Corrupted - Extended Edition

“Prepare to fall in love with the villain. To obsess over every interaction, and to read the book from cover to cover, over and over again!” –NYT bestselling author, Anna Zaires

Forced into a pair-bond with a despot she despises, Brenya wakes imprisoned in a glittering palace at the mercy of her new mate—none other than the tyrannical Jacques Bernard. But the diabolical Commodore of Bernard Dome has done far more than simply claim the reluctant Omega. 

Weaving a twisted web of manipulation, he has also used her to imprison another—a dangerous adversary with the power to destroy and desecrate her city. The infamous terrorist, Jules Havel.

A man who should never be crossed. A deadly, dangerous male Jacques has underestimated. A rabid dog. A bloodthirsty villain eager to punish Brenya personally for drawing his gaze.

One she must free from Jacques’s prison before he chooses to enact revenge upon her people for the slight.

Standing at the crossroads of loyalty to her people and defiance of her mate, Brenya knows that the fate of all under the Dome rests on her ability to appease the soulless monster below.

Can she find a way to satisfy the insatiable desires of her captor and save her people from impending chaos? Unveil secrets in this riveting story of love, power, and the perilous game of submission.

This second edition of CORRUPTED is a full-length novel by USA Today bestselling author Addison Cain, featuring new content and extended scenes. These pages are raw, exciting, and riddled with complication and emotion. 

Awakening to the most glorious feelings of delight, Brenya smiled, nestling closer to what made the world perfect and new. Warm and protected, surrounded by scent, everything was lovely.

It seemed she floated, strong fingers tripping down her spine as a satiny purr moved her to sigh.

Fulfillment, conquest. Triumphant emotions stronger than any she’d ever known brought a satisfied flush to her cheeks and made her hum.

Until she realized… those feelings weren’t hers.

A sharp inhale. Sucking in air as if suddenly drowning, Brenya found her body was not floating. No, it was in a great deal of pain, pinned, and suffering. Mentally? There was some oppressive force shuffling where it would, while what made her Brenya was left flailing in the river of another person’s all-consuming emotions.

“Shhhhhh.”

It hit her stronger, the alien sentiment. It swept her panic aside as if her own much weaker feelings were meaningless.

“Mon chou, don’t fight it.”

A forceful psyche prevailed.

Jacques.

The illusion of peace crumbled, a terrible reality of suffering and loss rushing in.

Finding herself back in his rooms, in his bed, naked, was shock enough to stop her heart. Realizing none of those wonderful feelings had been real, shattered it.

This was not right. She was supposed to be free. She’d escaped Jacques’s clutches, flown a craft. Why was she not in Thólos, repairing their Dome?

Instead, someone was inside her skin. And though she held her fingers up before her face and found she could control them, the invasion was there all the same.

He had occupied every last part of her, filled her with his loathsome self.

“Take a deep breath.” Jacques’s hand came to her chest, the weight of his splayed fingers warm where her heart battered against her ribs.

Like a marionette on strings, she obeyed.

“Good, now take another,” he purred at her ear before nuzzling at the soft, vulnerable flesh at the crook of her neck.

Calm—he was inundating her body with manipulative calm.

Brenya’s next blink led to warm drips marking her temples. Staring up in horror at the canopy that caged her in, she whispered, “What have you done to me?”

Shifting his weight, the careful cage of the Alpha’s muscular limbs closed her in all the more soundly. Jacques, golden hair hanging loose and spilling around her face, smiled. Brushing his lips over her eyes, he kissed away her tears. “I made you mine, Brenya. Completely. My pair-bonded mate.”

The pain in her body gave way to the far more agonizing mental tidal wave of abject misery to have her horror confirmed. Scant memory began to weave itself together into a patchwork of her complete failure. Estrous, the ship, bottles of water rolling over the floor… the Beta warning her not to open the door between them… so she might be safe from assault should he lose control. Because she had been exuding an intoxicating cloud of pheromones in her heat, and their effect on him was almost as strong as their effect on her.

Hours of unbearable pain while she suffered for touch.

The recollection was foggy, with only flashes she might piece together, but a thrusting body had been on top of her. Not the Beta, who she’d inadvertently kidnapped, but an Alpha. A force greater than the unbearable pain of estrous filled her and promised relief if she would but beg, slaver, and obey.

The base, primitive, breeding mind wanted nothing but to be despoiled, if that would end the agony. There was no thought but to present, to strain for a knot.

But the one whose scent alone promised relief refused her. He brutalized her. He dragged her deeper into hell over hours of violent sex where he would not give her Omega body what it required. During that time, there was no way in which he did not degrade her, twisting her up into a mindless toy he could debase and laugh at.

Before his audience.

How could anyone do such a thing to someone who suffered so deeply?

Aghast, her jaw fell slack. Eyes wide, she dared look at the monster. “You tortured me…”

The Alpha’s triumph was replaced with treacherous resentment. Voice growing dangerous, Jacques said, “That meager vessel was no match for the speed of my ships. You would have never made it to Thólos. And, Brenya, never forget—I have an army of Alphas bred and conditioned to throw themselves to their deaths upon their Commodore’s orders. Would you sacrifice their lives for your whims?”

Small. So small and so lost, Brenya felt new tears warm her eyes. “They would not have been in danger if you would have let me go.”

The blow was not physical; it was mental in its temper, battering her sorry resistance and crushing her will into a pulp. His voice was no less aggressive. “It is my duty to possess you! Fate itself did not side with your reckless notion. Instead, it threw you into estrous so that your mate might find you and correct your behavior before your actions resulted in the annihilation of your people. Thólos is forbidden. There are powers that would march against Bernard Dome if you had so much as set a cute toe on their land.”

Viciousness flashing in his eyes, Jacques snarled, “Understand this, Brenya. even if it meant the destruction of our people, I would have invaded Thólos myself to drag you back to my side. I would forsake Bernard Dome to ruin. You are that precious to me!”

Precious?

Deeply shamed, memories of what she had done before Jacques’s bio-suit-clad soldiers surfaced. Precious indeed. The very soldiers who watched her full degradation while they restrained another—a Beta who had told her not to open the door between them. With his unnaturally vibrant blue eyes, licking his lips as she’d moaned, begged, and scraped her body raw on a dirty floor in search of release.

Shivering despite the heat of the Alpha pinning her down, Brenya closed her eyes to him, her teeth chattering.

Jacques allowed her small rebellion, warming his bonded Omega’s bruised body with careful strokes of his hand.

Her compulsive recoil from his touch, how she wilted, ended his purr.

Amazed, he scoffed at her sorry retreat. “I sense your dissatisfaction. You mistakenly believe that I will hurt you. I can practically read your thoughts, naughty girl.”

If that were true… if he could see just how deeply he disgusted her… he was going to hurt her. He was going to turn her into that mindless sex object and make her beg.

Sobbing began. She would surely die if he did that to her a second time.

“And now you’re scared, worried, lost—internally reaching out for your mate to comfort your fears. As you should.” As if to show how much power he truly wielded, Jacques forgot his anger and filled her with his joy instead. “Mon chou, I never want you to fear me.”

His manipulation was so outright that resistance was impossible. It came out as little more than a sorry sniff and shaking lower lip.

He spoke what he sensed, even daring to sound surprised. “You don’t believe me?” 

The Alpha had only just said he would forsake everyone under the Dome to some awful fate just so he could drag her back under him. It was insane. It was venal. She had already lived with him long enough to know better. Already, he had harmed her friends, forced her to exsist under the shadow of his jealousy, knowing that so much as an accidental slip of one male’s name would lead to the execution of her former tech, George. And then she had run away in her terror, abandoning her friend to his fate.

She had escaped him… and he had caught her. Bonded her.

And there was no undoing it.

The consequences would be grisly.

Tears fell in earnest as she spoke the truth aloud. “You’re going to kill George.”

Hushing her, it seemed as if the Alpha attempted to placate. “No, mon chou.”

Daring to meet his eye, she gave him a pathetic, “No?”

He kissed her tears away and smiled. “Do not fear that there will be further retaliation for your recent… excursion. It would serve no purpose. You were punished for your transgressions and earned my forgiveness. Our bond is fully formed now; it is eternal. George is meaningless at this point. Though exercise wisdom, never speak his name again. Don’t even think it. Forget about him and love only me.”

There was no way to trust such a statement from the Alpha. Brenya had seen just how loyal Jacques Bernard could be. He had betrayed Annette, his oldest friend. He had threatened to kill sweet, harmless George. Knowing better than to trust the Commodore, Brenya would follow his rules and placate if that might keep her friend safe.

So, she agreed, “The Beta is meaningless.”

It seemed exactly what Jacques desired to hear, his eyes alight and a pleased smirk stealing across his mouth. Arm slipping around her middle, the Alpha pulled her flush to his firm body. Moving against her as if to entice, he began laying kisses across her collarbones. “I will prove it to you beyond a doubt.”

Fighting a deep-seated sense of revulsion, she tried to relax her body and allow his unwelcome touch, offering one lowly protest. “I’m in pain.”

With a husky chuckle, he nipped, seemingly unconcerned with whatever the bond showed him now that he was distracted by a growing erection. “I don’t doubt it. In estrous, you were a very greedy girl. I will remind you of it and wash away these unnecessary fears.”

All she had to do was surrender and try not to cry.

To promise herself she would never think of the nightmares of her estrous again.

“You were glorious through all of it, even when you refused to behave. You are unbelievably beautiful, Brenya. Do you not understand why they covet you? George, Ambassador Havel—” Suckling at her nipple, he made sounds of pleasure before finishing his thought. “—they may have tasted this, but it’s mine now. Never doubt that you are mine fully.”

There was something in his words which sparked another hideous memory that left her bloodless and ashamed. One that could not be true. Jules Havel telling her not to open the door between them, the Beta fighting his biology in order to talk her through the nightmare of estrous.

How he had treated her with respect. Whispering the name of another woman, Rebecca, when her pheromones had grown too strong, and he’d been forced to retreat.

She had not pursued. Despite her need, Brenya had not opened the door between them.

Jacques had.

And he had forced Ambassador Jules Havel to witness everything Jacques had done to her. The mewing and begging for touch when she’d been mindlessly trapped in the throes of estrous, how she’d rolled around in the filth of her slick on the filthy floor, desperate for cock. He had seen Jacques viciously fuck her, over and over, while the Alpha continuously refused her the knot required to end her suffering.

He’d seen her beg.

And the Beta too, against his will, had fallen prey to estrous pheromones. He’d grown hard, and then he’d grown hungry.

His unwitting desperation to fuck her had been used against him… just as she had been used. 

Jacques had ordered the mindless Beta to be released. He’d allowed the Ambassador to wreak havoc upon her body. Hands parting the fleshy globes of her ass, Jacques had held her open so that Jules Havel might shove his cock in her unclaimed hole.

And the Beta had penetrated her fully, roughly, thrusting even as she unwittingly screamed for more.

Both he and Jacques had fucked her together… Alpha cock in her cunt, Beta cock up her ass… until she’d finally passed out.

Because, in estrous, she was an insatiable slut who had been more interested in being used than in protecting a Beta who had made it clear that he had a Rebecca.

Who made it clear he did not want her to open the door between them.

Her actions had led to a far more horrible outcome than Brenya might have imagined. In the most disgusting of ways, she had caused harm to Jules Havel.

There was no pity in Jacques’s triumph. “Had I not loved you so much, I never could have abided sharing. But fate offered the perfect opportunity to solve the riddle of Chancellor Shepherd’s threats and the incursion of Ambassador Havel. I will even admit that it was exciting, watching you take us both at once, knowing the outcome would forever play in my favor. Feeling another stretch you, hearing you come undone. Knowing that every thrust he pushed into your perfect body tied him deeper into my service.”

Rubbing his thickening cock over her lower lips, Jacques whispered, “I came harder than I ever had before… and Gods, so did you.”

If only she could die of shame.

As if oblivious or uncaring of her internal horror, Jacques described the sexual encounter with Jules in detail, his fingers reaching down to play between her dry folds as he did so.

Noises came from the male that awakened her body despite her mind. A little slick formed, easing his entry when his cockhead sought to penetrate. 

It hurt.

And felt so good.

All at once.

Physical sensation gave her something to anchor in so she would not have to face her sins. But the memory hovered, bringing with it glimpses of the feelings and the remembrance of another man’s grunts at her ear.

She had been so far gone in her estrous high, that Brenya had been incapable of reconciling the sensations. Jacques inside her, another pair of hands taking hold at the behest of the Alpha.

The Beta had been as mindless as she, and Jacques had used them both for his own gain.

The Alpha who claimed to desire her above all others, who was half insane in the keeping of her, had fundamentally forced another male to fuck her during estrous.

Even as Jacques thrust cautiously forward, even though he purred and petted and used all his little tricks to make her body sing, her mind was caught up on the wrongness of what had happened on the ship.

There was a sob when she whispered, “He didn’t want to, Jacques. Why would you do that to him?”

Tongue slipping out to tease the shell of her ear, Jacques purred all the louder. “I know what’s best for my rebellious, naughty Omega.”

Exhaling in an effort to handle the discomfort of the stretch as Jacques forced her to take the full length of him, Brenya found she had no will left to fight, that her body was weak, and that it did feel good no matter how much she wished it did not.

“That’s right. I can make my defiant Omega sweet as cream.” He took her breast in his warm palm, kneading bruised flesh, withdrawing his cock before easing deeper with the second controlled thrust. “Before you know it, you’ll whisper how much you love me.”

Closing her eyes, because she could not close her ears, Brenya grew limp.

“That’s right.”

Her nipple distended, peaking under a rolling pinch. With little more than a few minutes of slow fucking, she already began to feel the early flutters of climax.

Soft and easy, the ripple of her sheath drew out his throbbing knot. It rubbed against all the worst places inside her, vibrated with the Alpha’s groans, and fed her pleasure, even if the muscles that clenched around him were tender, even if her heart was not in it.

His was. His heart was completely taken with her.

When it was done and his knot tied her to him, Jacques traced his finger over the gash on her shoulder and let out a satisfied sigh. “Now that you are awake, I’m going to kiss every wound, wash every scratch. Don’t be alarmed by what you see in the mirror. Claiming marks are supposed to scar. Like the rest of you, they are beautiful.”

Absently, she reached up to touch her neck where, with the echoes of orgasm fading, she hurt the most. Open, sticky wounds met her fingertips, wounds left when a stranger’s teeth had taken hold in his frenzy.

And the shame came back, stealing her breath with its force.

Warm palm wrapping her shoulder, shielding aching flesh in reverent fingers, Jacques smiled down at his impaled mate. “Brenya, it is important that you understand this. Jules Havel is the righthand man of the terrorist who destroyed Thólos. That is who you kidnapped and thought to take there—a real monster who has murdered millions of people. His leader has announced to every standing Dome that any assistance or scavenge of Thólos would spark instant conflict. If your stolen ship had made it as far as the southern continent, you would have started a war Bernard Dome cannot win. Everyone you know, your George included, would have died. Their regime is merciless, and they have a strain of Red Consumption in their control.”

That could not be true.

Jules was nice…. He had a Rebecca.

But it was true. She could feel the sincerity of such a statement through the pair-bond. Observing the man who had caught her in his trap, shamed her before his soldiers, and shared her with a stranger, Brenya saw that his arrogant playfulness was gone.

“So, why would you let him…?” Why had he ordered his soldiers to set such a man free, and offered her body to him? Jacques had encouraged the Beta to fuck her, to bite her, to join in on his fun. “Why?”

“Hush now, Brenya. You misunderstand.” He kissed her quickly, cuddling the repulsed female. “Please listen to me when I tell you that everything, every choice I made, was in your best interest.”

She didn’t want his games or misdirection. She wanted answers. “Why did you let the Ambassador touch me?”

“Can you not tell?”

“No.” Growing horror brought fresh tears, because there was something whispering in her mind. Something about that moment on the ship that Jacques had manipulated her into. Something about the pain in her neck. Her horror grew. “No.”

“He won’t be able to hurt you. Ever. The pair-bond will prevent it.”

It was too much. There was too much inside her, too much to bear. “What did you do, Jacques?”

“I put a rabid dog on a leash.”