Already, sweeps were going out through the entire Dome for anything that looked out of place or stank of foreign sweat.
Fear had led weak men to make foolish choices.
With Ancil by his side, their position and control would be reinstated in a week.
The meek woman sitting on the edge of a blood-red bed would be home, and safe, and he would help her forget every last moment spent spread under the Beta fiend.
“I love you, mon chou.”
The essence of her receded, only to come back crashing. Over and over, so caught in her own riptide, Jacques could not fully grasp the direction of her feelings.
Only that she was… grieving.
And that she had not heard a word he had said.
Understandable, considering the mutt thought he might actually pry him from his mate. A man who could have been drenched in trained pussy day and night for the rest of his life. Who would have lived in greater luxury than the Red Rooms.
“Do you want me to,” pressing sweet kisses to her hair, he purred, “help you get excited?”
Robotic. His innocent Omega always sounded robotic when she was truly upset. “I want you to tell me the designation and name of the Beta female who died.”
“I will… have this information by the time you are returned to me.” It would be easy enough to scan the schedules of Betas chosen for brothel labor. In fact, Jacques was fairly sure he had ridden her on more than one occasion.
But all the females seemed to run together when one had tasted them all.
Tugging at the collar of her dress, his darling Brenya stared forward and asked, “Do you know the identities of the men?”
Of course he did. He knew every last detail of every Alpha under the Dome not subjected to pharmaceutical control. “Yes. I knew them personally. Three of the four held seats in Parliament.”
Ancil, pacing at his back, snarled. “An order has arrived for us to return to our quarters… like peasants. The ship is in the air, my traitorous cunt of a wife has taken the child. And your Omega’s lover is managing the controls with no issue.”
Brenya’s shoulders fell from her ears, honey eyes finally focused. Right on Ancil. “No matter what life Annette and your son find in Greth, they will still have one. Someday, he will be old enough to return and take everything that is yours.”
“SILENCE YOUR FUCKING BITCH!”
Facing his friend with an expression that sent the rest of the males scuttling away, Jacques lifted a hand to warn Ancil that such outbursts would not be tolerated.
But the Omega egged on the dangerous man. “And by the time he comes back, you will have withered. You will be too old to so much as meet the eye of the son you never met yet intended to murder. I don’t imagine your firstborn will have much mercy for you either.”
It was so fast, Jacques could not anticipate the blow. His lifelong friend struck his fragile mate hard enough that she fell back against the blood-red coverlet.
The scent of Omega blood in the air, and Jacques became a mindless beast intent on the sound of breaking bone. Having trained for years with this male, he knew where to strike for maximum damage. As did his adversary. They rolled in a vicious tangle of strikes and snarls.
Though Ancil was assuredly dangerous, he was not in the bloodlust that fueled a male protecting his mate. Jacques broke his wrists, an elbow, a shoulder. No quarter for a man he had known since the cradle.
Purging the ichor of so terrible a night, Jacques continued to rend. To not only crush an enemy but to show all who observed why he had earned the title Commodore.
Strips were torn from the face of his friend, disfiguring beauty while Ancil whined for mercy.
The supplication was too late. Jacques would not even hear him beg, preferring the gagged sounds of a man who had lost the ability to control that passage of air into his body.
Together, they had lost the influence of their positions. They had lost treasured possessions.
Together, they could have reclaimed the Dome.
Now, Jacques would do it alone.
With Ancil’s neck compressed between his bicep and forearm, Jacques toyed with his prey, licking at his friend’s bloody ear in a reminder that when they were younger, they had played this way—the winner of the match fucking what he had subdued, as per the rules of the game.
Those days, Jacques had enjoyed the spoils.
Both of the males had always enjoyed it.
An atrocious shade of crimson, the flesh of his cheek hanging loose, Ancil began to lose consciousness.
But that was not the way an ingrate would be led to death.
Releasing Ancil to parquet floors—lacquered, as legend would say, with the blood of those who opposed the first Commodore of Bernard Dome—the defeated Alpha began to stir.