Chapter Thirty-Five Rosemary

I really wanted to hate my life at Fort Madder, but during the next few days I fell into a very pleasant routine. I told myself it was only pleasant for someone who was used to the monotony and misery of being shackled to a wall, and hoped that was true. No one here expected me to clean a shack or cook dreary meals as my only form of entertainment. No one called me vile names, or forced me to endure the pawing of wandering alphas to ‘earn my keep'. I shouldn't feel safe in this place, with these men because, after all, it was all an elaborate hoax, but it was starting to feel more and more like that wasn't the case.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be trapped here, if I had to be trapped at all.

I spent my mornings before breakfast with Cantor. By now the chef had taken to adding an extra loaf to the ovens, so that we didn't have to steal one. She was a very matter-of-fact beta, a woman with a severe blonde ponytail and a round, red face, who seemed quite fond of the big, pale alpha, although she confessed to me privately that she tried to have his food ready for him in the mornings, so that he wouldn't make her kitchen "smell like a barnyard all day."

It was the first time I realized anyone might not like his warm, sweet, hay scent that I couldn't get enough of. I supposed Ivan was right, and maybe people do like the scents of those they like more than those they don't.

I had certainly come to like Sinclair's mushroom scent a lot more, and I had noticed that plenty of the beta servers would take extra deep breaths around Davos, even though his sharp, piney scent left me wrinkling my nose.

Cantor took me to greet all the creatures he knew, many of them former patients or foundlings who would swarm him when he approached their living quarters in the forest or fields. I grew used to seeing him with a bird on his shoulder, or a marmot nuzzling his knee.

We gathered fresh herbs, still dewy before the sun rose, or swam in the river. He would almost always sneak off to gather bouquets of flowers and feathers for me, or to find and present me with a gleaming shell or fascinating tooth.

Cantor grew bolder with me each day that passed. The gentle alpha always asked for my consent before laying hands on me, but his need to ask over and over, and his hesitancy to try anything new began to diminish, even as his hunger to touch me grew.

He would set me down on a fallen tree or a comfortable rock, and then those sea-glass eyes would seem to blacken as his pupils blew from thoughts of what he was about to do to me. He would take great lungfuls of air, as if dragging me into himself, and his kisses would grow sloppy and desperate. By the time the sun was truly peeking over the horizon, he would have snapped, tossed my skirts aside and be feasting between my legs.

I tried to reciprocate but he would never allow it. In fact his cheeks grew red at the very mention that I might want more than his mouth. If I thought too hard about it afterwards it made no sense to me that he would only want to give me pleasure and receive none, but somehow I never doubted him in the moment.

On the second morning of unreciprocated pleasure, I managed to force out the words to ask Bastian about it, and he told me to be patient. Cantor did things at his own pace. The joy he seemed to feel each time he worked me to a peak and then tipped me over the edge did help to assuage my guilt.

I told myself I shouldn't feel guilty in the first place. This was all part of my plan, and if Cantor was acting the part of a doting lover with little effort or guile on my part, I should be overjoyed.

When I figured out my escape plan, he'd be happy to help, or easy to fool.

I ignored the pinch of pain in my heart at the thought of fooling the gentle alpha.

Bastian sat beside me at every breakfast. In fact, I suspected he kept tabs on my pre-dawn wanderings with Cantor, and timed his own entrance to the main dining hall perfectly every morning. While I gulped coffee and picked at bacon, eggs and buttered toast, already half-full from Cantor's roughly made- but delicious- cheese sandwiches, Bastian picked twigs from my hair, and gossiped with the scullery maids.

After we were both done, full and full-to-bursting, he'd take me around the castle, introducing me to the dozens and dozens of alphas and betas who lived and trained and worked there. He'd chat and flirt and give solemn, masculine nods, depending on the person, and somehow pull out their life story, as well as any issues that needed to be dealt with. Sometimes I'd listen, and sometimes I'd do some digging on my own, with a voice as low as I dared, and a hope that someone might take pity on the resident omega prisoner and give me something to work with.

Unfortunately, even those folks with naturally sour dispositions had very little to say of the pack except how good they all were. How kind. How competent. How lucky I was to be a potential omega for them.

Hurrah for me.

Cantor was seen as strange but gentle. Sinclair was cold, but loyal and clever. Lynter was viewed with awe by the men and not a little lust by the women.

And everyone told me how jolly and compassionate and devoted to his people Davos was, to the point that I wanted to scream.

The whole thing had to be a trick, no matter how genuine the servants and soldiers seemed to be. Either he had tricked them , or they were all trying to trick me . The man had threatened to force me into a bitten bond. He was a monster .

It was hard to hear that others adored him.

It was harder still when I worked up the courage to ask Bastian about it. I cornered him on our way to the kitchen gardens, in a quiet corridor with no one else around.

"It was a mistake for him to force you into it, Wildcat. I don't even think he really thought he was forcing you, exactly…"

"So most guests are shown directly to the dungeon on arrival, are they?"

"Only the important ones," he said with a half-smile, and godsdamn it, he almost made my lips twitch in response. Then he sobered. "It was a terrible thing to do, and he's sorry for it, we're all sorry, but…"

"But…?" I tense and wait for him to break my heart. Then I tense even more when I realize none of them should be able to break my heart. These alphas were slowly winning our ugly game, and I was the one who'd lose everything if they did.

"…but we do want you in our pack. We want you to stay with us, as our omega."

He shrugged his massive shoulders, and reached out to stroke my cheek gently with a calloused thumb. It rasped over my skin and I shuddered, and stepped back, telling myself it was because I didn't want him to touch me, and not because I wanted him to touch me too much.

"There's no point in me denying it," he said, calmly, as if I hadn't just withdrawn from him.

"Can't I just… join your pack without bonding?"

Bastian hesitated then shrugged again. "I can't speak for Davos, Wildcat. He's the pack lead. I would never bond you against your will. I'd never…" He pauses as if he's struggling to say something and for half a moment I wonder if I've truly found an ally in him, but then he shakes his head. "I don't want you to be forced into a bond you don't want, but I agree it's a bad idea for you to go without any bond at all if you stay here. Or even if you don't."

"Bastian," I said, my voice quiet and laced with disappointment. "I didn't think you would do that to me…"

He pursed his lips. "Not to force you or compel you. I have a bond and my bondmate would never do that. If it were me who bonded with you, I'd never force you into anything. I swear. I just want you to be safe. I just want… you."

My eyes grew wide. He wanted to bond me himself ? I knew in an abstract way that they all wanted me to be bonded, and that it would mean Davos had to bite me at least, but having one of the other alphas as a bondmate as well- or even instead- hadn't occurred to me.

After that day with Cantor, when I had tipped into a heat spike, I had wondered whether Bastian would press his luck. I'd had detailed daydreams about what might happen if he did.

I would never have picked Bastian out of a line of men and said, yes, this one, this is the one I want. His big frame and powerful muscles should intimidate me, but somehow his sweet and canny amber eyes, and his cool, crisp cucumber scent softened his potential menace into allure. The fact that he'd respected my boundaries, even while being pummeled by my heat-heightened scent and blatant come ons, had endeared him to me further. However, he'd never made another move.

No matter how much I had secretly hoped he would.

Torn between the conflicting knowledge that this handsome man did want me, but also thought I should be bonded, my lips parted and I took a hesitant step towards him. Suddenly he was kissing me. I squeaked from surprise, the noise muffled against his mouth, and he paused. Silently asking permission again.

This time I gave it, unable to help myself. I kissed him back.

Bastian's lips possessed mine, firmly in control, every movement practiced. So different from Cantor and yet the surging warmth and thrill inside me was almost the same. A small, tender moan crept up my throat as he wrapped a gentle hand around the back of my neck, then pressed his hips forward, pinning me with hardly any force at all against the stone wall. He grasped one hand and drew it up beside my face, and I remembered him holding me while Cantor pressed his tongue elsewhere. The memory made me squirm.

When Bastian finally drew back, I was gasping and he was grinning. He rubbed his nose against mine, and pressed our foreheads together tenderly as our breath mingled.

"I want to bond you because I want you to be mine, Wildcat. But I would be yours as well. So would the others. We would share you." He moved his mouth close to my ear, his breath hot on my skin, and anticipation grew exquisitely sharp in my belly.

"We would devour you." He raked his teeth down the curve of my ear.

"We would worship you." He nipped my earlobe then chuckled darkly as a small, needy noise escaped my lips.

Finally, he drew back. "We would be very, very good to you, little Wildcat. And aside from all that, we would protect you."

The lust that had been burning in his eyes suddenly extinguished and I almost cried from the loss of it. I struggled to compose myself and keep all my emotions from my face as he kept talking. Always talking .

"Right now, any alpha could bond you. It would only take a moment and you'd be trapped." He growled slightly at the thought.

I took a deep, shuddering breath at the sound, but tried to hide it. I don't even know why I tried, because I knew he saw right through me.

"Why does being bonded protect me from being bonded?" I asked, the thought finally occurring to me. "If all of you can… can bite me, since I'm an omega, it's not going to stop anyone else."

He nodded and, to my disappointment, stepped even further back and offered me his arm. I gritted my teeth and took it, and wondered if I was ready to just outright invite him to my bedchambers.

All part of my plan, of course.

"The first alpha to bond anyone becomes the ‘superior bite' to anyone who bonds afterwards." Bastian began a leisurely walk towards our original destination. "Additional bonders can be compelled by the superior bite in much the same way you could be… Although the grip of command is not as strong. It's one reason omegas are so sought after. They're much more vulnerable to compulsion." He grimaced with distaste. "I've heard of alphas who hide their bite and scent, then use an omega as bait to capture other alphas."

I gasped at the pure malice in that idea.

"It doesn't work very well in the long term since such bonds must be renewed regularly, especially if they are made under duress," he assured me.

So alphas had to renew their bonds? The additional bonds weren't permanent? Maybe only the first one, the one that Davos wanted to give me, was permanent.

"That doesn't help the poor omega who was dangled as bait," I said, a tiny omega growl emerging before I could suppress it. Bastian stopped so suddenly I almost slipped, and looked at me with dancing eyes and lips pressed tight to hide a smile.

I blushed. I knew he wanted to make a big fuss over my stupid little growl. I glared at him, daring him to say anything, and he wisely decided to keep walking.

"We have what is known as a ring bond for our pack," he said, changing the subject. "Since alphas can usually only hold two bites, we calculated it so that Davos bit first and is superior to all the rest of our bites. He bit Lynter and Sinclair, Lynter bit me, and I bit Cantor. Cantor bit Davos, after everyone else was sealed, in order to protect him from some other alpha making a claim. It's a pain in the… well, in the neck, when it comes to renewing them."

"Isn't that complicated? I didn't realize this bonding stuff was so… weird. What's the point of doing it, if you aren't ordering people around?"

"It's what makes us a pack," he said, as we stepped out into the sunshine. No one was in the herb garden, the garden plots closest to the door, but I could see a few people kneeling in the kitchen garden which spread out beyond. I drew in a deep breath, enjoying the sweet and savory scents drifting from the warm leaves and flowers, and definitely not enjoying the fresh, sweet scent of the alpha beside me.

"Through the bond we can feel each other's emotions. Some packs can even hear each other's thoughts over any distance, or so I've heard. It's also a protection from other alphas. Every pack has enemies."

I stopped in the middle of the garden path and let the swathes of green soothe my eyes.

"Davos is the superior bite," I observed. "So that means, even though he never bit you , he can still compel you, because he can compel Lynter. Is that right?"

Bastian snorted. "Yes, well. He's the packlead. Someone had to be in charge. And he wanted all of us to only have one bite so we saved space for our omega." He shifted next to me, then looked me in the eyes.

"I'm sorry for what he did, Rosemary. There's no excuse. He was wrong."

I scrunched up my face. "Does he know he was wrong? He hasn't exactly apologized for almost turning me into a slave." I paused. "No, worse than a slave. A thrall ."

Bastian shrugged and sighed. "He's an idiot."

There didn't seem to be anything else to say, so I just nodded.