Page 35 of The King's Omega
King Rigol stood by his bed with the covers turned back.
“You know why you’re here,” he said. His russet hair was unkempt, as if he’d run his fingers through it too many times, and he had dark circles beneath his emerald eyes. Sweat beaded his forehead as if he was fevered. Was he sick? Had he been poisoned?
“Sire, you need a healer, and some water.”
He strode across the room, and I flinched away from him. His eyes grew more heated. “I needyou, girl. Vilkurn told you of the Omega’s gifts. I need you to give them to me. Open to me and become my mate.” The strain in his voice frightened me. This close, Selene’s stench was overpowering—the reek of rancid oil corrupting his own fresh pine.
I stepped back slowly, as if he were a coiled snake. “Sire, I can’t.”
“You disobey an order from your king?” His jaw clenched, the muscles so tight they seemed about to snap. “Do you not care about Rimholt?”
“I c-care about Rimholt.” I took a deep breath and another step back. “I just can’t be your mate, no matter what.”
He sneered down at me, his handsome features contorting into something from my nightmares. From my memories of the evil men who had tried to force me at the Sow. The one who had whipped me almost to death. “You opened your thighs for at least two of my men already, Omega. Why act the innocent with me?”
I didn’t speak, but my head spun and I feared I would faint. I took measured breaths, creeping closer to the door. “I saw you.” His eyes raked me as he continued, “Just last night, you came on my Torturer’s tongue and hands, and begged my Executioner to join you—”
“You were there?” I stiffened, suddenly enraged. “It was Lorn!”
“It doesn’t matter. I haven’t been able to sleep, eat, or fucking think since then.” Suddenly, he grabbed my shoulders, and Mischief dropped to the floor. “Mischief!” I yelled and squirmed to see if she was all right, but he held me fast. I looked into his flushed face, and there was a gleam of madness in his eyes.
“You will be mine,” he snarled. “You will allow me to mate you.”
I knew what was coming, and I let myself go limp. There was no way I could fight an Alpha his size. “I will not, Your Majesty. I will never be yours.” He carried me to the bed, threw me down, and ripped away my skirts and underclothes.
I wept but dared not make a sound. He wrenched open my thighs, his ardent gaze upon me.
I waited for the pain of his cock battering at my closed womb.
But he had stilled.
“Not even a trace,” he murmured. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, but the pain and regret in his voice almost tempted me to look. He inhaled deep. “And almost no scent now.”
I heard a short growl. “You truly won’t have me, will you? You feel nothing for me.” He stalked away, and I sat up, quickly yanking my skirts back down. He stood by the fireplace, his head in his hands.
“Y-Your Majesty?”
He didn’t look, just whispered. “You spilled a puddle of your sweetness on the floor for Vilkurn, but you don’t even have a drop for me. Am I repugnant to you?”
I dared not answer that. Instead, I ran to Mischief, who was licking at her paw. Had he hit her?
“You love that little cat.” His voice was low, ominous.
“Yes.”
“I love Rimholt. I love all her citizens, and I know what comes for them, for you. Pain and death, generations of enslavement. And the Goddess sent you as the miracle that might save us all. I have the finest warriors, the best generals in the history of our land. But they’re not enough. I would need five times their strength to meet Verdan in battle and succeed.
“And you might give us that, if the legend is true. But you won’t. Willful girl. Wicked girl.” His voice had gone hard again.
“Give me that cat.” He strode to me and I held her closer. “That is an order from your king.”
Cursing silently, I handed Mischief over. “You hurt her foot.”
“Leave.” He grasped her in one massive hand and gestured to the door.
“W-without my kitten?” My nostrils flared and lips pulled back. If the adage was true and looks could kill, I would be heading to the gallows for regicide. “You’re keeping her?”
“You can have what you love back when you decide you love your country as well.”
