My Alpha Prince - MM A/O Omegaverse Romance- (Dark/Non-Shifter)

The Heat.

It was driving Erys crazy, and the timing could not have been worse.

For the fifth time, he paced his floor to the window, aching with pulsing want deep in his loins, pussy walls clamping with needy desire while he peered at the lines of incoming patrons to his family’s chateau.

Endless lines of strangers pouring in from the cold lands of Scania, their banners and coats of arms waving proudly from carriage to horse, acres of servants, and carts all shipped or inbound from their long journey from mountainous fortresses.

Barbarians, and heathens, giants from a whole different planet that Erys knew, and he was, of course, at the tail end of his Heat cycle. Worse, his attendants had been pulled to aid the new arrivals, settling them into the various wings and accommodations of the castle.

Even staring at anything male was a travesty. He wanted to crawl out the window, wrap around some strong creature’s face, and plead with them to take him to the nearest outbuilding and sate the desire hounding him into the dirt.

He could barely sit still, so wet he was leaking heat slick like a fountain down his thighs, and finally couldn’t handle it. If he stayed in his rooms, he’d rub his tiny cocklet raw, but at least if he could walk, preferably far from any other body, it might distract him.

If he was going to go, this seemed like the time.

Everyone was out front, seeing to the new arrivals, and huge swaths of the castle would be lifeless…

Hell with it.

Erys turned to find tights, hoping to block both that overwhelming hormonal reek but also to try to contain the endless free flow of sex and desire coating his skin. It was so slick he had to wipe it away with a rag and flustered exhalation when his fingers grazed the sensitive flesh of his thighs. That alone almost sent him into a tizzy.

Usually, an attendant would have been there, distracting, tending, at times playing his body to some measure of completion. Very standard practice for Omegas like Erys, who could never chance seeking every willing Alpha or Beta male in the area to sate that hunger. He’d wind up pregnant with bastards and become useless to a future husband, or at the very least doom some poor child to a life of unrecognized bastardom and disapproval.

This seemed like the lesser evil. He was very aware it was a little foolish to slip his Bliaud on, belting it securely over his chemise and now securely tied silken tights. He felt like he was asking for attention or trouble, but couldn’t make himself stay in that room for another second. Too cold to open windows, and the scent of his own cunt was driving him insane.

He slipped out barefoot, telling himself firmly he would only walk for a while, maybe find another book to occupy himself. The slap of scents was intense, though, his sensitive eyes wincing from the halls’ bared windows. Today, all drapes had been pulled back to let light into all the wings, and some were cracked to let in some fresh air. The recent pre-spring frost had been a surprise, wilting budding crops and eager early fruit tree blossoms, but today the sun had been a relief, shining out over the lands around Circol’s royal family’s lands and the small walled city nestled at its base.

The smell of the world outside, woodsmoke, people, and animals, was potent, but at least blended into a cacophony. He couldn’t focus on any one thing in particular, least of all anything Alpha, so that was at least a minor relief.

That itch was intense enough to the point he had to breathe shallowly, curb his frantic feeling steps to an even glide, and try to focus on the journey ahead.

Just the library.

Library, library, library...

As he slid down the long, sweeping stairwell of a side foyer, he realized too late that those doors were wide open as well, busy with scurrying serving bodies running back and forth under the direction of the family’s Steward, Dently. Thank God the man was too busy to see him wandering, but Erys surely saw him. He hurriedly skipped onto the landing, ducking through a bustle of bodies with single-minded determination to get out of sight and out of mind.

However, something slowed his step, something very powerful — a sudden drifting scent as he passed the open doors. It was beautiful, rich with some undercurrent of apple, maybe pear, and a juniper flavor that instantly caressed over his heated brain like a velvet kiss.

He touched the wall to restrain himself, instantly knowing it was a person. It had the touch of humanity to that scent, indescribable but very telltale, and was by far the most delectable thing he had ever picked up from a man.

Ever.

In any state.

Insane that he could even differentiate it, which meant whoever it was was packing a wallop of Alpha-ness that was not the norm.

His wide blue eyes scanned the crowd, some desire to at least see the person glitching his brain into compliance to seek and destroy.

He found him.

The man looked, at a glance, like any other soldier from Scania. He was tall, far taller than any of the men in Circol usually climbed to, a gift of heritage that seemed so exclusive to Viking cultures or the rare few freaks that sprouted in the European lineup.

His hair was unbound, a lush brown wave barely swept back from his face by a handful of braids keeping it at bay. He was striking, instantly imposing, large and lean. That was apparent, even obscured by his fur-lined cloak, a piece sporting the House of Averc’s coat of arms embroidered across the back. The stag set in its Celtic circular knot was imposing, but more so on this svelte creature. His fit armor looked almost moulded to his frame, and even the man’s thighs were powerful, heavily muscled under his leather breeches.

As he pulled the saddlebags from his mare, he turned, saying something sharp and impatient to the man next to him, full lips moving so distractingly that Erys found himself watching the rose colored flesh moving soundlessly. His hearing began to thrum in his skull, consumed with the intense need to rush the courtyard and fling himself around his sculpted face.

Christ above.

And, as if God were conspiring, the next moment the Nord looked over at him. Directly at him.

The man paused midstep, brows going high briefly when he took in Erys’s stiff presence, dark eyes falling over his slender, petite frame with a sudden sharpening that made Erys’s knees weak.

It was so scary, so enticing, he froze, fingers curling on the wood of the door anxiously.

He couldn’t move, licking his lips with a want that was threatening to make him a fool simply viewing this alien man invading his lands. It felt as if that entire moment freeze-framed and crystallized.

As soon as those dark eyes flicked back to his and he offered the smallest of smiles in greeting, Erys panicked, chest hitching, and blinked out of it.

He was not for this common man, but God did he want to be.

Desperately did he suddenly want to beckon him over, roll over the scent of his skin, and cloak in his hormonal surge while feeling more than just those softly plush lips ravish his body.

He made himself release the wall, touched his forehead, and whipped around, head pulsing with the start of a headache before fleeing for the library, if only to avoid that temptation.

It was a first for him on every level.

Erys kicked his feet into gear and forged through the crowd, but God knew that smell of apple-juniper stalked him the whole way.

~

The library was predictably empty, but vast, filled with curated works from all over the world. It was the star of Castle Thrachenburg, the jewel of the city, housing rare tomes that Erys often lifted and stole back to his rooms.

The whole time he wandered the circular space, peering over selections, he wasn’t sure he really saw anything; instead, he hyper-focused on the soldier he had seen in the courtyard.

It was as if God himself had dropped that creature into his line of sight and led his feet out the door that day just to bump into him. That smell had been godly, his visage so achingly male it was haunting Erys with its beauty.

He told himself over and over again that these Norsemen were merely visitors, escorts for the House of Averc and the King of Scania. Fleeting folks who would stay busy elsewhere, far from him, while enjoying the rich hunting lands and hospitality Circol could offer.

Sadly, Erys felt very cut at the knees that day either way.

Today was the day his sister, Meridia’s sale, would be announced. He didn’t have a kinder way to think it.

Worse was the slob that their father was considering. One of his father’s allies from the valley region was due the next day. The man was easily twice her age, a fading Marquess rounding the corner on taking on his third wife. He had his heirs and children grown that were Meridia’s age, but alliance was all.

It made Erys ill, but Meridia swore she was fine, eager even, for the match.

Doubtful to the extreme. It made Erys bitter to even think about it. He felt as if Marquess Grayson had been stalking Meridia for years, since she had gone into her first heat and come of age. The creepy monster had taken hot eyes to her at sixteen and made Erys want to vomit every time he caught the man’s blue eyes upon her in passing.

It wasn’t even that Marquess Grayson was hideous, or particularly cruel, and God knew they needed the treaty upheld.

It was that Erys was always disquieted over certain men, and the Marquess was one of them. They felt predatory, and he and his sister had always been looked upon like ripe fruit fit only for consumption.

He knew why. His father had only two surviving children, himself and Meridia, and neither of them was fit to rule a Kingdom. Omega’s could not do so, no matter if they were male or female. They would be swept by a more aggressive entity, and that was the way it always panned out. So, since Grayson and Averc were the closest warlike creatures to their humble little swath of land, and it seemed as if Scania and Munarch were always in a skirmish for land, his father, Devyn, had been put between a rock and a hard place.

He was trying to secure his children’s safety and future, and also his section of Munarch from attack from the Northmen, especially when his cousin took the reins eventually.

God knew the moron was going to run Circol into the dirt either way, and Erys fully expected that to happen as soon as his father passed on.

Still, the old man was trying.

Erys exhaled on his journey and hoped that the treaty talks with Averc and Grayson at least went well, that Meridia’s announced marriage to the Marquess would give Averc reason to pause in the future before thinking of attacking them.

It was all very stressful.

Erys plucked up a book of fairy tales, the simple collection a guilty pleasure he read often in privacy. They had been pulled from all over the countryside and compiled for consumption by a handful of wandering priests a century prior.

He did love it; the stories of knights, and monsters, witches, and wolves. Princes and the women that loved them, Omegas who rode fire-breathing dragons, and the Alphas who ascended into gods.

They were cute, bedtime stories only, but he had always loved their whimsy.

His walk back toward his rooms was swift and avoidant, step light while he mused over the text, life, and all in it.

Erys admittedly did not expect to round the corner of the final hall and find a man lying in wait.

Erys instantly flashed on seeing this same man from the courtyard, the same soldier who had been unloading his saddlebags.

He paused, eyes wide, and God help him, but this godling was more glorious up close. He was almost like a fantasy, standing in his thick northern fur-lined cloak, the silver of his burnished mail armor clearly worn from use, and honing his body into something even stronger, something less human, and more like some Barbarian god from the past.

His dark-lashed brown eyes alone, deep set and smoky in texture and intention, were unreal, thickly lashed, and velvet when they dipped so sweetly to brush his cheeks.

A poor soldier, no doubt, who should not have been in this passageway…

…And yet here he was.

Erys hesitated, finding him casual, leaning against the wall as if in wait specifically for him, but that was crazy, wasn’t it? Surely not.

He straightened, trying to school his intense desire to rush the creature, scenting the man’s particular aroma filling the corridor like a vaporous fog.

As soon as he slipped into sight, smoothing a hand over his cinched garment, he tried not to stare, but it helped nothing when those dark eyes turned to him immediately, lazy, liquid infernos of pure seduction grazing him head to toe.

It was bold, sensual, and when those eyes followed him blatantly in passing, Erys felt his skin contract, glancing back with wide eyes.

God…

He was still looking. A powerful presence in the seclusion of this arena of shadowed halls.

His loins clenched, and the instant expulsion of heat slickened through his tights. It was embarrassing, but also the first time something like this had ever happened to him to this extent.

Erys quickly looked ahead, chest tight, feeling a little lightheaded. He wound up having to touch the wall to stay steady, trying to push ahead as normally as possible.

It was so good, though, heady, promising him that if he came to that call, he would have no regrets.

Again, Erys peered back, and this time those dark eyes caught and held his.

It was devastating.

Erys paused, hand on a wayward door. He knew it led to a maid’s closet, perhaps nothing in there but a pail, a broom, and a table to take various items to clean.

Lord, but he didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him. He felt as if he was luring this creature intentionally, and maybe he was. Clearly, this man had tracked him this far using nothing but tenacity and a good sense of smell.

After a moment, that dark figure unpeeled from the wall, offering another small curve of curious lips, before he started for Erys’ immobile figure.

Erys suddenly couldn’t move, eyes too wide, breathing skipping when his heart began to race with building excitement.

Never in his life had he ever contemplated letting any man, no matter how lovely, consume him so completely, yet this person snared him.

A stranger.

Some common soldier from another land, no less.

None of those thoughts steeled his spine against that encroaching dream beau, even less when the titan paused mere inches away, smirking down at him before gripping the knob as if in question.

Was Erys truly even considering it?

He sure was, especially while staring up at a face carved from marble and crafted by some wayward goddess of love.

Turns out, he really should have stayed in bed.