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“He’s dead. I am no queen,” I answered. In truth, I never was. I’d never been afforded any measure of power beside the king. I’d never been publicly acknowledged by anyone at all. I’d simply been an object that the Cult had given Thranar as a gift in exchange for his work in ruling the city. I bit the side of my lip.
I wasn’t going to say any of that. In fact, I wasn’t going to say anything at all. I didn’t know this man. He could be a spy sent by the Cult themselves to capture and interrogate me until I revealed everything I knew. They killed women for far less than that and I had no doubt that if they ever got their hands on me again, I’d pay a very high price for my absence, no matter the circumstances that surrounded it.
“You would have made a great one,” he murmured softly, pulling me toward him and tracing a thumb along my chin until it grazed my lower lip. Hesitantly, I raised my eyes to meet his, something I’d never done willingly with Thranar. I would never have even dared.
“Why would you ever say such a thing?”
It was only when he smiled in response that I realized that I had said those words out loud. I bit my tongue in self-admonishment, ashamed of myself for revealing something I hadn’t wanted him to know. I resolved to not let it happen again, no matter what came next.
“Omegas are known for their fierce and fiery natures, but also for their keen intelligence. It would be a shame not to capitalize on such talents,” he answered, his voice strengthening with a conviction that I hadn’t expected from an alpha like him, not in a thousand years.
In Valgertha perhaps. Not in Ravenrath. Never under the rule of the Cult.
I didn’t say a word in response this time. Instead, I just remained silent.
His thumb never stopped tracing the line of my jaw, slow and steady and gentle and far too soothing for my liking. I’d never had a man touch me like this before and it was as mystifying as it was unsettling. I couldn’t decide if I liked it at all or hated it completely.
I was waiting for the moment for him to snap and lay his hands on me in a way that would hurt me. We were alone in the forest. There was no one around that would save me. He could throw me to the ground and force his knot inside me even as I screamed for him to stop. I quivered, trying to keep my mind off of the painful memories I’d shoved aside once I’d seen Thranar’s head on a pike.
I swallowed nervously. My entire body was tense with it, and still he touched me just as tenderly as before.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Luna,” he said softly, trying to fool me into a false sense of security. I wasn’t going to fall for his deceptive kindness.
There was one problem with that line of thinking though. His words felt far too sincere and I didn’t want them to be.
“You don’t have to believe me now, Luna. Eventually, in time, you will learn to trust me. I look forward to the moment when you do,” he murmured softly. I stiffened and his thumb still continued to trace my jaw, only his fingers started retreating backwards into my scalp after that.
He started to massage my head. I didn’t want to like it. I tried to force myself not to, but it was calming in a way that I had never felt before. No one had ever touched me like this, and I didn’t quite know how to take it. Was he trying to trick me? Was this how he would try to get close to me before he tried to take what wasn’t his to take?
To the Cult, an omega was simply there to be bred by an alpha. She was no more, no less. I was a vessel to be used and discarded once that I had fulfilled the expectations placed upon me. As the king’s omega, I had only one role and that was to provide the king with a male heir.
In that, I had failed.
I’d given Thranar a daughter and not a son.
I’d paid for that mistake, time and time again.
The moment that Vikar’s fingers ventured fully into my long hair, it felt like he was chasing everything away, that for a little while there was nothing but bliss.
“Look at me, Luna,” he whispered.
I didn’t. I refused.
His fingers tightened just a little against my scalp. It was a warning and I decided not to heed it. I ignored him because I didn’t want to accept the way his scent was making me want things that I shouldn’t.
It was simply instinct, I told myself time and time again. He was an alpha and I was an omega. It was only natural that my body was reacting to his presence. I tried to take shallow breaths, but it didn’t seem to help. Instead, it just seemed to stoke a warm feeling deep inside me that simmered with heat. I tried to disregard the fact that I knew it was desire.
It had been some time since I’d taken an alpha’s knot. The urge to mate with the nearby alpha was strengthening the longer I was in his presence, but I was confident that I could control it and keep my mating urges under wraps. I had always done so with Thranar, but he’d had other ways to make me want him. He’d use a medicinal injection whenever I was particularly uncooperative that would force me to lose complete power over myself until I begged him to take me as long and hard as he wanted.
Vikar’s fingers tightened into a fist and he angled my head backwards just enough to trigger a blossom of fiery hot sensation to burst across my scalp.
He’d hurt me now. I’d made him angry. I was sure of it.
Only again, he didn’t.
Instead, he just stared into my eyes with a certain calmness that was as comforting as it was terrifying. Anger was an emotion that I could easily read. I knew what to expect when an alpha flew off the handle. Vikar was different though. Very different and that left me with a deep sense of fear.
“You’ve been hurt in the past, haven’t you, omega?” he asked gently.
