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Igella is a hilly country, and I stopped on a wooded rise about a quarter of a mile away to gaze down at the sprawl of buildings inside the castle walls. I was trying to decide how best to find Brandon in that maze, when the gates at the back of the castle opened up and I watched as several small wagons rolled inside, seeming to be carrying barrels and other goods from the village from what I could tell at that distance. It made sense that they’d be bringing in extra food and drink to accommodate their guests.
It gave me an idea of how to get in the castle, and I urged Maggie forward toward a small, wooded area near the back gate. What went in had to come back out, after all, and when the wagons emerged, I hoped to use that as an opportunity to slip inside. I made my way down the rise and kept to the trees to avoid being observed by the guards, and tied Maggie loosely to a nearby tree, where she’d have plenty of grass to nibble on, yet would still be well hidden. I watched and waited until the wagons began coming back out, and then I slipped inside the gates and managed to duck inside a storage building close by. I was pretty confident that no one had noticed me, which was good. I wanted to keep my visit as low key as possible.
Once the guards closed the gates and once things quieted down, I came out of the small building and tried to blend in with the many servants that were coming and going in the courtyard. No one paid much attention to me at all. I followed one of them to a back door that led inside and found myself at the rear of the scullery.
Inside, everything was chaotic, with a lady that I thought must be the cook swinging her bulk around the room, holding a large ladle in her hand. She was taking swipes at first one and then another hapless scullery maid who got in her way or who wasn’t moving fast enough. Before she whacked me, I hunched over, drew my hood over my head and sidled past her into a dark hallway. I wandered around until I found a broad staircase at the end of that corridor that looked like it might not be meant for servants. It was far too wide for the lower class, and the banister rails were carved oak, like the risers. I took the stairs, wanting to get off the main floor and went up a couple of flights, coming out on a wide hallway with a series of doors. I figured most of them led to bedrooms.
Could one of them be Brandon’s? I had no idea, but the stairs ended there, so I’d have to find another way to get to any upper floors.
I whirled quickly around to go and find another set of stairs and ran right into someone coming up behind me.
That person was small—much smaller than I—and the force of me hitting them made them windmill their arms and start to fall backward. I caught them around the waist, because my bulk had knocked them off balance, after all, and they were about to have a nasty fall.
The person—whoever it was—wore a long black robe with a hood. They looked up at me in surprise and said, “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to bump into you. I should have watched where I was going.”
The person in question then pushed back the hood off their face, and I was staring down at a gorgeous little omega. He had glossy, blue-black hair, and pale, satiny skin, and his eyes were a lovely shade of emerald-green and fringed by thick, black lashes. He was definitely an omega, and I knew right away that he was also in heat. Strongly in heat, and his scent was surrounding me and tickling my nose. A shocking thought, and one that might have normally enflamed me. I was an Alpha after all, and I knew that he had absolutely no business being out of his Alpha’s rooms at a time like this. It was dangerous for him, and his Alpha would spank his little ass when he found out.
But while I was struck by his beauty, and I could definitely smell his lovely and slightly overwhelming scent, I was amazed that I was still totally unmoved by him. Sexually, that is. What the hell had that blood magic thing done to me? Alphas had certain biological urges, after all, and normally, I would have been salivating for him. I would have frankly lost my mind over such a beautiful and desirable omega.
He immediately recognized what I was—an Alpha that he didn’t know—at the same time as I made my own discoveries, and he gasped and tried desperately to pull away and run. I let him go at once, but he tripped over his long robe—those blasted robes again—and fell backward. I grabbed at him in alarm, managing to get a grip on the front of his robe—and pulled it right off him with a loud ripping sound as he tumbled down the steps backward.
I stood there for a moment, staring down at him in horror. He had fallen down several steps and all the way to the landing, hitting with a loud thwacking sound at the bottom. The sound was his naked skin hitting the stone, because the omega wasn’t wearing a stitch of anything underneath.
Fuck, I was a dead man. If his Alpha—who I now realized had to be Lexington—saw this, my life would surely be forfeit. This beautiful boy perfectly matched the description Brandon had given me of Prince Rory. Though I suppose he was King Rory now. Shit and double shit.
I ran down to kneel beside him at once, afraid he’d really hurt himself, and that’s when I heard a voice behind me coming down the hallway.
“Rory, are you sneaking off to the scullery again for snacks? Ring the bell for a servant, baby. Damn it. I’ve told you time and again that you can’t…” There was a shocked, ominous pause and a huge gasp as Lexington, the King’s Regent, took in the scene in front of him. I have to admit it looked pretty damn bad. His omega stretched out unconscious on his back at the bottom of the landing—and did I mention the part where he was naked—with me looming over him. The incredibly angry, wounded roar that came out of Lex could no doubt be heard all over the castle.
I whirled around in time to watch helplessly as Lex leaped down the steps to where I was crouching beside his naked omega. Catching him mid-flight, we fell backward in a tangle of arms and legs. So much for keeping my visit to the castle low key. But once we were there on the floor, I suddenly realized Lexington wasn’t moving. He was a dead weight on me, and I pushed him carefully off to the side. He had badly miscalculated his jump and cracked his head on the floor as we tumbled backward. Before I could properly check on him, though, a tiny tornado attacked me out of nowhere, jumping on my back and pummeling my shoulders with his fists.
“Oh! Oh, my goodness, what have you done to my husband?” the omega shrieked, completely beside himself, beating on me wherever he could reach. “Lex, Lex, speak to me! Oh, my goodness!”
“Your Majesty,” I said. “Rory,” I said a little louder to get his attention. I peeled him carefully off my back and put him on the floor beside his husband.
“I think he knocked himself out when he jumped on me. Look, he’s already coming back around.” Rory was too busy peppering kisses all over Lex’s face at the moment, however, to pay me much mind, but as Lex slowly regained consciousness and realized what was happening, he began to struggle a little against the tender attack.
“I’m all right now, baby. Please, get off me and let me get up.”
I got to my own feet warily and took a backward step, ready to run, though I wondered how far I’d get now.
Lex had struggled up to his feet by this time, snatched up Rory’s robe and draped it over him, then took a furious, menacing step toward me. Suddenly he stopped dead still in the shadowy corridor and blanched. His face drained of all color, and he pointed a shaky finger at me, drawing in a sudden, sharp breath.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice sounding horrified as he pushed his frightened consort behind him. “You’re not real. Y-you’re dead.” He held up a hand toward me and began muttering some kind of chant that hit me so hard, I reeled backward.
I managed to get my hands up in front of me in what I hoped was a reassuring gesture. “No, no, actually I’m not dead. It is me, but I’m not a ghost. I managed to swim away from the ship as it sank and make it to shore. That’s what I’ve come to tell Brandon. Please, Lex. I have to see him. Take me to him. This thing with your omega was all a huge mistake.”
He peered at me incredulously. “It was a mistake all right. No, I don’t believe you, Evil Apparition. That’s a lie, because no one could have escaped that ship. And we were too far from shore for anyone to swim. You’re a dark shade.”
“No, I’m really not. I’m just me. And I’ve come to find Brandon.”
“That’s just what a dark shade would say.”
“Yes, you’re probably right. But I’m not one of those. Really,” I held out my hand to him. “Touch me and see for yourself.”
“No, don’t do it, Lex!” his little omega said from behind him, peering around his shoulder. “It’s an evil trick.”
“It’s not a trick. I’m real. I’m not a shade, and I survived. Look, I don’t want Brandon to find out this way and have it scare him half to death. Can’t we go somewhere to talk?”
