Page 59 of The King's Omega
“Guarded,” an even younger version of Selene said.
“This may be an odd question, but is your name Selene?” I asked. No one had introduced themselves yet.
“Hell, no,” she spat. “The only Selene I ever met was a back-stabbing whore who turned out to be a spy for Milian.” Her hand drifted to her waist where a narrow bulge of cloth that might or might not be a cleverly disguised knife rested. “If I ever see her again, I’ll be ready. I’d like nothing more than to paint these walls with her blood.”
“Same here,” I said, blinking at the brutal picture she painted. “She looked like you, though.”
“You’ve met Selene? A broken Omega like us?” I wasn’t sure what a broken Omega was.
“Well, yeah. She sort of tortured me for the past few months. Then she tricked King Rigol of Rimholt into mating her.”
“Does she like to pinch?” she asked. Her blue eyes went icy-hard. “Really hard, with her long sharp nails?”
I nodded.
“It is her then. She left us months ago; we wondered if she’d been mated off. I’d hoped she had been murdered.” She spat on the floor. A woman nearby rolled her eyes and mumbled something about manners. The girl bared her teeth at her, then turned back to me. “I’m Roya, by the way. Sixteen.”
“I’m Vali. Twenty.”
“Tell us everything,” an older woman instructed. “Eat and then talk.” When I’d finished, I told the gathered women every single detail of my time with Selene, and what she’d been up to in the castle.
“… anyway, she’s not broken any more. She got her scent back somehow.”
“Not how it works,” Roya said. “Let me guess, she came back smelling like apples and cinnamon?” She sniffed at me. “A bit like your scent, but too strong and acrid?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“It’s an herbal concoction from an island off our coast. They distill it from nuts that grow on a tree there. I heard the herbalist telling the king she only had enough for a few days’ dose. She must have been supplying that bitch.”
“She made up that whole story, about the village and hiding under the floor?”
“That’s a version of a Verdanian fairytale,” someone chimed in from the crowd of nearly two dozen women.
“But her blood, he tested it. It was sweet!” My heart was racing. I knew I’d been right about her lying.
“Hmm,” Roya mused. “She might have taken wormroot. It’s poisonous. In small quantities it won’t kill you, but makes the blood taste a bit like honey.”
“How do you know so much about poisons?”
She shrugged. “Everybody needs a hobby.”
“Of course.” I scooted ever so slightly away from the girl.
“She might have rubbed a thin layer of crystallized honey on her skin as well,” a woman who could have been Selene’s twin mused. “Or both.”
“So your king didn’t notice she was a broken Omega?” Roya laughed. “Even with you running around smelling as if the Goddess Herself came down to earth? What an idiot.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. But he wasmyidiot.
“Well, she’ll have to kill him. Those herbs wear off, you know. Probably was her plan all along. It’s a fast, cheap way to take over a country: plant a false queen on the throne, kill the king, and then she’ll enter into ‘negotiations’ with the invading army.”
Goddess save me, put that way, it was as clear as spring water.
Rigol was in danger.
Vali
My heart thumped as I fidgeted with my napkin. I needed a plan to save Rigol, my generals, Sorcha, and Mischief. And all of Rimholt.
