Rory
Lunar Moon Pack, April 2024.
I had a mop in my hand and a bucket at my feet, my knees bruised against the concrete when it happened.
Asher Kane stopped walking.
I didn't understand why, at first. He was the Alpha's half-brother. Twenty-six years old, blonde hair, the kind of effortlessly handsome that made women trip over themselves all the time. He might not have been the Alpha, but the aura oozed off of him in waves, making my knees tremble and buckle underneath me.
I had never been more grateful that I was kneeling.
"You," he said.
The hallway fell silent behind me as his pristine, black boots halted just an inch away from my knees.
Asher Kane couldn't have been talking to me. I was a slave, descended from a line of slaves that had been captured during a long, lost war that changed the trajectory of our entire race, forcing us to live apart from the humans who hated us, and into a hierarchical system that was cruel. Omega slaves like me were on the wrong side of the war and would always belong on the floor on our knees, or as bed slaves on our backs. I suppose I was lucky that every man found something about my eyes unusual enough that they stayed the hell away from me.
Omega slaves like me were constantly spat on. Bullied. Whipped. Regarded as filth.
Asher Kane, whose favourite pastime was torturing us, had no business acknowledging or speaking to me. I had managed to stay invisible for five years since I was wrongfully whipped for stealing from Claire, the Alpha's fiancee, and I wasn't about to break that streak–
It slammed into me with such force, I gasped. The warmth burned through my chest, spreading rapidly through my veins until I was doubling over. My wolf that had always been dormant began slamming against my ribcage, desperate to be let out. Set free. It howled with joy as the scent of something sweet filled my nostrils, and something locked so tight in my chest that I doubled over.
Asher Kane knelt in front of me.
A calloused finger raised my chin and I was gazing into striking hazel eyes.
The expression on Asher Kane's face was one that had never been directed at me before. The usual stone cold expression of his was stripped completely, replaced with wonder and need. It took my breath away and it was an effort not to give into the urge to lower my gaze and arch my neck to the side to let him mark me.
"Beautiful," he said softly, unable to help himself. "What is your name?"
"Aurora." My voice came out breathy. I didn't think I was breathing at all. "Aurora Gray."
"Aurora," he repeated, and it felt like a caress down my spine. My breath hitched when he ran his thumb along my jaw. "Do you feel that?"
I thought about lying. Nothing good ever came from an Omega being mated to an Alpha. Too many times, it often ended with rejections so painful, it killed the Omega.
I might have been a slave whose life had never been hers, but it didn't mean I wanted to die. It didn't mean I didn't have ambitions. Like going to school, learning to read and becoming a historian.
But those were unrealistic ambitions that would never happen and the bond thrummed between us, like a string being plucked, and I was consumed completely by it. Him.
"Yes," I breathed.
I was off the ground in the next second, mop stick being snatched from my grasp and thrown to the ground. I gasped as my back hit the wall and a breathy rasp tickled my ear, "Good."
His hazel eyes pierced mine as he cupped my neck gently. I flinched from the gentility of his touch. I'd never been touched by a man. It made my body tighten in places I didn't know existed.
"I've been waiting for this for a long time." His thumb found the curve of my lip, caressing it softly. "I had started to think it was never going to happen, and now it has, and I intend to make the most of it."
My heart slammed against my chest. "You intend to–"
He kissed me. Hard.
It was unlike anything I'd ever experienced and I did not quite know what to do with my mouth. Pucker it? Lick his mouth like a lollipop? Bite his tongue?
He led, his hands coming up to the sides of my face, cupping my cheeks and I lost myself in it as the bond came embarrassingly close to making me moan. Or sing.
When he pulled back, my eyes were still closed.
I opened them to find him watching her with a devastating smile.
"You're my mate," he said. "I'm going to make you my mate, officially. Properly." He tucked a strand of hair from my face and for the first time in my life, I felt like something special. "I want you to be my bride, Aurora Gray. I want to marry you."
I stared at him. It had to be some kind of trick.
Twenty two years, five being invisible, the remaining seventeen I spent under the tables he ate from, cleaning after him and his family, clearing his tables, cleaning his bedroom. I never had any kind of ambition to climb up the ranks. The only dream I ever had was to find a mate to buy me out of here. It was all the ambition an illiterate could really hope for.
And here Asher Kane was, telling me I was going to his wife.
I must have lost my mind somewhere in the buckets of soapy water because the word was out of my mouth before I could stop myself.
"Yes."
I had heard the mating bond was like a force that eroded even free will. It was one thing to hear it and another to experience it. All I wanted was for him to kiss me again. I wanted those hands on my skin and his strong body cornering me into the wall. I wanted to be with him.
"Yes," I repeated again, and Asher Kane smiled. "Come with me."