Page 7 of The King's Omega
When I asked if they’d heard the rumor that King Milian was looking for an Omega, not a treasure at all, their eyes got shifty.
What they truly believed was irrelevant; no one wanted to clash with Verdan, not when they had amassed such an enormous army. An army that was not marching on Rimholt yet, for reasons I could not determine.
Now I had to share my news with Rigol and my brothers-in-arms. I glared at the changing gate guards and ignored the noblewomen who flirted on their way into the castle, my usual even temper nonexistent. So when I saw an armful of dirty laundry grow small feminine arms and legs and clamber up Axe like a monkey, picking at his hair, and demanding to know if he was injured, I surprised myself by laughing so hard my stomach ached.
“Are you hurt?” the monkey shouted again, and then meowed.
Wait. Was the monkey a cat? I rubbed my eyes.
No, but therewasa calico kitten on Axe’s other shoulder. I rubbed my eyes again, just in case. I had not been sleeping well on the road, and this must be a hallucination.
Asher “Axe” Valldorsson, the fiercest warrior in all Rimholt, undefeated champion of the battlefield and the training ring, the man who never smiled, was delicately balancing a kitten on one shoulder and a strangely misshapen girl on the other. His fierce scowl was replaced by an expression somewhere between having the breath knocked out of him… and pure wonder.
I didn’t remember him ever looking that way, not even when we were children. Not when Axe showed me where they hid the naughty books in the castle library, not when my brother Tarn taught us all to pick pockets at a royal ball. Not even when we dragged Rigol to a brothel on his seventeenth birthday and paid a buxom beauty to show the prince how to use his royal scepter.
I had never seen Axe so transformed, and I was itching with curiosity and a hint of something else. Jealousy, perhaps. I batted the unworthy thought away. “Adopting pets, friend? A kitten and a monkey?”
Axe signed a suggestion that would be physically impossible, but his eyes were shining. Prepared to tease him further, I sucked in a deep breath. Wait. What was that scent? “Is that coming from her?”
He didn’t answer, just pulled the chit closer to him, like a dog guarding a meaty bone. I ignored his posture and leaned in to inhale again.
And found myself flying across the courtyard, staring at my good friend… who was even now reaching for his weapon.
My hands flew. “What are you doing?”
“Mine,” Axe answered with a curt movement of his hand and strode away.
Gobsmacked, I sat on the packed earth until my twin brother sauntered out of the main hall. Tarn’s nimble fingers were turning over a jeweled dagger I’d never seen before in his hand. Typical.
“Tarn, did you steal that from the scholar Rigol invited for dinner?”
“The Omega expert?” Tarn scoffed. “A charlatan. He brought one book, an old text from Starlak, which I read in an hour while he was out. This dagger was the only thing of value in his entire room.”
Even though he was a general, Tarn liked to keep his skills sharp, and he had been the most successful thief in all Turino as a boy. “Tarn. You know there are almost no texts left about Omegas. Even one is a miracle. Anyway, he’s Rigol’s guest; we need him.”
Tarn sneered. “We don’t need him now. I might kill him. He smells like lies.”
“We don’t need him?” I gaped at Tarn. Something had evidently changed while I was up north in Starlak. Axe had almost lost his famed control, and now my laid-back brother threatened to murder a guest. “Has everyone in the castle gone mad?”
Behind him, a shadow on the wall moved, revealing Vilkurn. I tried not to flinch. I had known him for twenty years, but his sudden appearances still took me by surprise. “The king brought in an Omega,” Vilkurn hissed. “He plans to mate her tonight.”
Ah! The prophecy. “It’s true then? He found her?”
“In a brothel, though we are to keep that to ourselves. The public story is that she was being held prisoner, which is true, from what I know. But not the whole truth.” Vilkurn would know; his spies could pry secrets from a corpse. “He has given her rooms next to his upstairs.”
Tarn’s eyes glittered as if he’d spied a diamond unattended. “She will have the gifts of an Omega then.”
“Yes,” Vilkurn said, “or so he claims.” Something in his tone set my nerves on edge. He slipped out of the shadows, his voice dropping lower. “But why did you speak of madness, Lorn?”
“Axe just drew his weapon on me when I asked to see the girl in his arms.” For some reason, I was less upset at Axe’s threat than I was not to be able to smell that fragrance for a bit longer. Maybe the madness was contagious.
Vilkurn let out a softhmmm.
Tarn stopped tossing the knife. “A girl?”
“Yes, he was carrying a girl and a kitten. She was filthy but smelled like peaches, honey and sex.” A rumble began in my chest. Both men startled and I fought to relax. “He wouldn’t let me near her.”
Vilkurn tilted his head. “She must be the servant the Omega keeps demanding. Apparently, she needs the chit to bathe.”
