6

johannes

SHE BLUSHED WHEN she saw me at breakfast, a pretty blush that traveled all down her neck, and her scent was lovely, like flowers.

I wanted to kiss her again.

She smiled at me in this way that told me that she wanted me to kiss her again, too.

I went to her. Didn't kiss her. Just stood there, close enough to kiss her, not touching her, basking in her scent. "You smell amazing," I whispered.

"So, do you." She looked half-drunk on our closeness. She was shy and pretty and perfuming. "I… I did what you said."

Oh, right. I had forgotten about that shit, in the wake of the disaster of a night I'd had with Nikolai. "You did, huh?"

She nodded. "I never thought about… two men, but I…" She shivered, sighing. "I was thinking that it wouldn't be against the rules if I watched for real."

My eyes widened. What a freaking genius this omega was. I kissed her forehead. "Yes," I breathed.

"He wouldn't mind, right, if neither of you touch me?" she said softly. "I'd just watch, and I think it would help, you know, with, um, with this ." She gestured back and forth between us.

"He couldn't mind," I said, even though I wasn't entirely sure about that.

She beamed at me, so pleased, and I knew then that I would move heaven and earth to make it happen, regardless of Dmitri.

So, when we got there, after a car ride that was pleasant enough, despite the rising scents between the omega and me and Nikolai, I sought Dmitri out immediately.

I'd spent the ride asking her questions about her life. She'd been sort of sheltered, it seemed to me. She'd presented young for an omega. It wasn't uncommon for omegas not to present until they were eighteen to twenty years old, but she'd presented at seventeen. So, she'd had the specter of her designation throwing a pall over all of her interactions as a young person. Though she hadn't had an alpha, then, it was understood that she would have an alpha, and this future colored everything in her present.

I hadn't really thought about it from the perspective of an omega before, but now, I found it troubling. Once she'd presented, she'd been seen as a bright jewel for her family, but that had turned her into currency, in a way. She could be bonded by an alpha, and whoever that alpha was could have an effect on the way her entire family was stationed. She was groomed to be a queen, from the moment she presented.

So, she was sheltered, kept from danger, but also kept from life and living.

She'd gone to college, but she'd lived at home with her parents. I didn't get the impression she'd had a lot of friends or done a lot of socializing. She didn't seem bitter about it, but it bothered me. I wanted her to have every experience under the sun she had any desire to have. I wanted her to live, not be tucked away and looked at like a statue or a bright jewel.

She was a person.

And it was probably just chemicals, just our designations entwining in instinctive ways, but I was already in love with her.

As we got closer, she got quieter. She stared out the window in the car, at the scenery, but her body was tense, on high alert. Her scent told me she was anxious about seeing Dmitri again.

But, of course, I had to seek him out.

He didn't even meet the car.

There she was, looking up at Karnig Castle, wearing this pretty blue dress with little yellow flowers stitched into it, something that had probably been specifically selected for Dmitri to see her arrive in (although perhaps not, because she'd been expecting him to come and collect her at her home) and he didn't even show up to greet her.

She stood there, clutching her own elbows, gazing up at the formidable building. It had been built as a fortress in the 100s. It was squarish and stone, with several square stone towers that thrust up at the sky, adorned with Valhn flags. To get inside, we'd had to cross two moats on wide drawbridges. Now, inside, we were cut off from the outside world.

The palace still meant that we royals were protected, but not from approaching armies, from the press, the paparazzi, and the populace.

I commented on the size of the place, and she shrugged and said, "I've been here before." Which, of course, she had, because this was where she'd come to have dinner with him when he was evaluating her.

That was when I realized she was making a show of looking at the palace because she was trying not to look disappointed that he wasn't there to meet her.

I was feeling like I might punch Dmitri when I finally saw him.

He was out in the back of the castle throwing knives at a target that he'd had set up.

"She's an omega," I said by way of greeting. "You haven't thought that part through."

He turned, knife in hand. He'd been ready to throw it. "Johannes, don't sneak up on me like that. Especially not when I'm hurling sharp objects through the air."

I folded my arms over my chest. "The wedding is not for three weeks."

"I know that," he said.

"You're expecting her to be celibate for all that time. When she's just now being flooded with all sorts of alpha scents, more at once than she's ever experienced, and when she's an omega . It's like you've devised a torture chamber for her."

He regarded me, blinked, turned back to the target and threw the knife.

It hurled through the air, end over end, and buried itself in the dead center of the target.

Fuck him for being perfect at everything, really. I hadn't minded before this, but it was really annoying.

"You can't fuck her," he said.

I rolled my eyes. "She asked to watch me and Nikolai together. No touching. Just watching. And I think if you don't give her something, she's either going to explode or go into heat. You know that omegas have needs."

He picked up another knife and toyed with it, probing the tip thoughtfully with one finger. "She likes you, then? She feels comfortable around you? She's confiding in you?"

I furrowed my brow.

He looked up at me. "It's why I sent you, you know. I want her to… I can't even talk to her." He threw the knife again. This time, it glanced off the target and fell on the ground. "I knew she'd like you. Everyone likes you."

I was sort of stunned by this.

He turned to look at me again, giving me a careless shrug. He pushed his golden-honeyed curls away from his forehead. He was distractingly attractive, not that I ever thought about him like that. (Okay, that was a lie.) He grinned at me, showing off his perfect white-toothed smile. "Whatever she wants. Make her happy. Make her like it here. But… I get to fuck her first. It's all I want. I have no chance of charming her or anything else, but I'm an alpha, she's an omega, and biology will do something. You just leave me that, please, and maybe she won't be extremely disappointed with me. If I'm first, it'll…" He sighed, the smile falling off his face. He picked up another knife and surveyed the target. "All right?"

"All right," I said.

aurelie

KARNIG CASTLE WAS dark and dreary. There were only small, narrow windows here and there, and all of the decor was paintings of various battles, Valhn warriors riding on steeds, victorious over bodies which were depicted in sometimes gruesome ways. There was one with a man standing over another man—with about five spears sticking out of his body. The triumphant man had his foot on the man's body, his long hair flowing out behind him as he sneered out of the painting.

There was a fire going in my room, even though it was springtime. The room itself was vast and full of luxurious details—gold-threaded coverlets on the four-poster bed, sumptuous pillows, overstuffed leather easy chairs set up in front of the fire. It was a nice room, a room fit for a princess.

I was going to be a princess.

But all I felt, in the pit of my stomach, was that I was small and sad and unimportant.

I changed into my dress for the luncheon. We'd dithered over it when planning it out. It was a formal luncheon, which was a bit of a contradiction in terms. Formality typically came with a set of expectations when it was in the context of evening.

It meant a formal evening gown, which would be floor length, usually without sleeves or with short sleeves, hair up, tasteful jewelery.

For a luncheon, however… no one was formal in the afternoon.

So, we'd opted for a dress made of silks and lace but with a higher hem, slightly shorter than tea length, but still covering my knees. For a whimsical touch, I'd decided to add gloves, because it made the dress look more formal, a throwback to the expectations centuries ago.

But I wore my hair down, with two little jeweled clips pulling some of it back from my face in the front. I did this myself, because there wasn't anyone there to help or to dress me, and I wasn't sure if that was the norm. Maybe if I were to be doing some public function, maybe then I'd have an army of stylists?

At the appointed time, I left my room and went wandering around the place. I remembered where the dining room was, because it was where I'd dined with Dmitri before, and I'd noted its location as I was being shown to my room.

Halfway there, I was accosted by a servant who was flustered, saying they'd been looking all over for me.

I apologized. No one had told me I'd be fetched for luncheon. How was I supposed to know that?

I was sequestered in a room near the dining room where I was pleased to see Prince Johannes. There were other people in the room, many of whom I recognized as members of Valhn royalty. They were almost all alphas, and the scent of it was practically enough to choke me.

I hurried over to Johannes, wanting the safety and familiarity of him, of his scent.

He was chatting with a striking woman I recognized as Princess Ilse. She was third in line to the throne after Johannes. She was an alpha. She had blond hair and those icy blue eyes that everyone in Valhn seemed to have. She was tall, very tall, but elegant, with a strength that seemed to permeate the air. Her scent was steadying.

She smiled at me, and I liked her instantly, which was ridiculous.

Alphas!

I hadn't known it would be like this.

"Oh, here she is," said Ilse. "She's perfect. Johannes, you didn't tell me how perfect she was."

"Didn't I?" said Johannes, grinning at me. "Look at you, Aurelie. This dress. You're stunning."

I ducked my head down, shyly basking in the praise. I wasn't used to it, but it was nice.

"I like the gloves," said Ilse, her voice a little throaty. "Such a nice touch. This? Really, Dmitri, who has a formal luncheon? "

I laughed, at ease. "Exactly. We were all flummoxed. My mother spent two days googling, trying to figure out what the rules would be."

"He should have had a dinner for you," said Ilse. "He didn't ask me. He doesn't ask for advice, Dmitri. Just does things his way, and everyone on the staff is either dazzled by him because look at him, or is terrified of him, because—objectively terrifying, am I wrong?"

I laughed. "You think so, too?"

"I presented only a year after him," said Ilse. "We've lived under the same roof for ages, and we do many public appearances together, he never speaks to me. Granted, when he does speak, it's mostly, ‘Acceptable.'" She lowered her voice to mimic a man's voice. "Or, ‘No, not acceptable.'" She turned to Johannes. "You're friends with him. Does he say anything else?"

"Friends is overstating it," said Johannes.

"Right, you two just share that Nikolai," said Ilse. "So, maybe you just get together to compare schedules." She lowered her voice again. "‘All right, then, you can sleep with him Wednesdays and Thursdays, and I'll take Tuesdays and Fridays.'"

Johannes laughed. "Exactly like that, I tell you. Is that what you and the King do?"

Ilse laughed, too. "Oh, yes. We divide Cole up by body parts as well. I get the arms and the right side of his neck and the king gets his legs and his ass."

I furrowed my brow. Cole was the King's omega. His formal title was King Consort, as I understood, but he was addressed as Your Majesty, just like the King. I hadn't been aware that Ilse was connected to Cole, but now that I thought about it, it wouldn't make sense for the king's omega not to have more than one alpha servicing him.

Ilse turned on me. "We're likely scandalizing you, poor thing. I assure you, no one is dividing up omegas in that way at all. It won't be like that for you. You're just…" She looked me over again, admiringly. "You're just perfect. It's like if I looked up ‘omega' in the dictionary, it would be a picture of you."

I shook my head. "I'm not perfect."

"Well, I'm allowed to be effusive, since I'm very, very spoken for, of course. Devoted to Cole, body, soul, and internal knot. Also, it's a benefit to being a female alpha. You get by with being remarkably aggressive. People think it's cute, and I use that to my advantage." She gave me a smile now that was downright feral.

My eyes widened, and looked up at Johannes, who grinned down at me.

"Yeah, don't make Ilse mad," he said. "Objectively terrifying, am I right?"

She elbowed him, snickering. "You're horrible, Johannes. Just the worst."

"Bad boy prince," he said with a shrug. "It's a hard job, but someone's got to do it."

She snorted.

I bit down on my bottom lip and eyed him. Bad boy prince, huh? And he was mine. Sort of.

"Where is Cole?" said Johannes, looking around. "Where's the King?"

"Not here," said Ilse. "Off together on some romantic overnight, because the King thought that Cole wouldn't want to be upstaged by another omega, a female omega."

I furrowed my brow.

"He'll like you," said Ilse to me. "He'll love you. But the gossip sites will have snapped eighty thousand grainy pictures of you getting out of the car here or at the hotel in Ludwig, and they'll definitely compare you to Cole, and he'll be wanting. The press is not overtly homophobic, but there's always an undercurrent. It's disgusting."

"Right," I murmured.

Johannes snorted. "Just don't look at the tabloids, omega."

"Definitely don't," said Ilse.

"Let's change the subject," Johannes said, giving me a conspiratorial grin. "I wanted you to know, I talked to Dmitri, and he's fine with it, what we discussed earlier."

"Really?" I said, thrown by that. "The, um, the—"

"Yes, with Nikolai and me," he said, waggling his eyebrows. His scent changed, and mine did, too.

"Oh, you smell nice together, you two do," said Ilse. "Very nice." She sighed, smoothing at her dress. "It's so nice to have another omega at the palace. This place, do you sometimes feel like it's just alpha energy on steroids? You could get smothered in it. We need you. We need some softness and light and brightness."

Brightness? But they were all so… blond.

I turned back to Johannes. "You talked to him? Already?"

He sighed heavily. "I could slug him, really, for the way he's being to you. I really could. I think…" He groaned. "It pains me to say this, because he's really disgustingly perfect, but I think he might be a bit insecure, if you can believe that. Maybe after you sit next to each other today, and he's close to you, he'll stop being phenomenally stupid."

Insecure?

Well, why hadn't I considered that? Obviously, it would be daunting for him, mating an omega, finding his future queen. Maybe everything would be all right. If he needed reassurance, I could do that. I was good at that sort of thing, making people feel at ease.

I smiled a small smile, pleased and reassured.

We chatted a bit more. Well, mostly, I watched Johannes and Ilse tease each other. They also made plans for that evening, talking about going to a club in the city, and they both said I should come along.

I actually said, "Am I allowed?"

And Johannes made this fierce face, like he wanted to punch something, and said that he was going to make it his mission to take me anywhere and everywhere I wanted to go. "Didn't do much clubbing when you were in college, I take it?"

"N-never," I said.

"Well," he said, "we can make up for lost time."

I felt nervous about that, about crowds and dancing and everything, but also excited. Maybe I'd never let myself consider things like that. I'd always thought it was out of bounds for someone like me.

And then, someone came in and began calling out names in a bored, bland voice and everyone started organizing themselves into couples, in a line.

"Omega, you'll be announced last," said the bored servant. "Back here." She pointed to the end of the line.

I shuffled over.

We walked towards the dining room like that and then all waited.

Each couple was announced as they entered the room. Johannes and Ilse went in together. "Crown Prince Johannes and Crown Princess Ilse," cried the announcer.

Finally, it was my turn.

I stood in the doorway of the dining room, which was narrow and drafty and just as dreary as the rest of the place. There were actually candles on metal sticks lining the walls, and the air was smoky.

At the long table inside, all of the members of Valhn royalty stood behind their place settings, half-turned in my direction, their hands resting on the backs of their chairs, their faces frozen in a kind of pleasant but unruffled expression, as if they were feigning curiosity.

"Lady Aurelie Le Blanc," called the announcer's voice.

I didn't know where to walk.

Dmitri was at the head of the table and there was an empty place setting next to him, but I had to walk past the entire table to get there, and I wasn't sure if I was meant to go to the left or right. The others had divided, one on each side, so that they sat opposite each other.

If it had mattered, someone would have told me, wouldn't they?

Nervous, I picked a side and walked—not too quickly, I hoped—keeping my head up, trying to look regal and poised, all the way down to my place setting.

There.

That scent.

I staggered as my entire being was filled with Dmitri's scent, and it went all through me, making my body do strange and pleasant things.

I caught myself.

Dmitri was clutching the back of his chair very tightly. His knuckles were white.

I seized the back of my own chair.

It was entirely silent.

Dmitri coughed. He looked down at his plate, not at me. "Your dress is… nice."

"Thank you, Your Highness," I said softly.

He yanked out his chair, looking annoyed. He sat.

No one else did anything.

He looked up at me. His tone was terse. "You have to sit, too, before anyone else can."

"Oh," I said. Maybe I knew that, actually, I just… I was…

When I pulled my chair out, it was loud. I winced. I sat down, feeling heat flush to my face. This was horrible.

Luckily, then, everyone else sat down.

I gazed down at my plate, which was covered in a gold edging, with a fancy gilded napkin folded in the middle of it. I was mortified. I wished like hell that I would stop blushing.

Servants came into the room from a different doorway than the one we'd all come through, carrying serving dishes. They served Dmitri and I first, and it was the kind of serving where they put the dish in front of us with a flourish, and then we had to take the serving utensils and dip food onto our plate.

I felt self-conscious about how much I took, glancing at Dmitri for guidance on what was appropriate.

Then, the food sat on our plates and Dmitri didn't touch it, so I didn't touch it.

The others at the table served themselves and conversation began amongst them, a low rumble that grew louder.

But Dmitri didn't speak.

Eventually, I realized other people were eating, so I decided I would eat too. The food was typical Valhn fare. There were two kinds of sausages, both wrapped in various sorts of breading—one a kind of pastry-type flaky dough and the other a sort of sausage roll. The only vegetable was very, very cooked green beans, swimming in bacon and some kind of vinegary-herbed sauce.

At a formal dinner, there would be various courses. Typically, it would start with a stew or soup and then progress to a course with fish or poultry, and then progress to a heavier meat-and-potatoes dish and then, finally, finish with some kind of dessert.

Luncheon wasn't known for courses, and since we hadn't had soup or another starter, I wasn't sure if this was all we'd be eating?

I was hungry. I started tucking into the food, maybe eating too quickly, but it gave me something to do.

Dmitri didn't say anything.

I looked over at him, and he was poking at his green beans with a fork, his nostrils flaring as if he smelled something bad.

Except, no, that was me, and I was relatively sure he liked my scent.

He wouldn't have agreed to this match if he hadn't liked my scent, would he?

It wasn't possible not to like the scent of an opposite designation, was it? I'd never scented an alpha scent that I didn't find pleasant anyway.

Insecure, Aurelie, I reminded myself. He's finding this all daunting. You must make him at ease. You're his omega. Help him.

Right. I took another bite of sausage and pastry—it was flaky and buttery and heavenly in my mouth. I chewed and tried to think of what to say.

"I hope your journey wasn't too unpleasant," said Dmitri suddenly.

I was chewing. I started, hand over my mouth, swallowing as quickly as I could. Fuck, I was blushing again. Could I be worse at this? "Oh, no, Your Highness, there was nothing unpleasant about it at all."

"You don't have to…" He squared his shoulders. "That is, it's up to you, but when you feel comfortable addressing me by a first name, you may do so."

"Oh!" I blinked. "Yes, of course. Dmitri." I recovered, forcing myself to smile. I was not awful at polite conversation, really, all evidence to the contrary. "And you must call me Aurelie, please. I would very much like that." There, that was better. I kept smiling.

"Aurelie," he repeated, his voice dropping into something gravelly. He held my gaze for a long moment, and his voice seemed to jerk through me.

I perfumed wildly, so intensely that the others at the table all turned to look at Dmitri and me with knowing smiles on their faces.

Dmitri's eyes bulged. He set down his fork.

I winced. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that."

"You can't help it, obviously," he said gruffly.

"I could try," I said, ducking down my head.

" No ," he said.

I winced again.

"That is, I mean, I don't wish you to try," he said. "It's… nice."

Like my dress.

He picked up his fork. "I spoke to Johannes earlier, you see. I want you to understand that I never meant to create a torture chamber for you. That's not my intention. And, I don't know, I suppose I'm being selfish about it. I've never done this before. I've never shared—well, Nikolai, but that's…" He swallowed, stabbing his green beans with his fork determinedly. "I'm only trying to say that if you really want— need —alpha tending, I'm perhaps wrong to deny you it. It's, um, tradition in Valhn for the wedding night to be the first time, and I know I don't have to follow the tradition, but I want… I have an idea that it will be better if I wait, you see? There's something to be said for savoring something you want, for putting it off, and then—when you get it—it's all the sweeter, but I don't… I don't need to impose that on you."

I didn't even know what to say. So, then I said the worse thing. "Torture chamber? What?"

He blushed. All over, bright red.

I couldn't help it. I put my hand on his arm, what I meant to be a reassuring touch. But when we touched, it was like something exploded inside me, and we both jerked back at it, gasping.

He rubbed the side of his neck, lips parted, gazing at me in a sort of dazed way.

I winced again. "I'm sorry. I didn't know that would happen."

He drew in a shuddering breath and turned away from me. "I am a colossal idiot."

"Your Highness? Dmitri, I mean. No, you're not. I definitely don't think—"

"Don't," he said.

I drew back. "Sorry."

"No, you're still doing it," he said, exasperated. "Stop acting as if you're doing anything wrong. You're fine. You're… look at you." He threw up his hands. "What was I thinking? Us eating together in public? Why did I think that would go well?"

I didn't say anything. I wanted to be reassuring, but he didn't seem to like being reassured.

He got up from his chair, tossing his napkin down on the table.

Everyone in the room got up too, the scrape of chairs on the floor loud. I stood as well, as quickly as I could.

He glared out at them. "Sit down , everyone."

Everyone sat down, and it was utterly silent.

I slowly started to sit down too, but then he turned to look at me, and I stopped and straightened. I cowered there, under his gaze.

He looked me over. "Tonight. Alone. You and me. That would be better."

"O-of course, Your Highness," I said in a tiny voice.

He turned on his heel and stalked out of the dining room, and there was no sound but the echo of his footsteps on the floor.

I sank down in my chair, feeling as if someone had dropped a piano on my head.