Page 58 of Omega’s Fealty

I guess the question is whether my intended even cares about that or is simply after the power that marrying me will give him.

I am so tired of waiting. I want to know my fate. I want to know Roan’s fate. There has still been nothing about him. I’ve decided that is good news. If he was dead, they would have found a body by now, I’m sure of it.

He might still be alive.

Even if he is, I’m still never going to see him again. When I do leave this hotel, it will be to another room with more locks and guards. And then to another room with guards and then another.

The only thing I can hope for is that my child will grow up to be an alpha who cares about me enough to allow me a little freedom in my old age.

It’s a depressing thought.

I spend the day the same way that I have been for weeks. I sit, then I pace, then I sit again, all with the news rolling on in the background.

I get my answer on the evening news. I’m the first item on the agenda. Royalty always was big news, even when it shouldn’t be.

They open with a still from the video Reinhardt got me to do after I was released. I stare at my own face as the news anchor begins speaking.

I can’t make out my own expression. I have spent so many years schooling myself to look neutral and I have succeeded. No one could ever tell that my heart was completely broken inside. I look like I should be on the news, reading the weather perhaps.

The news anchor shuffles his papers, then says, “We begin tonight with breaking news from the Kingdom of Monteverra, where the royal palace has, in the last hour, released the statement that we have all been waiting for. Crown Prince Aurelio is to be married. The prince who was abducted on American soil and rescued in a daring raid last month has announced that—”

I feel myself grimace despite the cameras. I’ve announced something, have I? You’d think I’d know what it is.

“The palace confirms that His Majesty the King has given his blessing to a union between the Crown Prince and Prime Minister Anton Reinhardt, the King’s closest advisor and the man who led the international effort to secure the prince’s safe return. In a statement, the palace said—”

Reinhardt. Reinhardt?

They can’t be serious. Why the hell would I marry Reinhardt? And since when would that even be allowed? He’s a beta.

The anchor looks down at his desk and reads.

“‘In the darkest hours of his ordeal, His Royal Highness came to understand where his heart had always been. The Prime Minister has stood at the Crown Prince’s side since childhood. Now he will stand beside him for life. His Majesty gives this union his blessing, and asks the people of Monteverra to give it theirs.’”

My heart is racing a hundred miles an hour and it has suddenly grown very cold.

My father has approved this? He can’t have. He barely remembers my name. And even if he did, there is no way on this earth that he would say yes.

On the screen, the anchor looks up.

“Now, this is an extraordinary development for a number of reasons.”

You don’t say. I feel like I am going to be sick.

“Prime Minister Reinhardt is sixty-nine years old. He is a beta. Under the traditional law of Monteverra, an omega heir cannot rule alone, and for the last two hundred years, the consort of a Monteverran omega prince has always been an alpha of one of the great houses. This will be the first time—”

I stop hearing him.

Something has occurred to me. Betas can father children with omegas but it is rare. Very rare. And a beta his age? Almost impossible.

My child is safe.

My pregnancy has allowed this to happen. All he needs to do is claim that Roan’s child is his and who is going to contradict him?

Certainly not me. I have rarely been given the chance to say anything that wasn’t pre-recorded or pre-scripted. There are always people standing in the wings, or standing behind me, ready to whisk me away if I ever went off-script for even a moment.

They are certainly not going to give me the opportunity now.

He is going to marry me, and in eight months there will be a child who will be his, in law. Reinhardt will not be King after my father but he will be the father of the future heir.