded stupid and plaintive.
“You wanna be?” His voice was soft and low.
“Anything could happen to me down here,” she pointed out. “The whole place is swimming in Alphas.”
“Five minutes alone in the cage with you isn’t gonna be worth it if I get my hands on them.”
Fuck. That made her squirm too nicely. “I’m not yours.”
“Not yet. Gotta let you stew for a little longer. Just one more day, Deputy. Then we’ll know for sure what you’re meant to be.”
“So if I don’t go into Heat, will you kill me?” she asked.
“I thought I told you to go to bed.” There was a warning there.
She ignored it. “Or are you gonna let one of your siblings torture me?”
“I’ve got a leash and collar up here with your name on it. You wanna be up here so bad, you just keep talking.”
The sudden thought of Jacob fucking her with a cherry-red leash wrapped around his wrist had Dita pressing her hips into the tarp beneath her, seeking friction. A soft gasp escaped her. Fuck. Why did she have to hit every branch on the submissive Omega tree on her way down from Alpha Female? She’d never thought about being leashed before, but here she was thinking about her wrists being forced behind her-
“Good girl. Sleep well, Deputy. You’ll be up here with me soon enough.”
The next morning, Dita could taste the fucking air.
It was something familiar, at least; she’d been able to do it during her Rut, only this felt different. The beginnings of Rut had been an incentive to see out a willing Omega and join them in their nest, curl up around them to lick and kiss at them until they were drenched in her scent. She’d done it a couple times, never letting anything come from it, just enjoying the feeling of being with someone that was desperate for her.
The other side of it felt like she was constantly scenting the air for danger.
She could hear the Alphas on the other side of the fence muttering to themselves. Occasionally the smell of one would float over and she’d cling to the blanket that was drenched in Jacob’s scent, burying her face in it because that was the devil she knew. It wasn't because she liked the smell of rain-dappled pine needles.
Three meals came and went. The sky got dark. Dita wrapped herself in the blanket. Jacob hadn’t called her all day. That should’ve been a good thing, but there was an insistent little need in her mind that begged for Alpha. I am Alpha, she wanted to say, even though she knew it wasn’t true. He’s destroyed that bit of me but let me remember what it was like. Is this what the other side feels like?
Wow, if that was the case, she had been a terrible Alpha. She could remember the number of Omegas she’d left in bed after a couple hours spent soothing their Heat. She was starting to believe in God now, because there couldn’t be any other reason why her body was betraying her like this other than to punish her for being a callous bitch in bed in the past. Sure, they’d known it was a hookup, but wow, this was already unbearable.
Dita rolled onto her front. The blanket caught around her legs, hooking up between her thighs. She froze against the tarp after a heavy groan escaped her.
Fuck.
Dita lay there, waiting for Jacob to say something over the radio. Maybe he was waiting for her to talk to him? Call him down to knot her and turn her into his little Omega pet.
Leashed-
She ground her hips down again. The smell of pines grew stronger. Her nipples tightened against her bra. Pleasure burst against her crotch. Dita shoved her face into the blanket under her head, her heart thudding in her chest. Sweat cooled on her clavicle. She reached down and twisted her blanket until it was thicker, more solid. One hand shoved up under her shirt, pinching her very sensitive nipple.
Stop.
Dita ground again, then again. Each one was a little spark on a slow-burning flame that started to grow. If anyone came over, they’d know what she was going through. Know what she was doing with her rolling hips and the hand up her shirt. The other hand pushed the blanket into her face, muffling the whimpers that tried to escape her with every grind.
I want Alpha.
She felt it like a prickle that started at her clit and spread slowly. A throb followed it, her skin pulsing with her heartbeats. Dita inhaled again, rain-soaked pine forests in her mind as she thought about being pinned up against a tree, a hand in her hair, the other on her hip as she was rutted against by the heavy dark shape of Jacob Seed, his voice saying good girl.
Oh god.
The Heat started. It dragged her under, a wave of need that burned her on her way down. Her orgasm was like the trigger of a loaded gun destined to fuck her over. And still she let it fire, squeezing her thighs around the blanket a few more times.
“No,” she moaned, “no, please.”
The radio crackled. “I’m on my way.”
No no no, no this could not be happening. Dita yanked the blankets away, tossing them aside. She grabbed for the bars, clinging to them, trying to get some leverage to stand despite her weak knees. The cool metal felt good on her hot skin, and she rested her head against the cage, desperate for something to keep her calm because she felt like she was about to burst out of her skin. There was a rapid pulsing between her thighs. God. Fuck.
She’d been there too long by the time the cage door squeaked open. Eyes darting up, Dita’s lung filled with the heavy taste of Jacob in Rut. Oh, of course. He’d kept her here long enough to trigger his own Rut and now-
“You stay away from me.” She tried to snarl it but it came out breathless and ragged.
His tongue dragged over his lip. She could just about see his eyes in the darkness. The pupils were blown wide, so large they almost covered the icy blue. But that ice was still there, and in a horrible paradox it just made her feel hotter.
“Stay away,” she tried again, as the Alpha took two long strides towards her. His hand tangled into her hair. Dita had never liked having her hair pulled, but the rough tug had her knees failing, and then she was collapsing into a kneel.
Jacob fell with her, fingers still clutching her hair as her back touched the blankets. Her knees came up to stop him and he grabbed a thigh, wrenching it aside, forcing his hips between her legs. Her hands raised to his face. They disappeared into his palm and were pressed above her head, methodical despite the thick scent of rain-soaked pine that told her Jacob was deep in his Rut now.
“Stop it,” she whispered, wrenching at him just as his right hand yanked her shirt and bra up.
The cool night air teased her nipples. The warmth from Jacob’s mouth covering them was almost a relief that made her groan too loudly. His lips made a popping noise when he released one, leaving it wet and a little bit sore. She lifted her leg to slam her heel into his back and Jacob snarled at her, low rumbles of command layered into it that ordered her to stop. She fought it, didn’t want to obey it, but Jacob didn’t care.
As he licked across her breast, his free hand yanked at her jeans, scraping them across her thighs as he forced them off her. The denim pooled around her ankles. Jacob lay on top of it, trapping her attempts to kick him against the floor.
She wanted the air to fill with thick layers of distress, but he tongued her nipple and forced her mind to sink under the fog of her Heat. His fingers curled into the waistband of her underwear and ripped, slick-covered thighs exposed to the night.
“Stop,” she pleaded. “Jacob, st-”
His mouth covered hers. Jacob didn't kiss her out of any sense of affection, no. He was just invading her, conquering her body as his prize for successfully forcing her change. Still, every bruising kiss made her body sing in pleasure. Dita moaned, arching up into him. As his tongue pushed past her lips, beard rasping at her jaw, she strained against his hands, clenching her own into fists. Her hips pushed up, crotch finding his lap, the hard length of him outlined against his jeans.
A low rumble buzzed against her chest, and she squeaked when he pinched her nipple, rolling it between thumb and forefinger. He pushed her lips apart and sucked on her tongue, robbing her of her chance to speak. To protest. She tried to say distress, distress, and instead his fingers scratched down her belly, pushing at her soaking wet curls until he was rubbing along her clit.
Finally he stopped kissing her, but those fingers were moving in rapid little circles around the nub and Dita’s legs were shaking as her eyes rolled up.
"Look at this," Jacob's voice was low, like a rumble of thunder, "fuck, girl, you can't see how wet you are for me. It's all over your thighs." He took a deep breath. "Knew you'd smell good. You'd be a perfect Omega. All you needed was a little nudge in the right direction."
He was still trapping her legs open and his hand wasn’t stopping and Dita was about to cum already. The fastest orgasm she had ever had and it was for Jacob Seed. Her thighs squeezed around his, the wet noise of his fingers on her clit mixing with the soft sobs she let out as the coil of orgasm grew tight.
“Cum,” he told her, “good girl.”
She tipped over that edge to the thick scent of rain-soaked pine in her lungs, body and mind fighting desperately for control. Jacob pressed two fingers into her, filling her up and forcing her back to arch at the sudden pressure. She’d never felt so good, she wanted more, she wanted him to leave her alone. Somehow she had just cum and it didn’t seem to change a thing. Her body was craving something that her mind wanted her to reject outright.
“Ssss,” the word stop died away, “please!”
"You said this would never happen," he taunted, "you'd never be an Omega. Here you are now," his hand thrust deep, striking her sweet spot and making her thighs shake, "and you're all mine, Deputy."
“No!”
His fingers were so thick inside her but it wasn't nearly enough. Dita shook, rutting her hips against his hand. She wanted him to pull his hand away and let her go and she wanted him to fuck her faster on his fingers until she was a mess and good for nothing except to take the knot she knew he was hiding in his jeans.
“Yes,” he growled, those thick fingers working her over, a third sliding in. It still wasn’t enough, it wasn’t what her body wanted and yet her mind was begging her to try and stop this.
“Please!” she sobbed, and now she wasn’t even sure what she was begging for, she just knew that she wanted and his hand felt so good pressed up against her like this, she wanted him to never stop.
“Shhh,” he nudged her jaw aside to lick at her neck, “good girl.”
The tongue on her gland pitched her over the edge again and it felt so good to cum around something. But it wasn’t enough, never enough, she needed more-
No no no fuck we can’t we can’t please please no-!
Jacob’s fingers slid free of her and he sucked them into his mouth, another growl rumbling through him. Then after that was the sound of his zipper coming down and Dita clenched up around nothing because oh, this was going to happen, it was all going to take its course.
“Fucking delicious,” he breathed, arching up, grabbing his cock.
“Stop,” she yelped as the tip of it pressed against her soaked folds.
Jacob kissed her again, let her taste herself. “You belong to me, Deputy.”
When he slid in, it was like losing her virginity all over again. Except rather than being on top of a very horny Omega college student in her dorm bed, Dita was pinned down underneath a man twice her age as he filled her too much, almost splitting her open, he was filling her so much that she had to drink in deep drags of air to cope with the sensation of being so full.
“I- don’t,” she protested, even as his hips pressed against hers and his pelvis rubbed at her clit, sending hot flickers down to where they were joined.
“This,” he thrust, “is,” and again, “proof.”
If her hands were free she would’ve clawed at his eyes. Clawed at his shoulders. Arched her back like she was doing right now, crying for him like she was now. Dita’s legs were trapped underneath him and wide open so that he could do whatever he wanted to her. The loud slap of bare skin meeting denim echoed through the courtyard. Shame flooded her in waves between the pleasure, because how had she forgotten that they were outside? Exposed?
“Please,” she arched, “w-we’re outside, Jacob!”
His hand slid into her hair, anchoring in the dark mess, forcing her to look at him. “Eyes on me, Deputy,” he ordered. “Eyes on me.”
That layer of command was there, heavy and unrelenting. Dita couldn’t look away from him as he rutted into her, hard and fast, denim abrading her thighs. The feeling of him inside her felt right, felt like her body starting to accept that this was truly happening. She was an Omega now, Jacob’s Omega, no matter what happened from now on she belonged to him.
Another lick across her gland. She remembered realising he’d done that when Staci noticed all the bite marks and she tried to conjure some anger, but the sensation of his tongue felt so unbearably electric that she tilted her head to bare her neck to him.
“Good girl.”
If any part of her was thinking he didn’t enjoy this, the sound of his voice and his laboured groans as he fucked her gave away just how much pleasure he was getting out of this. The smell of him grew thicker, pressing down on her like his body was. Dita squirmed.
“Please,” she whispered.
“I’ll take ya inside,” he promised, “soon as I’m done here.”
But he was in Rut and that could take hours and what if someone came to find them and instead they saw her trapped underneath him and taking him and whining like this-
Jacob sped up like he could tell she was worried, and of course he could tell, he could smell it on her that she was. Dita twisted her head, trying to bury her face in him, and instead her mouth met his to let Jacob kiss her. He nipped her lower lip, pulling on her hair until she felt it start a pressure in her toes that curled up her spine. A cry filled the air. Her cry, of desperation and need.
“That’s it, baby,” he kissed her, again and again, fake affection in his mouth, “that’s my good girl, Deputy, taking me so well.”
“Not,” she managed to say, “I’m not.”
His teeth found her throat and scratched against her pulse. “You will be. Gonna break you into it, got that?”
The dam of her orgasm cracked and broke. Dita was swept under, body rocked with shudders of ecstasy. She thought she heard him call her a good girl again, but she couldn’t be sure because the blood was rushing through her and her ears were roaring like the sea was washing over her. Jacob growled, that much she did know, and he sped up until every thrust threatened to shove her up against the bars if he moved his hand away from her wrists. Dita just had to take it, just had to sob in the sensation of too much.
“Stop!” she begged again.
“Wh’n I get my knot in,” his voice was so low it was almost inaudible, “get you wrapped around it, get you used to it.”
“No,” she wriggled, “no, stop, stop, Jacob!”
Too late she realised all the squirming just made him feel better. He groaned in her ear, his cock twitching. She wanted to escape this, escape him, but she was fucking stuck and the knot wasn’t even inside her.
“Good girl, keep that up, god, gonna look so good when you can’t move,” he purred.
“Let me go,” she was frantic, “please don’t knot me, don’t, Jacob, Jacob you can’t, you can’t, I don’t want-!”
His tongue dragged along her gland. It shut her up, it filled his mouth with the taste of her, and with a loud snarl Jacob came, twitching, ropes of cum filling her up. Dita couldn’t move her hips to get away and every second he was still inside her was another spurt.
Then his mouth closed over her gland and bit.
Dita came.
Inner walls milking him, the pain thundered through her, twisting her mind, her biology. His cock throbbed at the base. It was so different for her- had been so different for her. She would’ve locked up around him if the roles were reversed. But instead she felt him stretch at her until it almost hurt. Keening in protest, Dita wriggled. It tugged his knot into her deeper somehow and it hurt and she just- had to stop. Because it was useless to fight.
“See?” Jacob breathed. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“It hurts!” she yelped.
“Shhh.” He let go of her hair. His hand fell to where they were joined, finding where her clit was stood out, wet and prominent, exposed. Jacob circled it slowly. “Shhh, good girl. Breathe deep for me.”
Her hands were still trapped under his, so all she could do was whine and twitch underneath him. “Enough,” she begged.
Jacob kissed her neck, the gland so sensitive from his bite. “We ain’t done yet, Deputy,” he reminded her. “Now, you’re all knotted-up with me, and I’ve bit you so everybody knows I own you. But Rut’s not over yet, and neither’s your Heat. We still got a couple days left.”
“I h-hate you,” she whined, feeling a coil of pleasure grow with every swipe of his fingers.
“I know, baby,” he cooed. “You’re too fuckin’ ornery. Still got a little bit of Alpha left in there. Don’t worry, we’ll get rid of that. I’ll have you leashed and obedient soon.”
“N-no,” oh god, he wasn’t stopping, his fingers kept up the same pace and pressure, “no, Jacob, don’t.”
“It’s a nice leash.” He was licking at her fucking gland and it was turning her brain off. “Red, like your collar.”
“I won’t,” yes, yes, more, don’t stop, “w-wear a fucking collar!”
“You will,” he nibbled along his claiming bite, “promise.”
“Just- let me go.” Tears blurred her vision. “I- you broke me. I’m not- me any more. I just- want you to let me go.”
Jacob’s fingers never moved from her clit as he leaned up to look her in the eye. “After all the effort I put in to catch you right before my Rut started? All the effort I put in to make you change for me so that I could keep you here? Oh no, Deputy. You’re goin’ nowhere.”
“I don’t want- to- oh, fuck!” Just like that, she was coming again, on him, around him, the satisfied scent of rain-lashed pines filling the air.
“I know, baby.” His fingers didn’t stop. “And I don’t care.”
She almost choked herself to death waking up.
The bed underneath her was big and warm and soft, thick with the smell of Jacob Seed like a poisonous gas that somehow refused to end her life. And around her neck was a collar that yanked on a leash clipped to the headboard, squeezing at her throat when she shot up out of bed. Dita wrapped her fingers around the leather cord, pulling.
“Stop.”
Her body froze, hands going slack around the leash.
“Good girl.”
Every part of her rebelling mind wanted her to fight the command, but instead she slid her eyes over to him. He was sat so casually at his desk, watching her as he twirled a pen in his grip. Those icy eyes scanned down her body.
Dita realised she was naked.
“Sleep well?” he purred.
“Eat shit and die,” she managed to say.
Jacob chuckled, standing up. She flinched away as his hands went up, spread either side of him in a sign of surrender, fingers spread wide. She remembered the feeling of them dancing over her clit-
“Not broken after all.” His voice was admiring. “That’s good. Told you I wasn’t trying to break you, just the bit that wants to kill my family.”
“And you think this,” Dita’s fingers clenched around the leash, “makes me merciful?!”
“That was never the plan.” He was too close for comfort. “I just did this to screw you over, that’s all. Now you can’t kill me.”
“And you can’t kill me,” she retorted.
His hand found her throat, holding it gently. “I never wanted to keep you alive in the first place, Deputy. Joseph did. And, well, we had to figure out how to keep your claws sheathed without cuttin’ them off.”
Her pulse throbbed under his fingers. "Must be so hard for you, having to rape me."
His jaw twitched. There was a pause. "You wanna say that one again?”
“Sure.” Her lip curled. “You’re a r-”
The room flooded with a thick wave of pheromones that drowned her. Dita collapsed, knees giving out as a wave of wetness soaked her thighs. Air escaped her in a sharp cry that she should’ve been ashamed to make, but oh, the sudden need searing through her was almost too much for her to think over.
“Listen to me.” Jacob’s eyes bored into her. “You belong to me, you understand? I won’t treat you bad. I won’t raise a hand to you. But don’t push me.”
“You cannot,” the words came out rushed and breathless, “pretend- that there is anything- anything ok with this!”
“Pretend?” he repeated. “I’m not askin’ you to fall in love with me, Deputy, fuck knows neither of us wants that. All I want is for you to be a good girl and fulfil your purpose.”
“Which is being your breeding bitch,” she managed to growl.
Jacob chuckled, tugging on her collar to bring her neck to his mouth. “Only mine, Deputy. Don’t you worry. I’ll look after you. Keep you warm and fed and satisfied.”
His tongue touched the mating bite that he’d torn into her skin again and again. It was sore, and she flinched, expecting teeth, but instead he licked at it. She grasped his arm, and somehow she was in his lap, thighs spread wide for him as he silently coaxed her body into giving up for him. “Jacob,” she whimpered.
“I know, I know,” his voice was all soft and deep in her ear, “kinda hard to think like this, isn’t it? That’s why you’re so much better this way, Deputy. I got you following your training real well in the Trials, but this? It’s something more.”
“You- changed me,” she protested, trying to push his hand away.
“I did,” he nipped at her jaw, “but you’re the one who took to it so well. Practically asked me for it. Said please so many times.”
How dare he- “I wanted you to stop!”
“And shit, when I smelt you, knew you were going into Heat, lined up perfectly with my Rut, what was I meant to do, huh?” His breath fanned over her ear. His voice was too close to her but oh, fuck. “Maybe that pretty head of yours says you shouldn’t belong to me, but your body? Your body knows better, Deputy. Nature knows better.”
There was a hand between her legs. Dita’s mind shut off momentarily as she rutted into his touch, her hands moving to his shoulders.
“There she is, good girl.” Jacob’s fingers filled her, and she was still so wet from last night. “You know your purpose. Don’t fight it. Just let go.”
“I will not,” even though she was dripping down his fingers and her hips were moving and her voice was cracking, “I won’t let go!”
“Shhhh.” He soothed her like she was a rabid animal. “That’s it.”
“I will,” she sobbed out a moan, “I will kill you!”
“Joseph says you’re comin’ to Eden with us.” Jacob let her collar go, and Dita stayed in his lap. His zipper went, cock popping free from his jeans. Those fingers slid out of her, and instead he was deep inside her in one thrust as she perched on his lap. “So let’s get you ready to go, baby.”
“I hate you,” she whimpered.
His mouth curved into a smile by her ear.