Chapter Text
My father’s words were a physical weight on my shoulders as I stared at the closed door of my new husband’s chambers. Gawin is gorgeous. He’ll carry many pups for you. The scent of him still clung to the air of the main living quarters. Orange blossom and rain drenched earth, underscored by a sweet, unmistakable note of willing submission that had made the muscles in my jaw ache with the effort to remain still.
Why a Caskey? The old, bitter question, a litany from the weeks of negotiation, churned in my gut. Our packs had shed each other's blood for generations. The marriage was a bandage on a festering wound, and I was expected to consummate it, to bind the treaty with my seed in his womb. The thought should have repulsed me.
It didn’t.
I paced the length of the austere sitting room, the silence of the penthouse suite a stark contrast to the riot in my head. I had dismissed the attendants hours ago. This was to be our private space, this cold, modern prison in the neutral territory of a Bangkok high-rise. A gilded cage for two enemy heirs.
I stopped before the wide window, the city’s glittering grid stretching into the humid night. My reflection was a stern, shadowed outline.
Joss Wayar, First Son, Alpha Heir.
And now, a husband.
I had replayed the moment he entered the ceremonial hall a hundred times since this afternoon. The gasp that had rippled through the Wayar contingent wasn't just political. It was purely, devastatingly physical.
He was taller than I’d expected for an Omega, nearly my height, but where I was built for brute force with broad shoulders, thick chest, corded arms, he was crafted from a different blueprint. Lean muscular, my father had said. An understatement. His frame was a study in elegant lines, a swimmer’s build draped in the traditional, embroidered silk phanung. It had cinched at a waist so small I’d instantly imagined spanning it with my hands. The fabric had flowed over the pronounced curve of his hips and the swell of his ass, a tantalizing promise of softness.
But it was his face that had stolen the air from my lungs.
He’d kept his gaze lowered, long, sooty lashes fanning over honey-gold eyes that flickered up only once, just for a second, when our hands were joined. His features were angelic, almost painfully beautiful with high cheekbones, a straight nose, and a mouth… Gods, his mouth. His lips were lush, a natural rose pink, full and soft looking. They’d trembled slightly as he recited his vows in a voice like warmed honey, sweet and soft, each word a submission that felt more intimate than a kiss.
His hair was the deep, dark brown of rich earth, falling in soft waves that brushed his collar. In the shifting light of the ceremony, it had looked utterly black, a stark, beautiful frame for his fair, golden-toned skin.
And then, here, in this sterile room just an hour ago, he had offered me all of it.
“Aren’t you upset your father gave you away to your enemy?” I’d asked, my own voice softer than I’d intended, disarmed by the sheer vulnerability in his posture.
He hadn’t flinched. “It is my duty, Alpha Wayar. Please use me. I am yours.”
His fingers, slender and graceful, had gone to the intricate knot of his robe. The silk had parted without a sound, pooling at his feet. He’d stood there, not in bravado, but in pure, devastating offering. The lines of his body were even more exquisite without the obscuring fabric. The dip of his waist, the elegant flare of his hips, the tight perfect ass. He’d turned his head, exposing the long, elegant column of his throat, the vulnerable juncture where his scent would be strongest.
“I hope my body is pleasing to you.”
The scent that bloomed from him then wasn’t fear. It was arousal. Clean and sweet and laced with a desperate, willing surrender. It flooded the room, wrapping around my senses, pulling at the primal core of my Alpha nature. My own body had responded instantly, a hot, heavy surge of want that was a betrayal to every principle I’d been raised with. My gums had ached with the urge to sink my teeth into that proffered throat, to claim, to take, to ruin this beautiful enemy boy and spill my release deep inside him.
I had taken a step forward. My shadow fell over him. I saw the fine tremble that ran through his shoulders, the way his breath stuttered. He was waiting for my touch, my bite, my possession. He’d been trained for this. To be a lovely Omega. To please.
The war in my head roared back. Caskey blood. Corruption. A political arrangement, nothing more.
I’d forced my feet to root to the floor. I’d made my voice cold, turning the warmth of his submission to ice. “This is a political arrangement, nothing more.”
The flinch that time was unmistakable. A minute shiver, a slight collapse of his proud posture. He’d nodded once, a small, dutiful motion, gathered his robe without a word, and retreated to the room I’d assigned him. The soft click of the door shutting felt like a verdict.
Now, the silence was worse. It was filled with the ghost of his scent and the echo of my own hypocrisy. I was “honorable.” I was “protective.” And I had just shattered the first fragile trust my new husband had tried to place in me. He had offered his body, his submission, his future with the only currency he had in this alliance and I had thrown it back in his face, calling it duty while my own body screamed to claim it as desire.
I dragged a hand through my hair. Romantic. The word from my own dossier mocked me. There was nothing romantic about this. It was brutal. And I was the one being brutal to the one person here who didn’t deserve it.
A soft sound pulled me from my thoughts. A muffled… sob? It came from behind his door. It was choked, hastily silenced, but it cut through the quiet like a blade.
My feet were moving before my mind could command them. I stood before his door, my hand raised to knock. The urge to go in, to… what? Apologize? Explain? Touch him? The impulse was a live wire under my skin.
I lowered my hand. What would I say? I’m sorry your submission is so breathtaking it terrifies me? I’m sorry the scent of your want is the most intoxicating thing I’ve ever known? He was a Caskey. He was my husband. The two facts were a knot I couldn’t untangle.
I stood there, a sentry at my own failure, listening to the quiet, ragged breaths from the other side of the door.