Page 69 of Choosing Her Alpha
"That is usually why a cycle ends. Yours was four days." She tipped her head back to see a smile on his face that curled her toes. It was just for her, wolfish and appreciative at the same time. "It's not like you didn't make me work for it."
"A child," she said in wonder. "Where are your other children?"
"What other children?"
"You have been alive for so long. Wait, they are in the children's wing, yes?"
"No."
"Well, you are responsible for your own betas and drones, aren't you?"
A disgruntled sound of annoyance rumbled through his chest.
"Why are you angry?" She bit at his pectoral muscle in reprimand. Then again, just because she wanted to bite him.
"There is no child but the one growing in your belly, girl." His knot shrank enough that he could pull her off him. That knot felt like it lasted forever before. Could he hurry it along?
Kane made her stand for a moment so he could service her breasts, sucking until she felt drained. It was a curious pleasure. The act itself—still on the edge of pain where his mouth met her inflamed nipples, the well-loved skin raw—but his deep, hard sucking made her womb flutter and kick with mini-orgasms. She hoped it wouldn’t happen every time she had to nurse a child.
"You have been alive for a long time. Alpha seed is too potent for any type of birth control. It's well known. And the stronger the alpha, the more randy he is. So where are the children? You had a harem."
He gave her a baleful look. When he stood, he dwarfed her. He was so much larger in size and personality than any male alive. He turned off the shower, wrapping a hand around the base of her neck.
"I am not a male to leave a trail of children behind him. And the women of my harem, as you call it, were always sterile, either from the virus or for another reason."
"You are an honorable man."
Kane grunted.
Epilogue – Part 1
KANE
She was his.
Her breeder's blessing, her love, was a live wire twitching under his skin, not simply a direct connection to her heart and feelings, but an unending power source. She made him stronger in every way. He had known she would.
It had been no small thing for her to disguise herself and sneak into his compound. He'd had to severely punish his men for their failures. Kane ordered more training, but he doubted it would have changed anything. He'd sensed the special in her that first day when he lifted her little sobbing body into his arms and took her to his office. She'd proven it time and time again.
She was unusually gifted at hiding, almost able to disguise her scent and mask herself in a way he’d never seen matched. He'd seen surveillance recordings of her in line at the checkpoint. Despite her delicious smell the day she tried to leave him, she would have been able to pass through if she hadn't panicked, Kane was certain of it.
She didn't know she had the ability, and he wasn't going to be the one to tell her. Her unpredictability was already legendary among his men, and there was no reason to give her more fuel with which to terrify them.
On that first day, it wasn't until she started weeping that she smelled like anything other than a drone child. He'd noticed the change when he opened the door to Holding One immediately. Sweet, sweet breeder innocence overwhelmed him in waves—the smell, and the emotion triggering his protective instincts.
When he asked to see her mark, and she'd removed her clothes to do it, Kane had to keep himself from tearing about his office and demanding to know everyone who had been involved in setting the mark there. His self-control had been threatened by a compulsive need to be a shield and sword to the breakable little girl with the big, twilight eyes.
Then he found the Administration Registration Clerk who'd handled that tattoo. The man was dead now. They didn't live long without their hands.
He was glad she didn't know how many people had lost their lives for their crimes against a breeder—crimes against her—but when the number reached double digits, he started getting calls from his family wanting to know why he was on a rampage.
He couldn't have her mother killed again. Already more dead than alive when his men got to her, her end was quick. Unfortunately, the father, Edin Dover—that weasely bastard—had already been killed.
If his bones hadn't been burned, Kane had been more than prepared to dig them up and burn them again. The man was the kind of monster Kane hated most—one who preyed on those weaker than himself and used subterfuge to stab those stronger in the back.
If he could find Merrick, who had been searching for Sasha when his men went to her pub, he would string him up by his toes a thousand times and peel the skin from his dick and balls himself.
Merrick, whose real name was Merdion, was a King's Army deserter, youngest son of Rhineholth the King of the 12 Sectors and Kane's baby brother. He had known the boy was in the slums, fucking betas left and right and making deals to establish himself outside of Kane's reach. He had ignored him because of their mother's pleading. He hadn't gotten around to telling Sasha of the connection.
