Page 16 of Promised to the Alpha Prince

“No!” I peered down at him, the panic growing like a red storm. “I thought we both… I thought it was…” I gave up. I scooted down on the bed, defeated. “You can knot me if you want.”

“Nik?” He scooted over to me, under the covers, and pulled me against him, against his hard, nude body.

It was steadying, the touch. I let out a relieved noise, burrowing into his broad chest, letting him hold me.

“Sorry,” he said quietly. “I’ve never been like this before.” A pause. “Fucking omega.”

“Is that why?” I said into his skin.

“Yes?” He wasn’t sure.

I put my palm on his chest, stroking him, stroking his chest hair. Petting him, almost, soothing him. Or soothing myself, maybe. Soothing us both. “It’ll be better after he’s mated her and then we can have her, too.”

“Probably.” He tightened his grip on me. He let out a little laugh. “Oh, you’re still hard.”

“It’s fine,” I said.

He reached down between us and toyed with my cock. “What do you mean, it’s about him?”

“He’s just…” I sighed. “If you’re going to do that, I can’t think of words.”

“You want me to stop?” He was teasing now.

I didn’t know. I didn’t say anything.

“You don’t mind being with Dmitri?” There was a sharpness to his words.

“No,” I said. “No, it’s nice. Everything about him, it’s so much. He’s got this power, and it rolls over you and consumes you, and you get caught up in it, and it’s good.”

He was still stroking my cock. He jerked me, silent.

I was pretty sure I’d said the wrong thing.

“Well,” he said, finally, “that’s how I feel about you.”

“No,” I said. “No, it’s not the same, because with us, it’s a dance, a back-and-forth, and I don’t do things you don’t like, and—”

“He does things you don’t like?” Now, Johannes was angry.

I shoved his hand off. “Johannes, please.”

He blinked down at me. His jaw was tight, and there was a little nerve in his face that was jerking. I’d never seen him like that, never.

I licked my lips. “It’s not his fault,” I said finally. “You know the way he was raised, that family of his, the way they feel about designations and how he grew up with all that weird homophobic bullshit.”

“The King has a male omega.”

“I know, but that’s the King,” I said. The way it worked in royalty, people in line for the throne did not come from the same bloodlines, so the king wasn’t Dmitri’s father. He was another member of the Valhn peerage who’d presented first in his generation. When the king died, Dmitri would ascend to the throne.

Amongst designations, there was a sort of bacchanalian bisexuality, and it was considered normal to fuck, well, anyone. People with designations were ravenous. There were more alphas than omegas, and most alphas were male, and that tended to mean a lot of male-on-male sex, and it always had, but even as recently as thirty or forty years ago, that was considered a dirty secret. There had been a tacit agreement between the press and the royals to not air that as public knowledge.

Now, even though it was out in the open, some people were still phobic about it. Dmitri’s family was very old guard.

“So, what? Like, he uses you like a woman, that’s what you’re saying? He likes you because you’re…” He looked me over. “Delicate and lithe and—”

“I’m not delicate,” I said, but I was smiling. I liked androgyny, that was the thing. I didn’t mind if I had a feminine edge to the way I presented.

“Does he let you knot him?”

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