Page 136 of Ruled By The Alpha

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I smell the two Alphas waiting for me before I see them. Their mix of aggression and control, musk and leather and steel, is almost comforting. It’s the smell of the barracks, the training ground, the battleground, the council chamber. The places I thought were my destiny. Places I’m all but barred from now that I’m an Omega.

There are subtler scents, too. Pepper and sage, cedar and clove. My nose twitches. Sage is my favorite scent. It has been since I ran away from the confusion and stultifying ceremony of the old King’s last handfasting when I was ten and hid under a huge sage bush in the palace gardens. There was already a boy under the bush, who briefly protested my intrusion. But when I showed him the wooden soldiers I’d carved and painted as a gift to the new Queen—which my mother didn’t let me give her—and he showed me the set of very fine daggers his father had gifted him for his fourteenth birthing day, we became friends. We spent the hot, hazy afternoon hiding in the bush’s shadow, giggling, and talking of nothing, in the way of children.

His father came into the garden, bellowing as only an Alpha can. The boy shushed me with his finger across my lips and scrambled out of our hiding place, rather than have his father find us together. The boy showed throat to his father and his father dragged him away, lecturing him about duty as they went.

I lay under the sage bush for a few more minutes, then returned to my family for a similar lecture.

Sage remains my favorite scent. It’s the scent that’s haunted my dreams since I Revealed.

The deep green spice grows stronger as I open the door. The two Alphas look up; neither had their back to the door, in the way of warriors. All Alphas are tall and broad, but these Alphas have heavy muscles straining the necklines and shoulders and chests of their embroidered tunics which speak of training with shield and sword. They have a similar look to them: proud jaw and nose; clever, slanted eyes under strong brows. They are old and young, December and May. December sits in a chair. Older than my father; perhaps as old as my departed grandfather. His trimmed beard and long hair, caught back in a plain queue despite his high status, aren’t just gray, they’re white. His face is craggier than the peaks rearing above my father’s hall. Although his ears rise out of his white hair to sharp points above his head, his eyes are a dull grey, the silver of the Isvaulta mixing with something else, Vonna or Spiddran, it’s impossible to say. But any Isvaultinn Gifts he has will not be strong with such eyes.

The eyes of the man behind him are as black as mine. Vonna black. As I meet them, they flash red. His growl fills the room.

“Morgan, breathe,” the old man says.

I barely hear him. My nose is filled with sage. My vision has gone bloody. The silk between my legs is soaked.

“Lady Kieran, please sit.” The old man rises and waves something under my nose. A sharp, acidic scent, it clears some of the red from my vision and helps me control the spike of pure, heated want that’s shot through me.

“Morgan, a little space, please,” the old man says, as he takes my hand and guides me to the chair he was sitting in. The red-eyed Alpha shuffles a few steps away, then crouches in a creak of leather and leans toward me.

He’s too far away. I watch him, licking at my fangs, which have descended, filling my mouth with copper. My lips, above and below, are wet. I blot at the corners of my mouth with the back of my hand. Nothing I can do about the wetness ofmy nether lips. I know both men can smell it, since I have no natural Omega perfume to hide the musk. The older man seems unaffected, while the red-eyed Alpha flares his nostrils rhythmically with the rise and fall of the soft growl thrumming in his chest.

The old man hands me a square of white linen, which I use to wipe away the blood on my lips and fingers. He kneels in front of me, grimacing at the pop of aged joints. His position interrupts my view of the red-eyed Alpha. I shift to the side until I can see the Alpha—my Alpha—again.

“Well, that certainly answers some questions,” the old man says. “Kieran, if I can have your attention for five minutes, I’ll leave you two to get reacquainted.”

I flick my eyes to the old man’s face before returning my gaze to my Alpha.

“Very well.” The old man reaches for my hand. We both draw back when my Alpha’s growl rises. “Ah, yes. Forgive me, Morgan. I won’t touch your mate. Kieran, please listen to me for just a few minutes. I’m Justlinn. Perhaps you’ll honor me by calling me Uncle Justlinn when we’re in private. Morgan is my brother’s natural son—”

Natural. A bastard.

The old man continues, “Morgan’s the commander of the King’s Estrukkar troops. Our front line against the Oneswogans. The King can only spare him for a few days. I had to call in many favors for that short reprieve. I’m sorry you two will have so little time, and for the pretense I’m about to ask of you—”

My eyes flick back to him. Pretense?

“Do you know anything of my House?” he asks.

I swallow roughly. It’s hard to talk around my fangs. It makes me slur slightly as I respond. “I know your holdings are to the east. Over the Hayga Mountains. Strategically important.”

“Yes, very good,” he says, sounding like my old sword master when I’d mastered a stroke. “House Tomarr not only protects the kingdom’s eastern flank, but we also supply the kingdom with blackstone. Do you know what that is?”

I nod. It’s used in forges and other places where a very high heat is necessary.

“Blackstone is critical to the production of steel weapons, which are giving us what little edge we have in the war against the Oneswogans. The King depends on both the barrier we defend and the stone we supply. This has brought my House—our House—the King’s favor, but it also puts us under great pressure. It’s critical that House Tomarr stand strong, particularly in these dark days when the Korkarr ally with the Oneswogans and we fight on two fronts.”

I didn’t know House Korkarr had turned its coat. News makes its way slowly to the North, but I’ve heard no whisper of this. Either this is a new development in the fractious landscape of the new King’s rule, or the King and his council have kept it a secret.

“I have little doubt that your Reveal was a shock, perhaps even a horrible shock, to you. But it has given me hope for the first time in two years. I lost my lady Omega a decade ago. Then the last of my three sons in the old King’s war. House Tomarr lacks a blood heir. Morgan is my brother’s son, but he cannot inherit under our current laws. He’s spoken of the girl he met under the sage bush for years. He swore he’d never mate another. You Revealing as an Omega... I cannot tell you what this means to us. The circumstances of your Reveal being what they were, it’s taken me some time to convince the King to pardon you under the aegis of taking you as my mate.” When my eyes narrow, he chuckles. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m an old man; I’ll never ask anything more of you than you be a fond niece. Once I’ve passed on, Morgan will mate you openly. Yourson will inherit and Morgan will have the birthright that would have been his if my brother had a little more sense and a little less pride. In the meanwhile, you will hold the Tomarrhai strong and sure for our new King. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Kieran?”

I blink hard at him, trying to process his words through the rampaging of my blood. “You wish me to mate you in name but Morgan will be my true mate and sire the House Tomarr heir?”

“Yes.”

Fitting the words into my mouth finally pushes their meaning through my heated brain. “I cannot.”

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