Page 3 of Promised to the Alpha Prince

aurelie

I RAN ALL the way upstairs to my bedroom, where the clothes I would be wearing for traveling were laid out for me to change into. I slammed the door shut and sagged into it, pressing my forehead into the smooth surface, as if I needed it to hold me upright.

What was that?

I’d never reacted to scents like that before.

Even Dmitri, who had smelled the best of any alpha I’d ever scented, had not made me react quite so violently.

I’d heard of this before, of course. Sometimes termed a scent match, it was the idea that certain alphas smelled better to an omega, that their scents produced a violent reaction which was taken as a sign that the omega should be mated to them.

It wasn’t uncommon for omegas to have more than one alpha bite them.

Except, well, it was uncommon in Valhn.

Alphas in Valhn tended to be proud. There was a lot of warrior and hunting imagery associated with the royalty in Valhn. During the coronation, they would be draped in the fur of some dead animal and instead of a scepter, they would be given a jeweled spear.

They didn’t much like sharing, Valhn alphas.

I hadn’t thought I would mind.

I’d only been through a handful of heats. I went through my first when I was only seventeen, and then I went onto suppressants immediately. After that, until the dinner with Prince Dmitri, I only had one breakthrough heat, and it was so uncomfortable that I begged for relief and a doctor had been dispatched to give me something that knocked me out for the rest of the duration of it.

Since then, since the scent of Dmitri, I hadn’t had a heat. I’d stayed judiciously away from alphas, actually, which was deemed intelligent. After all, if you didn’t ever scent your scent match, you didn’t know what you were missing, right?

And I didn’t think it would matter.

Corentin had been my one true love. Of this, I was sure. He wasn’t an alpha, though, so it didn’t matter. He was a commoner, also, far too common to ever marry. I had loved him with my entire soul, and that was all I would ever experience of love, I thought.

So, if I was going to have to marry someone I didn’t love, it might as well be the heir to a kingdom. I might as well get to be Queen of Valhn out of it, right? That was a compensation.

But this reaction to this Nikolai person—

Well, no, it couldn’t have been to him. He wasn’t royal, was he? Only royals had designations.

True, there was something going on in Angleford where a commoner had presented as an omega and married their heir to the throne, Prince Devlin. But was that catching? Were there going to be other commoners who presented? Was that what was going on with Nikolai?

There was a soft knock on my door.

“Aurelie, darling?” It was my mother.

I opened the door.

Prince Johannes was behind her.

“I’m sorry darling, but he insisted,” said my mother. “He says it’s important.”

“Yes, if we could speak alone?” said Johannes, giving me that we’ve-got-a-secret smile of his.

“All right,” I said, opening the door wider.

He came inside and shut the door.

“Well, I suppose I’ll go then?” called my mother, sounding a little miffed.

“Comtesse Le Blanc, we’ll be down momentarily,” said Johannes. “Thank you so much.”

I heard my mother’s footsteps disappear away from the door. I turned back to Johannes, who I could scent now. He smelled good. My body clenched on itself, and I gasped.

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