Page 35 of Promised to the Alpha Prince

“It’ll be a pack baby,” she said, with a grin, thankfully oblivious to the fact that I had been stunned. “Which suits me fine. The King and Cole would need a surrogate, anyway, and here I am, and the king can even be involved in the conception if he wants.”

“Do you do it that way?” I said. “All three of you?”

“Sure,” she said. “Are you hoping for that?”

I sighed. “Well, if Johannes is being the way he is, I don’t know if it’ll ever happen. But, anyway, Dmitri and Nikolai have something, so I guess the two of them—”

“Nikolai?” She raised her eyebrows. “He’s part of this with you? They’re going to let him touch their omega, hmm?” She shrugged. “Well, I guess he is an alpha, but it’s all so confusing.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t understand any of it. Johannes told me some things, but they didn’t make sense.”

“Here’s what I know,” said Ilse, sitting back down on the bed. “He was trained by some kind of private secret service group or something, like the KGB on steroids, but for profit, not for a government. He was trained to honey trap and kill. An ultimate weapon against alphas all over the world.”

“Who wants to kill alphas?” I said.

She shrugged. “When you’re rich and famous, someone always wants to kill you.”

I felt cold all over. I swallowed.

“Anyway, no one understands how he’s an alpha, of course, but that made him twice as appealing than if he hadn’t been. His designation was part of his ability to seduce. The group, whatever they were called, they him sent to Dmitri for whatever reason.”

“He was supposed to kill Dmitri?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Maybe just spy on him, get close and find out secrets so that the weird group could sell those secrets to people who wanted to blackmail the next King of Valhn? Whatever the case, I guess Dmitri is too lickable to hurt.”

“So, he didn’t do it?”

“Nope,” she said. “He betrayed the organization to Dmitri, who had them all hunted down, brought up on charges, and sent to prison.”

“Wow,” I said.

“Yeah, he’s got a protective streak, I guess, even though he seems outwardly like nothing but a jerk. Anyway, now, Nikolai is sort of the pet alpha of our generation of alphas. Except me. I was told he doesn’t like women.”

I bit down on my lip.

“No, it’s fine,” said Ilse. “It’s not unheard of for those of us with designations to throw all our gender preferences out the window, especially for an omega.” She winked at me.

My body lurched a little. I didn’t feel drawn to Ilse the way I felt drawn to Johannes or Nikolai or Dmitri, but I knew that I was attracted to her. Her alpha designation mattered more than what was between her legs. In some ways, my designation simply didn’t care.

She was still grinning at me.

I looked away, shy.

“Oh, I’m only teasing you, omega,” she said. She drew in a breath. “Anyway, Nikolai. I’ve always thought he was creepy. You like him?”

“I do,” I said. “A lot, actually. But I haven’t seen him since I got here.” I fiddled with the skirt of my dress. “I feel like I need to make this lunch with Dmitri work today. I feel like everything will get easier if I do.”

“Work in what way?”

“Oh, in all the ways,” I said.

“Well, I think that dress is a good start.”

“I have to try on the other ones,” I said. “Sorry. If you don’t want to hang out while I obsess—”

“I said I was here for the fashion show, didn’t I?” Her grin widened.

nikolai

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