Page 30 of Promised to the Alpha Prince

I looked up at them, tilting my head sideways. Was it hard to sleep with them staring at you?

She laughed. “I know, I know. But I brought those with me.” She pointed. “Shot them all myself.”

“Oh,” I said, turning back to her, eyes wide.

She shrugged. “I suppose I’m proud of myself, but let’s be real, here. My father never paid any attention to me and only paid attention to my brothers, so I became everything my father wanted in a son, just hoping he would look at me. Never did, and then I presented, and he was suddenly interested because of the connections I could make for the family, and…” She shrugged again. “Well, at that point I suppose I saw him for what he was.”

“So, do you still hunt?”

“Now that he’s not around and I’m not trying to curry his favor? No,” she said. “It’s a very cold, uncomfortable business, hunting. And it has to be done at the asscrack of dawn. Don’t miss it.”

I laughed.

She went to her closet and tugged out three different very sparkly tops.

“We’re not the same size at all,” I said to her. “You’re much taller than me—”

“Well, I know, but you have that omega rack of yours,” she said, nodding at my breasts, “and so these might fit fine, because they have some give to them.” She held one up, showing me that it was gathered, the fabric falling in shimmering folds.

“So, try them on,” she said.

I felt self-conscious. To be fair, I wouldn’t feel comfortable changing clothes in front of anyone I’d just met, even if this woman hadn’t sort of low-key flirted with me.

“I’ll turn around,” she said, doing it. With her back to me, she kept talking, “but you should know… I don’t know if you can scent it. Probably not, since you’re not used to these things, but anyway. I’m bonded.”

I stepped closer, filling my nostrils with her scent, and I did sense it, now that I knew what she was talking about. Her alpha scent was there, but it was different. Closed, somehow. Finished. “You can’t mean that the King let you bite his omega?” I said.

She snorted. “As if this was the King’s decision. It was Cole’s, obviously. It was what Cole wanted, and the King moves heaven and earth so that Cole can have anything his heart desires, as do I.”

“I thought… in Valhn, that alphas weren’t much for sharing in that way.”

“They talk a good game, but every alpha on earth who bonds an omega becomes attuned to their mate in a way that means that they want what’s best for them, so alphas in Valhn very often allow other mate bites, truth be told. I think it’s disgusting that it’s all hush-hush, of course. It’s perpetrating this unrealistic idea on every generation that comes after, that it’s possible for one alpha to be enough for an omega, and everyone knows this isn’t true.”

I pulled the first sparkly tank top on. “Okay, you can turn around.”

She did. She came for me, turning me in the direction of a full-length mirror which was on the back of the door of the closet. “There you are. That would work. It fits you.”

I gazed at myself. It fit, sort of. On her, the top would have been loose and gathered. On me, my boobs took up all the gathers, which had the effect of making my breasts look even larger than they already were. “I don’t know,” I said. I turned around to look at the other shirts.

“I can promise you, Johannes would like you in this,” she said with a little laugh.

I looked up at her, biting down on my bottom lip.

She patted my cheek, gentle, affectionate. “I think you’ll get him, all of him, my girl, even his bite. Have faith. It’s all going to work out.”

I laughed. “So, I’m that transparent?”

She laughed, too. “We have a different sort of approach to love and commitment than betas do. It’s all quite complicated from their perspective, but from ours, it’s very simple. We revolve around omegas. Please the omega, and everyone’s pleased.”

I laughed. “Happy wife, happy life?”

She nodded.

I stripped the tank off, deciding I didn’t care if she saw me in my bra. “It just doesn’t seem fair, then, though. Why is everything about me?”

“Fair?” she said. “Who gave you some idea that things were supposed to function like that? Is anything in nature fair?”

I considered that, picking up the next top, which was made of a clingy, stretchy fabric, but had long, flowing bell sleeves and sequins all over the collar and sleeves.

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