Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Gideon

I hated heat. I hated everything about it, the way it took over my entire body and mind, the way it made me want things that frightened me, and the way it hurt Fletcher so deeply. Fletcher was my knight in shining armor, my heroic dragon prince, like the princes in my favorite fairy tales, and going through something that he couldn’t help me with was agony for both of us.

I woke up sometime late into the night, probably early morning, before the sun had come up, curled against Fletcher in our bed. I’d had five heat waves, at least, I think it was five. Everything started to blend together by the second, most intense day. Fletcher had done an amazing job of helping me with the Heat Lightning system, but as revolutionary as the system was, every cell in my body knew it wasn’t enough.

I sucked in a breath, focusing on the scent of Fletcher’s salty skin and sweat against my nose and trying to block out everything else. The trouble was, I couldn’t block it out. The scent of freshly mown hay in the early autumn was just too strong to block.

Ironically, that scent reminded me of home. Well, the community I’d grown up in. It reminded me of the good times I’d had with my numerous omega siblings and cousins as we’d worked on harvest crafts while singing hymns or told each other stories—my favorites were always the ones from The Captive Omega Princes and Their Secret Dragon Princes —in the garden while the alphas and beta males brought in the harvest. Those had been good times…before everything had shattered when my first heat started.

I breathed sharply and pushed away from Fletcher’s sleeping form, frightened by my memories. It had been years ago, but the alpha my sire had picked out for me still loomed large in my nightmares. I’d entered the heat tent with such hope and expectation. Then I’d endured three days of horrifying torture as I’d been used to satisfy the rut urges of the man who called himself my husband.

Worse still, I hadn’t been allowed to return to my father’s house after that first heat subsided. Battered, bruised, on fire with post-heat aversion to touch, I’d been forced to endure the community’s marriage ceremony and then live in that man’s home, tending his house and satisfying his lusts whenever he wanted me.

After my second heat with him, I’d had enough.

I tried to catch my breath as I looked at Fletcher’s slumbering form in the dark. Fletcher was my savior. I didn’t know what would have happened to me if we hadn’t met by accident. We’d been similar in a lot of ways, both growing up on a farm, though he hadn’t been part of The People, and both longing for something more. Not only had he kept me safe, he’d taught me that my natural instincts to submit and to crave pleasure weren’t bad things. Sex with Fletcher was a completely opposite experience to being used by him .

The urge to pee pushed me out of bed. I was between waves, but at this point in my heat, there was no telling how soon the next wave would hit me. I had to take advantage of the time I had to care for basic needs. I knew Fletcher had brought some food and water upstairs, but I needed the bathroom first.

I tiptoed around the bed and made it halfway through the dressing room before spotting the large, solid form of the alpha Fletcher had found for me. I’d had only that brief glimpse of him after my third wave, when I’d caught him and Fletcher talking. He’d been standing up and erect then. It had terrified and aroused me so much.

For a second now I stopped, my heart racing, fear shivering through me, and just looked at him.

Fortunately, he was asleep. But he was big. So big. His arms and thighs were thicker than my entire body. Well, not really, but that’s what it felt like. Fletcher had told me his name was Artemis and that he worked as an executive for a fancy city company, but lying naked in the milking chair the way he was, he looked more like any one of the alphas from the People of God on Earth, all of whom spent their lives tilling the soil, like the Bible said they should.

My bladder pushed me through my fear and had me scurrying the rest of the way to the bathroom. I shut the door and panted in relief for a moment before moving to use the toilet. I was too afraid to flush it in case I woke Artemis, but I hated leaving a mess of any kind around me. That, along with my need to be lower than the man I loved, was another remnant of the way I’d been raised.

I lingered around the bathroom for a ridiculously long time, but I knew I couldn’t stay there forever. I could feel the whispers of my next heat wave building. Artemis was there to help with that, not to take me or force me or terrify me, like him . Besides, if I wanted to get back to Fletcher, I had to cross the dressing room.

I opened the door slowly and silently, then tiptoed into the dressing room. But I only got a few steps into the room before Artemis snorted, tensed, and raised his head.

“Gideon?” he asked quietly, as if he already knew me.

I panicked. I was in danger. An alpha was about to corner me, and because I was in heat, I wouldn’t be able to resist him. I would throw myself at him, offer up my mouth and hole like a whore, and he would use me while I cried to stop and begged for more at the same time.

I shrank back into the corner, hugging my naked body so he didn’t see me. I must have whimpered or made some other pitiful sound, because Artemis sat up.

“Gideon, are you alright?” he asked.

Admittedly, his voice was gentle, and in the dim light that came from the lamp off to one side that had been left on, I could see kindness and concern in his voice.

That didn’t stop me from flinching away from him and moaning into the wall as he made a move to get out of the chair.

“Alright, alright,” he said softly. “I’ll stay right where I am. I won’t come anywhere near you. Here, I’ll even do this.”

I’d closed my eyes, but when I heard a faint rustling and clinking sound, I opened them. Artemis was strapping himself into the bed, starting with his ankles and calves.

I watched with widening eyes, unclenching and standing straighter, as he fastened every strap, buckled every buckle that he could, then finally slipped his arms into the long, leather sleeves on the arms of the chair. He couldn’t do up those buckles himself, but it made it appear that he was completely secured.

“There,” he said. “It would take me a while to get out of this chair. You’d have plenty of time to escape from me and to wake Fletcher if I even tried. You’re safe with me, I promise.”

I gulped and huffed a small breath, breathing in his scent as I did. Strangely enough, I believed him when he said I was safe. Not just because he’d restrained himself. Well, that was part of it.

I took a few hesitant steps forward. “Your name is Artemis, isn’t it?” I asked, ashamed of how timid I sounded.

“It is,” Artemis answered. “Artemis Montgomery. I live in downtown Barrington, on the twenty-first floor of a high-rise apartment building. I currently work as a financial executive for Victory Holdings and I’m on their board of directors, but I’m not happy there, so I’m searching for a new job.”

“You’re not happy there?” I inched forward a bit more, curious about how an alpha, with all the power and strength alphas had, could not be happy.

“No,” Artemis said. “I’m not pleased with the direction the company has gone in lately. I want to work for someone who cares about the world and the people in it more than their own profits. I want to help make the world a better place.”

“Oh.”

I moved closer still. I was terrified of all alphas, but it was starting to feel like Artemis might be an exception. I felt an inner pull toward him that I couldn’t explain. It had to be the heat hormones. Omegas were drawn to alphas like iron filings to a magnet when they were in heat.

But no, this was different. My insides hummed for him. He made me warm, not just hot.

I liked him.

It made no sense at all.

“Fletcher tells me the two of you met at a homeless shelter,” he said as I crept to within his field of vision. He’d strapped his head into the chair before slipping his arms into the restraints, so he could really only look up.

“We did,” I said. For some reason, I didn’t mind telling him the story. “I…I had just escaped from my community. I didn’t know where to go. My cousin Elijah lived just over the hill with his husband, Barnaby, but they didn’t think it was safe for me to stay with them for long. They drove me into Barrington so I could stay with a friend of Elijah’s, but my—” I stopped my babbling, worried that I was saying too much too fast.

Artemis shifted his head slightly to the side, just enough so he could see me. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he said.

I swallowed and shook my head. He smelled so good. And his body was so exciting to look at. I knew it was my fault, not his, but his huge cock was hard and stretched up over his belly and the strap holding him down. He was breathing a little hard, too, but he still had an overall air of calm and control about him, not that of an alpha in rut who just wanted to fuck the hapless omega who couldn’t get away from him.

That was why I wanted to tell him.

“I was raised in a cult,” I said in a quiet rush. “The People of God on Earth.”

“I’ve heard of them,” Artemis said with a small frown.

“They have ideas about what omegas should be and do. When I started my first heat, I was given to an alpha. I didn’t want him, but I didn’t have any choice. It was awful.” I shuddered and sniffled, but quickly pulled myself together. “After, I was forced to marry him. But it was just a community marriage, not a legal one. The People don’t believe in earthly authority. For them, only church marriages count, not legal ones.”

“I think I’ve heard that,” Artemis said.

“Anyhow, he found me,” I continued. “He found out where I was. I managed to get away before he showed up to claim me. I ended up at the shelter when I got so hungry I couldn’t remember my name. That’s where Fletcher and I met.”

“Fletcher is a great guy,” Artemis said.

“He’s my hero,” I said with passion, eyes brimming with tears of love and regret. “He’s like the Sapphire Dragon Prince, Azurus.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Artemis asked.

His body was still relaxed, despite his erection leaking onto his belly, so I moved closer. I was close enough to touch him if I wanted to.

“The Sapphire Dragon Prince, Azurus,” I repeated. “From the fairy tale of The Captive Omega Princes and Their Secret Dragon Princes .”

Artemis shook his head as much as he could with it restrained. “I’m sorry, I don’t know much about fairy tales.”

“It’s my favorite story,” I said, suddenly full of enthusiasm. “Once upon a time, there was a faraway kingdom ruled over by a cruel king. The king had six omega sons, the princes, but he kept them locked up in the castle and confined to their bedroom at night. There was a prophecy that said the husband of one of the princes would overcome the king and rule in his stead, so the king never let the princes anywhere near alphas. Except when they were in heat, of course. He kept a stable of mute, ugly alphas on the castle grounds to service the princes during their heats.”

“What a jerk,” Artemis said.

I laughed, then slapped a hand over my mouth to hide the sound. I didn’t want to wake Fletcher. He needed his rest after everything he’d been doing for me. But also, I was shocked that an alpha could make me laugh.

“Yes, well, unbeknownst to the king, the eldest omega prince had a trapdoor under his bed that led to an enchanted world of jewels and magic. Every night, when the omega princes were locked in their room, they would escape into the magical world, travel through a forest of diamonds, sail across a lake of sapphire, and ride through a field of emeralds to reach a golden castle. There they met their dragon princes.”

“What made Azurus the Sapphire Dragon Prince so special?” Artemis asked. He was really listening to me. I felt like he was genuinely curious and not just coddling me to get his way.

“Azurus fell in love with Misha, the most timid of the omegas. Azurus was brave and had fought many battles and won. He fell in love with Misha at first sight, but Misha went into heat and the king locked him in a room with one of the alpha ogres. There’s more to the story than just that, but Azurus, in dragon form, scaled the tower where the king had trapped Misha, fought the ogre, and flew Misha to safety.”

I sighed at the end of the story. There had been times when I’d closed my eyes and imagined the entire thing with myself as Misha and Fletcher as Azurus.

“You’re an amazing storyteller,” Artemis said, bringing me back to the present .

“It’s what I do for a living,” I said before I could question whether it was too much information.

“Is it?” Artemis asked. His skin was starting to glow red, a sure sign his rut was picking up pace, but you never would have known it from the calm in his voice.

I nodded. “I’m a published author,” I said, still trusting him despite the way my blood was pumping harder and my hole beginning to leak. “I write YA Fantasy, and, well, I kind of support me and Fletcher with my books.”

“That’s amazing,” Artemis said with a big smile. “Are you the one who wrote the fairy tale about the omega princes?”

“Oh, no,” I said, laughing again. “That’s an old, old fairy tale. I used to read it when I was growing up, although the version we had in the community was definitely cleaned up from other versions I’ve read since then. The People don’t think omegas should have any agency at all in their own sexuality, like the real fairy tale depicts.”

“I’m sorry to hear you went through that,” Artemis said compassionately. When I tensed and inched back from him, he said, “Fletcher told me you…had a horrific experience with an alpha in the past. I think I’ve just pieced the whole story together.”

“It was the way The People did things,” I mumbled, my emotions bouncing wildly within me.

I definitely still felt afraid, but now I was embarrassed and sad as well. I didn’t want Artemis to think less of me. But that was a new and uncomfortable feeling. I wasn’t terrified of him. I think I liked him. I had no reason to. Alphas were deceptive. He might just be pretending to be good and noble so that he could snatch me and take me once I let my guard down. He had done that plenty of times.

But I knew in my gut that Artemis wasn’t like that. It sounded bizarre to me, but it was like my womb was convinced Artemis was good. It longed for him, longed to feel his thick cock, which I caught myself staring at again, push and prod and thrust inside to spill all his seed within me. It yearned to take that seed and conceive new life.

The feeling was so strong that I pressed a hand to my stomach. The craving to have a baby, to have several babies, really, had been growing stronger and stronger inside of me. I wanted to be a papa so badly. Whether it was instinct, genetics, or my own wants, the need had been growing so loud that it had made the last couple of heats almost too intense to handle.

I’d downplayed my need to Fletcher, because there was nothing Fletcher could do about it. He was doing absolutely everything he could right now, by purchasing the Heat Lightning system and finding the alphas that he’d brought over for my last few heats. He’d purchased the milking bed to keep me absolutely safe from them, exhausted himself making sure I made it through my heats as easily as possible, but he could never impregnate me. Omegas couldn’t sire children, they could only grow them in their wombs.

“Gideon, are you okay?” Artemis asked, pulling me out of my sadness.

I raised my eyes from where I’d been staring at his cock to meet his look of concern.

“I don’t mean to be indelicate, but I can smell your next wave starting,” he went on. His hips thrust, probably involuntarily, shaking a drop of precum from his flared tip.

I panicked and stepped back, but he was right, my next wave was starting. I moaned as a gush of slick slipped down my thighs from my pulsing, gaping hole.

It would be so easy to undo the straps to free Artemis, then to bend over so he could fuck me and end this burning, frustrating ache inside me. If I was just brave enough to?—

“Hey! What’s going on in here?” Fletcher demanded, marching into the room.

He was naked and partially erect, and he had a protective flare in his eyes that made me catch my breath and fall in love with him all over again. He marched over to me, circling his arms around me and pulling me away from Artemis as if Artemis were trying to claw his way out of the chair to get me instead of marshaling his patience to lie right where he was.

“It’s alright, Fletcher,” Artemis said. “We were just talking, but I think Gideon’s next wave has started.”

“What were you saying to him?” Fletcher demanded, nearly wrapping his entire body around me as he backed us toward the bedroom. “Did you scare him? Did you touch him?”

“Fletcher, it’s okay,” I gasped. The touch of his skin all around my body pushed me the rest of the way into my next wave. I let out a groan of need and struggled to get out of his hold. I needed an alpha. I needed my alpha.

The power of that instinctual thought froze me and made me burst into tears. I loved Fletcher with everything I had, but I liked Artemis. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it through this particular heat with Heat Lightning and Fletcher alone, and it broke my heart.