Scent of Valor (Chronicles of Eorthe #2) Page 9

  Peder gasped and jerked from his hold. Twisting, he shook his head but his vision didn’t clear. The alpha wouldn’t hurt them. Peder would protect this pack of misfit shifters. With a snarl that rolled from the bottom of his soul, he launched another attack, except this fight came from his heart.

  He got a good grip on the hunter’s damned wrist. For a big male, he was fast. Peder rolled from under him all the while keeping hold of his arm, dragging it behind his back. With a well-placed knee in the middle of his shoulder blade, he wrenched his hand up until the hunter stopped squirming.

  Face in the dirt, the alpha’s whole body tensed as Peder straddled him and landed punch after punch to the head. “No more,” Peder shouted. “No more.” His fist ached with each punch he landed but he couldn’t stop.

  The alpha cried out and struggled.

  Hands wrapped around his arms and pulled him off the alpha—no. He blinked—the hunter. He shook his head and glanced at those holding him down.

  Vampires?

  One of them poured a bucket of cold water over his head.

  He sputtered and spit.

  Kele clutched her hands to her chest as she peered around the vampires. She chewed her bottom lip before saying his name.

  Slavers. They were with slavers. Not at home. Not…not at home. He shoved the vampires off him. For a shifter, he was average size, but he was still stronger than a bloodsucker when they weren’t darting him.

  “Nicely done, Goldie.” Timothy squatted in front of him. “That shifter’s almost twice your weight. You’ve some true fighting skill.” His grin had a sly edge. “And you’ve a wicked streak.”

  Peder’s mouth grew parched. All his life, he cared for those in need. It was in his nature, and his role to play in the pack. If a hunter returned injured, an omega tended to them. If a crafter grew lonely, an omega tried to fill that hole. If an alpha couldn’t control his temper…he shuddered. He wasn’t wicked.

  Two vampires carried the hunter out of the pen.

  Peder’s heart grew heavy. “Is he dead?”

  “No, but he might as well be. I can’t sell him in that condition.” Timothy’s gaze traveled over Peder. “But you might be worth your weight in gold. I am happy to have purchased you from Huan.” The shifter exited the pen and locked it with a key hanging at his waist.

  Peder rolled on his side and panted. His hands shook. The heat of coming summer rose around him. What had he done? That hunter looked as if he’d hit him with rocks instead of fists.

  Something rubbed against his leg.

  A strange female. She stroked his calf and bowed her head.

  He jerked at her touch and stood. Nausea rolled in his stomach but he fought the urge to vomit. None of them could afford for him to look weak after the peace he’d just won. He was familiar with her posturing. He’d done it enough times.

  Another crawled to him and stroked his foot. After years of being omega, unwanted touch was something he’d grown familiar with. Was he truly omega anymore? If he wasn’t, then he didn’t have to do what these females wanted. In truth, they asked what he wanted for a change.

  He shook his head, gently pushing their hands away, and strode to a pallet on the far side of the room. His kilt’s waistband was ripped, but with some creative knotting, he got it to sit on his hips once more, if a little low. Dropping on the pallet, he succumbed to exhaustion. He rested against the wall and closed his eyes. If only he could wake from this nightmare. Bending forward, he tried block out the world. He leaned his forehead against his knees and for the first time in months, he prayed.

  His hand throbbed with his heartbeat. He examined the swollen knuckles. Served him right to suffer. What had taken over him in the ring? One moment he’d been fighting the strange hunter, the next he’d flashed back onto his old alpha—except he never would have fought the tyrant in reality. It was like he was moonstruck.

  Kele knelt next to him. She carried a water skin. “I’m always thirsty after a challenge.” She glared at the omega females who had rubbed his leg. Her threat radiated across the room instantly.

  Of its own accord, his gaze traveled to scars and half-healed wounds on her arms. “You fought many challenges since you learned to shift.” He took the skin and drained half of it. The heat seemed almost unbearable.

  Outwardly, he needed to appear calm, but inside thoughts tore at his mind as if a beast had been born within his head. Born or already there just waiting to for an opportunity to awaken? He took a shaky breath.

  “Peder?” Kele stroked his face. “Are you all right?”

  He peered at her under half-closed lids. The fading sun lit upon her pale hair and haloed her head. He hadn’t seen her civil form in months. His memory of her beauty hadn’t faded. “I’m fine. None of his swings landed. He was all muscle and no skill.”

  She curled against him and drew his head against her shoulder. “That’s not what I meant.” Her fingertips ran through his hair, getting caught on the knots and tugging his scalp a little. Her scent of winter sharpness filled his nose.

  He pulled her into a tight hug.

  The scooped neck of her dress sagged enough to give him a glimpse of her breasts. Small and firm with rose-tipped nipples perking against the fabric. Usually viewing nude females after a shift didn’t affect him like this. If he were a wicked male, he’d lay her on this pallet and take what he wanted, even with an audience.

  Fuck, just the image of Kele on her back, with those strong legs around his hips, and everyone forced to watch as he claimed her made his cock twitch. He shifted his hips and gathered his kilt in front of his lap to hide his semi-erection. Slowly, he withdrew from her hold. “I’m fine.”

  She’d led such a sheltered life compared to his, and he didn’t want to shatter those protective walls around her. In their situation, he imagined she only had a few more hours before one of the slavers did it for him.

  He tried to smile but failed utterly. His chest grew tight and he rubbed the growing ache inside. “I lost control.” It was as if his feral side had taken over without him changing shape.

  “Sometimes it helps to talk about it.” She stroked his arm, sending arcs of desire back through his body.

  With a snort, he shook his head. “No, it makes it worse.” He wished he were home. The others understood without making him put pain into words.

  A vampire rang a bell at the gate. “Dinner.”

  “Stay here.” She pushed him back down on the pallet and gave him the sweetest, shy smile. “Let me take care of you.”

  He stared after her as she gathered their meals.

  She wanted to care for him? No one had ever offered before.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kele carried the bowls of stew to Peder. It took all her willpower not to slurp the meal directly from the pot. She hadn’t eaten since the morning of their capture. Just before her mating ceremony she’d shared a meal with— Her appetite suddenly vanished. Her parents had died. She stumbled and almost spilled their meal. Part of her didn’t believe they weren’t out there searching for her.

  Peder’s eyes still held a haunted edge. Until now, he’d been her anchor. Witnessing him unravel tore her apart. He’d fought extremely well so she didn’t understand his distress.

  She sat next to him and watched as he devoured his meal. It reminded her of the first evening they’d spent together at her den in the abandoned room. She’d brought him a bowl of stew, then. At the time, he’d thought the old room grand with its threadbare rug and thin cushions.

  She forced herself to eat. What was life like in the Apisi den? She’d heard the whispered stories but had thought them fiction, at least until now. Omegas didn’t normally fight challenges. She’d been shocked into inaction when he’d stepped into the ring. For a moment, she’d expected never to see him alive again and the thought of losing him had stopped her heart.

  Maybe this had been his first challenge? Usually when a pack member of the Payami won their first challenge, they would celebr
ate.

  A holding cell of slaves, far from pack and home, was a poor party. But he was omega—they didn’t see the world in the same light as hunters. He’d mentioned losing control and seemed ashamed. He shouldn’t be. She’d do anything to wipe away the pain from Peder. She didn’t understand why he felt this way but she was very familiar with being a disgrace.

  “When I was young and still couldn’t shift, my mother would take me out in the forest.” Kele set her half-eaten stew next to the pallet before her shaking hands made her drop her bowl.

  Peder slowed in eating but still didn’t look at her.

  “She’d hunt me in her feral form.” She stared at the bowl. This story was harder to tell than she thought. She hadn’t had someone to confide in before. “I was so scared and lost. I didn’t know how to track. She said if she caught me, she’d eat me.”

  “That’s horrible. I always pictured your parents as doting.” Peder set his food next to hers and pulled her into his arms. They felt strong and solid around her body. His heat welcomed her to mold against his body. What was it about this male that made her ache for his touch? She never wanted to leave his embrace.

  “Far from it. They loved me in their own way. They wanted an alpha and got a defective child instead. My mother thought fear would trigger my shift since nothing else worked. She did what she thought was right.” She caressed his face and lost herself in his forest-green gaze. “Just like you did.”

  He shook his head and tore away from her. “No, that’s not true.” A shiver ran through his limbs as he leaned against the wall, his dull gaze focused outside the cage.

  “Then tell me what the truth is and make me understand.”

  He patted her hand. “Rest. The coming days will be difficult.”

  “Peder.” She hated the pleading in her voice. Who was she to beg? Almost overnight, she went from potential alpha to slave—and she didn’t mean being captured by these awful vampires. She was a slave to her heart. No matter the distance, no matter the silence, no matter their social standings within the tribe, she still wanted Peder. If Nahuel woke right this moment and demanded they mate, she would turn him away so she could just sit and hold Peder’s hand.

  She was pathetic. Her mother would spit on her. She’d told Kele never to submit to her mate, that she needed to show she was as strong or stronger than him. But if Peder were to ask her to lay with him so he could rub her belly right now, she would roll over without question.

  As if sensing her inner turmoil, he stroked her head and offered her his arm so she could cuddle against him again. “Sorry.” He took a deep, shuddery breath. “It’s not easy for me to talk about. I just don’t want to be a monster.” He ran his fingers through her long hair. Over and over, he repeated the movement until he kissed the top of her head.

  She twisted quickly then before he escaped and cupped his face in her hands. “In the cage. You said you never stopped writing me.” Inside, she braced for the worst. He’d found love in another or he thought her a spoiled Payami bitch. Last night, he’d whispered such sweet encouragement in her ear, but wouldn’t any omega do the same? She should have spent more time with the omegas of her own pack to learn their ways. How could she tell his sincerity? Duty versus love.

  The haunted shadows of this evening seemed to fade from his gaze, replaced with a spark of interest. “I never stopped. Every week I placed my letters under the altar in the Temple. Every week when I returned, they were gone with no response left.”

  “What? Ahote always returned empty-handed when I sent him to bring mine.” Reality sunk into her stomach like a stone. “Ahote.” She ground out his name as if it was a curse. “That meddling beast.” The hunter had been their secret messenger.

  He jerked in her arms. “But it was his idea that we write to each other. He’d even volunteered to be the courier.”

  “If we ever get out of here, I’ll skin him and use his hide as bedding.”

  Peder chuckled and worked her fisted hands open. “You still wrote me?”

  She blinked at his question. “Of course, I did.”

  He entwined his fingers with hers and brought them to his lips. One by one, he kissed them. “What.” Kiss. “Did.” Kiss. “You.” Kiss. “Write.”

  Mesmerized by his full lips on her chafed skin, she could barely speak. “Things.” Like prey caught in a hunter’s gaze, she couldn’t move. Goddess, every time he laid his mouth upon her skin, it sent waves of tingling sensation through her hands. Unlike prey, she wanted Peder to devour her.

  “Hmm…” He traced her fingers with the tip of his tongue. “Pack gossip? Latest fashions?”

  “What?” She yanked her gaze from his devious mouth. “No. When have I ever discussed such silly things?”

  His small smile was teasing. “Then what?” He continued exploring as he nipped at her wrist right where her pulse raced.

  “Uh, the challenges I’d won. My plans to climb the pack hierarchy.” She gasped as he bit a little hard, but she didn’t pull away. An ache developed between her thighs and she squirmed to find a less needy position.

  “Did you like that?”

  “Yes.” Her answer came out on an exhale as he repeated the nip on her other wrist. “Oh Goddess.” She was out of her element. Give her a fight or an illness and she knew what to do, but she floundered at the onslaught of Peder’s skill. He hadn’t even marked her yet and she was ready to take off her dress.

  “No, no.” He kissed and licked a trail up her arm until they were pressed chest to chest, his mouth hovering over hers. “It’s ‘oh Peder’.”

  Her lips parted with a gasp. She hadn’t enough air in her lungs for more.

  He drove his kiss down onto her. There was nothing civil about it, nothing gentle or tender like Benic’s. Peder was rough, wildly dominant as he thrust his tongue into her welcoming mouth. In and in and in, he claimed every crevice. The raw hunger of his desire set her ablaze. Every nerve ending not pressed against him screamed to be stroked, bitten, and kissed.

  She ran her hands over his bare chest and reveled at the sensation of his tense muscles moving under his skin. So hard and unyielding compared to hers. How many times had she pictured this moment as she touched herself in the dark of her room?

  He pulled away, his breathing hard, his eyes untamed.

  “Oh Peder.” She wasn’t sure what to do next. Her experience equaled one unwanted kiss from a vampire she’d thought a friend. That might actually make it less than zero.

  The sound of shuffling feet caught her attention. She twisted in his arms and caught a few of the imprisoned shifters and a vampire guard watching them. Heat sizzled over her cheeks until it reached her ears. She expected to burst into flames. She sat straighter and pulled the hem of her dress down. When had it edged so high up her thighs?

  Peder’s gaze followed hers. “I doubt we’ll ever get any privacy.”

  She pressed her cool hands to her cheeks. The guard’s interested stare reminded Kele of the looks the omega female received after she’d shifted to civil form and gone into the slaver’s tent. How long before she was dragged to some strange male’s bed? She didn’t have delusions of being treated well in this nightmare. She hadn’t much control over her fate. “You’re right. We never will.”

  He scooted closer to her and hung his arm over her shoulders. “I’m happy like this. I’m happy knowing you hadn’t forgotten me.”

  “Forgotten you?” She shot the question at him like an arrow. “You’ve burned yourself into my soul. How could I ever forget?” She struck his thigh. “I wish I could have forgotten. It would have been so much easier.” Folding her arms, she turned her back on Peder yet still managed to lean against him. Dear Goddess, help her. “Why is fate so cruel? I could have been with you all this time except for that dog shit of a whore, Ahote.”

  “Kele.” He sounded shocked at her words, yet chuckled.

  “It’s true. None of this would have happened if Ahote hadn’t interfered with our…”

&n
bsp; “Romance?” He nuzzled her neck and inhaled deeply as if savoring her scent.

  “Instead, we’re trapped here where some greasy bloodsucker will most likely pop my skin tag like some brute. Or better yet, I’ll get sold to highest bidder so he can do it, and then I’ll be used as a whore until I go feral and they have to put me down like a rabid animal.” Her breathing had grown labored and she clung to Peder’s arms as he hugged her from behind.

  “Skin tag?” he whispered in her ear. “You’re still a virgin?”

  She tossed him an angry look. “Don’t sound so shocked. It happens.” Not too often. Their race was a high-strung society. Sex helped relieve a lot of those issues. She didn’t know many who remained untouched past the age of fourteen winters, and she was twenty-one. With a grunt, she broke eye contact. She couldn’t believe she admitted that. He’d never touch her again. “The Goddess hates me. There’s no other explanation.”

  “Was that your first kiss?”

  “No, I’m not that pathetic.” Almost that inexperienced, though. She wanted to scream and bash in someone’s head. Maybe the vampire guard still staring at them would volunteer. “Benic was my first.”

  He snarled. The sound shattered her hearing for a moment, he was so close to her ear. He swung her around, his nose almost pressed to hers. “You let him touch you?”

  “And how many females have you been with?” She quirked her eyebrow up. Fighting—now this she was well versed in.

  “Many.” He leaned in close. “And don’t forget the males. Don’t forget what it means to be omega. It’s hard for us to say no.”

  Her head spun. She had forgotten. Ever since they walked in here and he fought that hunter, she was seeing him in a new light. “You don’t fight like one.”

  He flinched. The haunted look returned to his eyes. Great, she’d taken a page from her mother’s book of being a bitch.

  His gaze wandered around the compound. “It’s getting dark. We should get some sleep.”

  Others had already taken to their pallets. One couple a few pallets over obviously didn’t have any issues with an audience.