Page 3 of Ruined By His Alpha King
And when the goddess called upon Stamel, who was he to deny sleeping with another omega? He’d proven his virility twice. The babe, he’d named Tyran. The omega? He’d delivered the child in a basket in the night, claiming it to be Stamel’s. The same story of a Thirdday drinking session and a scar. And he loved that child, too. He had red hair, and beyond that looked nothing like Stamel. But, again, nobody said a thing.
What was one more bastard?
He had a crown to take.
Chapter Three
Seidrik
Fifteen years prior
As a young boy, Seidrik had known that his father hated omegas. He’d diligently waited to be of age to speak to the goddesses, to be a beta or an alpha and make his father proud. So, when his insect wings and antlers had manifested one night while his mother chased him about the playroom, they both cried. All this as Virion, still in his cradle, napped.
Lyrica, his mother, with hair like spun gold and eyes like strawblossoms, the same color as Virion’s, had wept for him. She had been the daughter of an alpha and omega pair. A rarity in a small fiefdom off the border of Croatens. Alluin much the same, the child of a holy pairing, their only child before his omega father fell ill and died. He’d always hated omegas, hated the father that left him so young, hated the weakness and preferential treatment of the holy genders. His reign had cemented it.
“You’re still a beta if nobody knows,” Lyrica had cried. She helped him hide his little antlers, like sun elk. His wings, like the jewelfly, had to be tucked away. And in secret, every few days, his mother took him to a glade outside the palace to let them out. There, he chased nymphs as they avoided his presence, laughed with him, and made crowns of silkdaisies. They were wonderful days as she nursed Virion, and he grew. Eventually Virion could not come with them, his words developing. He’d be at risk of saying what he saw. Nobody but Lyrica could know.
And in time, Lyrica prayed to the goddess to make things right, to make Alluin see the error of his ways, to let him accept things as they were. And again, shefell pregnant, each day promising Seidrik that the goddess would fix him, would make it all right.
So, when one morning he woke and his mother’s attendant dressed him in black, he made the trek with Saria to the temple, his first time inside, and only then did he know his mother had perished.
He’d cried for days, afraid of what was to come. Any day would come where he would be caught. No mother to hide him. No new brother to distract the king. So, when Virion manifested omega, Seidrik seized the opportunity.
They’d been playing in the garden when it happened. Virion, always a sensitive little boy, had fallen and skinned his knee. In his fit of tears, antlers so similar to his own sprang from his head, and wings like the sugarmoth ripped his tunic as they shot free. His first thought had been to hide him, to protect Virion, but an attendant shouted, had seen it. “Call the king! Virion has manifestedomega.”
With Alluin’s attention drawn, Seidrik saw the disgust. He saw the hatred, and when he attended the temple and they bowed their heads in prayer to the goddess, he never spoke a word to her.
After all. The goddess never speaks to omegas. And if she cared, she’d have never made me one.
Seidrik snuck off quite often, leaving the castle walls togo hunting. He never returned with prey, but it was nice to stretch his wings in the glade, to let his antlers free. They pained him to keep hidden.
Bubbling laughter met his ears that evening. Seidrik stood and glanced around. “Catpaw!”
A yellow boy of a nymph sprung from behind a copse of cross oak and tinder maple. Finely woven bay willow leaves lay scattered about in his sunny curls. “Seidrik!”
They rolled and laughed with one another, flying about. They picked the strawblossoms that day asthey’d only recently bloomed and decorated their hair. They shone so prettily in Seidrik’s straight blond locks that it was a shame he had to hide his beauty.
Nymphs aged very slowly, as compared to fae. A fae might live a thousand years, but they reached maturity by twenty. Nymphs did not mature until at least a century, though their lifespans were similar. The male nymph, Catpaw, whom Seidrik had called after the fluffy yellow flowers, braided his hair in the style of an omega, with smaller forelock braids that swept back while he told tales of when Lyrica was a girl.
The reflection he saw in the creek made him long to one day be himself. And in the same breath? He cursed it.
As he flew through the forest, he rested on a tree branch and stared up at the Mother Goddess. She shone down on him warmly, and he wished so very much that she’d speak to him, promise him it would be alright. He dared not speak to her first, not even thepleasethat burned in his heart.
“Seidrik?” A vaguely familiar voice called out, and he turned in time to see a freckle-faced boy with blood-dove wings and dragon’s horns. “By the law, you’re as cute as your brother.”
Seidrik shrieked and flailed, falling from the tree as his weak wings failed to catch him. In a flicker and flash, the young male, an alpha he knew, caught him with a laugh. “Careful, Seidrik…or should I just call youomega.”
“No. No, no no!” Seidrik willed his glamor into place and tore the flowers and braids from his hair in a flurry. “No! I’m beta. I’m a beta!”
“Suuuuure. And I’m a girl.” Stamel snorted and grinned, a gap in his teeth where his last baby tooth had fallen out.
“What are you doing in my forest? Spying on me!” Seidrik nearly shrieked the words, but he could barely think straight for the pounding in his heart.
“Papa and Father are introducing me to omega royalty, trying to get me to sniff a prospective mate out for when I grow up.” Stamel scoffed. “Wish they’d let me talk to you instead of your brother.”
“Virion is a very pretty omega, I’m told. He has the royal pallor and spring deer antlers. He has moth wings and is soft-spoken.” Seidrik cleared his throat and took a step back, bumping into a tree as Stamel approached.
“He’s kinda sissy. I like you better. Jewelflies are my favorite.” Stamel’s grin didn’t fade. “But why are you hiding? You’re cute, too. Do they already have a husband picked for you?”
