Title: Born to be Bound
Series: Alpha's Claim #1
Series: Alpha's Claim #1
Author: Addison Cain
Genre: Omegaverse Dark Romance
Release Date: April 6, 2016
Release Date: April 6, 2016
Blurb
“Unapologetically raw and deliciously filthy, Shepherd
& Claire's dark, gritty story is an emotional punch to the gut!” - Anna
Zaires, New York Times bestselling author
Every bit as ruthless as his reputation suggests…
Shepherd ravages both Claire and her conquered city, refusing to let either slip through his fingers.
He steals Claire's innocence and future by forcing a pair-bond on the rare, unwilling Omega female.
Violent, calculating, and incapable of remorse, he demands his new mate's adoration. Her attention. Her body.
Publisher's Note: The first book in Addison Cain's exciting, raw, and suspense-filled Omegaverse series is a Dark Romance featuring complete power exchange. If such material offends you, please do not purchase.
Every bit as ruthless as his reputation suggests…
Shepherd ravages both Claire and her conquered city, refusing to let either slip through his fingers.
He steals Claire's innocence and future by forcing a pair-bond on the rare, unwilling Omega female.
Violent, calculating, and incapable of remorse, he demands his new mate's adoration. Her attention. Her body.
Publisher's Note: The first book in Addison Cain's exciting, raw, and suspense-filled Omegaverse series is a Dark Romance featuring complete power exchange. If such material offends you, please do not purchase.
Purchase Links
FREE on all platforms!!
AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU
B&N / KOBO / APPLE BOOKS
Excerpt
She watched
him bolt the door with a rod so thick it dwarfed her ankle, trapping her,
cornering the Omega for mating. Unsure if Shepherd had heard, she used her feet
to scoot away from the male until her back hit the wall, and tried again.
"Food… we can't go out... hunted, forced. They're killing us." Her
blown pupils looked up at the intimidating male and pleaded for him to
understand. "You are the Alpha in Thólos, you hold control... we
have no one else to ask."
"So
you foolishly walked into a room full of feral males to ask for food?" He
was mocking her, his eyes mean, even as he grinned.
The horror
of the day, the sexual frustration of her heat, made Claire belligerently raise
her head and meet his eyes. "If we don't get food, I'm dead anyway."
Seeing the
female grimace through another cramping wave, Shepherd growled, an instinctual
reaction to a breeding Omega. The noise shot right between her legs, full of
the promise of everything she needed. His second, louder grumbled noise sang
inside her, and a wave of warm slick drenched the floor below her swollen sex,
saturating the air to entice him.
She could
not take it. "Please don't make that noise."
"You
are fighting your cycle," he grunted low and abrasive, beginning to pace,
watching her all the while.
Shaking her
head back and forth, Claire began to murmur, "I've lived a life of
celibacy."
Celibacy?
That was unheard of... a rumored story. Omegas could not fight the urge to
mate. That was why the Alphas fought for them and forced a pair-bond to keep
them for themselves. The smell alone drove any Alpha into a rut.
He growled
again and the muscles of her sex clenched so hard she whined and curled up on
the floor.
It was hard
enough to make it through estrous locked in a room alone until the cycle broke,
but his damn noise and the smell invading past the rotting stickiness of her
clothing was breaking her insides apart.
The
degrading way he spoke made her open her eyes to see the beast standing still,
his massive erection apparent despite layers of clothing. "How long does
your heat typically last, Omega?"
Shivering,
suddenly loving the sound of that lyrical rasp, she clenched her fists at her
sides instead of beckoning him nearer. "Four days, sometimes a week."
"And
you have been through them all in seclusion instead of submitting to an Alpha
to break them?"
"Yes."
He was
making her angry, furious even, with his stupid questions. Every part of her
was screaming out that he should be stroking her and easing the need. That it was his job! With her hand still
pressed over her nose and mouth, her muffled, broken explanation came as a
jumbled, angry rant, Claire hissing, "I choose."
He just
laughed, a cruel, coarse sound.
Omegas had
become exceptionally rare since the plagues and the following Reformation Wars
a century prior. That made them a valuable commodity which Alphas in power took
as if it was their due. And in a city brimming with aggressive Alphas like
Thólos, she'd been trapped in a life of feigning existence as a Beta just to
live unmolested, spent a small fortune on heat-suppressants, and locked herself
away with the other few celibates she knew when estrous came. Hidden in plain
sight before Shepherd's army sprung out of the Undercroft and the government
was slaughtered, their corpses left strung up from the Citadel like trophies.
Claire had
been forced into hiding the very next day, when the unrest inspired the lower
echelons of population to challenge for dominance. Where there had been order,
suddenly all Thólos knew was anarchy. Those awful men just took any Omega they
could find, killing mates and children in order to keep the women—to breed them
or fuck until they died.
"What
is your name?"
She opened
her eyes, elated he was listening. "Claire."
"How
many of you are there, little one?"
Trying to
focus on a spot on the wall instead of the large male and where his beautiful
engorged dick was challenging the zipper of his trousers, she turned her head
to where her body craved to nest, staring with hunger at the collection of
colorful blankets, pillows—a bed where everything must be saturated by his
scent.
An extended
growl warned, "You are losing your impressive focus, little one. How
many?"
Her voice
broke. "Less than a hundred... We lose more every day."
"You
have not eaten. You're hungry." It was not a question, but spoken with
such a low vibration that his hunger for her was apparent.
"Yesss."
It was almost a whine. She was so near to pleading, and it wasn't going to be
for food.
The
prolonged answering growl of the beast compelled a gush of slick to wet her so
badly, she was left sitting in a slippery puddle. Doubling over, frustrated and
needy, she sobbed, "Please don't make that noise," and immediately
the growl changed pitch. Shepherd began to purr for her.
There was
something so infinitely soothing in that low rumble that she sighed audibly and
did not bolt at his slow, measured approach. She watched him with such
attention, her huge, dilated pupils a clear mark that she was so very close to
falling completely into estrous.
Even when
Shepherd crouched down low, he towered over her, all bulging muscle and musky
sweat. She tried to say the words, "Only instincts..." but
jumbled them so badly their meaning was lost.
Starting
with the scarf, he unwound the items that tainted her beautiful pheromones,
purring and stroking every time she whimpered or shifted nervously. When he
pulled her forward to take away the reeking cloak, her eyes drew level with his
confined erection. Claire's uncovered nose sniffed automatically at the place
where his trousers bulged. In that moment all she wanted, all that she had ever
wanted, was to be fucked, knotted, and bred by that male.
Only
instincts...
Shepherd
pressed his face to her neck and sucked in a long breath, groaning as his cock
jumped and began to leak to please her. He had gone into the rut, there was no
changing that fact, and with it came a powerful need to see the female filled
with seed, to soothe what was driving her to rub against her hand in such a
frenzy.
The words
were almost lost in her breath, "You need to lock me in a room for a few
days..."
A feral
grin spread. "You are locked in a room, little one, with the Alpha who
killed ten men and two of his sworn Followers to bring you here." He
stroked her hair, petting her because something inside told him his hands could
calm her. "It's too late now. Your defiant celibacy is over. Either you
submit willingly to me where I will rut you through your heat, or you may leave
out that door where my men will, no doubt, mount you in the halls once they
smell you."
A knock
came. Shepherd rose up tall before her, staring down with open demand that she
submit and obey. Dominance established, he went to the door and pulled back the
lock. Claire saw the same soldier, the smaller Beta with the far too vibrant
blue eyes, and found him sniffing the air in her direction, growing openly
excited at the intoxicating blend of pheromones her slick and sweat were
pumping into the air.
Shepherd
was right. He had taken her from what would have been a mass rape, saved her
from damage and most likely death. He'd listened, though he had not answered
her, and men were already salivating in the hall. The understanding of the
situation passed openly across her face. Claire nodded, estrous clouding her
judgment.
Something
was muttered between the men, ending in, "...only Betas on guard."
A tray was
handed over, laden with food, another armful piled with bedding and pillows,
and she went white. They had already known Shepherd would have her, and had
prepared accordingly. The little chat had no purpose but to make her think she
had a choice. He saw her expression and the rumble of his purring returned.
She had to
eat... he had to feed her before it began. The tray was set on the floor where
she crouched, his order loud enough to grab her attention away from where his
pants bulged. "Eat."
As she
picked at the unseen food, he began to undress. All armor, every under-layer,
was carefully removed and organized, the man having no shame about the state of
his Da'rin marked body or the jutting cock proudly on display. But more than
the visual, it was the smell—the scent of a rutting Alpha, aroused and swollen
for her—that made reason completely flee her mind. Everything hummed in that
incessant purr, reminding her that he was what her body needed, and she was
salivating for it... even if she was scared.
Shepherd
began to pace, naked, rolling his shoulders as he prowled, all the while
watching her and sniffing the air over and over. "Eat more... drink the
water."
Voice
downright nasty, threatening, Claire hissed as if he should have known Omegas
could not eat during estrous, "I don't want food!"
No, she
wanted the thing that was supposed to happen. He was supposed to be fucking
her. Why was he waiting? She came to her feet and he was there, the dominant
male growling so loud her eyes rolled back in her skull.
A rending
of fabric preceded cool air over fevered skin.
He was all
around her, tugging away unnecessary things like clothing. The smell of him,
the raw sweat, sent her cunt to seeping. Sucking in great panting breaths of
the fertile Omega, Shepherd sought out to stroke uncovered flesh, a bit
surprised all her body hair had been permanently removed—recognizing the
precaution the Omega had taken to help mask her scent.
She was so
far gone, her little tongue already licking at his skin, completely high on the
taste and smell, that when his finger swiped drops of his leaking pre-come to
run over her lips, she moaned loudly and sucked it deep into her mouth.
Claire was
so small compared to his mass, easy to move where he wanted. Her back hit the
bed, Shepherd standing between her slender spread legs, staring down with wide,
hungry eyes at the river of slick that came forth. Little pink lips were
spread, the swollen glans of his cock lined up where she seemed far too small
to accept an organ so large. With one hand on her chest, petting the twisting
thing, Shepherd pressed forward, breaching her slippery womb, and gave a full
body shudder at the sound of her desperate cry.
The woman
had not lied... she was so tight it made his cock pulsate more fluid to aid
her. He only got halfway before she began to whine and squirm. Alphas were big
and Shepherd was huge, his girth massive, and there was only so much space
inside her body.
"Open
for me, little one," Shepherd growled, using his thumbs to stretch her
lower lips further apart, thrusting forward, gaining hard earned inch by inch
while the female watched a cock as thick as her forearm slowly disappear
between her legs.
When the
expanding thrust bottomed out, when all her tightness enveloped that hard
length... utter bliss. She needed it, was moaning and arching, grinding her sex
against his pubic bone. The stretch was divine, the vibration from his purrs,
the smell. When he began to pull out, she showed her teeth and snarled
at a man many times her size. Shepherd seemed amused, and then snapped his
hips, burying that massive cock to the hilt, knowing she would squeal.
Claire
learned quickly that he liked her little spurts of temper, but it was Shepherd
who dominated the exchange. He rutted with the vigor she needed, hard and fast,
building up that furious pulse in her core. When she began to roll her hips,
eyes closed and lost in the insatiable need to mate, he took her by the scruff
of the neck and barked at her to open, to look at the male fucking her, to
recognize his prowess.
Those
harshly snarled words sent her over the edge. Perfect fulfillment exploded.
Claire felt every single muscle in her pussy jump to life, saw his eyes grow
vicious and feral, felt his knot expand as he ground in, hooking behind her
pelvic bone, locking them as deep as he could go. Jerking under the intensity
of the orgasm, she felt that first hot gush of semen, heard him roar like a
beast while she screamed. Shepherd came again, more of that copious fluid, her
body's need finally met, and with his third liquid surge, she blacked out.
It could
not have been long before she woke, as his knot was still binding their bodies
together. He lay below her, her body sprawled on top, Claire's ear to his
heart. The serenity from the mating was fading and the impulse to fuck was back
again. The urge, the only thing that defined her at that moment, grew beyond
her when her tongue darted out to lick the salt of sweat from his chest, to
entice the tattooed male to begin again.
The instant
the knot began to diminish, she registered the loss of precious fluid, felt his
seed leaking out of her, and whined. As if knowing her thoughts, Shepherd
dragged his fingers in the little river and brought his ejaculate to her mouth.
The smell alone drove her wild, the taste a thousand times more.
"They
would have broken an Omega so small." Shepherd watched, fascinated, as she
greedily sucked his fingers, explaining quietly as if educating a female who
should have known better. "Not shown restraint at a scent so
overpowering."
She didn't
want him to talk. She wanted him to fuck her again. A large hand came to her
hair, rubbing at the scalp of the female, soothing her with pets and purrs
while the knot slowly abated so he could thrust against her jerking hips.
The second
mating was much less frantic, far more fulfilling, and when he had filled her
again, Claire began to lose the edge that was making her so ferocious. It was
his hands, maybe, lifting and lowering her at the tempo that made her cunt
sing, or the look in his eyes, the unabashed lustful pleasure.
So
that's what it was like to mate an Alpha.
He seemed
to know her thoughts, and by the crinkles at the corner of Shepherd's eyes, she
could tell he was amused with her. He cupped her face, tender and gentle, and
she didn't feel overpowered or forced... She felt mistakenly safe in the
delirium.
It was not
until a day later, when he took her from behind at the peak of estrous, his
full weight on her back, that she sensed trouble. The high had not faded, the
slow building fervor of her heat nowhere near breaking... but he roared, began
to squeeze and bruise; to restrain her. Fighting the hold, writhing, Claire had
a sobering fear the tyrant might bite her so savagely it would scar—that he
intended to leave claiming marks.
Worst of
all, instinctively, she wanted him to. Her estrous-high mind wanted to bond to
the monster that had destroyed Thólos and made her life hell, simply because he
was the one who was fucking her.
"And you
will!" he growled in her ear.
She told
him no, panting it over the sound of his skin slapping against the fleshy
mounds of her ass. Sharp teeth came to her shoulder, Shepherd's knot growing
bulbous until the Alpha could no longer thrust and she could not squirm away.
She screamed in pain and pleasure, sobbing as his teeth ripped into her skin,
Shepherd growling long and low with her flesh torn from his bite.
She
climaxed from the claiming, rhythmically squeezing, drawing the jets of fluid
from his dick while he crooned at her and lapped up the blood.
Claire
cried even as he purred and petted, wept from the hazy recognition of the total
loss of control she'd so carefully cultivated in her life. When ten minutes
later her body sent out signals it was time for Shepherd to fuck her again, he
pulled her beneath him and was gentle, caressing the woman he'd stolen even
though her tears fell throughout the whole coupling.
When it was
over, when he had wrung out another explosion that chased away the urge of
chemical madness, a calm descended on them both. Claire briefly slept against a
man she did not know, pressing as close as she could, in the exact place the
brute expected her to rest.
***
In the end,
it took three days to break the starving Omega's heat. She was sleeping,
nesting deep into the blankets covered in his semen and her slick—blissed out.
Toying with a strand of her sooty black hair, Shepherd mulled over just what to
do with what was now his possession, impressed that the little female was
plucky enough to dress in a corpse’s clothing and parade into a pack of Alphas
just to speak to him. She would have died if he had not found her scent worth
killing for.
Claire
would also be sore now that estrous had ended, and her mind was not clouded
with the insatiable drive to mate. He was certain she would also be resentful
of the binding he'd forced. But that was the lot for Omegas, the way of nature.
He wanted her, he took. End of story.
Silver eyes
ran over the lithe dancer's body she possessed, the Alpha growling at the
obvious fact his Omega was underfed. It was getting him into such a mood that,
when a knock came to the door, he covetously grabbed what was his and roared.
The
commotion—being jerked against a mountain of heat—woke Claire, and she hissed
in discomfort. Everything felt sticky, a male pawing over bruises that did not
appreciate the attention. The words he spat were in another language—an
outskirts' lost tongue, she assumed. Remembering who he was and what he'd done
to her, she pushed away from Shepherd's chest, only to feel his arms grow
impossibly constrictive. The conversation between the Follower on the other
side of the door and her captor stretched on, Shepherd tightening his grip each
time she squirmed.
When it was
over, Shepherd swung his skull her way, barking, "You need to sleep
more." It was not a suggestion, and she could clearly sense he was
provoked.
"The
Omegas." That was the reason she had come to him... not to have him knot
her for three full days.
Mercurial
eyes diminished between narrowed lids. Shepherd sniffed her once, then he
growled, "Your assumption it would be plausible to have a private
distribution of provisions is flawed. It would only draw attention to your
group. All Omegas will be delivered into my care and segregated from the
population in the Undercroft. Should any come into heat, an Alpha will be
chosen from amongst my Followers. Most will be bonded at their next
estrous."
"What?
No!" Claire's voice was pure horror. "That's not what we want. They
need food, not to be made into slaves."
"This
is best. You are Omegas, fragile, and it is not your place to decide such
things."
Everything
about the male was suddenly repulsive. Claire wanted him off of her and tried
to scoot away. "I won't tell you where they are."
As he
smirked, a scar across his lips made the expression sinister. "Then they
will starve and be picked off one by one. That is your decision, little one. If
given to me, they would be protected."
"From
whom? The very men who are raping and knotting girls who have not reached
maturity are the same you surround yourself with."
Shepherd
was petting her, touching her hair as if she were not upset, as if she didn't
loathe him in that moment, and it was setting her into a temper. When she tried
to bat his hand away, he snarled and pinned her beneath him. His teeth went to
the crook of her neck and he smelled, growling at the sweetness while using his
thigh to pry her legs apart.
Claire felt
his cock pulsing against her belly and grew frightened. There was no estrous,
no abundant slick, and she was sore. Shepherd didn't care. He reminded her who
was dominant in one sharp thrust, taking his Omega with no purrs or caresses,
knotting without her climax to urge his seed forth. When the powerful spurts
bathed her womb, there was no settling peace, only frustration and tears.
When he
seemed to have caught his breath, the unwelcome press of his mouth came to her
ear. "You will sleep more."
His fingers
went back to toying with her hair while Claire cried herself beyond exhaustion,
embraced by a man who lived up to his reputation as a monster.
Also Available
AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU
B&N / KOBO / APPLE BOOKS
Author Bio
USA Today
Bestselling author and Amazon Top 25 bestselling author, Addison Cain is best
known for her dark romances, smoldering Omegaverse, and twisted alien worlds.
Her antiheroes are not always redeemable, her lead females stand fierce, and
nothing is ever as it seems.
Deep and
sometimes heart wrenching, her books are not for the faint of heart. But they
are just right for those who enjoy unapologetic bad boys, aggressive alphas,
and a hint of violence in a kiss.
Author Links