25

johannes

DMITRI WAS LYING between Corentin and me on my bed. We were all naked and covered in sticky come. My ass was tender and pulsing, sore, and I liked it, because it reminded me of being claimed there by Dmitri.

He had an arm around me and I was lying on his chest, cheek against his chest hair, happy, sated, fucked.

Corentin was propped up on the pillows and had his arm around Dmitri, who was sometimes kissing the head of the snake that was tattooed onto Corentin's neck affectionately.

We were having a conversation about Dmitri's schedule.

"Well, what about us, the three of us?" Corentin was saying in a lazy voice. "Is that on the schedule?"

"No," said Dmitri. "I guess I didn't think about that. I'd also fucking love to have you and Nikolai at the same time, Corentin. I'd love to have you submit to him and to take his knot or to suck him on your knees or to do exactly what we just did, me dipping in and out of both of your asses… maybe both of you on your knees and fighting over which of you could suck my cock? Or me on my knees, and trying to suck both of your cocks. I'd love to do all of those things."

"I'm in," said Corentin.

"Or you and me, alone, Corentin," said Dmitri. "Or you and me, alone, Johannes, would you be open to that?"

"Uh huh," I said. "But this is just more reason not to have a schedule at all. It's too complicated to keep track of all the permutations, and it's borderline like being in a dictatorship."

"It is a dictatorship, but you like it," said Dmitri, reaching down to cup my balls. "Say it, Johannes."

"Mmm, you're a very sexy dictator," I said wryly. "But I'm serious as all hell, Dmitri, we need to make a line between what's cool in bed and what's cool in our relationship, and you cannot order us all around all of the time."

"True," agreed Corentin. "I mean, technically, I think you can. You're not wrong that we all kind of belong to you, Dmitri, but, uh, you shouldn't ."

"No?" Dmitri kissed Corentin's neck. "Why not?"

Corentin laughed helplessly. "I mean, I hate you, for one thing."

Dmitri lifted up his head and looked down at him. "You said you loved me."

"While we were fucking, which everyone knows doesn't count."

Dmitri sighed, laying his head back down on Corentin's body. "It counts for me. I love you now. I don't mind at all. I was insecure about you and Aurelie, but now I think it'll be just fine. I feel complete now, actually, Corentin, like you were this last piece that I needed. And Johannes? You were here before, but now, it's different. When I made you come on command, did you feel it, too?"

I had felt it, of course. It felt right to submit to him. He was the fucking pack leader. "Dmitri, I do like this," I said cautiously. "I like everything we are together, and I even feel easier about submitting to you. But… uh, I think we need to talk about what I was saying before, about letting yourself submit to one of us."

Dmitri laughed. "Look, I don't submit. I'm an alpha."

"Yeah, but we are both alphas, and we submit," I said.

"True," said Corentin. "I guess I figured I was just… I mean, I wasn't always an alpha."

"Right," I said, sitting up to look at him. "You still haven't explained that. How did that even happen?"

"It can happen to anyone," said Corentin. "We all—every single person—have the latent gene that would trip us over into having a designation. But it needs to be triggered by the right combination of pheromones and stimuli. Usually, for you royals, that happens when you scent someone else with a designation at one of your big, royal get-togethers or whatever. For the rest of us, it's more complicated, usually. We're not running around mingling with a bunch of different alphas and omegas."

This was similar to that theory that Rohan had, wasn't it? I blinked at him. "Every single person?"

He nodded.

"Then explain why only a portion of royals present," I said. "Most don't."

"It's a complicated pattern of pheromones and stimuli to trigger it," he said. "It happened by chance for both of you. For me, it was a long and painful process. It took months, and I had to be in a state of constant arousal, achieved by pumping me full of Viagra, and then being exposed to various combinations of alpha scents. I tried just smelling them, and when that didn't work, we went to the more aggressive techniques, which included, uh, having things injected directly into the shaft of my dick. It took a while, but eventually, I got my knot."

Dmitri looked at me, eyes wide.

I didn't know what to say.

Dmitri turned back to Corentin. "You brute-forced this on yourself?"

"Well, most people who try it give up way before they get to levels of it that I did," he said. "But… I mean… for Aurelie…"

"And?" I said. "Do you like being an alpha?"

"I mean? First time I got kicked into a rut, I regretted it," he said, with a shrug. "I tried to get to her, but I was on the other side of the world, down at the tip of the Arenze peninsula, with a bunch of mob guys surrounding me. It wasn't exactly pleasant, and it lasted a while. The other alpha who'd triggered it finally showed up to give me some relief. He knotted me right out of it, but… fuck."

"Alphas don't trigger ruts in other alphas," said Dmitri. "Whatever you were in, it wasn't a rut."

"Well, my knot wouldn't go down no matter what I did," said Corentin. "I fully own that whenever Aurelie goes into heat, it'll be different."

"Right, when she goes into heat," said Dmitri softly.

"Look," I said, "I don't buy that every single person has the designation gene. You did, I guess, Corentin, just like that commoner omega in Angleford or like Nikolai. It's not limited to royal bloodlines, clearly, but I don't think everyone has it."

"There's nothing different about you guys that they can isolate, though," said Corentin. "Admittedly, the science isn't great. The contraption they used on me looked like it had been the same thing they'd been using since 1843, so maybe if there was more funding, some proper studies into this, maybe then we'd know more."

"No royals are ever going to agree to that," I said.

"Right, because the last thing you guys want to find out is that you're not special," said Corentin with a little laugh.

I furrowed my brow, thinking about it.

"I don't want to be special," said Dmitri. "If I'm not special, doesn't that mean I get to resign from being the heir to the Valhn throne and I don't have to spend the rest of my life cutting ribbons at new buildings for various charities and I don't have the paparazzi following me everywhere I go?"

"Sure, sure," said Corentin. "You don't want to be special."

"I don't," said Dmitri. "I'd give all this up in a heartbeat."

"I wouldn't," I said. "I would never have met Nikolai otherwise, or Aurelie, or you, Dmitri. And Corentin, do you hate me, too?"

"Nah," said Corentin. "I don't know enough about you to hate you."

"You wouldn't give that up, would you, Dmitri?" I said.

He sighed heavily. "I don't know."

"You don't know? You'd give up Aurelie?"

"Aurelie is amazing, and we have a fucking life bond, and there's no getting out of that, so it's an entirely hypothetical situation," said Dmitri. "But if you're asking me if I would rather have a woman who's mine, all mine, and I don't have to share her with other men because I'm not enough to satisfy her? If you're asking me if I could stop being so pathologically dominant every second of every day? I mean, don't ask me that, Johannes."

"Look," I said, "there's a certain amount of downsides to being in this polyamorous pack, no lie. But the advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantages. I wouldn't trade it for anything."

"Well, you and Nikolai are basically like a swinger couple," said Dmitri, rolling his eyes. "So, of course it's all great and wonderful for you. You have that one other person—"

"You fuck Nikolai, too."

"Yes, we have sex, but he and I don't have the same whatever it is you two have," said Dimtri, chagrined.

"Well," said Corentin, "maybe it's because you refuse to bottom."

Dmitri turned to him, glaring.

I couldn't deny what Dmitri was saying, I supposed. I did have a strong bond with Nikolai. Even though we were in a fight right now, I fully expected we'd make up and be stronger than ever. But when I'd been with Aurelie earlier that day, I'd felt very connected to her as well. I'd felt as if she and I had some kind of singular bond, something that was just ours, and it wasn't exactly like what I had with Nikolai, of course. For one thing, it was very new, and she and I were still exploring it. But I felt the potential for it to become something just as strong. And here, after this, with Dmitri, surrendering so entirely to him, breaking for him and having him hold the pieces of me together… that had been incredibly powerful, and there was a connection being forged here too. But I was beginning to realize everyone else in the harem was not feeling this same kind of connection.

"We just need to give the connections space to form," I said. "That's all. You do have your own special thing with Nikolai, Dmitri. He gets something from you that he can't get from me. I wouldn't have been jealous of you and him weeks ago if that weren't true."

Dmitri shifted, lifting up his head and glancing down at me. "That's right. You were jealous. Why aren't you jealous anymore?"

I wanted to say something evolved and egalitarian, like that I'd learned that we were all connected or something, but the truth was: "I guess you just kind of abandoned him and paid all your attention to the omega, and I realized I didn't have anything to be jealous of."

"So, you realized we didn't have any kind of special connection after all," said Dmitri, laying his head back down.

"No," I said. I thought about it. "Well, I guess it could sort of sound like that. But he worships you, Dmitri, you know that."

"He doesn't," said Dmitri. "He ran off, and he said I was his ‘master.' So, that's not a relationship that's about love, is it?"

"I mean, dude," said Corentin, "you did just call yourself a dictator."

"I can't help that," said Dmitri.

I snorted.

Corentin snorted.

Dmitri sat up in the bed and looked down at both of us. "Someone has to be the leader. The leader is always isolated. It's fine. This is who I am. This is my role. I'm not going to have the same kind of relationships that the rest of you do, but what I do have is kind of amazing in its own way, I suppose. Being able to dominate, to care for each of you, it's intoxicating. Maybe I need to learn to be satisfied with that." He climbed off the bottom of the bed and began pulling on his clothes.

We both stared at him.

He was a very gorgeous man.

aurelie

WAS IT VERY fucked up to get hot for Nikolai being violent?

If it was, I was not sure that I cared.

There was something undeniable about his confidence and his skill. There was something about the way he moved, like a predator animal, like a sleek panther, cavalier and vicious.

When we finally got the car stopped and he ordered me into the backseat, I was already slick and eager for him.

He took his gun off and unloaded it, setting it on the front seat before he climbed back there with me. He stripped off his jacket and shirt and his bare chest was just as sleek and muscular as I remembered. I reached out to touch him and then stopped.

"May I, alpha?" I breathed.

He smiled down at me. "Oh, asking permission, hmm?" He bent down and kissed me, really kissed me, and I twined my arms around his neck and arched into his body, feeling like this was the culmination of something that had been slowly lurking in the background, and I hadn't realized how much I'd been waiting for it.

He broke the kiss but stayed close. "There are a lot of ways this could go, sweet girl. I can bark at you and tell you what to do or I can be yours to command, or anything in between. I'm very versatile."

"But what do you want, Nikolai?" I said.

He regarded me. "I want you , omega."

"Well, I'm yours," I said, grinning at him.

He reached up to cup my cheek with one hand. "No, you're his."

"I can't belong to you, too?" I raised my eyebrows.

He considered. "I don't want to possess you, omega. Not at all. But, erm, I…" His lashes fluttered down against his cheeks. "I'm very turned on by submission and dominance."

"Of course you are," I said. "So am I."

He opened his eyes again. "With Johannes and me, it's a sort of rule that it only extends to the bedroom, that we have a different dynamic elsewhere. But we also have always had this set dynamic, and I never tried to vary it, I'm realizing. It was comfortable, and it was sexy as fuck, and I just let it go on and on. Anyway, never mind that." He shook his head as if to clear it. "But with Dmitri, it spills into everything, do you know what I mean?"

I nodded. "Yes." I eyed him. "But do we want to spend this time talking about Dmitri?" He was hanging over everything, it seemed, and I knew that dynamic needed our attention, but right now, all I wanted was Nikolai.

"That's part of why it's so hot to be with Dmitri, though," he said, raising his eyebrows.

"True, but I don't need you to be like him."

"I'm not like him," he said with a shrug.

"No," I said, running my fingers over his bare skin.

He shut his eyes, sucking in a breath. His skin pebbled with goosebumps under my fingertips. "I want this to be right with us."

"It is right," I breathed. "You don't even know how wet I am right now."

"I guess I don't," he said, smiling at me. "You should take off your clothes for me, then. And show me your wet pussy. I remember the way you taste. The first taste of you fucked me up."

"I'm sorry?"

"No, I didn't mind."

I started to remove my shirt. It was close quarters in the backseat, so I had to wriggle around.

He chuckled, watching me struggle. "Here." He helped, deft fingers just where I needed them, and then he reached back to unsnap my bra. "Oh, there these are. I think you have the prettiest breasts of any woman on earth." He cupped them both and then thumbed my nipples, making them stand up straight.

I sighed, throwing back my head.

"And before seeing them, I don't even know if I'd ever liked breasts this much," he said.

Right, he wasn't usually attracted to women. His designation made him want me, and I knew that he didn't mind wanting me, but it was just another layer of this element of the way we were dominated by our designations, how little control we had. It frightened me, but it made me wetter, too.

"You're perfect, omega," he said reverently.

I writhed a little under his praise. I liked the way it felt for him to look at me.

"Now, let's get these off," he said, helping me to peel off my pants and underwear as well.

Then I was completely naked in the backseat of this car with my lethal and beautiful Nikolai.

He put his finger between my legs, running them through my slit. "You're very, very wet."

I gasped.

He put his fingers to his mouth to lick them and then went back down to toy lazily with my clit. "Hmm. Here's what I'd like, omega. I'd like to have you come on my fingers right here and then I'd like to knot you and have you come on my knot. Would you like that?"

"Obviously," I murmured.

"And…" He sucked in a breath. "What if, just this time, not every time, but this time, what if there aren't any games? Just us? Just our bodies? Nothing else?"

"Yes," I said. "That's exactly right, Nikolai."

"I…" He swallowed hard. "I never thought to ask for that myself, for some reason. Being around alphas all the time, there's so much desire, so much need. I just wanted to fulfill that for them . But you…"

"I have desire," I told him. "I have need."

"Not to take, though," he said. "To be taken. The energy's different."

I shrugged, shutting my eyes. "Sometime, Nikolai, I might like to take you ."

He laughed. "Oh, yes, please, omega." He clucked his tongue. "Now relax and get your clit played with and come for your alpha like a good girl, hmm?"

"Yes, alpha," I breathed.

"I just like looking at you," he said. "I like the way your body looks. I like the way I can feel the little nub of your clit swelling up as I touch and rub it. I like the way your pussy pumps out that slick of yours. I like the way your breath hitches, omega. I just like affecting you."

I sighed, basking in it. My entire world had honed down to one tiny spot, the very center of my pleasure. And as he played with me and coaxed me in his soft voice, the pleasure began to grow. It traveled out, all over my pelvis, growing sweeter and more intense.

"Are you ready to come, then, omega?" he said. "Would you like to come?"

"Yes, yes, alpha," I said.

"But you're going to need my permission, I think?" It was a question.

"Yes," I confirmed, eager for that, for Nikolai to take command of me. Each of my alphas commanded me, but all of them did it in different ways. There was a gentleness to Nikolai, something soft, but it was compelling all the same.

"Yes, you'll need that," he said, running his fingers in gentle, clever circles around the most sensitive part of my body. "You want to be taken, and I want to take you, and it's just easy. Everything fits, pretty girl. We can both relax."

It was like with Dmitri, when I surrendered to him, but there had been so much conflict about that. I'd chafed against submitting to him in certain ways, because the force of his dominance was so intense and a little frightening. But I could sense that Nikolai's essence was entirely different. He had boundaries that Dimitri didn't, and I could surrender readily to him.

I relaxed. And as if I did, his fingers teased my pleasure until it tightened to a stiff peak, and I was pushed up into the sky, to bounce around in the clouds as my orgasm came for me, and I began to clench and clench. "I'm sorry," I managed. "I know you wanted me to wait—"

"I wanted you to come, omega," he countered. "I wanted your pleasure far more than I wanted your obedience."

I sighed.

He kissed me, fingers pressing into me, not too much pressure, but just enough so that my orgasm could ebb out against him, so that I could get every last bit of it. He pulled away and smiled down at me, holding my gaze, waiting until the tremors stopped in my pussy. Then he carefully removed his fingers. He licked them, sighing, holding my gaze. "I'd like it if you'd take out my cock, omega. Would you like to do that?"

"Yes, yes," I said, reaching down for his pants.

"Mmm, that's a good girl," he said, still lazy and pleased. He thrust his pelvis forward a little to give me access. "I have a very big knot for you, all for you. I've never knotted a pussy, you know that?"

"I didn't know," I said, unbuttoning him, unzipping him. In moments, he was in my hands, and he was big and thick and pretty and I could smell his concentrated alpha scent and I wanted to lick him. But I was worried. "You might not like it as much? I don't know if I'll be as tight as knotting an asshole."

"Well, someday soon, I'll knot you there, too," he promised. "But tightness is not the only thing that makes a sexual experience pleasurable, you know? It would be impossible that you wouldn't please me, omega, know that."

I looked up at him, smiling. "You, too. All my alphas, being with each of you, you fill some separate part of me that needs each of you. Nikolai, I feel as if I've been missing you my whole life, but I didn't know it was you that I was missing."

"Odd," he said. "I was thinking something very similar." He kissed me, kissed me deeply and thoroughly.

I groaned. I pushed on his chest. "Okay, I want to go back to looking at you."

He laughed, letting me have access to his cock.

I squeezed his knot in my hand.

"You have such tiny little omega hands," he breathed.

"You just have a really big fucking dick," I said.

He laughed again. "Yeah? Well, you can talk about how big my cock is anytime you want."

"Men," I said, rolling my eyes. "It's huge, and you're an alpha, and you know that."

"Are you making fun of me, omega?" He was grinning.

"Maybe," I said. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Well, I could make you lick me," he said. "Thread my hand into your hair here and guide that perfect mouth of yours down onto me, and force you to take me down your throat, force you to try to get those pretty little lips of yours around the base of my knot."

"Yes!" I moaned, trying to get at him. "Please, I do want to taste you, Nikolai."

"But we do need to be mindful of the fact we need to make this rendezvous," he said in a low voice. "So, I think you should just tell your alpha you're very sorry, and that you think his cock is, you know, majestic, not at all something you'd make fun of, and then take a knot in your pussy like a very, very good omega."

"Majestic," I said to him, grinning. "It is."

"Yeah, but you're just saying that because I told you to."

"Except you're not wrong. It's a very nice cock, Nikolai."

"You want it inside you."

"So much."

He toyed with one of my nipples. "You haven't apologized, omega."

"Oh, right," I said, grinning. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" He pinched my nipple.

It hurt and felt good at once. I moaned. "For not saying your cock was majestic."

He gently rubbed the nipple now. "No, for making fun of me and hurting my feelings." He was teasing.

"Oh," I said in a tiny voice, also teasing, "did I hurt your feelings, alpha? Heavens, no!"

He laughed. He pinched my nipple again. "You're a naughty little thing, aren't you?"

I gave him an impish grin.

He kissed me. "I did say no games, didn't I?"

"It's easy to be playful with you, though," I gasped.

"I'm going to knot you now," he said.

"Oh, just like that? You're not going to force me to beg or anything?"

"You want to beg, you beg, pretty girl. I'd love to hear you say ‘please.'"

"Please," I said. "Please knot me now, Nikolai. Please, I need your knot."

He reached down and began to rub the head of his cock against my clitoris.

I moaned.

"Good omega," he breathed, slipping the head of it lower, dipping it inside me.

I gasped.

He pulled it out and went back to my clit.

"Oh, fuck, that's very nice, Nikolai," I said.

"You can keep begging if you want," he breathed. "I like it." He put the head of himself in me again, made a few shallow thrusts.

I cried out.

And then he pulled out and went back up to rub himself into my clit.

Oh, that was really, really good. "Please," I said. "Please, Nikolai, please, you're teasing me."

"Am I?" he whispered. "What do you want?"

"You know what I want," I panted.

"Do I?"

"Your knot, alpha, your knot, please ."

"Oh," he said knowingly. "Yes, that's what a pretty little needy omega like you needs. A knot in her pussy."

"I do, please , Nikolai, I do."

He rubbed his cock against my clit. "Doesn't that feel nice, though, omega?"

"It does, yes."

"And this?" He slid down and penetrated me, deeper than before, thrusting all the way to his knot. "Does this feel good?"

"Yes, but…"

"But?"

"But I'm made to take a knot, alpha. I'm an omega and I need a knot."

"I see," he said.

I moaned, frustrated. "You'd like it, too," I said. "I know you would. Please."

He pulled out of me and now his cock was slick on my clit, with all of my juices, and it felt phenomenal. "I would like it, omega. I definitely would. But you can't quite understand how much I'm enjoying your begging right now, I don't think." His voice was husky. "I think teasing you might be my new favorite thing."

"Stop it, alpha," I gasped. "Stop teasing me."

"You like it, too, omega," he said, affectionate, affected. He pushed his cock inside me again.

I pumped my hips up to his knot, trying to take it.

"Shh, baby girl, shh. No reason to rush," he said.

"I thought we had to rush," I said. "Because of the rendezvous. That was why you wouldn't let me suck you." I sounded like a petulant child denied a toy, and I was annoyed, but I was also very fucking turned on. He was good at this.

"Fuck, you're right," he said, disappointed. "I could probably tease you for hours, but I guess we don't have time."

"So, I get your knot," I said, breathless. "Finally."

"Yes, you get my knot." He kissed my eyebrow. "Here it is, omega, all for you." He pushed against me, felt a bit of resistance and pulled back. He did this several more times, going in further each time, getting more of my slick distributed all over his knot. Each time, I screamed in pleasure as he stretched me. When he finally slid all the way in, it hadn't even hurt. I didn't think I'd ever been knotted without at least a touch of discomfort, but this … fuck. Then, he was all the way in and when he tried to pull out, he couldn't. There was the telltale perfection of the tug on my skin, the all-over pressure of the knot, the sheer goodness of our sealed connection. "There we are," he breathed, peppering my face with kisses. "I'm all the way in, omega. Happy now?"

"Very," I said, beaming up at him. "I like your knot a lot ."

He chuckled, thrusting against me. "You're so fucking wet, omega, so warm and soft and good."

"So, you're happy too?"

"Very happy."

"I told you that you'd like it."

"Oh, you were right." He kissed me. "This is better than teasing you. This is bliss."

I wrapped my thighs tight around him. "Fuck me now, Nikolai. Fuck me nice and hard. Make me come on your knot."

"Yes, omega," he whispered. "It would be my pleasure."