Emma presses her lips together.
I wave a hand at her. “Just say it.”
“That might start a war,” she says gently. “And I am now queen of my people. I am responsible for the safety of my kingdom.”
I blink at the sudden regality in her tone. This petite human really is a queen.
“If it were just me, it’d be different. But…” She pats her belly.
“No, of course. Silly me.”
“You could try to go back to Earth, but it would take some doing. The magicians know how to do it, but it’s difficult and can go wrong. And they’re loyal to the kings, so that’d be a hard sell.”
“What about a spaceship?” I can’t sit still, so I rise and start pacing. Emma regards me from her seat.
“That’s a possibility. But even if you had one, even if you could pilot it—or get someone else to—how would you find Earth? You wouldn’t know where to start. And anyone who was found to be helping you…”
The rest of the sentence hangs in the air, heavy as lead. Anyone found to be helping me would be killed. Aurus has already said as much.
“I guess even getting out of the palace will be difficult. Aurus isn’t the type to just let me go. His precious Omega…” I mock, but there’s a pang in my heart. It wouldn’t be so bad to stay with Aurus—the sex is amazing. Golden dick is great—it just sucks that it’s attached to the rest of him. Maybe a gag…
Emma’s watching me, a soft expression on her face. I rub my forehead. For some reason, I had pinned all my hopes on her, and now the utter futility of my situation is hitting me like a baseball bat to the face.
“Fuck,” I say softly.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. I can make the best of this situation. That’s just the sort of person I am. I just want a few more choices.” I cross to the table and snatch up a cookie looking thing. Instead of taking a bite, I crumble it between my fingers.
“It’ll be okay,” she says. “We’ll figure something out. I might not be able to help you escape, but I’m sure there are other things I can do for you.” She leans back in her loveseat and regards me, little twin lines between her brows.
“You’ve already been a huge help,” I tell her. It’s true. It must have been awful for her, being entirely alone in her situation for as long as she was. “But yeah. Maybe we can find a way to… if not prevent more women from being taken from Earth, at least help them when they get here.”
“What I want to know is how they select the women,” Emma says, looking thoughtful. “I mean, I fell through the portal accidentally, as far as I know. But Aurus requested a blonde, and…” She gestures at my head, and I run my hand over my shaggy hair.
“I kind of hacked it off.” I grin. “To annoy him.”
Her smile makes her eyes light up. “That’s hilarious! Did it work?”
“Oh yeah. He was furious.” Still, her words are making me think. “You need to grill Khan,” I say slowly. “I get the impression you have a much deeper relationship with him than I do with Aurus, who sees me as nothing but a courtesan.”
“That’s kind of how Khan treated me at first too,” Emma admits. “The bond developed later on, though he did give me the claiming bite very early.”
“Claiming bite? He fuckingbityou?”
“Something in my scent told him I was his soul mate, and then he bit my neck during the rut, binding me to him. Since then, we can feel each other’s emotions. Hard to describe, and very bizarre. But it definitely made us grow closer.” She slides her long, golden mane aside to show a circular scar on her neck, right where it meets her shoulder.
“Ouch. Looks like it was painful.” My neck twinges in sympathy and I clamp a hand over it.
“It was… but for one thing, I kind of get off on pain. And for another… he did it during sex, so…” she trails off, little dots of pink staining her cheeks.
“Do you think Aurus will do that to me?” I’m still holding my neck. Gah. I drop back into my seat and knot my hands into my lap.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Khan talked like the soul bond is some special kind of thing, so maybe not everyone has it. It didn’t sound like every Alpha/Omega pairing is the same.”
“Soul bond?”
“Mmmhmm.” She covers her face with a hand. “It’s a thing Alpha and Omega couples sometimes share. It’s, um, it’s more than a connection. It happens here…” She drops her hand and taps her chest, right over her heart. “I don't even know how to describe it. Imagine all the happiness in the world, but like as a connection between you and your mate. You feel everything—good, bad, ugly—but you'll feel it together, and there’s this… I don’t know, satisfaction that lives perpetually between you. It’s like coming home.”
