Page 6 of The King's Omega
Perhaps I wasn’t fluttering fast enough. “What’s your name?”
The giant lifted his other arm and tapped the broadax hanging on his back.
“Axe? That’s your name?”
A nod.
I smiled. “I’m Vali. Really, I’m Novalia, which means worthless in some language or other. Madam named me when she found me twenty years ago.”
The giant’s eyes flew open wide.
“What?”
His hand rose, and he flashed all five fingers four times.
“Twenty? Yes, that’s my age.”
He tilted his head, obviously skeptical.
“Believe it or not,” I grumped. “I know, I’m a runt. But you should talk, you’re a mountain.” I gasped. “I didn’t mean you should talk; you can’t, right? I meant… oh, I’m sorry. I’m such a ninny head.”
The earthquake rumbled again, and I leaned into his shaking chest, furtively drawing in his musk. The Betas at Madam’s had complained that Alpha scents were overpowering. They much preferred Beta men, as Alphas were big and rough. I agreed; any time I’d seen an Alpha for the past two years, I’d run, afraid of what a male so huge and uncontrolled might do to a peculiar-smelling woman like me. When Alphas had come near, they’d all acted crazed, like my scent was Alpha catnip. Their powerful aromas hadn’t attracted me at all.
Not like Axe’s. His didn’t make me want to escape; it made me want to roll in it and rub it all over my skin.
The giant had paused again with his nostrils flared.
“Do I stink?” I pulled back one bundle of rags pinned to the inside of my shirt collar—a pinch to the neck was terribly painful—and took a whiff. “Oh, you’re right. I need a bath. Sorry.” I didn’t really think it was that bad but waved a hand, hoping to waft away whatever funk Axe had picked up on. Perhaps Alphas had sensitive noses.
The giant’s eyes widened when he leaned down and inhaled next to my neck. His hand rose and covered my hair as he pulled me in closer, taking great gasps of my scent. A strange growl emanated from deep within his chest, and a host of newly hatched butterflies fluttered in my stomach.
Butterflies?Oh, my. So this was what they felt like. The ladies at the Sow had told me about this feeling for years, but I’d never imagined it would be this disconcerting. He pulled back and let his thumb trail over my cheek, then my lower lip, leaving a path of fire in its wake.
“Why does that feel so good?” I wondered aloud. “Like, shivery and scary, when you growl like that?” I squirmed to get down, and he let out another sound that paralyzed me in his arms, and made the strange liquid feeling in my core boil over. “Did you… did you justbarkat me?”
He looked as surprised as I had been, but he nodded. “You don’t want me to get down?” A head shake. “But I know how to walk. And I’m not a… a dog. You shouldn’t bark at me.” I frowned at him. “Don’t do it again,” I warned.
His answer was another bark and suddenly I couldn’t move, boiling inside with an urgent need I’d never experienced. This wasn’t butterflies. This was giant eagles, or dragons, or something huge with monstrously large wings knocking around inside me.
What was happening? I didn’t know and wasn’t sure I cared. I didn’t want it to stop. I never wanted Axe to put me down, to let me go. In fact, for the first time in my life, I wanted much, much more of the man—the Alpha—who held me.
He loomed over me, and I thought I might get my first proper kiss, when a voice cut in.
“Bringing trash into the castle, Axe?” A deep laugh drew both our gazes. “I guess that axe blow you took to the head affected you after all.”
An axe to the head? I panicked at the thought of my giant—when had he become mine?—being injured. I sent a quick prayer to the Goddess to protect Axe. I’d only just found him; he couldn’t be hurt. I squeezed his side, and he let out a small sound, a moan. But was it a moan of pain?
Goddess help anyone who hurt him while I was around.
I growled, and he responded with a strange, dark rumble of his own, raising a hand to his head? Was that where he’d been injured?
I scrambled up to his shoulder and started combing through his dark hair, looking for the wound. “Tell me you’re not hurt!”
Lorn
The trip to Starlak had been a complete bust. Not a single warlord or warrior would join us in defending Rimholt from the Verdanians. The other leaders all claimed they believed the lie: that we had stolen a great treasure from Verdan decades ago, and they were merely coming to reclaim it.
Descriptions of that treasure varied depending on who was sharing the gossip. I’d been told Rigol’s father had stolen something before he died: a jewel, a crown, even the heir to Verdan itself.
