Page 3 of Impaled By His Omega Prince
If Askara’s blood hadn’t been decorating the floor, it would have had someplace very specific in mind to inhabit.
Chapter Three
Lumic
The rich scent of mildew reached from the floor and cloyed at Lumic’s nostrils, offending him almost as much as the stench of blood. He counted himself lucky it wasn’t waste or body odor, as the cells had sewers that were flushed thrice daily. At least that’s what had happened over the days he’d been there.
The honeyed taste of vitalis kissed his tongue again that morning, as it had every morning since. “Fuck.” He spat on the stone floor from the side of his bed and rose, taking a deep breath. Croatens’ warriors took vitalis only to spare life. If one forsook the goddesses, one did not lightly take their blessings.
As a conscientious observer and agnostic, Lumic understood the gift and glanced toward the small window of his cell. It cast a sharp blade of barest dawn light across the floor.
He rose and shuffled toward it, turning to stare out the window into the world outside. “Thank you, Lady Goddess.” He may not have called her mother, but he was not beyond acknowledging the gift. No response came—not that he expected one.
Across the hall lay a slumped shape, one he’d avoided looking at since the night before. The alpha he’d driven through with his own sword.Poor fool.
Though, for whatever reason, his arms and legs had been bound to the very floor of his cell, as if a dead man would stand up and walk away. Lumic had felt bad about the alpha, all ashen skinned and hair as dark as Drashili slag. He smelled nice, looked nicer. Under other circumstances, Lumic would have had the male warming his bed.
The male groaned and let loose a squelched breath that broke into a squeal of wet sound.
“By my honor!” Lumic jumped back as the alpha rose to his knees, one limp arm at his side, the other pushing himself up.
“No honor among cheats,” the alpha said, spitting wet blood before letting pitch wings like dwarven canaries stretch free of a lickably gorgeous back. And his horns… As they blossomed free, Lumic’s cock woke, twitching in his pants. Two elegant points that went up and back, straight, ridged protrusions like those of the illix—placid creatures who grazed in warm summers near the foot of the mountains bordering Croatens. Their meat was rich and filling, but domesticated, their milk made fine desserts, naturally sweet. Though, the more he looked at them, they didn’t fit the definition of illix all the way. Their serrated nature gave a hint of something draconian—a rarity, one that he treasured.
The backward tilt of his horns in his shape represented a head fit for bowing, subservience. They were perfect handles if one were to force him down to suck cock, keep him locked ther—Lumic shook his head as he banished the thought. Shameful to be so smitten with a male on his deathbed, one he’d made for him the night before.
“Mother Goddess, sun above, blessed be your light. Mother Moon, my goddess fair, holy is your glow,” the alpha whispered. His lips glinted with spent blood in the guttering flame of the smoky wall sconces.
Despite there being a dozen other prisoners, all lay silent as the alpha gasped harshly and leaned back, chin tilted toward the ceiling above. As if lifted by his own thalms, he hovered above the ground, body convulsing in a fluid gesture as the sword buried in his chest clattered to the ground.
“Fuck, I dunnae know why ye keep prayin’ te yer goddesses, lad. Would be kinder to die.” A dwarf a few cells down swore and hissed as the alpha collapsed to his knees and spilled amid his chains on the damp floor, breath labored.
“Don’t pray t-to them. It’s how I say g-good morning to my mothers.” The alpha’s soft voice, not strained with the heat and fervor of battle, eased and petered out into soft, panting breaths. And, as he rose, blood seemed to pull back into him, every rivulet running from the cast-aside blade, from the unsanitary floor, and over his flesh into the very hole that Lumic had given him.
“That bunch of illix shite again. Curse her a few times. She didnae birth ye,” the dwarf spat for good measure before flopping onto his cot, if the clatter and creak of damp straw and old boards was any indication. From that angle, Lumic had to shove his face between the bars and turn his head painfully to see the dwarf with his ruddy-brown beard and scraggly long hair in need of a trim.
The alpha took a centering breath. “Well, she certainly didn’t swallow me, that’s for certain, Fiskin.”
Lumic had never been privileged to see the male down in the dungeons before, but he wasn’t sorry to see him alive and healed. “How?”
Turning his head, the alpha lifted thick lashes and shone beautiful silver eyes, sclera white as driven snow… Dusk blood usually had dark sclera. They usually had silvery or lighter hair, too. “Dusk blood, you’re alive.” Lumic put swagger in his voice, plastering a fake smile on as he did so.
“Lumic, was it?” The alpha wiped a hand across his mouth and sat tailor-fashioned on the floor, head tilted as if he were studying Lumic like some puzzle.
“Prince Lumic,” Lumic said, lifting his chin.
The alpha snorted with a huff of laughter and shook his head. “No princes down here, Lumic. Only prisoners. We all receive the same rations.”
“Unless we win a fight,” Lumic said, the words bitter on his tongue. He wasn’t certain how long he’d been there, but from the first day Lumic had awoken, they only let him free to fightfor spectacle, battling like some trained monkey for ruffians and thieves. “I should be receiving my special ration this morning, Dusk blood.”
“Ye keep callin’ him dusk blood. He’s nae dusk blood—he’s moonborne.” The dwarf laughed darkly, and his cot creaked. He furrowed his brow and stared the alpha down. He’d never heard of it before.
For the alpha’s part, he remained silent in the face of Lumic’s ignorance.
“Do I appear as if I know what a moonborne is? Enlighten me so that I may be less of a fool.” Lumic leaned against his cell wall and eyed the alpha.
“I am sun fae with an unfortunate pallor, but you may call me Askara.” His smile came off as more of a grimace, but it let Lumic see the flats of all his teeth, not a point to them as many inhabitants of Croatens and other nations of mixed heritage had.
“I see.” Lumic stared Askara down, brow furrowed. “Would it be that someone’s parent had a dalliance out of wedlock?”
