Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 58365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
And then silence.
Even with his ear pressed to the door, he heard nothing.
A great warrior was to be patient, but for those hours waiting, he was anything but. Pacing, sitting, standing at attention—nothing helped.
He’d never expected Morgaine to respond as she had. Though he should have suspected when she was unimpressed, and then flat out shaking at his first offering of fine clothes. Clothes he’d had specially made in his family’s colors and crests. Clothes crafted from the finest silks and encrusted with gems worthy of a Heidron’s mate.
She had backed away from the folded green fabric, shaking her head, as if she knew he was dressing her only to take her away from the nest.
Flat out ignoring when he’d called her name, she’d started pointedly cleaning the nearest item she could reach… with her hair.
Gentle as he could be, he’d forced her to stop, dressed her, and took her straight to this place that left his mate broken and sobbing.
And now he could not even see her. Without the pair-bond, he could not feel her. Utterly at a loss, he felt an unprecedented stinging behind his eyes, and hung his head.
Then the door opened.
It was not his mate waiting for his attention, but a young Omega of rank—a translator by the marks on her robes.
Abrupt, he demanded, “Tell me.”
The woman smelled shaken in her own right, but did her best to appear calm. “Morgaine is under the belief that you have brought her to something the Nierra refer to as pleasure chambers… that you have grown bored of her and left her here to be used at will by other males willing to pay your fee. I do not think I need to describe what she anticipated would be done to her in these rooms.”
Simin’s face went ashen. “What?”
There was much to explain and the hall was not a proper location for what had to be shared. The Omega, her hair shorn close to her skull as a sign she refused to take a mate, led him to a small waiting room and gestured for him to sit.
When he obeyed, she sat across from his bulk, smoothed her robes and was openly trying not to tremble. “The pleasure chambers were to be her fate for at least two years had she remained in Nierra care. In fact, it was the fate required by the male who was to have her for mate. By their law, he could not pair-bond to her until his rank had increased. After gathering powerful supporters, the weight of his claim outweighed all potential rivals. She learned of this while on display for the males already signing up for their turn. They made demands to see her body, growled to encourage her arousal against her will. She was shamed.”
The glass cage was a bidding area? The defeated soldiers in the Nierra’s ship, the ones he’d paraded naked before to shame them with his utter lack of fear had been signing up to abuse his kor’yr? How had he not considered this? Her clothing had been there, it was the reason he knew just what waited in that cage.
The scent of her had wafted toward him even in a sea of the enemy’s stink. For the first time in his years, he had lost composure before his men. It had taken the whole mob to drag him from the enemy’s ugly chambers.
He’d maimed males he’d known his whole life. For this woman.
To get to her. To care for her. To take her to his heart and tie them in a pair-bond that would be sung of throughout the ages.
The fire in Simin’s eyes when he snarled at the wispy translator confirmed the threat. “I’ll destroy every last Nierra, see their women despoiled and make slaves of their people. As of this moment, the treaty is dust.”
“There is more.”
Forcing his rage to quiet so he might know everything, Simin swallowed, steadied his breath, and demanded, “Tell me.”
The nervous habit of running her fingers through her short brown hair showed itself for the third time. “The things they taught her, that they made her watch…”
This Omega was outside of her sanctuary, snapable neck within his reach. “Tell. Me.”
So shaken was the woman that she failed to see the very real threat before her. “I do not even know how to describe the damage that was done, Heidron.” She closed her eyes, openly disturbed. “Morgaine has no concept of estrous. She believes a pair-bond is equivalent to sex, and that all interaction she has shared with you any Alpha could inflict on her. Before today, she had never even seen another Omega. She… was told you would mutilate and rape her.”
Foreign women were not protected by the Omari code of honor, and such things did happen in war. In battle, any subjugate people could be taken as slaves. Once under ownership, new stock was protected from savagery. An Omari cardinal rule existed. Omegas could never be enslaved, only pair-bonded, and yes, often by force at the onset of estrous. But, from the moment the bond was established, they were considered Omari citizens under the protection and care of their mate.