Page 5 of The King's Omega
I supposed my life at the Sow hadn’t been all terrible. But the bad things that had happened along the way outweighed my friendships.
The years Madam had thought to make me work in the bedrooms were the worst. My mind flashed to the last time, a year ago, when a man had gotten so angry that he was physically unable to have me that he’d beaten me almost to death. He’d yelled at Madam that I was deformed—that my lady parts were closed up—and accused her of pulling a fast one on a customer.
Madam had been so angry, she’d left me alone to heal, or die. Only my friends’ diligent nursing had saved me: poultices to draw the fever, bandages to heal the cuts, and soups to ease my loose teeth. After she abandoned any hope of me earning my keep in the traditional way, my life had become nothing but cooking, scrubbing privy pots, and laundering bedding and clothes with odd stains.
Ten weeks ago, my luck turned even worse when Madam assigned me as lady’s maid to Selene, the most beautiful woman in the kingdom.
Well, beautiful on the outside. I knew what Selene really was when there were no witnesses. Sneaky, cold-hearted, and vicious. Before Selene, my greatest fear was a beating. But then I learned a pinch could draw blood and a lady’s nails could grow as effective and brutal as paring knives.
I began wearing all the extra rags I could scrounge, pinned in small bags over my softest parts. The old scraps made me stink, but they also disguised my natural smell from the men I tried to avoid. The other girls at the Sow had teased me, yet the fruit and honey aroma I’d developed two years ago wasn’t from a bottle, but natural.
Selene knew it, too, and so she demanded me as her maid. When she’d first come to the Sow, she’d dabbed herself daily from a fancy glass bottle of scent. But that had broken, and she had no way to replace it, not while Madam kept her chained. Madam was careful with her investments, and Selene was the prize pig in the Sow.
Now she forced me to sleep on her clean laundry every night to imbue her clothes with my personal fragrance for the next day. Apparently, it was better than her perfume because after smelling it, Selene’s customers were loyal to her alone. They returned more often and paid double the other girls’ fees.
Still, bad luck clung to me closer than my innate scent. How else could I explain what was happening right now? Being abducted by a gargantuan Alpha, carried like a sack of flour under his arm, and nearly beaten by his ham-sized hands.
Of course, then he’d made that odd growling sound. Almost a hum that triggered a thrumming in my core. A lullaby that somehow ignited parts of me that had been asleep my whole life.
Could I convince him to do it again?
I tucked my head back into my sleeve, trying to focus on my outrage, and not on the spicy musk that rose from the giant’s frame. I didn’t understand it, but I wanted to roll in that fragrance like a kitten with catnip. I squirmed, feeling a strange tickle in my lower tummy.
Just my luck, I must have gotten worms.
Mischief squirmed out of my arms and climbed on the behemoth’s shoulders, pricking him with her small claws. No matter how the kitten scratched the giant, he never retaliated. In fact, he petted her from time to time, and she curled up, closing her eyes and relaxing. That was unusual; Mischief only liked me and hissed even at my friends in the Sow.
As the Alpha walked, he absently tossed copper coins from his pockets to the beggars on the corners. A thin child in a worn but clean dress crouched by the side of the road, selling small posies; he bought one and stuffed it into my hands before I realized what he’d done. The purple blooms were slightly faded, but I didn’t care. No one had ever bought me flowers, and I told him so. “Thank you.”
He didn’t look at me, but a red flush rose from his lower neck to his short, dark beard.
I tried to find things to dislike about him, other than the way he carried me like a sack of vegetables under one arm, but he made it difficult. He was generous and patient. I liked that almost as much as I liked his obvious Alpha scent, all musk and spice and rich earth. And he hadn’t really beaten me. He’d stopped and held me, as though he’d thought better of it.
He definitely wasn’t attractive. Wild black hair and craggy features, with dark eyebrows and a stubbly beard, gave him a fierce appearance. The wicked scar spanning his neck—someone had come very close to slitting his throat—made him look like a fairytale villain.
Unlike the other one, the russet-haired man who had taken Selene ahead. He had been classically handsome, although his green eyes had been cold and angry, like a storm at sea. Could he really be the king? I decided to ask the leviathan. I craned my neck up to see his face. “Giant? Can you talk?”
A single shake of his shaggy dark head, which made his scent swirl up around me.
I inhaled and shivered, though I wasn’t a bit cold. “Fine, then: yes or no. Was that man who took Selene to the castle really the king?”
He nodded.
“Huh. Kings should be old. And poxy. And fat, I think. They have gout and things, so they limp. Not really in keeping with a classic king persona. Seems suspicious to me.”
An earthquake bubbled up beneath me. Was he laughing at me?
“Well, if he is the king, you need to tell him to be careful with Selene.”
One thick eyebrow rose, and he shifted me so that I was closer to his face, my knees squeezing around his sides.
I tried to ignore how good that felt. “I know she looks nice, but…” The giant tapped his nose. “Oh, her scent? Yeah, there is that.”
I said nothing more. Selene had sworn to kill Mischief if I revealed that my perfume was the secret of her allure. Of course, who would this giant tell? He was mute. “If you promise not to tell, and you help me find a place to hide Mischief, my kitten, I’ll share a secret about Selene.”
His chocolate brown eyes narrowed, suddenly suspicious. Ugh. I should never have mentioned her. I needed to distract him, so I fluttered my eyelashes the way I’d seen Selene do a thousand times. It usually made men go all gooey-eyed and stupid.
The giant frowned as though he’d just discovered I had lice or something.
