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“You’re a healer. Explain it to me like I’m the ignorant fuck we both know I am. What’s wrong with a cold Omega, physically? Biologically?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I’m curious.”
I click my tongue, annoyed, wondering whether he’s experimenting with a new twisted way to hurt me. But then I hear myself say, “We’re just… The development of our Omega sexual characteristics halted abruptly, and no drugs or lifestyle changes were able to restart it.” He seems lost in thought. I notice the deep frown on his brow, and wonder what it would take to smooth it over. “Sir? Are you okay?”
He clears his throat. Shifts back, as if to get away from me. “Yes, Lady Larsen.”
I roll my eyes. “You know, I’ve been considering this matter.”
“Which one?”
“Whether it’s correct for you to call me that. Since my mating with Lennart is not yet complete—thanks toyou—I don’t think you should.” A beat. “Yet.”
A muscle twitches in his jaw. Still, he smiles. “Yet.”
“Are you going to send me back untouched? Or are you here to finish what you started?” I tilt my head. “Or what youdidn’tstart?”
“I’m here because I got hungry following my morning sparring session.”
Despite myself, I laugh. “I bet you’re the kind of Alpha who wakes up two hours before everyone else to train.”
“And I bet you’re the kind of Omega who stays up two hours longer than everyone else to read.”
How does he know?
We stare at each other, and I could swear that his lips are twitching upward.
“Is your seneschal really mated to your deputy commander? Did I get it right?”
“You did. Yes.”
Wow. Look at me go. “Does he treat all the Omegas who share your bed like they’re fish excrement?”
“What if I told you that there hasn’t been anyone else?”
“I’d ask if you hit your head while sparring.”
He laughs. “I do fuck Omegas. But not in my bed.”
“How so?”
“I find that their scents tend to linger. Overstay their welcome.”
That explains why his quarters smell only like him. “Don’t worry,” I reassure him. “I won’t make the mistake of thinking that being the exception makes me special.” I cock my head in something that could almost be friendly.Flirty, Lara would call it. “What really makes me special is that you haven’t taken me, isn’t it?”
It’s his turn to say, “Yet. I haven’t taken youyet, Sofia.” I briefly wonder if he plans to wipe the table clean with his arm and fuck me right on top of it in the next three minutes, right before I’m allowed to return home.
For a split second, the look in his eyes has me almost certain he’s considering the same.
“Is that why Bastian wants to feed me to the oceans? Because I’m soiling your room with my scent?”
“Bastian has no say in what I get off to. The reason he doesn’t like you is your unfortunate association with the Larsens—and because of his allegiance to Martia.”
“What does that mean? Why would that make her hate me?”
“Martia and I were engineering soldiers together.”
