Coward.The shame curled hot in her chest.
A knock came—light and polite.
JingYi straightened, fingers curling into the fur throw draped over the bed. “Come in.”
The door eased open, spilling a sliver of lamplight into the chamber. A girl in a simple dress stepped inside, her curtsy neat, though her smile wavered with nervous warmth.
“Begging Your Highness’s pardon,” she said. “Lady Yrenna sent me to see to your needs. I am Aliz, your maid.”
Jing Yi rose slowly.Her maid.The words felt borrowed, but this was her life now. Future Lady of Blackwood-Verde. She had never been anyone’s mistress before. She wasn’t sure she knew how.
“I am pleased to meet you, Aliz,” she said gently. “Please be at ease.”
The girl straightened, eyes bright. She couldn’t have been much older than eighteen—cheeks still rounded with youth, brown hair plaited down her back. And beneath her earnest expression, JingYi caught the subtle pull of Omega in her scent, still sweet and new, like a blossom just unfurled.
“You’ve Awakened recently,” JingYi observed.
Colour rushed into the girl’s face, and she nodded. “This spring, Your Highness. I . . . I was frightened, but my mother saw me through it.”
To have a mother who could see you through it. It was like a story from another world.
“Your mother is Omega as well?”
“No, Highness. She only tried to keep me safe and calm. There are only a couple of us here. Well, before you, that is.”
“Lord Wulfbane allows you to continue serving at the castle?”
Aliz beamed. “Lady Yrenna spoke to His Lordship. He said as long as I’m comfortable with it, I may remain at Parandor.”
JingYi’s brow furrowed. “And when your Heat comes? What then?”
Aliz’s cheeks pinked again. “They have a cottage set aside, away from the barracks. I’m given leave from duties until it passes. No one disturbs me unless I call an Alpha.”
JingYi blinked. “Callan Alpha?”
“Only if I choose. Some of us prefer solitude, to let it pass on its own. But if there’s someone we trust, we can send for him. Lord Wulfbane made it clear no Alpha may enter unless I ask. Not even he.”
Privacy. Choice. Words that had never belonged to Omegas in Xuên-Sarai. In Peony Court, when one of the Omega consorts burned with need, the emperor decided how she would be used.Sometimes he sampled her himself, sometimes he gave her to a minister or envoy—weaponized as a bribe, or reward.
Her fingers traced the embroidered pouch at her waist. In an Omega’s world, this suppressant was her choice, her control. She’d spent so long masking her body’s needs, she could almost pretend she wasn’t an Omega at all.
An Omega with a room of her own felt like a distant dream. More than that—dignity.
“If you ever wish for help,” JingYi offered, “in blending a suppressant that suits your body . . . please tell me.”
Aliz beamed and dipped her head. “I’ll think about it, Highness. Thank you.”
Another knock sounded at the door. JingYi bid them enter, and Yrenna stepped inside.
“I didn’t mean to intrude,” she said, holding a folded cloak. “But you left the hall so quickly. We thought you might need something warmer. Parandor can be drafty at night.”
JingYi blinked. The cloak was dark wool, fur-lined, familiar—like something her betrothed might wear.
“Is that . . . Lord Wulfbane’s?”
Yrenna’s smile was sheepish as she set it at the foot of the bed. “It is. He asked me to give it to you, thinking you might be cold.”
JingYi reached out, her fingers meeting the dense, prickling weave. It held the chill of the corridor and, beneath that, the earthy warmth of the man who owned it. In her old life, a master’s cast-off might be a charity or a trap. This felt like a shield.
