Page 58 of Unlikely Omega

“Any citizen of the empire obeys certain laws.”

“I’ve been sent out to be executed, though I didn’t break any laws, so tell me why I should be an obedient sheep like you!”

Somewhere behind me, I swear I hear Finnen wheeze a little laugh, as if he’s heard me.

Maybe he has.

“Son of a whore. Enough out of you. I’m not your friend, woman.” The Commander hands me over to one of the guards at the tent’s entrance. “Take her inside.”

“Commander!” I twist around in the guard’s hold to look back at him. “Help us, please!”

Shaking his dark, shaggy head, he walks away, his broad back stiff.

See, body? You’re wrong. So damn wrong. Maybe his body responds to me, but so what? If this is about baby making, which… who ever said I want babies? Anyway, if that’s the case, why would I want to make babies with a man like him?

“An omega, huh?” The General is seated on a carved mahogany chair lined with red velvet, like a king. He’s bearded and heavy-set, his dark eyes shrewd under thick brows. “And perhaps not just any random omega, either, if the Temple has shown such interest in her.”

“Interest in killing her, Honorable Ulfr.” A tall and thin man is standing by the General’s chair, face long and narrow, eyes hooded. “We should return her to the Temple.”

I’m kneeling on the thick rugs of the tent, two guards behind me, staring at this man who has command of the army and my fate, finding it difficult to wrap my head around all of it. To comprehend that I’ve been effectively passed from the Prelate to the General, and things aren’t looking any better despite all my efforts.

“I know your opinions about not meddling with the clergy, Edeus.” The General is still studying me, and I see the moment his nostrils flare and he straightens, actually leaning forward. “An omega alright…”

The men around us seem to flinch, sniffing the air, guards, soldiers and advisers alike.

“Sweet,” one of them says. “It smells so damn sweet… So good.”

Fear grips me. Are they smelling me? Their eyes roam the confines of the tent and land on me, narrowing, growing hungry.

Yup. It’s me. And I feel it now, the heat spreading through me, a slow glide of need, pooling low in my belly. Why now, I don’t know. What’s happening? I don’t understand…

Then Finnen is shoved right beside me and his scent winds up around me, fanning the embers in my belly.

Oh. Right. Now I understand why I’m perfuming and tightening with need, but really, Goddess? What is this? Could it be that I don’t randomly perfume? That I only do it when one of the men I desire is close by?

Just like Finnen and the Commander seem to be doing. Exuding that musky, spicy scent when I’m near them. Probably why they never thought they were alphas before.

Probably why they still doubt it.

“That clarifies the question of whether she’s an omega or not, at least,” the General says, leaning back once more, but I can’t help but notice the bulge rising in his pants.

In all the men’s pants around me.

Oh, gross…

Finnen growls, a sound coming deep from within his chest, and at the sound, my belly cramps, wrenching a gasp from my throat. When I glance sideways at him, his face is contorted into a snarl, and the tent in his undergarments is… impressive.

I swallow hard, my throat gone dry. The bulges in the other men’s pants frighten me, but in Finnen’s it excites me so much I whimper.

His face turns toward me, nostrils flaring, muscles bulging in his arms as he strains against the two guards holding him.

“An omega and a blind priest,” the General goes on, snapping my gaze back to him—you should never look away from a snake, say the scriptures, and he seems to be the biggest snake around—“running away together from the Temple.”

“She’s just an omega, Honorable Ulfr,” Edeus, the thin man who has to be an adviser says disdainfully, though his face is a little red and he’s sporting the same stiff flesh between his legs as the rest of them. “I don’t think she’s anything special.”

“Only the Temple wants her dead.”

“It’s a sign of the times,” the adviser says. “I hear that parents are hiding their omega children these days. Since the Decree has been sent out by the Imperial Council to curtail the threat of Fae blood in the population, rumors and suspicion of anyone with Fae traits have been mounting, and omegas are at the top of that list.”

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