Page 130 of Promised to the Alpha Prince

“It’ll be fine, omega,” he said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“And Corentin? He’ll be fine?”

“Yes, fuck yes, I like him,” said Nikolai.

I glanced at him. “You do?”

“Hey, I brought him in to your wedding night, didn’t I?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

He sighed. “Of course, back then, I thought it was somehow all going to work out. And now, not so much.”

“Right,” I said, dejected.

“Look, I’m staying with you,” he said. “I’m sure about you. Dmitri and Johannes? I don’t even know.”

Well, that didn’t make sense, because Nikolai had been with them for a really long time, and whatever was between us was very new and we hadn’t had much chance to really be together. He was angry with them, but he wasn’t really choosing me over them. I decided not to say this aloud, however. I didn’t think he’d appreciate that perspective.

He was clearly in a lot of pain, deep pain. His entire life had been abuse and coercion. It made sense that he wouldn’t quite know how to trust anyone, since all of his experiences of relationships involving trust had been tainted.

I didn’t know how to help him, but I wanted to.

And I couldn’t think about that—not right now. Corentin was in danger.

The GPS directed us down a long, winding road that dwindled to just gravel, tall trees growing on either side of the road, barely budding on their long limbs.

When a narrow side road appeared on the left hand side, Nikolai told me to take it, even though the GPS was telling me to go straight. I turned. The GPS began to squawk at me to “turn around when possible” and Nikolai switched it off. He directed me to park under a tree.

I pulled under the branches of the tree and turned the key in the ignition. Then I took the key out.

He got out of the car.

I got out too.

“Behind me, omega,” said Nikolai.

“Yes, alpha,” I whispered.

He turned around and shook his head at me. “Don’t call me that right now. It’s getting me all worked up.”

“You just called me ‘omega,’” I said. “What do you think that does to me?”

His mouth quirked into a smile. “Sorry, Aurelie.”

“Apology accepted.”

“Stay behind me, and we’ll be fine.”

“Got it,” I said.

We crept behind the trees, following the gravel road, until a wooden shack came into view. There were several cars parked outside of it, and as we got closer, we could hear the sounds of groans and muffled cries coming from within.

They were hurting Corentin!

It took everything inside me not to rush forward and burst into that place and go to him. But I knew it wouldn’t help him. It would only put me in danger. I stayed behind Nikolai instead.

He surveyed the scene from our vantage point behind the tree line, thoughtful. “We need to move quickly and stay low,” he said. “As long as they don’t see movement through those windows, they won’t know we’re even here.”

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