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  It was well-known that Omegas had kept them­selves hid­den for al­most a cen­tury be­fore the em­peror was able to get them to re­turn. Maybe this Omega had never ex­pe­ri­enced life in the East­ern Lands since the Lox ar­rived. Per­haps that was what ac­counted for her strange as­sump­tions. In any case, her pres­ence in the moun­tains was even more mys­ti­fy­ing.

  As he reached the base of the moun­tains, the guard’s eyes widened as he saw what Thorec held.

  “You did not see her en­ter?” Thorec growled at him.

  “No,” the man said, be­wil­dered. “I’ve never seen her be­fore.”

  Thorec lifted the Omega di­rectly onto his horse and climbed up be­hind her. “The next tour isn’t for a few days,” he called to the guard. “Hope­fully the peo­ple will set­tle in that time, but sum­mon me if there are any prob­lems.”

  As the guard saluted, Thorec urged his steed for­ward, wrap­ping one arm around the lit­tle woman in front of him and press­ing her against his body to keep her se­cure. He would not put it past her to jump off the mov­ing horse to get away from him, but he would not al­low her to es­cape. She wasn’t only a tres­passer; she was also a rare find and an in­trigu­ing mys­tery—one he wanted to solve.

  As his horse picked up a com­fort­able speed, he glanced down to see her star­ing straight ahead, her jaw tight, and her body rigid. “What is your name?”

  She didn’t an­swer, and an­noy­ance flared in his chest. Grab­bing her chin, he turned her face up to­ward him. “Your name?”

  “I owe you noth­ing,” she said, yank­ing away from his grip.

  Re­leas­ing a growl, Thorec dropped the reins and lifted her up, turn­ing her to face him. She yelped, grip­ping onto his arms to steady her bal­ance as he sat her down and ar­ranged her legs around his hips. “You will give me an an­swer!”

  The fe­male pressed her lips to­gether as she glared at him. “I de­mand you re­lease me.”

  He al­most chuck­led at her au­dac­ity as he grabbed the reins again. “There is no chance of that hap­pen­ing, lit­tle Omega.”

  “So I’m your pris­oner now?”

  “Yes.”

  A scowl re­turned her lips. “You Al­phas think you have the right to dom­i­nate and con­trol ev­ery­thing that you put your hands on—”

  “You are lucky my hand is all you got,” he shot back, his voice gritty. “Do you think most Al­phas would have ig­nored that pretty slit of yours? So soft, and fra­grant, and wet?”

  The Omega in­haled sharply, and her hands flew to cup be­tween her legs as if that could do any­thing to erase the feel of her, the scent of her from his mind. “You took my panties,” she mum­bled, ac­cus­ingly.

  “Yes. They were in the way.”

  “I would like them back.”

  The cor­ner of Thorec’s mouth quirked up. “They are ev­i­dence.”

  When she didn’t re­ply, he glanced down at her, and she stared at him with such mal­ice, his cock jerked. “Un­til you give me the an­swers I want, you will not be re­leased.”

  She scowled, low­er­ing her head as she fumed. They con­tin­ued on for a few more mo­ments be­fore she spoke again, her voice softer. “Ria. My name is Ria.”

  Thorec made a noise at the back of his throat. Pretty. It suited her. “How did you get into the moun­tains?”

  She glanced up at him guard­edly. “I found a way in.”

  “Past that guard? I find that doubt­ful. I trained him my­self.”

  Her grip on his arms loos­ened a lit­tle as she ad­justed to the gait of the horse un­der­neath them, and his eyes were drawn to the sway of her breasts un­der her tu­nic. “There are other ways into the moun­tains,” she re­sponded. “You can­not guard them all.”

  She could only be talk­ing about the wilder en­try points into the moun­tain range, but in her flimsy lit­tle tu­nic, it was un­likely that she had used those routes. It ap­peared as though she’d trav­eled from a warmer cli­mate, then some­thing sud­denly oc­curred to him. He re­leased one hand from the reins to grab her jaw, lift­ing her face up un­til her eyes were back on him. “Are you a Tal­ent-crafter?” News that Omegas used magic to con­ceal their hor­monal Omega traits to hide their scents had spread across the en­tire em­pire when the Omega Em­press was in­au­gu­rated. The whole idea of hid­ing one’s dy­namic was atro­cious as far as Thorec was con­cerned. Al­phas could only be Al­phas if Omegas were their true selves—they shouldn’t hide what they were. But if Omegas could use magic to cre­ate por­tals and weapons, it would make sense that this Omega had used a por­tal to en­ter the moun­tains.

  Wari­ness bled into her gaze at his words, and her mouth tight­ened slightly.

  “Magic doesn’t al­ways work near the Ariyon moun­tains,” he said, an­swer­ing the ques­tion in her gaze. “Their nat­u­ral en­ergy makes it un­re­li­able. What were you do­ing there?”

  “Noth­ing that con­cerns you, Al­pha.”

  “You may call me Gen­eral Thorec.”

  “I will not be in your com­pany long enough to call you any­thing.” She wrin­kled her nose, al­most of­fended at the idea.

  “You will be un­able to use magic to es­cape from me if that is what you are plan­ning,” he said sternly. “The moun­tains dis­rupt magic over this whole area, and my base is pro­tected to pre­vent the use of magic.”

  Her eyes flick­ered away from him as she di­gested what he said. “And what do you hope to do with me?” she asked, her voice low.

  Thorec re­mained silent as he con­tin­ued to guide the horse. His cock still throbbed, re­mind­ing him of his in­ten­tions to get be­tween her legs; how­ever, this was no longer the world be­fore the Omegas had been found. The em­peror him­self had made agree­ments about Omegas, and Thorec should re­port he has one. Some­thing in him re­jected that idea, but if she was a Tal­ent-crafter, how could he not? When the Lox had claimed the East­ern Lands, magic had been out­lawed. It was only re­cently that the em­peror re­laxed those laws for Omegas, but only for those rec­og­nized to the em­pire. He glanced down at her again and re­leased his hold on her jaw. “Have you come from the palace?”

  The Omega held his gaze but didn’t an­swer.

  “Where have you come from?” Thorec asked, though his tone made it more of a de­mand.

  She set her mouth in a thin line. “I’ve told you all you need to know.”

  “What I know is that you are a tres­passer and po­ten­tially an il­le­gal Tal­ent-crafter. You haven’t told me why you were in the moun­tains in the first place. Surely you would have heard that they don’t take too kindly to in­trud­ers?”

  “They’ve never been so sen­si­tive be­fore,” she said. “Only since the Lox have turned up, claim­ing ev­ery­thing in sight as their own, have the moun­tain peo­ple be­come wary and sus­pi­cious of ev­ery­one who en­ters.”

  “How could you know that?” Thorec asked. “That was the first time you’ve been there, whether you’ve used magic or not.”

  Her head shot up. “How do you know that?”

  Thorec re­called what he had wit­nessed when he ar­rived. “You asked to speak to some­one who spoke the Com­mon Tongue.”

  She stared at him blankly. “So?”

  “So they were speak­ing the Com­mon Tongue.”

  The Omega blinked her pretty eyes. “They were?”

  Thorec nod­ded. “They speak a dif­fer­ent di­alect—I think be­cause they are so seg­re­gated from the rest of the em­pire. But you have to lis­ten care­fully to un­der­stand. You of­fended them.”

  The Omega was quiet for a long mo­ment. “I didn’t re­al­ize that,” she mur­mured, al­most to her­self. “My in­for­ma­tion about them was… in­com­plete.”

  Thorec frowned as he looked down at her. This fe­male be­came more in­ter­est­ing by the mo­ment. “Where did you get this in­for­ma­tion from?”

  As sus­pected,
she didn’t an­swer, but Thorec’s mind was try­ing to pull to­gether all he knew about Omegas. He didn’t know where or how they’d been dis­cov­ered, only that they resided in the Lox Palace in Ashens un­der the se­cu­rity of the em­press. They were in­tro­duced to the em­pire grad­u­ally, and usu­ally took part in… those fuck­ing pair­ing rit­u­als to find a mate among the war­riors of the Lox army. Thorec’s stom­ach tight­ened. “An­swer me. Do you have an Al­pha?”

  The fe­male’s gaze hard­ened. “That is not your con­cern.”

  A surge of vi­o­lent an­noy­ance crashed against Thorec’s hard-fought-for con­trol. “It is of great con­cern,” he bel­lowed.

  She flinched at his vol­ume but didn’t break eye con­tact.

  “If you have an Al­pha, he is fuck­ing ir­re­spon­si­ble,” Thorec ground out, his an­noy­ance con­tin­u­ing to rise. “You shouldn’t be roam­ing the Lands unat­tended.”

  “Unat­tended?” Her mouth dropped open in dis­be­lief. “I can­not be unat­tended be­cause I’m an Omega?”

  Thorec leaned for­ward, his blended an­noy­ance and pos­ses­sive de­sire bound­ing wildly in his chest. “Yes. Be­cause that en­tic­ing scent of yours will make ev­ery Al­pha who smells you want to fuck you raw. This can­not be news to you, lit­tle Ria. Surely you have some in­tel­li­gence be­neath all that beauty?”

  To his sur­prise, a fetch­ing pink glow spread over her honey-col­ored skin, and even as her eyes nar­rowed at him, he didn’t miss the swal­low in her throat.

  Grab­bing her jaw again, he checked her neck for a claim­ing bite, and a blus­ter of re­lief rose af­ter dis­cov­er­ing there was noth­ing sig­ni­fy­ing she had been mated. “You will tell me now if you are be­trothed,” he or­dered, pulling her eyes back to his. “I want to know if you took part in any of the pair­ing events at the palace.”

  “No,” she mut­tered. “I am not be­trothed.”

  The ag­i­ta­tion in him calmed im­me­di­ately. Good.

  “And I will not be held by an au­thor­ity I don’t rec­og­nize,” she con­tin­ued, her eyes shone brightly. “So if you in­tend to hold me, I in­tend to es­cape.”

  Thorec rel­ished the thrill that shot through his body. This woman was tiny in com­par­i­son to him, and yet she had the nerve to chal­lenge him. She had to be one of the most ex­cit­ing finds the moun­tains had ever pro­duced. Squeez­ing her jaw slightly, he leaned in, his voice a deep rum­ble. “Fuck­ing try it.”

  Their gazes locked, and the un­said bat­tle in their glares sparked a po­tent, un­bri­dled de­sire in Thorec. His hand moved of its own ac­cord. Re­leas­ing her jaw, he low­ered his hand to be­tween her legs, push­ing away her hands to reach for her del­i­cate folds once again—thank­ful her tu­nic was pushed up as she sat perched on his steed. He was acutely aware that there was no scent or mind-fog this time—no un­con­trol­lable in­stincts to spur him on. He sim­ply needed to touch her.

  The Omega grabbed his thick fore­arm in alarm, at­tempt­ing to push his hand away, but as soon as his fin­gers brushed her clit, she bloomed into the most beau­ti­ful sight Thorec had ever seen. Her face soft­ened into an ex­pres­sion of bliss, a long moan re­ver­ber­ated in her throat, and a shud­der twisted through her lit­tle body.

  Thorec growled and pressed firmer against her, play­ing with her clit as he watched the plea­sure trans­form her face. Her breath­ing deep­ened as she writhed and twitched, jut­ting her hips for­ward for more of his touch. Fuck. The scent of her slick called to him, beck­on­ing him to lick and suck her un­til she came in his mouth. He with­drew his slick­ened fin­gers and watched her lean against his arm, his bi­cep cradling her head, as he put his fin­gers in his mouth.

  The taste of her was like a re­joic­ing through­out his en­tire body. Ev­ery nerve in his body burst alive with de­sire, in­nate recog­ni­tion, and such a fierce need to claim that could only be at­trib­uted to one truth; this Omega was his.

  * * *

  Chap­ter Two

  RIA

  Ria al­ready hated the gen­eral and his an­noy­ing, brazen ar­ro­gance. But even more she hated the preen­ing sat­is­fac­tion that blos­somed in her at the sight of pure plea­sure on his face when he pushed his slick-drenched fin­gers into his mouth.

  She didn’t know what he had done, but a prim­i­tive part of her had awo­ken when he’d touched her in the val­ley—a part of her she didn’t rec­og­nize. That part of her had rev­eled in the heady scent waft­ing from him; it en­joyed the de­mand­ing and au­thor­i­ta­tive na­ture of his voice, and longed for him to spread her wide and fuck her any way he pleased. She was ashamed of how over­whelm­ing the de­sire for him had been—how pow­er­fully it had pushed all rea­son­able thought out of her mind. It had only been a sliver of dig­nity she’d man­aged to hold onto that she hadn’t growled at him to move faster when he’d dragged off her panties.

  Even with her scent muted again, that prim­i­tive part of her seemed to have lin­gered, be­cause she couldn’t ig­nore the way he con­tin­ued to af­fect her. Both he and his horse were enor­mous enough to make her feel se­cure, and he caged her in as he held the reins. His stim­u­lat­ing scent still kept her highly aware of him, and his grey eyes locked on to her fiercely, award­ing her at­ten­tion she didn’t even re­al­ize she wanted… It felt right, even though it couldn’t be. He was a Lox Al­pha, one of the gen­er­als, and ul­ti­mately, her ad­ver­sary. He’d be­haved ex­actly as an ad­ver­sary would—throw­ing her over his shoul­der like a sack of pota­toes, as though he had ev­ery right to, and hold­ing her as his pris­oner, just like Al­phas have al­ways done with Omegas. He was get­ting in the way of what she needed to do, and she should not be suc­cumb­ing to any sort of sat­is­fac­tion in his arms.

  “You taste de­li­cious, my brave chal­lenger.” The husk in his voice made a shiver tickle up her spine. When she glanced up, the Al­pha was lean­ing over her, plea­sure still etched on his face, though there was some­thing dif­fer­ent about his eyes now. “I shall in­deed en­joy you.”

  “I am not a del­i­cacy,” she said sharply. “You fre­quently touch me with­out per­mis­sion, Al­pha. Do you even see any­thing wrong with that? Do you think it is your right to touch an Omega how­ever you want, even with the Omega em­press in place?”

  The Al­pha’s ex­pres­sion shifted, al­though she couldn’t tell what had changed. “I don’t re­call you fight­ing me when I was tak­ing off your panties.”

  She clenched her fist, ready to punch the smirk off of his face, but she doubted he would even feel any­thing. She couldn’t fight or es­cape him while her ac­cess to magic was dis­rupted. At the mo­ment, the loss of her magic scared her more than the Al­pha—it was her se­cu­rity, her com­fort, and the only way she could pro­tect her­self.

  Ria closed her eyes against the sight of the Al­pha as she rested her head on his thick arm, ig­nor­ing the vi­o­lent protest that stormed within her that he’d stopped touch­ing her. It was a dan­ger­ous trap—one her own body was cre­at­ing, but it wasn’t as though she wasn’t aware of it.

  She’d known that she would even­tu­ally come across some of the Lox’s Al­phas, but this one was dan­ger­ous. He had all the typ­i­cal traits of an Al­pha; enor­mous, bulky, and ar­ro­gant. He also hap­pened to be good-look­ing in a rough and rugged way, and there was some­thing about the way he moved, his growly voice, and the wari­ness in his grey eyes that was… well, in­cred­i­bly sexy. The stern way he be­haved with the moun­tain peo­ple re­vealed he was hard­ened in a way she hadn’t seen of­ten. It wasn’t sur­pris­ing with older Al­phas for them to be even more bone-headed, rude, and stub­born than their younger, rasher coun­ter­parts, but with this gen­eral, there was some­thing else…

  Ria firmly pushed the thoughts away. She didn’t know this Al­pha, and she wasn’t go­ing to try to un­der­stand him. It didn’t make any dif­fer�
�ence to achiev­ing her goal.

  The moun­tain peo­ple of Ariyon had proved more sen­si­tive than she’d an­tic­i­pated. She ad­mired their right and de­sire to be com­pletely se­cluded from the rest of Ariyon and the East­ern Lands, but they’d per­ceived her as a threat, not un­der­stand­ing that she held no ill will to­ward them. It was the Lox who had made them so ag­i­tated, so sus­pi­cious and un­will­ing to lis­ten. She couldn’t blame them—the Lox had a way of en­rag­ing peo­ple. She had to go back and apol­o­gize, then find a way to get the an­swers she needed.

  At the sound of bay­ing an­i­mals, she inched her eyes open to see that they were pass­ing sev­eral farms and fields. She knew that Ariyon had some farm­ing land, as well as some vil­lages. Based on her mem­ory of the map, she had an idea where she was. All she needed to do was es­cape be­fore the gen­eral took her into his mag­i­cally blocked base. As long as she didn’t end up in there, she would be fine.

  Clos­ing her eyes again, she reached out and felt for magic. Thank­fully it was present, though it blinked in and out of ex­is­tence in some ar­eas be­yond her reach. She slowly ex­haled a breath of re­lief. Al­though its un­usual be­hav­ior was wor­ry­ing, the main thing was that she was able to draw on it and use it in what­ever way she could to es­cape. She has to be ready for the right time, and she could tell it was ap­proach­ing.

  As they slowed, Ria kept her mind alert and pre­pared to draw upon magic, even though she was in an in­cred­i­bly awk­ward po­si­tion on the horse.

  Fi­nally, the horse came to a stop, and as the Al­pha called out to some­one nearby, Ria took ad­van­tage of his dis­trac­tion.