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aurelie

I WORE A different pretty dress to dinner. My opinions on dresses hadn't changed much since I was six years old. I liked them because they had ruffles and lace and were very nice to look at. And I wished they were more comfortable.

I did have a few shapeless t-shirt dresses that I liked to lounge in. Scandalously, I liked to wear them without anything underneath, though they weren't very supportive of my breasts. Sheer comfort, no thought for how presentable I looked. Obviously, a t-shirt dress wasn't appropriate for a dinner with Prince Johannes.

It was just him.

I asked after Nikolai, and Johannes said he'd be along later. "He gets distracted by things and we humor him," said Johannes. "For instance, he's convinced the fire escape near your room gives easy access to you, so he's overseeing some modifications, which Dmitri will be paying for, undoubtedly." He laughed, as if this was a joke.

I didn't know if it was funny. "Is there a credible threat that someone might be coming up the fire escape?"

"No," said Johannes. "No, of course not. He's trained to look for death and murder everywhere. It's all he sees."

"You said that thing about his being an assassin," I said.

"You heard that." Johannes made a face. "I shouldn't have said that."

"But you also said he was a companion for alphas too young, and made it sound like he was…" A sex worker. I didn't say that out loud, though.

"He won't like that I've told you all of his secrets," said Johannes. "He won't like that at all." He poured himself some wine from the decanter in the middle of the table. "Maybe he'll punish me for it." He sounded a little excited at the prospect.

"You said something about my punishing you," I said.

"You remember everything out of my mouth with a shocking kind of accuracy," he said, grinning at me. He nodded at my wine glass. "Wine?"

I held it out.

He poured. "I'm quite aware that omegas don't typically do the punishing, so you needn't worry. I'm well served in that capacity."

I shivered a little, thinking about Nikolai punishing Johannes.

"Oh, your scent does go straight to the root of my cock, doesn't it?" he breathed, shaking his head, struggling with his tie.

"Apologies," I said. "Your scent is… also very nice."

He drank wine, looking me over with a kind of open appreciation that made me feel loose and eager in a way I'd never quite felt with a man, not even with Corentin.

Corentin and I had been so young, and so much of it had been stolen glances and denial. We'd only made love once, and it had been because my heat had come on me, and I'd been mad for some relief, not that he'd been able to… relieve me, not in the end.

But this man, this prince, he had a knot, which was what I would have needed then, and I felt the knowledge of that work its way through me in waves of sweet anticipation.

I gasped.

"What are you thinking about?" he breathed.

"Your knot," I said before I could stop myself.

He grunted.

I blushed fiercely, covering my mouth with one hand, letting out a noise of horror and embarrassment.

His hand jerked across the table and his fingers interlaced with my other hand, a flood of hot warmth going into me at his touch. "Oh, so, this is what it's like with an omega," he said in an affected voice. "I think I'm going to like it. A lot."

I lowered my hand from my mouth. "I'm so very, very sorry. I didn't mean to say it."

"You talk about my knot any time you want," he said. "It's yours to do with as you like. I've never had a knot like this in my life ."

I perfumed again. I gulped at my wine. "If… if Prince Dmitri allows me others, does that mean we could—"

"Oh, no, sweet girl, no," he said. "Not yet." He pulled his hand away, extricating our linked fingers.

I felt the lack of him like an empty space inside me. My face fell.

"Sorry, it's not up to me," he breathed. "If I could have my way, I'd have you now. I'd have you constantly ."

"Not until Dmitri has me first, then?" I said.

"Yes, and he won't until after the wedding."

I lifted my gaze to his, startled. "But that's weeks away."

"Yeah," he said in a strangled voice. "I don't think I realized how torturous that's going to be."

"I can… it's fine," I said. I don't need men, and I don't need sex. I've been surviving just fine without it. Why are these men affecting me so much?

"It's tradition in Valhn to wait," he said. "He'll bite you that night, too."

I nodded. "Yes, I knew that." It was a little controversial, actually, all the firsts at once. There was another school of thought that it should be a process. Sex in one encounter, then a progression to knotting in a later encounter, and finally biting in an even later encounter. The idea was that it allowed the bond between an omega and an alpha to grow organically. It also gave them both time to back out before the bite.

The bite was a permanent life bond.

Once that was done, there was no taking it back.

But I wouldn't back out.

I wanted to be Queen, after all.

Yes, I was very, very shallow about the entire thing. I was in it for the crown, nothing more. Dmitri wanted me, so I'd use him to get that.

Where Johannes and Nikolai fit into that, I wasn't entirely sure, I supposed, but apparently, I wouldn't find out until after the wedding.

I hadn't expected to be having these kinds of reactions, I had to admit. Maybe I should have been around more alphas before this, to grow accustomed to the way it felt. Or maybe that would have been playing with fire.

It was in the contract, the one I'd signed. I'd had to initial it.

I, Aurelie Le Blanc, do hereby certify that none of my sexual orifices have ever been knotted by an alpha and that I will save myself for the knot of my husband-to-be.

Everyone had seen it, even my dad.

It had been sort of mortifying.

Eew.

But it was important to Prince Dmitri, so I made sure it was true. And I didn't think I'd want a knot. But the more that I was in the presence of Prince Johannes's scent, the more I began to, well, ache. I wasn't sure what I was aching for, not exactly, but I knew I wanted— needed it.

I gasped as I perfumed again.

He went nearly cross-eyed. "It's a good thing we're in a public dining room, or I think I'd order you to present for me," he said in a very deep voice.

Oh. That was a different kind of presenting.

There was the presenting that you did when you presented with your designation, when an omega went into heat for the first time or when an alpha got his knot.

But there was another kind of presenting, which an alpha could order an omega to do for him. It meant to go up on my elbows and knees and put my butt in the air and spread my thighs. It meant to get in a lewd position to take my alpha's cock.

It meant…

Oh, fuck, I was perfuming again.

I whined, unable to stop myself.

He reached across the table and rubbed his thumb over my wrist. A noise came out of his throat. He was purring.

I sighed into it, as it relaxed me, taking away some of the more painful edges of my current arousal.

"What are you two doing? I could smell you down the hall." It was Nikolai.

I looked up to see him settling into a chair at the table with us. I smiled at him, genuinely happy to see him.

"Good, you're here," said Johannes. "Stay with her?" He was getting up.

"Where are you going?" said Nikolai.

"Just… for a walk." Johannes's voice was husky. I could see evidence of his arousal in his pants, a tell-tale bulge that looked delectable.

I perfumed again.

"I have to go," said Johannes and practically fled.

Nikolai sucked in an audible breath. "No more of that, omega," he ordered firmly. "Here."

I looked up at him, into his eyes.

His gaze bored into me. "Calm. Down. Omega."

My arousal ebbed out. I blinked at him, confused. "You can do that?" I squeaked.

"I've never done it before," he said with a shrug. "Easier than I thought it was going to be."

"Thank you," I said. "Really, I appreciate it. I couldn't think straight."

Nikolai smiled at me. "You're really very, very alluring, omega. I hadn't realized how much you'd affect me."

johannes

"I CAN'T TALK right now," came Dmitri's voice on the other end of the phone.

"She smells like everything you've ever wanted wrapped in bacon and dipped in chocolate," I said.

"Ew, bacon and chocolate?" he said.

"You got to give us something here," I said.

"I'm very busy right now and I need to hang—"

"Give us something, or she's not going to end up delivered to you as unknotted as you seem to want her to be."

"What?" His voice changed. Most people might not notice it, because his tone sounded mild, but he was irritated. "Johannes, this is my bride, my future queen, and my omega we're talking about here. And you're asking for permission to sully her?"

"No," I said quickly.

"But you want to."

"I just got done explaining how she smells, didn't I?"

"That's why I sent Nikolai with you, to keep you in line. And you can knot Nikolai, can't you?"

"Nikolai likes her too," I couldn't help but say, even though… what? Knot Nikolai? Really?

"She's an omega. Of course we all like her," he muttered.

"No, it's different," I said, because it was. I'd long ago known that there was no chance of my ever having an omega to myself, because I wasn't the heir to the throne and omegas were rare. So, I'd never had the chance to court an omega, but I'd met some. Dmitri and I had visited some other omegas in different royal courts, and they'd all smelled very nice, and I'd wanted them, but this omega…

When I first met her on the steps of her house earlier today, it had seemed the same, and I'd thought I could be in control of myself, but since then, every moment I spent in her presence, the effect of her seemed to deepen and intensify.

There were things that could happen to alphas when they were around omegas, things like ruts, where an alpha would stay hard and aroused until the omega was satisfied. I'd never been in a rut, and my understanding was that they happened when omegas were in heat. I'd heard it was a potent experience, out of control, very acute and protracted.

What happened if I did now?

If I knotted this omega, would Dmitri give her up and find a different one?

What if I… bit her?

I wasn't supposed to ever do that.

I was an alpha, but an alpha in Valhn, second in line to the throne, and that meant I didn't get to bite and mate an omega. Before this, it had never bothered me, but now it felt like a punishment, and I could feel something like anger building inside me.

I didn't know what to do with that emotion.

Mostly, I liked being second in line to the throne. It meant less responsibility and less pressure. I saw what Dmitri went through, and my position seemed to me to be more fun. All of the benefits of being a royal, much less of the disadvantages.

I'd never been envious of Dmitri, never once.

Until this exact moment.

Shit.

"How's it different?" said Dmitri.

"It's…" She feels like mine, and I never even knew I wanted this for myself, but now that I do, I don't know how to unwant it, and I don't know how to exist in this feeling, and I want her very, very badly. "Intense."

He snorted. "Look, Johannes, if you touch my bride inappropriately, I will break your fingers, that clear?" He hadn't raised his voice, but I heard the lethal note in it.

"Clear," I said in a sour voice. I hung up on him.

aurelie

WHEN JOHANNES RETURNED to the table, our first course had been brought out. He sat down, and his scent was different. I couldn't quite describe it, not exactly, but it was murkier, somehow dangerous in a way I couldn't quite explain.

It should have frightened me, that murky scent, but it didn't.

It made my body lurch in a frightening way. I felt a strong urge to submit to him, to let that danger have its way with me. It seemed I was made for that danger, formed to be its vessel. I wanted to press into him, whining and gasping, show him my neck like a prey animal. I wanted him to…

Bite me?

I shuddered at the thought, my body breaking out in gooseflesh, my nipples hardening into tight little points on my chest.

And Nikolai caught my gaze and soothed it all out of me with one look of his dark violet eyes. I didn't know quite how he did that, but it was relieving. I was grateful.

We ate, mostly in silence.

After dinner, they walked me to my room, a huge and lavish room in this hotel. It had several rooms, including a full kitchen, and it was decorated in silks and tassels and other touches that made me feel as if I were back in time in some world of glitz and glamor.

Johannes lingered, going over what we would do the next day. Breakfast, then back to the car, and then the final two hours of the drive. We'd arrive at Karnig Castle with just enough time to get ready for a formal luncheon with the King of Valhn and the other nobles. It was to be given in my honor. I'd see Prince Dmitri then.

He went through it once and then again, and I let him talk about it. I could tell he didn't want to leave me.

Finally, Nikolai said we should all get some rest. He tugged on Johannes, and the two set off down the hall, walking away from me.

I lingered in the doorway, watching them go.

Abruptly, Johannes stopped. He turned and came back for me, closing the distance in long, quick strides. I was struck by the physicality of him. He was tall and broad and alpha-shaped. Nikolai was tall too, just as tall as Johannes, but slighter and darker, and Johannes seemed suddenly burly and imposing.

I panted, holding my ground, my body clenching and releasing, my heart pounding in my chest.

Johannes caught me around the waist and pulled me flush against his body. With his other hand—his huge hand—he cupped my cheek and gazed into my eyes, his own eyes half-lidded.

His scent was crazy strong and very pleasant, and I went limp-limbed against him, gazing up at him with something like adoration.

He kissed me.

His mouth was warm and eager and his kiss was like springtime, like wildflowers and new growth, all of it going wild and green and bright, tangling itself around me, into me.

He groaned into my mouth, and I gasped back.

He tore his lips from mine and pressed his mouth into my eyebrow, then my forehead, clutching me against him like something precious, something perfect and pretty. His lips went to my ear. His breath tickled as he spoke, "Touch yourself after we leave, omega. Touch yourself and think of us, of Nik and me. We'll be thinking of you, too."

I let out a noisy rush of air.

He let go of me and gave me an easy grin and a wink. Then, he turned and hurried down the hallway to meet Nikolai.