Page 2 of Ruined By His Alpha King
Stamel
The next evening, he did as the goddess commanded and strode into the Wildercat’s Whisker, head covered in a cloak. He took a seat and ordered dinner, waiting for the omega. And like the goddess said, a scared omega with hair so jet black it was blue and skin as pale as snow came in, white eyes sparkling with unshed tears as he ordered a tankard of ale.
“I’ll pay for that,” Stamel said before inviting the shy male over. Stamel guided the omega away and seated him in a corner booth before having tea sent to him. Stamel, for his part, drank the omega’s ale as he mildly protested.
“You seem like you’ve got a problem,” Stamel said by way of observation. The tears that had threatened his eyes when he walked in poured greatly.
“I just need the ale. Then… Then I can do what he says… It’ll all be right again.” The omega sputtered through tears as he pulled out a glass vial of dark liquid.Screechwasp honey.Stamel only knew the stuff from when his—when the omega came to his father to present his belly as Stamel’s doing.
An abortifacient.Baymar, Stamel’s assailant, who he refused to call a lover, had refused to take the concoction. Pallosar had urged Baymar to do so but would not force his hand. It was an omega’s body. His choice to make. But it hadn’t been Stamel’s. Baymar wasn’t the one beguiled into fucking someone that wasn’t his true mate.
A vial of screechwasp honey and liquor to dull the pain. The physician had been gruesome in telling Stamel what the stuff did to an omega’s body. There would be blood, viscera, the process nearly as painful as birth would have been. Pregnant or no, it voided thewomb. For his benefit, Lumic had been forced to listen to the lesson, too. Not that Lumic was ever lax with his nightflower and honeythistle. And he never took an alpha to his bed when in heat.
Cold hollowed Stamel to his core. He reached for the omega’s hand, clasping the vial, giving it a squeeze. “Do you want to?”
“No. I must. He said he’d leave me and abandon my family’s contract if I didn’t. If I’m pregnant without a mate… I’ll be ruined.” The omega’s shoulders rounded in pain.
“What is your name?” Stamel tightened his grasp.
“Rekai, of House Pamon.” The omega swallowed hard. They were rope makers, skilled at stripping flashpine bark in thin strips to weave into a suitable—if not rash-inducing—rope.
“And who is this alpha threatening you?” Stamel didn’t release the omega’s twitching hand.
The omega shook his head until Stamel lifted his hood and stared him down. “As your prince, I command you.”
“Lord Tynmal, of the Merchant’s Guild. If I submit to him, he keeps my family in business…” Rekai lowered his head, fighting sobs. “We won’t survive another plague year if he ceases to buy from us. Tibbitz can undercut us by two chips a foot.”
“So, he’s abusing you.” Stamel’s heart went out to the poor omega.
“I agreed! My parents do not know. His wife cannot find out.” The omega breathed heavily, his pupils pinning.
“When was your begging night, last?” Stamel’s voice came out colder than he’d expected.
“We only meet on Secondday nights. I’m two months and a week gone now. I go to his office and—” Rekai halted when Stamel raised a hand.
An omega’s choice was their own, he had to remind himself. Stamel needed the ale, just like the goddess said. He took a long swig and exhaled darkly. “And what would you want to do? If everything could go your way, how would it play out?”
“I would have the babe. I would have a job and name the child, make my own way with my thread making. I make fine thread and am good at dyeing. It makes such beautiful embroidery. Start my own business where I don’t need anyone.” The omega sniffed. “I can’t make it on my own. So, if I have this baby, my family loses everything, and I’ll be a beggar.”
“Thirdday nights, I sneak out to go drinking often… I never really recall who I sleep with.” Stamel gave Rekai a meaningful look. His starlight eyes widened, breath catching. “I have a scar on my left arse cheek where my brother Ingred snuck a wildercat into my tent during a hunting trip.”
The omega gasped softly as Stamel turned his gaze up to meet his eyes. Stamel released his hand, letting him pull the vial back. “I imagine if my father found out I’d sired another bastard, he’d front the money to make things right. Make the omega comfortable. He’d not question it. I already have one bastard. And how am I to know if I fucked you or not?”
Rekai gave a choked sob. “I couldn’t.”
“I don’t care what you can or cannot do. It’s not like the crown can’t afford it. Pallosar is kind to omegas. Unfalteringly so.” Stamel finished off the ale with long, hard gulps.
“Do what you want. I’ll have word with the guild master tomorrow morning.” Stamel wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and stood. “I wish you a wonderful life, omega.”
***
Three days later, Stamel woke with Pallosar pounding on his door, screaming at the top of his lungs. Incoherent babbling about another bastard, being a shame to the crown, and other things that he cared little about. Stamel dressed and attended a meeting with Rekai, shrugging lamely when Pallosar asked if he’d slept with the omega.
“I don’t keep tabs on my cock when he goes out wandering.” Stamel snorted. He never admitted or denied anything. Lying would be his undoing.
In the end, Rekai was given a grant to start his own thread-making mill. And the child he named Neffa.
And if the child had Tynmal’s overbite, nobody said a word about it.
