Page 45 of Promised to the Alpha Prince

He got out his phone and looked at it. He rolled his eyes and shoved it away.

“What?” I said. I got the urge to grab it from him and look myself, but that would have been extremely hypocritical of me, so I resisted.

I just waited.

Finally, he said, “She told me she’s sorry but she promised Dmitri to stay away from me until after the wedding. But that she really likes me and Dmitri makes her livid and she really is sorry.”

I furrowed my brow. “Is it supposed to be like this?”

“What?” he said.

“Is she supposed to be drawn to him against her will? Is that how designations work?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. You can’t even explain why you like him.”

I leaned back in my chair, which reminded me how sore I was from Dmitri’s thick log of a cock. “You might have a point,” I whispered.

“Do I? You like him against your will?”

“And you’re so far gone for the omega because? What? It makes sense? And me too, for that matter. She’s in me now in some way. I can’t even explain it, but I feel itchy not being close to her—”

“Yeah,” he said darkly. “Let’s get drunk.”

“Excellent idea,” I said.

10

dmitri

I DIDN’T WANT to be alone that evening.

Since that first luncheon with the omega, I’d felt uncomfortable, like something inside my skin was stretching and trying to get out.

Like that Alien movie, basically?

It was no wonder that I was in a bad mood all the time.

But I’d really cocked things up. The omega didn’t even like me, and why should she, because every time I was around her, I got all crazed. I’d beaten up Johannes, and Johannes was the most easy-going guy in the history of the universe. So, if I made him mad, yeah, I’d gone too far. And I’d hurt Nik, which really upset me.

Nikolai was sturdy in certain ways, with a deep well of hidden strength, but he was really fragile in other ways, too, and fucking him like that, it had been a bad call, I now realized.

That was probably why he was off with Johannes right now, getting wasted. Nik had extended an invitation to come drink with them, but I knew that it wasn’t a serious invitation. I knew that Johannes did not want to go drinking with me after I punched his face in.

I really shouldn’t have hit him.

I didn’t even get it, because in theory, intellectually, I was fine with the entire arrangement. I’d thought it all through and talked to other alphas who had omegas, and they’d all told me that it was impossible to keep up with an omega, and that I’d be grateful of the help when it came down to it.

I’d gotten drunk with the King once, and he’d told me details about his sex life that I had never wanted to know, but I’d come away with it certain that there was no way on earth that I could possibly manage an omega on my own.

So, I had accepted it. At least I thought I had. And then she was there, and I was scenting her, and I was looking at her, and I never wanted any other person the way I wanted her, and I never felt such a wave of intense, choking possessiveness of her.

I did not want to share her.

There was another reason that I wanted Nikolai around right now and it was that I still had a raging hard-on. I was pretty sure I was in a rut, which shouldn’t probably have happened, but then…

I had been in one before. It was after our dinner together. I’d excused myself when I’d gotten so turned on and so eager to touch her that I’d been terrified I was going to rip her clothes off and knot her and bite her right there during the dinner.

I had texted someone to come and fetch me, my fingers trembling, barely keeping control of myself.

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