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“Are you even listening to me, Rory? Or are you daydreaming again? Why must you always be so strange? So stupid?”
“I beg your pardon, Callista. Yes, I heard every word. You said the guests were invited here for me. So that I can find an Alpha.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Three of them, though? Seems like overkill to me, but I’m willing if they are.”
“Oh hush, you stupid boy. They’re the cousins of the Alpha that’s coming to marry you. They’ve arrived first to arrange a contract. I already have plenty of suitors practically knocking down my door, but Mother insists I wait. She says she has a plan—if, that is, this offer goes through. It’s all so totally unfair,” she said, stomping her tiny foot.
I knew she was talking about the inheritance laws and not the offer, because I spoke Callista. Like I said, Queen Berinda didn’t think the problem was insurmountable. She had worked out a solution, and I’d heard the two of them discussing it once, just after my fifteenth birthday, when I was hiding out in the library one afternoon and they didn’t know I was there. They had ducked inside to make their plans, because they knew my father never set foot inside the place, nor did any of his lords and ladies, so they thought they’d be safe in openly discussing it.
The key, my stepmother believed, was in finding a suitable Alpha, because Berinda had discovered a loophole in the law. Though the law stated my mate would become Regent for me once my father died, it didn’t actually specify that I had to still be alive for long once another heir was born. In other words, if I were to do my husband the supreme favor of dying quickly after I produced a son for him, say of some “natural” cause, then my mate could continue on as Regent until the child reached an appropriate age.
And the beauty of the plan was that it would work just as well if my Alpha mate took matters in his own hands, and I fell down a convenient flight of stairs.
Once the queen had found the right Alpha to be my mate—i.e., a murdering bastard untroubled by scruples—my new mate-slash-Regent would then be free to choose another queen as soon as I was out of the way. My lovely sister Callista would be right there with a bridal bouquet in hand, waiting in the wings for me to die.
First, of course, they had to find the “right” Alpha, and the task was proving trickier than Berinda ever imagined. They had found that some Alphas disliked the idea of being with a male omega. And a surprisingly high number of the ones that didn’t mind a male didn’t like the idea of being drawn and quartered—the penalty for murdering a member of the royal family, if the crime were to be discovered.
And there was one more fly in the ointment. Alphas wanted heirs, and so far, my heat had yet to come in. At the ripe old age of nineteen and a half, it was beginning to look as if I were destined to be barren. There was still my half-sister though, and even if Inevergot my heat, my stepmother had an idea for Callista to secretly produce a child that they would then pass off as mine. It was all part of the plan.
Sure, a lot of things could go wrong with their vile arrangement—I could object, for example and refuse to marry at all. But my stepmother was confident she could force me. And if I caused a problem, she could shut me up until my “accident” was arranged. That’s what dungeons were for, am I right?
Which begged the question, who exactly had those Alphas been at dinner? Had Berinda at long last found an Alpha and his pack who didn’t care about a minor consideration like murder?
I noticed that Callista was giving me dirty looks again—she had a tendency to do that when I drifted off into one of my “daydreams” as she called them.
“But back to what you were saying,” I said quickly, stalling for time. “Yes, the laws are totally unfair.” I was hoping someone would come by since we were in such a public area, and I might be able to make my escape to avoid this conversation. I didn’t think she’d come after me. And if she tried, I’d run straight back to the Great Hall, because I was faster than Callista and she didn’t like witnesses.
“Who exactly are these guests?” I asked.
“They’re Lord Lexington’s cousins—he’s the Alpha,” she told me. “Their names are Brandon, Asher and Wyatt. Lord Lexington is the head Alpha, and he’s been unavoidably detained, but he’ll be here tomorrow. I don’t know any of them well, as yet, since they’re from the far northern border, but they have strongly indicated they’ve come to offer for you. My mother has interviewed them, and she says she thinks they’ll be perfect.”
In other words, they were raging psychopaths, who wouldn’t so much as flinch at a minor little detail like murder. No wonder they’d looked at me so intently. Measuring me for a shroud, no doubt.
Callista continued her harangue. “We both know you can’t even think about turning them down when they make their offer. Theirs will no doubt be the best one you’re likely to get, because it’s also likely theonly one. The three of them are here tonight to meet the king and queen and check everything out. They may even present their offer, but it’s more likely they’ll be coming by again tomorrow evening with Lord Lexington to make everything official, so you need to be ready. Try to do…something…with yourself. Comb that ugly black hair. And for god’s sake, take a bath,” she said, wrinkling up her dainty nose. “You stink.”
I froze in horror, as she flounced back around and took off the way she’d come, though my body was not just reacting to the news of this Lord Lexington and his pack, but to what Callista had just said.
Istunk?That could mean only one thing—Callista could smell my omega slick. Not only that, but those Alphas had smelled it too, and oh gods, it had been me that had their pheromones working overtime.
I was coming into heat at long last.
To anyone other than an Alpha, omega slick was strong and musky and not in a good way. Betas like Callista found it particularly disagreeable, which may have been a survival mechanism betas had developed way back in their history. If one of them ever got delusional enough to come after an omega to mate them when they were in heat, any and all Alphas would gleefully gut them, whether that omega was theirs or not. Not because they were jealous, but because they were territorial as fuck, and they liked to help betas remember their place in the world.
Also, because omegas were somewhat rare, they were considered to be quite valuable. It was a status symbol of sorts to have your own omega, which was why Alphas went after available omegas so hard.
As for what Callista smelled, I knew I was clean, because I bathed daily. If Callista scented me, and if she found that scent to be unpleasant, it could mean only one thing—my long-awaited heat cycle was finally beginning to come in and she was smelling my slick. And so had those Alphas.
This was an unmitigated disaster.
Rather than murder me outright, like they would have if I never came into heat at all and wasn’t able to have a child, the Alpha could choose to have a few babies with me to establish a firm claim on the throne, then fake my death and just secretly sell me as a valuable commodity. I’d spend the rest of my life as a sex slave in some brothel somewhere, passed from one Alpha to another until I died from having too many babies, or my baby-making parts just gave up the ghost and exploded.
My heart started thumping way harder than it should have, and I knew I had to do something and fast, because ifdidn’t, my only other choice was to accept this Lord Lexington as my new Alpha. I’d be pregnant before many more days would pass, and then I’d be well and truly trapped with no hope of escape.
I was really late for my first heat, but that was on purpose. I’d been trying hard to never come into heat at all. A lot of omegas had late puberties and doctors didn’t know why. But most omegas were around fifteen when they had their first and having a first heat at sixteen or even occasionally seventeen was also fairly common. I’d managed to hold mine off until now, only six months shy of my twentieth birthday, and that was pretty much unheard of, though, of course, knowing what I knew since that day I eavesdropped in the library, I’d done everything in my power to keep mine away as long as I possibly could. I had no wish to die at the hands of some overly ambitious Alpha.
I admit it wasn’t a great plan. In fact, it was downright weak, considering the fact that if I never came in heat at all, they might just murder me anyway as soon as Callista produced a child. But I suppose I was living in a dream world where as long as I didn’t have my heat, I didn’t have to marry. And at the back of my mind, I had a plan to simply run away if my heat did arrive, despite all my efforts.
