Corrupted (Alpha's Claim Book 5) by Addison Cain (read more books txt) 📕

your ship, abducted your Ambassador, and attempted to fly to Thólos. Once there, I intended to make repairs on the Dome.”

The man on the monitor, his voice impressively deep, lacking all melody yet interesting on the ear, spoke. “Why?”

Such a simple question with such complicated answers. Swallowing, sad, Brenya said, “Because I had yet to understand that there is nowhere to run.”

As if the response were satisfactory, the Chancellor across the world scowled at the Alpha standing at her side. “Step away from her, Jacques Bernard. I will confer with the mate of Jules Havel without your interference.”

19

To Brenya’s utter astonishment, Jacques obeyed an order from a male oceans away. Low warning growl emanating from the Alpha at her side—the male aggressive in both posture and scent—gently untucking her fingers from his arm, he gave her a lingering look. One Brenya did not return.

Her attention was solely focused on the man who could command a Commodore.

This Shepherd stared at her with the same acute attention.

This man who Jacques confessed he could not defeat in war.

Which in itself was a bizarre concept.

Brenya had not put much consideration into the whispers Jacques lavished on her ear when she was under him. There had been greater concerns to address since she’d woken with her head split open for two relative strangers to pick through.

Staring, Brenya had already cataloged every last exposed scar on this Shepherd’s flesh, noted that his hair fell at altering angles. Patches of skin had been torn from his skull, upsetting the pattern of growth. His knuckles were ragged from repeated breaks and no doubt ached deep in the bone.

His nose had been damaged on more than one occasion.

Shepherd’s lips—like the pulled flesh under her eye—did not lay properly. His top lip dragged upward. But unlike her own face, Brenya did not imagine people would consider his imperfection a disfigurement.

Leaning his mass closer to the camera, Shepherd said, “You are not afraid of me.”

Maybe she should be, but she wasn’t. Not that she didn’t comprehend that her next breath was in this man’s worn hands. As Lucia said, Brenya had been brought here to be judged. Just not for the crime she had assumed.

Standing in the center of a crowded COM room, dressed in white that contrasted the black walls of a work zone. Men at her back, at her side, staring with scorn, entreating, smelling, ruining the air of the room with their blended loud stench.

The Ambassador, dressed in black, the simplicity of his clothing a beacon in a room of artifice and glitter, came to stand at her side.

Stealing the space that had been Jacques’ only moments before, he addressed the man across the seas. “She is not afraid of you.”

Maneuvering whatever it was that made up a pair-bond—an attachment that didn’t belong to him, that should not have existed at all—the Ambassador’s statement only disclosed a fraction of her thoughts. She was plenty afraid: for Annette, for the baby, for the friend whose name was not permitted to pass her lips.

Whatever Thólos had done to earn this man’s temper, Brenya would not see it done in Bernard Dome. Not because of her mistakes. “I am responsible for the situation regarding Ambassador Jules Havel. I did not know he was on the shi—”

The Alpha on the screen interrupted. “Do you understand what a pair-bond entails?”

No. “In theory. It has been described to me as something that would help me find happiness in what it means to be Omega. The moment it was forged was painful, and I have had little time to navigate the mental….” Brenya could not find a word. What did her opinion on a pair-bond matter anyway? “As I was saying, if I had not stolen Jules Havel’s ship, he would not be inside me. Nor should he be. Your Ambassador should be free to return home.” There was really no other way to put it.

Had her voice just wavered? Why was it so hot in that room?

A brush of another’s hand came to the back of Brenya’s fingers. A reminder that the man she had harmed stood at her side, that he was watching her in place of acknowledging the man.

The warmth in the room, the only scent that was not laced with tension, came from him.

Gathering up her fingers as if it were normal for them to touch, Jules held them tight.

As if he had not just mocked her when she’d come to save him. As if he had not refused to help good people leave a bad place.

Behind them, Jacques growled, he cursed, yet he didn’t step forward and tear them apart.

Brenya found then that her eyes had moved to where her fingers intertwined with a stranger’s, that she was confused at the fact that something so simple offered comfort. A man who had promised to hurt her.

It was clear who held all the power in the room. It wasn’t the Alpha on the screen, it was the Beta silently urging her to meet his poisonous gaze.

Eyes should not be that shade of blue.

“You were kind to me on the ship when I was frightened. You offered explanations no one else had. You kept your distance when I was, um…”

Jules, his voice deep and smooth as a flowing river, said, “In your first estrous, Brenya Perin.”

Cheeks red from shame, she nodded.

“The men of Bernard Dome do not understand what took place that day any better than you do. Through a stupid act of pride, in manipulating an experience that can never be undone, they have earned an enemy. And no, Brenya Perin, I will not grant them mercy. But I will demand that you understand that the consequence these men must face is not because you stole my ship when you thought to escape an abusive Alpha. It is not because you were ignorant of the situation in Thólos and the agreement between two governments that no aid might be offered to survivors of that fallen Dome.”

Soft threats in gentle words,