Poison Ivy Ch. 01

Her palm reached up to cup one side of Ruckus's dirty face. "Look at me," she instructed, using her best domineering medic voice, which was mostly ineffectual, as her voice could only deepen half an octave or so. "Look at me, and don't take your eyes off mine, okay?" Ruckus nodded, his face cool and clammy, the fingers covering his wound trembling violently.

Without looking away, Ivy pulled his hand from his side and poured the grey powder over his exposed abdomen. The substance liquified and expanded, sealing the hole in his flank and staunching the flow of blood. Ruckus threw his head back and howled. "I'm sorry," she breathed, wiping the sweat from his brow. "I know it hurts. I'm sorry."

She instructed one of his buddies kneeling at his side to keep talking to him, to keep him conscious until they made it back to base. She stood up and turned around, scanning the remaining soldiers for injuries that required her attention. She took two steps, her eyes already honed in on and assessing a gnarly looking compound fracture, and walked straight into that goddamned fucking brick wall. She was really getting sick of that.

Hands that could easily snap her neck in two clamped down around her arms and shook her until her teeth rattled. He crouched down to meet her at eye level. "Slow the fuck down, Omega," his low voice growled.

Omega?

Something about the commanding tone of voice made her take a deep breath and cleared her head a fraction. Had she really just told an officer, an Alpha officer, to get the fuck off of her? Heat rose to her cheeks. As calmly as she could, she spoke to him, bracing her hands against his unyielding chest as he continued to grip her shoulders like she might run again. And, quite honestly, she might have, if he'd just fucking let her go.

"I have work to do here, Sir," she said, her voice shaking despite her best efforts at sounding reasonable and well controlled. "You haven't replaced me yet. I'm still a medic here. These men need my help. Please let me go." His stormy blue-grey eyes bore into hers, searching her face, then looking her over.

His grip softened. "You're hurt."

She blinked. "I am?"

He gestured to her shoulder. How had she not noticed that before? Pain blossomed and spread from the bullet lodged in the meaty part of her upper arm. She reached her other arm across her body and touched it. Her fingers came away wet with blood. "Oh that," she said softly, her voice oddly high pitched and muffled. A trail of bright red sank into the camouflaged fabric of her uniform. The Alpha had his back to her as he rifled in her pack, pulling out a bag of sterile dressings. "That's nothing," she giggled as he turned back around to face her. Blinking rapidly to clear her vision of those weird black spots, she registered sharp pain as he pressed the sterile gauze to her injured shoulder and frowned. The world spun for a minute, making a kaleidoscope out of all the blurry spots in her vision. "I'm fine," she breathed, trying to push his arm away. "Let me..."

He caught her as her legs gave out, and the world went dark.

.......................................................

Images of blood and gore pulled her to the surface. She pushed past the pain in her shoulder and the pounding in her head. Her eyes fluttered open and she sat up, inspecting the room around her. Irritation flared, and she gritted her teeth. This was not her medical tent. It wasn't even the small barracks she shared with her eight medics.

Actually, she didn't know where the fuck she was at all. It looked like a room. Like a big, giant room. It was probably twice the size of the modest apartment she shared with the occasional roommate back home in Lostra. A bed the size of a fucking supply truck sat pompously in the middle of a polished marble floor. In the far corner, a clawfoot tub dominated what she could see of an elegant washroom. She was curled up, wrapped in a blanket that felt amazingly soft against her skin, on a plush couch that was bigger than her bed.

Honestly, the whole room was being passive aggressive. Nobody needed this much space. Everything about this room was oversized. Including the domineering Alpha sprawled over a leather chair across from her, watching her with a blank expression.

"You," she hissed. She paused, catching herself. "Sir." She spat the title out like a moldy piece of fruit.

"Yes, me," he replied calmly. "Lieutenant General Logan. You may call me Hunter."

She looked at him suspiciously. A terrible sense of foreboding made her feel nauseated. "Why would I call you that, Sir? I'm still a medic. I'm still a corporal."

He was silent. Her temper came flying back into the room like an avenging dragon. "I'm still a corporal, right Lt. General? Where have you taken me? Why have you taken me? What the fuck is going on?!" Okay now the dragon was turning against her, making her panic, when it should have been targeted at him. Stupid fucking dragon.

She sprang off the couch and looked down at her body. Her very, very naked body. She channeled her inner dragon, and screeched.

"What. The. Fuck." She grabbed the blanket from the couch and tugged it around her, tucking the end in above the curve of her breasts. "WHY am I naked, Lieutenant General? Who undressed me?! Was it YOU? I wasn't finished out there, I had a job to do!" Angry tears made her eyes burn, and her vision blurred. All the while, he just sat there, watching her fret and pace. "You can't just take people! You said after formation, I had until formation to do my job, and you just took me away from my unit!" She rushed forward to where he sat on his chair like some pretentious king and began pummeling his chest with ineffectual fists. It was irrational, the man was built like a brick, but she was furious and needed to hit something as hard as she could, and he seemed as good of a something as anything else.

His only reaction to her tirade was a slightly raised eyebrow. It infuriated her. "Take me back! Now!" she demanded. "I want to go home!"

Was she being a little bratty? Probably. Did she give a flying fuck?

Nope.

He caught both of her wrists, holding them firmly as he pulled her onto his lap. She kicked out and bit at him, but if he was bothered by her wild thrashing about, he didn't let on. A sound that was not a sound began to vibrate throughout the room. She'd heard something similar back in the medical tent when he had first barged in to destroy her world. It sent shards of ice into her veins that met and cooled the fire in her blood. A deep, rumbling sensation reverberated through her core as he held her to his chest. She stilled and calmed, lulled by the appeasing resonance.

"What are you doing?" she asked quietly, her eyelids drooping lazily. His hand released her wrists and he played with a strand of her hair that had fallen across her eyes. "I'm purring for you, little Omega."

Omega. He had said it again. First in Chid forest, when they had been under attack, and now here in this oversized room. But she wasn't Omega. She was Beta. Omegas were women of staggering beauty, rare gems in a world of mediocrity. To be honest, Ivy had always felt a little sad for them. Granted, what little she knew about them centered around their spoiled, overindulged existence. But their lives were so limited, so... restrained. As Ivy understood it, they had no choice in who they were mated to. They were chosen and parceled out like Christmas gifts to privileged and accomplished Alpha officers and high-ranking officials, or used as bribes in top-level political deals.

But Ivy certainly was not one of them.

"Why do you keep calling me that?" she asked, one side of her face pressed to his chest where she could best feel the wicked purr against her skin. She was laid out across his lap, her toned legs pulled over the arm of the chair as he stroked a hand up and down her thigh. She felt him shrug. "Because you are Omega."

"No," she argued, feeling her righteous anger melting away even as she bickered. "I'm Beta. My father was Beta, my mother was a --"

"Your mother," the giant mass of muscle with a mouth rumbled above her, "was Omega. And your father, your real father, was Alpha. The man who raised you did you a great disservice, hiding you away. You're lucky we found you when we did."

Ivy scoffed. "Sure. Lucky. This is a joke, right? Or maybe I'm dreaming. I was shot, after all. I'm delirious. This is a bad dream, and when I wake up, I'll be back with my medics." And maybe it was a dream. But as he pressed her back against his chest, that heavenly resonance continuing its divine rumble, she caught his scent again, and calmed further. For fuck's sake. How could a man smell so good? It didn't seem fair. She debated giving herself a good sniff, but didn't see any way she could go about it without him noticing.

He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. "You're approaching your first estrous, precious girl. Had you been left with the Betas, it would have become very dangerous. For you, and for them. And I might have lost you."

Thoughts swirled lackadaisically in her mind, like water circling a drain. She was getting nowhere. She couldn't think straight with the purr he was projecting invading every fiber of her being. Instead, she just chased his words around and around in her head. He was talking about things she simply didn't understand. Estrous? She thought she may have heard the word once or twice in biology class, but she had no idea what it had to do with her.

"Can you please stop that? I can't fucking think when you're doing that." She tried to be angry, or exasperated, but it was hard to maintain her temper when she was all but snuggling into his chest. She didn't really want him to stop, and, shockingly, he didn't listen. The aromatic bully just pulled her tighter against him and purred louder.

Dick.

"You're distraught. This is all a shock to you. I understand. But after tonight, the foul language will stop." The way his voice caressed her skin with its silken texture was intoxicating. His words were fucked up, she thought, but the way he said them was marvelous.

"I need to go home," she whined. The hand playing with her hair stilled. He threaded his fingers through chocolate locks at the base of her skull and tugged, forcing her gaze back to meet his. The purr stopped, and panic immediately rushed in to take its place and flood her senses. Another new sound echoed and reverberated through her, a much less pleasant sound, a low, predatory growl that sent a chill up and down her spine and stabbed into her belly. Shaking hands flew to her lower abdomen where she felt like she'd been split open, and she moaned, pulling her legs in closer to her chest.

"You have no idea what you need, precious girl," his voice rumbled above her. He released another deep growl, slicing into her again before she could recover. "Stop that," she panted. "Please stop."

The hand that had been resting on her thigh travelled higher and gripped the blanket where she had tucked the end into the crook between her breasts. With one firm tug, the blanket fell away, leaving her bare to his searing, stormy gaze. She yelped and rushed to cover herself, unsure of which female bits were more important to hide, and settled for crossing one arm over her chest and the other down her center. She squirmed, trying to wriggle off his lap without re-exposing herself. Those fucking arms of steel did nothing to help her down and just held her tighter, and soon that ridiculous purr thing had rendered her boneless and defenseless.

One oversized hand continued to cradle and massage the back of her skull as his other moved up the inside of her thigh. She jumped, startled, when she felt his fingers breach virginal territory. Another sharp growl sliced across her lower belly and she groaned. A sudden, warm gush of fluid coated the inside of her thighs and drenched the thick fingers poised at her entrance, his thumb gently circling the sensitive bundle of nerves she had mostly ignored up until this very uncomfortable moment. Her face burned with embarrassment.

Had she just frickin' pissed herself?!

Terrible blue-grey eyes never left her face as he breached her core with a single finger, officially violating no-man's land. The sudden sensation of being filled made her shudder and grab his wrist, trying to move away. A tightening grip in her hair, a flash of warning in narrowed eyes, and she stilled, groaning as a second finger joined the first and pushed past her channel's resistant contractions. Mercilessly, he began thrusting, dilated green eyes looking down to watch thick digits disappear between her legs as he worked them in and out of her, never ceasing his thumb's patient stroking of her clit. Distantly, she noticed the deep slash across his forearm. Too-bright eyes brimming with humiliated tears looked back up to face him.

"Please stop," she whispered, hating the foreign heat that bloomed and expanded with each skillful touch.

"Shh, clever girl. Let me give you what you need." With a gentle tug of the hair caught in his grip, he made her gasp, her back arched, her breast pressing up into his hot, waiting mouth. A devious tongue flicked across her nipple as he sucked, breathing a laugh when his teeth nipped at the hardening bud and she yelped. Releasing her captured peak with an audible pop, he moved to repeat the assault on her other breast, for all the world acting as though she was his favorite flavored lollipop, all the while working his hand between her legs. She writhed and moaned, trying to move away from and closer to the terrifying sensations all at once. His fingers paused inside of her as they curled and stretched. His own breath slow and measured, his wicked mouth trailed lazy kisses and playful bites from her chest up to her neck. Another demonic growl made the skin beneath his lips burn and tingle as more hot liquid rushed to her opening to drench his working hand. Particularly sharp teeth clamped down on the sensitive curve of her neck and she jerked, more from surprise than real pain.

A painful stretching sensation accompanied a third finger thrust into her already too-full pussy. She yelped and tried to climb away from the suddenly overwhelming pressure, but he only tightened his grip on her hair and held fast. Wicked teeth grazed up her neck until his lips were pressed to her ear. "Relax, Ivy," he whispered, his velvety voice saturated in dark honey. "It will hurt less later if you give in to it now."

What the fuck does that mean? What the fuck is happening!?

No time was given to think over his dread-inducing words before his fingers suddenly twisted to tap and stroke a spot inside of her that was apparently made of dynamite, and she nearly jumped off his lap as sharply pleasurable sensations coursed through her veins like the sweetest poison. She moaned and arched her back as he ground the heel of his palm against her, the new pressure on her clit enough to draw out little gasps and mewls but not quite enough to bring her any closer to a destination she didn't recognize but desperately wanted to reach. Something very hard and very thick pressed into her ass as her hips moved to meet his thrusts in an attempt to get just a little more friction. Now in the depths of something she didn't at all understand, her teeth bit down hard on her lower lip as he growled into her ear, drawing another gush of fluid from between trembling thighs.

"Your body recognizes it's mate, clever girl," his deep voice rumbled straight through her shuddering body. Her core spasmed as his fingers slammed deep, so deep inside of her that she felt something crack open beneath her ribs. A desperate sob clawed its way out of her chest just as her body began falling from a great height, exhilarating and terrifying and, with her luck, probably fatal. "That's it," he whispered, his hand giving her that extra little friction she so desperately needed. "I've got you. Let go now."

Her mouth opened wide around a silent scream. Shaking so violently she thought she might fall apart at the seams, her body was devoured by a heat that washed over her like liquid flame, and with another strangled sob, her world imploded and she fell back, limp and trembling, into waiting arms.

A warm blanket was tucked tight around her as she stared mindlessly at the high turquoise ceiling. Absently, she dragged her fingers across a coated inner thigh and the sticky warmth there, frowning when she looked to see pink-tinged fluid on the hand held in front of her face.

"A little blood," he answered her unspoken question, "from your virgin membranes. And slick, an Omega's way of preparing for her Alpha."

Sleepy eyes blinked as she tried to process his words. Soothing strokes fell across her brow as the room fell to silence. After a while, and the return of some of her senses and a few coherent thoughts, her eyes found his and narrowed, her lips baring her teeth in an outraged snarl. "What the fuck did you just do to me?" she hissed, pushing closed fists against his chest and wriggling to get out of his grip and off his damned lap.

He didn't fight her, and before she could balance herself, her limbs tangled and she fell to his feet with a surprised grunt. Scrambling away from him, her blanket still trapped on his lap, she scoured the room for a way to hide her nakedness. The best she could do was to grab one of the impossibly soft pillows lining the couch/bed. She clutched it to her as she stood up and backed away from him, looking for the exit.

"You'll never get away with this," she seethed, inching her way to the nearest door. She wasn't sure what she would do once she got out of the room, especially buck naked if not for a throw pillow smashed to her chest, but she would worry about that little snafu once she was away from the giant pervert staring her down.

"Who's your boss, buster?" she demanded as she reached the door and grasped the handle. "Because I'm gonna march right into his fucking office and watch as he rips off those stars and hands you back your fucking butter bars," she hissed, nodding to the insignia on the collar of his uniform. She yanked the door open and did a double take. A deep walk-in closet filled with a full wardrobe of women's clothing stood where she'd hoped to find a hallway. She blanched and spun around to where he still sat, leaning back now and watching her with an amused expression on his hatefully gorgeous face.

"You have a mate, and you pulled that shit with me?!" she screeched, a deep flush creeping up her chest and neck. As awful as this new development was, silver lining, it did give her a way to clothe herself before she went looking for his commanding officer. She had a feeling she'd be taken a touch more seriously if her ass wasn't mooning every single person she passed. Willing her neck to lengthen so she could keep an eye on the beast, she stretched her fingers and grabbed blindly at the first garment she touched. A simple, scooped neck white dress followed her retreating arm. It was shorter and more revealing than anything she would ever wear, but it would do just fine until she could get back to her Battalion and put her old uniform back on. She stepped into it quickly, wincing a little as she pulled her arms through the sleeveless top. A twinge of pain brought her gaze to her shoulder where she finally noticed the white bandage that wrapped around her upper arm. Oh yeah, she had gotten shot, hadn't she? Well, shit.