Chapter 8

Samson

My fantasy changed that night. It wasn't about hunting a ripe omega through the forest and catching him to bend him to my will. From that conversation on, my fantasy was about rescuing Ari from the life he'd been born into and the marriage that he clearly wanted nothing to do with.

From the sound of things, he didn't want anything to do with the life he was fated to live. I'd actually seen it before. A lot of people assumed that money was the be all and end all, and that everyone's goal was to get as much money as possible so they could do as little with their lives as they wanted.

It was clear to me that Ari wanted more. Not just from the things he'd said, but from the deep, innate sense of him that I was starting to have. Ari was too clever, too driven, for a life as an omega ornament on some rich alpha's arm. But it was also clear to me that he'd never been allowed to pursue any other option for his life. I'd asked him about college after another heat wave, and he'd confessed that the only thing he'd been allowed to study was Art History.

Art History was code for being a trophy omega. It was interesting enough to give him something to talk about at the dinner parties he would be expected to host and to give him an eye for design, but he was right, it wasn't a marketable skill that would help him escape the shackles his birth and breeding had slapped on him.

Maybe that was why he liked bondage so much. I couldn't say for sure, since I wasn't inside his head, but it felt like being physically restrained was a means of catharsis to help him deal with his mental and emotional constraints.

That brought me right back around to the fantasy that was picking up pace at lightning speed within me. I could save Ari from his life of tedium and denigration. I could take him away from all that and give him a purpose, something to strive for. I wasn't afraid of the wealthy, even though they had the means and power to crush most people. With that lot, it was all a matter of leverage. If you wanted something from them, you either gave them something in return or dangled something over their heads that would embarrass them if the truth got out.

I had connections, despite leaving the force. I was confident that with a few phone calls, I could come up with something searing enough to either convince Ari's fiancé to drop him or to get Ari's father to call off the wedding.

Of course, a lot of the confidence I was feeling could have been a result of the sex hormones that raged through me as Ari's heat waves continued into the night. Few things were as heady as the high of taking an omega through heat. Especially when the two of you shared breeding orgasm after breeding orgasm. Our bodies clearly wanted to be together, so it was easy for me to convince my mind that we were meant to be together in every way and that I could scoop Ari out of his life and into mine.

Or else I was just seriously fooling myself. I'd never played out a fantasy like this before, never felt so in tune with an omega, never had an omega pretty much beg me to fist him and show him dominance on every level.

"Mine," I murmured, half asleep as morning light filtered through the curtains beside the kink bed.

I tensed slightly, surprised that the word could just slip out of me like that, straight from my inner alpha. I had to force myself to remember that this was just a contracted fantasy, whether the emotions I was filled with were real or not. Ari was not really mine. He was an engaged omega about to fly off into a new life. He'd sought me out for one last hurrah. I didn't have a right to assume?—

"Bullshit," I grumbled, rolling to my back.

Who was I kidding? Ari was mine, my omega. I'd taken him and claimed him in every way possible. His belly was distended with my seed, giving me a preview of what he'd look like as he grew round with my child. I'd never actively wanted to breed an omega before, but now my every breath and every beat of my heart was focused on one thing and one thing only, putting a baby in Ari.

Sense told me I should probably ask Ari how he felt about that first. It was his body, after all. It would be his child as much as mine. I wouldn't be any better than his asshole fiancé and his soon-to-be father-in-law if I knocked him up without his permission. Then again?—

My rambling, barely awake thoughts stopped suddenly as I reached across the bed for Ari, only to come up empty.

With a sharp intake of breath, I sat abruptly and stared at the bed around me. Ari was gone. I was in the bed alone. The sheets were rumpled and stained from the three heat waves we'd gone through in the night, but not so disheveled that Ari could hide under blankets or behind the pillows.

"Ari?" I called out, trying not to panic.

I threw off the covers and leapt out of bed, my body still primed and hot, ready for the next heat wave. A thousand horrible scenarios sliced through my head. Ari had had enough and fled. Fisting was a big deal with a strong emotional impact for an omega. I'd taken things too far by claiming him that way, and he'd bolted.

Or maybe he was embarrassed that he'd bared so much of his soul to me and he'd left out of shame. He'd told me a lot, and in someone else's hands, that information might be used against him.

Or what if his fiancé's family had found out about this fantasy and had come after him? That possibility had me nearly shitting myself with fear. Ari hadn't been making things up when he'd said how ruthless people with that level of wealth could be. I'd seen it first-hand. That story about his friend Claire was the tip of the iceberg for what went on out there in the dark corners of the world.

"Ari?" I called again, trying to force calm into my gut. "Where are you?"

A scuffling sound from the bathroom had me snapping my head toward that closed door. Relief shot through me, but my brain wasn't done conjuring horrors yet. What if I'd hurt him by fucking him so hard? What if he was broken and bleeding, dying on the bathroom floor, all because I couldn't control my appetites when I was in rut.

"Ari?"

I grabbed the handle of the bathroom door and yanked the door open, expecting the worst. At first, I wasn't sure what I was seeing. Ari stood on the toilet, his arm stretched out through the narrow window at the top of the wall. He scrambled at the wall, almost as if he were?—

"No!" he panted, scrambling harder. "No, please, no more. Please!"

His eyes danced with excitement and, if I wasn't mistaken, humor. A millisecond smile flashed across his mouth at what must have been the stunned look on my face.

"I told you I would escape," he said, radiating mischief from the inside, even while his expression was tense and terrified.

"You little shit," I said, almost breaking into a smile myself.

He wasn't done with his fantasy yet. I remembered how hard he'd fought to try to escape during our initial chase. A deep, arousing surge of predatory lust pulsed through me.

"You're never escaping me, omega whore," I growled, lunging for him.

I caught Ari around the waist and pulled him away from the wall. He let out a cry that honestly sounded more like a laugh as I dragged him out of the bathroom and back into the cabin's main room.

It was like no fantasy I'd ever played out before. Ari struggled and screamed, fighting to get away from me. He did break away and dash for one of the windows, but I caught him and lifted him off his feet. He kicked and thrashed as I tossed him face down over the end of the curved, vinyl chair. I shoved his legs apart and lined up to thrust into him, but he wriggled away from me and tried to frantically crawl to the door.

I crouched and grabbed him around the ankle, pinning him down and handling my cock, mostly for show, as I prowled toward him.

"No! No!" Ari gasped breathlessly, clawing at the floor like he could save himself.

I crawled over him, flipping him to his back, and grabbed his head with one hand, feeding him my cock with the other. He moaned and gurgled, still struggling, tears streaming from his eyes. When I loosened my hold just enough, he pulled away and tried to scramble out from under me. I let him go, then surged after him to catch him and pin him to the floor on his stomach.

To any outsider, it would have looked brutal and shocking. Ari's screams were bloodcurdling, especially when I forced his legs open, hauled him back to me, bending his legs like a frog, and slammed my cock into him. Anyone who didn't know what we were doing would have been horrified by the way I pinned Ari and fucked him while growling and grunting like an animal.

We were so in tune with each other it was almost surreal. And when I punched past the almost nonexistent resistance and into his womb, the sounds Ari made were so filled with joyful satisfaction that I started coming hard.

Several things happened at once. Ari let out an otherworldly sound as his body jerked and trembled with orgasm. He went limp, spread and open for me, the absolute embodiment of submission. It went beyond his body and all the way into his soul.

I could feel his soul. It was entwined with my own as our bodies melded, life-force meeting life-force. My body nearly completely covered his as I stretched over him, thrusting and pumping. My hands covered his, and our fingers twined together. My face rested near his, but it was the feeling of light and power that coiled and twined between us that gave me the sensation we were one.

I could feel his soul beating, feel his womb give up what it had been keeping locked tight as precious. Every cell in my body vibrated as the life energy between us suddenly increased, forming something new. We were more than the two of us, and the two of us were tied together inextricably.

I felt completely wrung out as I came back down to earth, my knot heavy and hot, locking Ari and I together. Unlike every previous wave, the ending of this one felt brighter, more scintillating. The stillness that followed in the aftermath was calmer, deeper.

"Are you alright?" I tried to ask, moving like I would rock back, lift Ari, and carry him to the softer bed.

Ari scrunched his face tight, tensing. And not like he was having an aftershock orgasm. This was something more.

I forced myself to relax and held my position, crouched and possessive, covering Ari as our bodies adjusted to each other. Already, I could feel Ari's body cooling. More than that, I could feel the prickling unease radiating from him.

"Ari?" I asked softly, balancing so that I could stroke his damp hair back from his face.

Ari flinched, his face scrunching again. His eyes were closed and his mouth hung open, panting, but he didn't say anything. I didn't need him to say anything. I could feel what was wrong.

Ari didn't want me touching him. It was the post-heat aversion to touch that all omegas felt. His body's instinct was to get away from me, to shelter and nurture what was new and growing inside of him.

Because I was certain, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that I'd just done what I'd been playfully threatening to do all along. I'd bred my omega. Ari was pregnant.