Chapter Twenty-One Rosemary

Once Davos scented me, the rest became a foregone conclusion. For some reason when Sinclair found out I was an omega, it had been terrifying, but I hadn't felt like my life was over. When I realized my scent had burst free and that Cantor and Bastian would know, I didn't even really feel that scared. Something in me trusted them, no matter how foolish that might be.

However, Davos was a completely different story. The second I realized my scent had hit him, his body snapping alert as if I'd splashed him with a bucket of water, I knew with every part of me that I was utterly fucked.

I tried to fight anyway, even though I knew it was pointless. I had once again had my who stripped away, and was left as only a what . Suddenly I had become a treasure. A bone to be fought over, a squirming, tasty thing, worthy of being skewered and kept on a thorn to be devoured at leisure.

I had let my brother down.

The shame of it was almost as bad as the fear, and it was that which kept me struggling far past the point where my muscles were screaming, my throat felt like it had been shredded, and all I wanted to do was collapse and let the nice alphas bond me.

I told myself there was still a chance. I hadn't been bitten yet. All it would take was a moment. One moment of inattention by Davos, one lucky kick perhaps, which startled his horse, or caught him in the testicles- or both- and led to my freedom.

My sliver of optimism lasted right up until he tied me, wrists and elbows together, so completely that my shoulders ached at the strain. Not satisfied with that, he bound my legs as well. Having my legs once again hobbled broke something in me and I began to sob, knowing I was lost. My father had won. I would never be free again.

However I wasn't truly bested until he began to purr. I'd never heard a sound like it before. It throbbed through me completely, as if I were hollow and only a vessel for this sound. As if it echoed around my insides, but grew louder and louder with each circuit instead of fading away.

As if the noise carved out all my pain and replaced it with… nothing.

Nothing .

I fell into what might have been sleep if it weren't so blank, and didn't wake until I was flung, unceremoniously, into the carriage with my brother. The door was slammed shut behind me.

The first thing I noticed was that my natural scent was gone again, and Ivan's false scent was filling the air like poisoned syrup. As I struggled to come back to myself, to figure out what had happened, my brother was scrabbling at my bonds, trying with shaking fingers to undo knots which had been pulled far too tight for a half candle ride through the woods.

"What the hell happened, Rosemary?" Ivan said, fear written starkly across his face. But what did he have to fear now? My empty mind pondered. He would soon go free.

***

I was allowed to spend the rest of the day's ride with Ivan, but was quickly disabused of the notion that it was for either of our comforts. We were kept inside the carriage long after the caravan had halted for the night. Dinner was passed in to us by Lynter, and the door shut again before we could ask any questions. My throat hurt too much to yell at them or demand answers, but that wasn't really what stopped me from doing so. My brain felt cloudy, as if despair was a fog that had dulled all light and sound. The thing I had fought against ever since I perfumed and revealed myself as an omega five years ago had happened. I was to become a slave, and nothing would ever be alright again.

All I wanted to do was sleep, and maybe never wake up.

They gave us a half candle, but I didn't touch the stew, even though Ivan tried to make me eat. When the door opened again I didn't resist when Davos reached in and dragged me out. He caught up my wrists and bound me up again.

He seemed to take pleasure in doing tying me up. Of course he did.

I didn't fight him, but couldn't help but glance around at Cantor, at Bastian, and even at Ivan, who had emerged from the carriage after me. None of them moved to help me. Ivan opened his mouth when I met his horrified eyes, possibly to object to my treatment, but he was immediately interrupted by Davos saying, loudly, "There now. I'll keep you in my own bedroll and make sure you don't try to run in the night."

Carlile and a couple of the beta soldiers hooted and whistled. I shuddered at the implication, but couldn't seem to make myself care that much. This was my life now and forever.

I let my body fall limp as he settled me into his tent, only mildly grateful he hadn't removed my clothes. I told myself I wouldn't fight. I'd do anything to avoid that hideous noise, which dug out every single thing that made me whole and forced me to feel like everything was fine, when I was in the arms of a man who owned me.

Unfortunately, we were barely on the ground, with his arms wrapped tightly about me, pulling me snugly against his muscular body, when the purring started again.

I fought it with everything left in me, trying to keep my mind my own, but my sense of self slipped away within moments.

I slept as if cradled in the arms of a lover, but my nightmares did not leave me alone.

***

Davos didn't allow me back into the carriage for the next day's ride. He left me in his tent until the last moment, then insisted on carrying me like a security blanket to the breakfast fire, still bound hand and foot. The packlead kept up that vicious, soft noise I hated so much. I simply allowed it to swallow me into a kind of numb existence, rather than fight the effect.

It couldn't compel me to eat or drink, however, but Davos freely used his bark for that, at least until I vomited every bite he had forced into me up onto his boots. He barely seemed to notice.

He kept his purr so soft I could barely hear it, and kept his distance from the betas in our caravan. A part of my mind realized he was hiding that I was an omega. He was unwilling to explain to his men why I was so limp and pliant, as only an omega would be affected like this by an alpha's purr. My brain tried to perk up at that, at a piece of information we could maybe exploit, but the rest of me was so tired . Exhaustion made up the flesh on my bones and I couldn't fight it any more.

I had hoped to at least be put in the carriage again, but this time Davos kept me with him, cradling me across his seat as if I were a lover perched on his lap. He never spoke to me, but he barely looked at the road or his men, keeping his dark eyes on my face with an intensity that frightened me, even in my haze. I didn't know how I ever thought his scent was pleasant. It sharpened until my nose burned from the smell, as if someone had squirted raw spice up my nose and chased it with pine sap.

Once we had been in the saddle for a while, Cantor approached offering to carry me, but before I could even hope for a reprieve, Davos refused him and shooed his packmate away.

The packlead purred constantly, a deep vibration I could feel wherever I touched his body. He modulated the rumble and observed my reactions, finding a level where I did not quite fall into sleep, but remained wholly pliant. It felt like the time I'd had a fever and could not quite control my body, but only lay, limp as a wrung out rag, damp and thready and useless. As the day wore on he began to pet me, stroking my hair and face, my arms and legs, as if I were a sick animal, sprawled on him for comfort.

As we approached the lunch candle he relented further, softening his rumble until it was barely there. I suspected he was doing it so that I would recover enough sense to eat. I hadn't kept down solid food for almost a day by this point, but had very little enthusiasm for the idea of eating. What was the point?

"We will reach Fort Madder soon," he told me, as if I cared. He raised his hand and pointed ahead of us and I didn't bother to look. What did it matter?

He growled, but dropped his hand. His voice took on an angry tone as he continued in a low tone. "There we will eat and then we will bond you to our pack."

Fear shot through me, breaking through his light purr. All my muscles snapped rigid with so much horror I nearly fell from the horse.

He was planning to bond me himself ? Tonight ? I had fallen into despair because I knew by now there would be no escape, but I'd thought at least I had another week or more with my brother before I would be shipped off to the palace and sold to the highest bidder, or whatever it was they did with all their omegas. But no, he was planning to keep me. To enslave me right here and now.

It sank into my chest, my lungs, my bones that by tonight I would be stripped bare, kept forever as a slave. A wail rose in my chest. It was a sound of pure despair.

My pain was met by the alpha's frantic purr, and his awful, soothing hands, but the damage was done. All the men were staring at us by the time I finally quieted.

Davos ignored their penetrating eyes as I twitched in his arms, quiet but not calm.

"You are mine , omega," he hissed at me. "I will not risk you trying to escape again. There is no need for all this melodrama. We will treat you kindly, you will see."

Tears ran down my face as his hands gripped and roughly caressed my body. His so-called kindness was binding, and I had no intention of relying on his empty promises. I barely noticed as we passed under a gateway and into a yard, much larger than the yard at the inn. My mind was pressed between his unrelenting purr and the despair that threatened to swallow me whole. My unseeing eyes slid over the people that seemed to be rushing around me, servants in bright clothes, happy women hugging their returned soldiers, naughty children running underfoot. All of them my enemies. Not one would lift a finger to help me.

A tiny, cold ray of hope pierced my heart. Maybe I could not escape from his clutches with my body intact, but there were other ways to escape. Ways that would free Ivan as well. I could free both of us from this pain forever.

Better than being a slave. Better than being chained to a wall for the rest of my life.

Davos had dismounted, with me cradled in his arms in a mockery of a bridal carry. We were in Fort Madder now, my barely functioning mind realized. I did not have long to enact my escape.

Sinclair approached and the purr softened again until my mind was almost my own.

"What did you say to her?" Sinclair demanded, suspicion shot through his lowered voice.

Davos shrugged, jostling me slightly. "Only that we would bond her tonight. I will not risk her fleeing again." He kissed my forehead and I shuddered, wishing I had the strength and speed to bite off his nose. "She might get captured by those bandits… or worse."

Sinclair's eyes almost bugged out of his head. "A bitten bond? You can't!" Sinclair said it fiercely, his voice still pitched so no one else in the crowded yard could hear. "If you make a bitten bond with her now it will ruin everything ."

I swam up past the compulsion, trying to get hold of my body, wondering how the hell Sinclair had suddenly become an ally. The incongruity made me want to giggle hysterically.

"What does it matter if we do it tonight or ten years from now? She's our… she's ours ." He sure did like throwing that term around. I wondered why he seemed so fierce about it. Were omegas really so rare that he had to lay this uncompromising claim on the first one he encountered? Not that it mattered anymore.

"It would be foolish to wait," Davos continued. "If she's bonded I can command her to stay." His voice took on an avaricious tone and his hands tightened around me, almost to the point of pain. "We'll become unstoppable. I can command her to love us. To be happy. She'll be fine."

I shuddered, my body rejecting that idea so thoroughly that I retched and almost vomited again. The only thing that stopped my dry heaves from becoming wet was that there was nothing left to bring up.

Davos stiffened, and the stutters of his purr started revving up again. I almost sobbed with relief when Sinclair distracted him from clobbering me with that horrible sound.

"If she's a… if she is indeed ours…" he started.

"She is , you know she is," Davos interrupted and Sinclair inclined his head and continued.

"If she is, then we can achieve a true bond with her. If you force her into a bitten bond we might lose that chance forever."

Sir Petrichor lowered his voice even further, although they were both being so quiet I could barely hear them, even with my face pressed up against Davos. Several servants were hovering a few paces from us, but they were all waiting patiently, as if they were used to Davos and Sinclair holding little private conferences in the middle of the yard.

"You don't understand how bonds work, Davos. Hardly anyone does these days. You think bonding her is enough to enhance our magic and that's all we need." Sinclair grimaced. "No one really knows the truth because your grandfather destroyed all the old books. But I do know that you can't compel her to love you." His eyes flicked to mine and seemed to soften. Was that pity, or something else? "You can't force a true bond that way either. If you traumatize her too much with a bitten bond, you might never get the chance to try."

Davos scoffed. "Traumatize? We've been nothing but nice to this girl." I managed to make a small sound in protest but he ignored me. "Look at her, she's fine. Not even fighting it anymore. Cantor and Bastian are already half in love with her. Once we all get our teeth in her…"

"The only reason she isn't clawing off her own skin in fear is that you've bound her and dazed her," Sinclair said in a cold voice. "She might not be actively fighting, but that doesn't mean she agrees with what you're doing. Everything is heightened with a… with an omega. She can't resist your purr any more than you'll be able to resist her slick when she goes into heat."

He frowned as if a thought occurred to him. "If she ever even does. Heats only happen when the omega is healthy enough. She was already in poor condition and now she's barely eat…"

"Enough," Davos snapped, so loudly several of the waiting servants jumped. He coughed and lowered his voice again. "My bite will be strong enough to overcome that. Just like my purr. I bonded you and Lynter, after all, and you're fine." Rosemary felt her body try to jerk with surprise and it came out as a kind of shiver. He had bonded his own pack? Perhaps he was even more of a monster than she had assumed. His voice softened slightly, became more coaxing. "I can't risk my father getting his hands on her. I'd bond her right this second if it weren't for those watching us. My father matches unwilling omegas to packs all the time and their bonds hold up. So will this."

Tears were running down my face, so many I hoped they would dry out my heart until there was nothing left. I had thought slavery would be terrible enough, but what Davos seemed to think would happen would be a hundred times worse. Slavery where I would be forced to lick my captors' feet and call it love? The way he controlled me with his purr was horrendous, and he seemed to think his bitten bond would be even more all-consuming.

My plan for escape solidified in my heart, a single, dense structure that stood against the devastating echoes of his purr. I held fast to it, hoping against hope that he could not tear it down, no matter how hard he tried. Soon. I would enact it soon.