20

aurelie

I WOKE UP to the curtains in my room being thrown open.

I grunted, squirming around on the bed. Oh, okay, so my ass was actually a little sore after that marathon knotting session last night. Guess I should have figured that was going to happen.

It was Johannes, silhouetted against the window, his long hair hanging around his shoulders. "Morning, omega."

I grimaced. "What's going on?"

"It's a surprise," he said. "For you and me and no one else."

I sat up. Hmm. Interesting. "And Dmitri knows about this?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Neither does Corentin or Nikolai. Well, I did try to talk to Nikolai about it, but he's pissed off at me because of something I said last night, so he wouldn't open the door. But Nik and I will work it out, no worries. And he doesn't like horses anyway."

"Horses?" I said, sitting up straighter.

"I know you ride," he said.

I did. We hadn't had horses on the grounds at my family's home, but I'd owned a horse that resided in nearby stables, and I used to go there a few times a week to ride. I hadn't been riding in a year or two, though. It had fallen by the wayside. "It's been a while," I said. "I don't have the right clothes or anything."

"That's not a problem," he said, nodding across the room.

There, sitting out on a chair was a complete set of equestrian clothing with breeches, boots, and a jacket. It looked as if it would fit me perfectly. It was brand new.

"We'll ride out to a spot I know about for breakfast," he said. "Just you and me."

I grinned. "That sounds fun."

"I guess I ruined the surprise."

I giggled. "That's okay. I don't really like surprises."

"Noted, omega," he said, smiling at me. "Get dressed. I'll meet you in the hall in ten minutes."

"But… I need to shower or whatever," I said. "I'm all—"

"You smell like Dmitri, which does not even bother me at all," he said in a rumbly voice. "Dmitri's scent? Let's agree, it's fucking amazing."

I giggled again. "Definitely is." I hadn't exactly wanted to wash it off me.

He crossed the room, bent down, and kissed me in the bed, and I realized we'd kissed less than five times, and I'd never even kissed Nikolai. Something about the way this was all progressing wasn't exactly right, was it? He ran his nose over my neck and whispered that my omega smell was delectable as well.

I wrapped my arms around him. "I want to smell like you, too. I want your scent all over me."

"We can definitely make that happen, omega," he said with a mischievous smile.

I got dressed and met him in the hallway.

He reached down and intertwined our fingers, and I liked that, just holding hands. I hadn't had much of that in any of this, sweet, simple courtship sorts of things. I beamed up at him and we went down to the stables together.

The horse he had for me was a dappled little mare whose name was Strawberry. I liked her right away. His horse was a mare, too, brown all over, named Peaches. "They like fruit names here," he informed me.

I giggled.

The air outside was chill in the morning. It was spring, but up here in the mountains, it was quite cold. There was frost all over the ground. We set out into the brisk air, our horses blowing out clouds of warm vapor from their nostrils, and our breath visible as well.

It was nice, though. The air was clean, and it was early, and it felt as if the entire world belonged to us—him and me—and that we were on an adventure together.

I felt as if some part of me, maybe a part of me that I'd buried after I presented, was waking up and getting filled in this moment.

We galloped off together, and it felt like freedom, and I realized how badly I'd been craving that feeling.

We rode through a path in the woods, frosty-covered branches on either side of us, a world of beauty sparkling in the early light of morning. We went over a bridge that crossed a sparkling stream and through fields and over hills and into valleys.

Eventually, we arrived at a building with decorative exposed wooden beam framework. There was a sign that proclaimed it the Rothburg House. There was actually a spot to tie up the horses, complete with a trough for them, as if we'd stepped back in time two hundred years.

I was charmed.

He offered me his arm and I took it, grinning widely as we made our way inside.

The staff recognized us immediately and ushered us through the dining room, which was pretty sparsely peopled, actually, less than ten customers, and into a private room in the back where a little table was set up for us.

There were fresh flowers in a vase in the middle and a hot pot of coffee steaming and waiting along with cream and sugar.

We sat down and poured ourselves coffee, stirring in the cream and sugar and the waitress came and set down glasses of beer in front of us, like this was normal, and Johannes laughed at me.

"We'll have sausages and pretzels, of course," he told the waitress. To me, he said, "It's the best thing here. It's a bit early for it. More of a mid-morning brunch-type meal, but it'd be too crowded later."

"Beer for breakfast?" I said, after the waitress left.

"I don't think people up here in the mountains think of it as something alcoholic," he said. "This is a very light beer, a hefeweizen. Taste it."

I did. It was light, and it was good, too.

"Beer's a staple food, like bread," he said, drinking half of his glass.

"Bread in a glass," I said, drinking more of mine, giggling.

"Exactly right," he said, holding his glass up to toast me.

We clinked glasses and I drank more coffee.

The waitress came right in with the sausages—which were light-colored, almost white—and big, thick pretzels along with mustard for dipping. Everything was delicious. The sausages were flavorful and tasted like bacon ("Yup, that's in there, along with veal, I think," Johannes told me) and the pretzels and mustard were a perfect accompaniment. I ate every bit of it on my plate and finished my beer, too.

While we ate, Johannes asked me questions. Where had I grown up, what was my favorite food, was I missing my family, what had my sisters thought about the wedding, all sorts of things. I hadn't realized how much, lately, no one had been asking me about things like that.

Dmitri was focused on me all the time, and Corentin had been, too, but it was different than this. It felt like possession, I supposed, and this felt like… courtship.

That was Johannes. Since the first time I'd met him, he'd made me feel at ease. I'd felt appreciated around him. He'd been considerate. He'd been interested in me.

I remembered how much I'd wanted him before the heat, before Dmitri's bite. I remembered how I hadn't even been sure I wanted Dmitri at all.

"Hey," he said. "What are you thinking about? You got all serious there, and your scent changed?"

I shrugged. "Just everything, I guess. This whole thing with all of us. I was thinking about how much I wanted you when we first met, and how Dmitri managed to completely cock-block that and drown our connection out. And I love Dmitri, I do, but…"

He nodded. "Yeah, yeah. I get it."

"Because you love him?"

He laughed. "Actually, last night, after you ran off, I told him I hated him."

I winced.

"Well, everyone was hating everyone else. I mean, Dmitri and Corentin hate each other, and I'm annoyed with Dmitri and Nik and I are in a fight—"

"And it's all my fault," I said. "You three were fine until I showed up. As for Corentin, he'd be happy enough not to be involved with anyone except me. And Dmitri would be happy if I gave Corentin up—what do you think about Corentin?"

He shrugged. "I don't know him. At all. Like at all ."

"From what you know, though?"

"Seems like a dick," he said.

I groaned.

"You asked," he said.

I nodded. "I did." I considered. "I mean, he's kind of like that, actually. But with me, he's sweet." I thought about that some more. "They're actually both that way, both Dmitri and Corentin."

"This thing I did this morning, I don't think Dmitri will like it," he said. He pointed at me. "I need you to ask him about something."

"Okay?" I said. "Are we changing the subject?"

"No, not exactly," he said. "I'm working on a theory."

"I'm very confused," I said, grinning at him. "But tell me more."

"Well, so, last night, I was trying to make sense of all this dominant stuff, and that's what pissed Nikolai off, I think. I guess I was trying to figure out why I can flip a switch like that, why I can be dominant in certain situations or why I can submit in other situations."

"I want to be dominant," I said, all in a rush, embarrassed to be admitting it out loud.

His scent rose powerfully, and he reached across the table. "Do you?" His voice was almost coy.

I bit down on my bottom lip and nodded.

"Let's get out of here," he said.

"Your theory, though! I'm supposed to ask Dmitri something, and you haven't told me what."

"It can wait," he said. "I'll tell you all of that later, while I'm knotted inside you in the afterglow."

"Oh," I said, perfuming. "Are we going to… just you and me?"

"Not if you don't want to, obviously, but I got us a room here," he said.

"I do want," I said, reaching out to take his hand. "Oh, Johannes, I really, really want your knot. So much. We've been waiting too long."

His voice was husky. "We really have, sweet omega."

I got up and went to him. He tucked me in under his arm, and we went up the steps together to a cozy little room in the inn. There wasn't much in there except a quilt-swathed bed and a fireplace. He sat down on the bed and tugged me down on his lap.

I straddled him and we started kissing.

"So," he said, toying with a lock of my hair. "You want to be dominant?"

I giggled. "I don't even know how."

"You can practice on me if you want," he said. "You want to?"

Everything about being with Johannes was easy. He accepted me. He liked me. He wanted to know who I was and whatever I was, he liked. I was falling for him, I realized, right here and now in this room, and it was lovely.

I kissed him, hard and slow and sweet. I pulled back and looked into his eyes. "Where you been all my life, huh?"

His expression changed, and he looked a little devastated. "Shit, omega."

"Sorry, too much?" I cringed.

"No," he said. "No, I think… I was just thinking how nice this is, how much I've been craving this, you , and how much I hadn't realized it."

"Huh," I said, smoothing a hand over his chest. "I was thinking something similar earlier about our little escape from the fairy tale castle."

"It is kind of like a fairy tale castle," he said, smiling at me.

We kissed again.

He locked an arm around my waist and pulled me tightly into his chest, and he was broad and firm and enormous . His chest was wider than Dmitri's. I ran my fingers appreciatively over the muscles in his arms, sighing softly.

I pulled away, feeling very shy, but not because I was worried about his rejecting me or anything, just because I was unsure of what to do next. "Maybe it's stupid," I said. "I'm an omega, and it turns me on to submit, and I bet you want to make me submit, so—"

"I want to please you, omega," he said, his voice like crushed velvet. "You want to make me your little alpha fucktoy, I'm here for it."

I perfumed, grinding against his pelvis. "I don't know how."

"I'll walk you through it," he said. "You want that?"

I nodded.

"Tell me to assist you, then," he said in a gravelly voice, grinding right back at me.

"Oh, right," I said. I licked my lips. "You'll do whatever I want, then, won't you, Johannes?"

"Absolutely," he said. "I'm yours to command."

I giggled. I liked it, but I felt silly. I chewed on my bottom lip, trying to think, figure out a way to put it, to formulate something sexy.

He reached up and smoothed his thumb over the wrinkles I was making in my forehead. "Looks like you're thinking pretty hard there, omega."

"Sorry." I groaned, throwing back my head. "This is dumb. I should—"

"Don't think," he said, his voice calm and fluid, commanding in that alpha way. "Just feel it. Feel what you want and ask for it. That's all there is."

"That's not all there is," I said.

"Start there."

I drew in a breath. "I want you wearing less clothes."

He grinned. "Yeah? Well, I'm amenable."

"No clothes," I said, puffing out my chest. I climbed off of him and gestured. "Strip for me, Johannes. Slow. I want to see all of you."

He got up, grinning at me. "Sure thing, omega." He nodded at the bed. "Lie down and enjoy the show, then."

I giggled, delighted, and flopped down on the bed to wait. Then I pointed at him, mock-scolding. "I think you're still ordering me around."

He shrugged. "Tell me to stop if you don't like it."

This went through me like the bubbling light beer we'd had for breakfast, an effervescence that felt like joy. I felt it, now, the back-and-forth of it, the way it was a challenge, a game, and that we were going to play . I cradled my head with my hands, surveying him with a mischievous grin. "You're testing me, Johannes. I don't know if I like it. You better do what I say. You said you want to please me, and I think I'm going to be a little difficult to please."

"A challenge?" He was grinning.

"You're still dressed," I said, lifting my chin, imperious. "And call me Your Highness, because I am a princess now."

His grin widened, and he was impossibly gorgeous. "Yes, Your Highness," he said in a silky voice.

Oh, I could get used to this. "Show me your stomach, Johannes," I said in a low, urgent voice.

"Yes, Your Highness," he said, and he untucked his shirt and raised it, showing off the planes of his muscled, flat abdomen.

"Higher," I said. "Show me your pecks."

He lifted his shirt higher, first on one side, showing me more rippling muscle, and then he pulled it up on the other side. I could see the light smattering of dark hair on his chest, and each of his very defined muscles.

"Fuck, you're beautiful," I breathed.

He smiled down at me. "Yeah, you like it, omega."

"I do," I said. "But you're too cocky for your own good. And you did not address me as Your Highness, and I should probably think of some kind of punishment for you." But I was drawing a blank. I did not think I wanted to spank Johannes. It would seem sort of comical, I thought, and it would make me giggle too much to be turned on.

"Oh, Your Highness, causing you displeasure is punishment enough," he said.

"Take off your shirt," I said. "Now."

He pulled it off and tossed it at me.

I caught it, sitting up. "Show me your cock."

"I thought I was doing this slow."

"Don't ask questions, just do as your princess commands," I said.

He laughed. "You're really catching on here, I want to say. You're doing a fabulous job. You might be a natural."

I threw his shirt at his head.

He batted it away with his impressive, enormous arms, and he was working at his buttons and zipper on his breeches. He pushed them out of the way and his cock sprang out, knotted and rigid.

I smiled. "Ooh, there it is."

"It's here to please you as well."

"It does please me," I said. I went up on my knees to get closer, and he came over to the bed to oblige me. I didn't touch, but I eyed him sultrily, running my tongue out over my lips and making little breathy sighs. "I bet you wish I'd touch it."

"Uh… I wouldn't mind."

"Ask me?"

He smiled down at me. "You're definitely a natural," and his voice caught in his throat.

I looked up at him, expectant.

"Will you touch my cock, Your Highness?" he breathed.

"Beg me," I said.

" Please , Your Highness, I want your hands on me," he gasped.

I flopped back on the bed. "No."

He let out a surprised laugh, gaping at me. "You're evil, omega."

I inspected my fingernails. "Mmm, maybe." I lifted a shoulder, still affecting boredom. "Take my pants off and eat my pussy like you did last night, and if you do a good job, maybe I'll touch your cock, Johannes."

"Yes, Your Highness," he growled, and he pounced on me. He peeled down my tight breeches and pulled them entirely off before he settled between my thighs. "Oh, you're already so wet and slick here." He drove his tongue into my opening, tasting me.

I cried out. "Lick my clit, Johannes," I said sternly.

"Yes, Your Highness." His voice was muffled as he rearranged and then began to tongue me right in my most sensitive spot.

I moaned, arching into him. "If you do that the way I like it, you can taste my slick as a reward."

He grunted, sucking my clit up into his mouth.

I cried out. I was still tender there. After all, there had been a lot of action the night before, and I was in a heightened state anyway, because what we were doing was turning me on.

I could feel myself starting to climb for an orgasm almost immediately. I moaned again, going still, surrendering to the sweetness of his mouth there.

It felt very, very good.

But I did wish he'd move just a little bit… "Can you…" I was out of breath. "Can you just… with your tongue, up and down?"

"Like this?" He demonstrated.

"Yeah," I said. And then, "Um, but a little less pressure, lighter?"

He adjusted.

"Oh, yes," I said. "Yes, like that, exactly like that."

He groaned, repeating it, and I fell into the sensation as if I'd been wrapped up in cozy warmth and goodness.

I realized that I never did this. I had never felt empowered to ask for what I wanted. I'd been a receptacle of pleasure, hoping that the men who fucked me would please me while they took theirs, and I enjoyed that, but this, now, with Johannes, I hadn't known how badly I needed it.

As the warmth deepened, tightening around me like a blanket growing ever heavier in the most pleasant of ways, I felt that sensation of freedom again, as if I weren't only an omega anymore, but more. I could be this, a wicked woman who ordered a man to put his mouth on me, who directed him to lick me just the way I liked it, who was in control of him, who was using him as a receptacle of my pleasure.

When I came, it felt deep and good and I felt it all through me. The tremors traveled through my pelvis and I let out deep groans of appreciation, basking in the sensation of it.

When I was spent, I rolled my head on the bed and breathed, "That was very good, Johannes. Lick my slick if you want now."

"Fuck yes," he hissed, and his tongue went back inside me.

I tightened on myself like a sprung coil and came again. I cried out, a garbled mess of his name and high pitched nonsense syllables.

"Oh, good girl," he groaned into me. "Such a good omega. Fuck, it's so easy to make you come."

Was it?

"Fuck, Nikolai was right. You taste like liquid sunlight."

Really? I grinned, lifting my head, liking that, the poetry of it. I caught his gaze, liking the way he looked there, between my thighs, feasting on me. "Knot me now," I said.

He climbed up me immediately, his expression fierce, pressing the head of himself into the slick center of me.

"I know I promised I'd touch your cock, but—"

"No, no, that's fine, omega," he said. "You just lie back and take your alpha's knot, that's just exactly right."

I gasped.

"Sorry," he breathed. "If you don't want me to take charge—"

"Knot me now," I demanded.

He did it, all in one swift movement, the sensation overwhelming and intense—splintering me into a thousand bright pieces of goodness. I was coming again.

His chest was against mine, his knot snug and deep, and he was kissing me, and we were joined. He felt like light and life and freedom and I clenched on his knot, sighing out his name as he began to work himself inside me.

"I'm going to come in two seconds," he panted. "I didn't know you'd feel… fuck, your pussy is perfection, Aurelie. I've never felt anything like—" He grabbed my hands and pinned them above my head and fixed me with his gaze, and he looked deeply into my eyes as he found his release.

It was intimate and good and sweet and wonderful, and I felt myself unravel somewhere I hadn't known I was tangled up, felt him ease something in there that had been waiting for him, waiting for him to fit inside me and make me whole.

"Bite me," I said.

His eyes widened. He let go of my hands.

I reached up and cupped his face. "Please?"

He shook his head. "No, no, no."

"No?" It hurt. I shied from it, surprised at how his rejection ripped through me.

He groaned. He bent down and rested his forehead against my clavicle, swearing under his breath.

I lay there, his knot still pulsing inside me, as close to him as I could possibly get, but feeling myself retreat, pulling back from him after I'd let him all the way in, closing down. "I guess Dmitri wouldn't like it," I said in a tiny voice.

"Fuck Dmitri," he said into my skin.

"Why not?" I whispered.

"I will," he said, lifting up to look into my eyes. "But I want Nikolai to be there."

"Oh," I said, blinking.

"You'll like him," he said, feathering his fingers over my neck, my shoulder, the slope of my breast. "He's already in love with you, but he's so closed up, and he doesn't know… you'll be good for him. And he'll… you'll see… you'll like him."

"I do like him," I said. "Of course I do." I felt something else swell in me, something that was filling back in the parts of me that had shrunk away in the rejection, and it was strange, because I didn't exactly know why it was filling me up like this, but it was a wonderful feeling. "You love him."

"I do," he whispered. "But Aurelie, my sweet, beautiful omega, you have to understand that this—with you and me—it's so intense and—"

"I love you loving him," I said in a wondering voice. "I love it."

He lifted his face to meet my gaze again, that destroyed expression on his face again. He searched my eyes, as if he couldn't quite believe I'd say that.

"Oh, Johannes, that's what it's supposed to be like," I whispered. I didn't even know how to describe it, because it was a feeling, a sensation, and I had no words for it. It was almost like the sensation I'd had with Dmitri, in heat, where I'd surrendered to our designations, but it wasn't like that, not at all. That had been an intense force, like a roaring wind, that had battered me until I'd been compelled to let it rush in, and this had been an opening, voluntary, a rush of goodness and wondrousness that filled me up and felt like growth and green lushness. "That's what's wrong. That's what Dmitri is blocking for us. Why is he doing that?"

"He doesn't know," said Johannes. "He just doesn't get it. I think he does a little, with you. He wants to please you, but he still just wants to control everything ."

There was a selfishness to love. There was. It wasn't something that could be ignored or pushed aside. It was like my love for Corentin, the way we wanted each other. But this was something else, a better kind of love that twined through the selfishness. It didn't erase it, it built on it. I wanted Johannes, but selfishly, I wanted all of him, and all of him included Nikolai. I didn't just want Nikolai to love me and Johannes to love me, I wanted them to love each other, and that love made all of us stronger. It made us an interconnected group… a pack .

Johannes propped himself up over me. "So, this is what I want you to ask Dmitri."

"Right," I breathed, reaching up to trace a little pattern in his chest hair. "Here we are in the afterglow, you knotted inside me. You said we'd talk about it now."

"I want you to ask him why he didn't like receiving anal sex, basically," said Johannes.

This surprised me. "What?"

"Yeah, he said, last night, that he'd tried it and he didn't like it, and he didn't say anything else," said Johannes. "I know with him and Nik, it's like, he's always on top, basically. And… I'd ask Nik about it, but with me and Nik, it's the same way."

"You're always on top with Nik?"

"No, I've never put my dick in Nikolai's ass," he said. "But… with Nik…"

"Right," I said softly. "Bad things happened to him."

"And when I tried to broach this subject amongst the four of us—"

"The four of you?"

"Yeah, Corentin was there."

"Wait, all four of you were talking together?"

"What did you think happened after you ran off last night, Aurelie?"

"I…" I hadn't thought about it. "I guess that you all went off on your own or something."

"Well, no," he said. "That's actually why I decided I needed to do something today, with you and me. Because it became clear to me that Dmitri wasn't going to let this happen, and if I wanted it, I was going to have to go after it."

"Wanted what?"

"A relationship with you, I guess."

"Right," I nodded. "Oh, but he's going to be annoyed. You and him, he's already punched you and ordered me away from you…"

"I know," he said. "Honestly, if I did bite you right now, and we went back bonded… maybe that would just shove him over the deep end. I'd do it, but I think Nik would…" He was quiet, looking down at me. "Maybe I should."

"No, we'll wait, like you said." I caressed his face. "I want time alone with Nikolai also, first, and then the two of you together."

"Perfect," he breathed.

I grinned at him.

He grinned at me.

"So, you think that something bad happened to Dmitri, too?" I said. "You think he'll talk to me about it?"

"I think you're less threatening," he said. "And I don't really know, because I was thrown when I found out that Nik was happily bottoming for Dmitri, because I guess I thought he had some block, or it was trauma or something, or… but it's just me? And then Dmitri being like that? I just want to understand it, I guess. If we can understand it, we can figure out a way to make it all work."

"You need to talk to Nikolai about that," I said.

"You're not wrong." He sighed and lay down against me, head on the pillow next to mine.

I turned and we were face to face.

We kissed.

"You're perfect," he said.

"So are you," I said. "I need you, Johannes. Something about you, just you, it's exactly what I need."

He shut his eyes, sighing. "Fuck, I didn't know how much I needed to hear that."

"I need you," I said again.

He kissed me again. Hard.