Page 111 of Generation Omega: Claimed
I can almost hear her voice saying,You’re his heart’s true home.
Fuck, yes, I am. I’m his rightful mate—I’ve always been his rightful mate—and he’s endured all this time waiting for me, for us, for everything we will be and build together. Now, I will prove that to him with everything I am. But first, I dig my teeth into his hand, tearing at him, tasting his blood, while he purrs his pleasure to be claimed by his feral mate.
Blood rites… blood bonds… blood vows.
Reason is snuffed out like a candle exposed to the storm, dragging reality with it into the void where extinguished flames await their chance to burn once more.
Everything that is Tillie Harrison vanishes, and a primal omega is awakened.
The landscape is dark, but the sky is lit up like a million fireworks exploded and then refused to dim. But these stars aren’t decorations for dreamy mortals—they’re a map. The night is anything but quiet as crickets sing, animals scuff the earth near us, and somewhere, a river runs. I sniff the air, learning more about the geography and its flora and fauna than my eyes could ever observe.
I taste the coming dawn, just like the sea that’s near us, its saltiness easing my swiftly expanding and contracting lungs. I could locate the ocean with my eyes shut, just as I could claim a meal with my bare hands by diving below its surface. The musky scents of animals filter into my awareness, though I don’t know them by their sounds or smells. It’s my senses that warn of their danger, more than my mind or experience.
My mate’s arms surround me, forming a cage that will be opened when the first light of the sun reaches us. We stand within the circle of standing stones that project from the ground like a sandstone crown atop the world. Royalty proclaimed using the stuff of the earth beneath us, just like us, no better, no worse, all connected.
My teeth mash together as my body radiates its anxiousness to enter the hunt, to be hunted, to prove my worth in evading my mate. My smaller body feels no less powerful than the manwhose massive arms encase me, while his rumbling growls tease me with their brutal promise.
When the sun’s rays strike me, I both wince and bolt beyond the stones, racing toward the field of grass that reaches my thighs. I leap onto and over rocks on my way to the forest that provides the only true shelter. My hunter’s breathing reaches my ears just before his hand swipes against me, pitching me to the mud where I land rough but don’t remain. I’m up again, wearing the soil as my only clothing, barreling across a creek, its water freezing but welcome.
The mist rolls in but provides no protection from this predator who easily tracks me by scent. I’m in the woods, the branches an endless maze that traps me as surely as it conceals me. Tearing through the bramble, its fruit stains my flesh. My hunter seems to be everywhere at once, his scent too familiar to guide me toward or away from him. It’s as though my lungs drink his fragrance because he’s the only air I need. When dizziness waves through me, I realize I fasted in preparation for this trial, readying myself to honor my warrior mate.
I’ve evaded him. I’m concealed within a hollowed-out tree when the next phase of my trial strikes without warning. I grip my belly and then lower, biting my lip to withhold a whine as the pain coils, desire expanding, my slick dripping down my legs and feeding the dirt that is my origin.
Finally, I can’t hold it in anymore. I keen wildly, my body—my fierce body—suddenly weak, my legs faltering. Still, I lunge to escape the hunter, whose growls follow me wherever I go. I slam into bark and branches, tearing my flesh in this frantic dance. I trip over the exposed roots of trees older than time. I crash again, clenching my body as uncontrollable undulations rock through me, making flight of any kind impossible. But I will not stop. I can’t. I can’t disappoint him. I can’t make him lessby being less. I must be more. For him. For me. For us and our bond.
I’m on my hands and knees crawling recklessly when a new agony lands in the form of a switch. He strikes me mercilessly, the cruel stinging impacting my back, my hips, my legs, as I continue to hurl myself forward, knowing I must reach the standing stones again. My slick gushes now as my wails refuse to be restrained. My body is nowhere near large enough to contain this ever-expanding desperation for completion.
The switch thrashes my butt, throwing me face first into the dirt. On my belly, I flail as I struggle to rise. When I manage to find my way to my feet, I’m hunched, unable to stand straight with so much pain possessing me and carnal hunger torturing me. But I still move. I will show him. I will show them all.
I see it. The stones. The crown. My place. When I reach it at last, I tumble to the ground. This time, he’s on me, raring for a fight, one I will give him. Even a downed creature can maul an enemy. I shove him. Bite him. Kick and tear. I rip and claw, snarling all the while. I will show him the warrior that lives in my veins, like a flooded river breaking dams with its rage against all control.
He’s everywhere, undefeatable, glorious and proud, pinning me only to release me again, as I grapple more wildly than any beast that moves on four legs. Dressed now in the perfect unity of the earth’s gifts and my own body’s blood, sweat, slick, and tears, I remember the truth of this trial. That the power of all life dwells within these stone sentinels that preside over us here, judging our worth to take space and resources in this world. To always remember the old ways that teach us that life must be lived with a demanding heart and a soul that comprehends silent strength.
But this ritual is more than that. It’s about me and my mate, and the union of our souls that must clash often, so as notto forget our duties to our mission and our pack. This battling is required because love untested weakens from the absence of strain, becoming soft and nurturing—two forms of poison to true leaders. We inflict this torment on each other for the good of all.
At last, I recall my final duty to the bonds that define my life, and sacrifice my pride to my mate who will always cherish my surrender. Panting, coughing, weary and worn, I bow my head, whimpers released to humble me more, as I rest my forehead on the cool, torn grass. My mate’s fingers dig into my flesh, jerking me back, spreading me wide, and taking me with a vengeance.
The sounds he rings from me are more feral than any animal could issue, his pounding thrusts acts of delicious violence, my insides as abused as my outsides now. His unrestrained drives inspire a scream the stones drink, because raw honesty is what they crave. Not pretty lies or deception. Truth—only ugly, beautiful truths satiate their ancient appetites.
His savage cock claims me so deeply, I can’t breathe. Gulping and crying, my arms too weak to hold me, my face meets the ground again. With nowhere to go in such a small channel, his knot ruthlessly swells, summoning a shriek from me as high pitched as any wounded creature. But just beyond that, the euphoria sets upon me like magic, delivering me from all that binds me in this life.
I’m suddenly able to see. To fly with the vision of hawks and eagles that sail through the air above us, untroubled by the affairs of envious humans who can only dream of vistas and such dramatic shifts in perspective. I’m with them now, soaring but grounded too, the best of both worlds. Heaven, earth, and everything in between.
Then it’s here, my punishment and my prize. Through the stones emerges the tones of ascension, the music that lives and links all life in every form. A symphony so radiant, I’m lost in bliss and wonder, more and less than I’ve ever been. Moreconnected and less separate than seems possible. Painful purity seizes me as my mate claims me forever, his teeth digging into my flesh in the most vulnerable place. He bites again and again, creating shapes I may never know unless a still lake is kind enough to share my reflection.
No matter the design, just knowing it came from him and made me his… that’s all that matters.
The sun is departing the sky, the day ending more pleasurably than it began, when he holds me in his arms, his purr sending me into slumber. I have no fears left. Though my body is covered in dirt, blood, slick, grass, and his seed, I am clean at last.
Free and claimed.
Ready for all that comes next.
CHAPTER 51
TILLIE
When I begin to stir, every muscle in my body demands a lawyer, but it’s the singeing pain on the back of my neck that spurs a shrill whine. Then Ory’s hot tongue laps along my new bondmarks, instantly delivering me into the land of connection and delight.
