Page 51 of Promised to the Alpha Prince

“No,” I said. “I just don’t have a real strong opinion about the bite. I think it’s more important to you than it is to me.”

“It’s your body, omega.”

“Yeah, but the mark means that my body sort of isn’t mine anymore, right? Like, it belongs to you now.” Bitterness crept into my tone.

“Well… yeah, I guess there’s that interpretation,” he said softly. “But I’d like it to mean that we belong to each other, I guess. Because, I swear to you, omega, you already command me, and you have no idea how much.”

“You said earlier that I have to submit to you,” I said.

“I know I said that, but I didn’t mean it to be, uh, like that.”

“Oh, right.” I was sarcastic. “You mean the super empowering kind of submission.”

He winced. “We’re obviously not ready for the bite. I won’t, okay? We’ll wait. We’ll do whatever we need to in order to get you through this heat, and that’ll probably mean bringing in Johannes and Nikolai, which you won’t mind, right? You like them both? You like them more than you like me?”

Now, it was my turn to wince. “No, I wouldn’t say that.”

We cleared the top of the steps and emerged onto the top floor. The roof did come to a peak in the middle. We were in the attic.

He turned and headed down the hallway. I peered into open doors, but they were all dark inside.

“It’s okay to say that omega,” he said. “You don’t have to like me. You just have to be a very good girl and get stuck on my knot, okay?” His voice was a purr.

I convulsed at the words. “Yes, yes, please.”

“Good,” he said.

“But I still… there’s something powerful between us, Dmitri. You do this to me. You trigger my heats through my suppressants. It happened after the dinner, too, and—”

“Really?” He stopped in the middle of the hall, looking down at me. “That’s why I went into that rut?”

“You went into a rut after that dinner?”

“Why do you think I left in the middle of it?”

My lips parted. “You’ve… all along, it’s never been that you didn’t like me, just that I made you crazy turned on, isn’t it?”

He shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“Oh,” I said.

He started walking again. He veered into a room and it was full of candlelight and soft, warm lights, and servants crawling around, arranging pillows and setting out trays of snack foods like crackers and cheese and cured meats.

“Everyone out,” bellowed Dmitri.

All the servants scurried away as he set me down on the springy floor. The whole room was a mattress. I lay back, sighing, kicking off the blanket.

“Shut the door,” yelled Dmitri.

The door slammed, just as I was revealing my nudity.

He collapsed next to me, lying on his side, peering down at me. “Oh, hell, I didn’t think I was going to make it. I thought I was going to fuck you on the steps like ten times.”

I giggled. “Really?”

“Yes, thank you for arguing with me like that or I might never have managed it. You have no idea what you smell like right now.”

“You do like the way I smell?” I was still insecure about that.

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