“Anyone can be stupid, rich or poor.” This made me laugh.
“Fair enough,” I said. “Who are you?” I asked once again.
“I told you who I am,” he said. I lifted one eyebrow. He was still grinning.
“Alright,” I said. “Why are you here then?”
“I’m bringing you food,” he said. I sighed.
“You know what I mean,” I said. We stared at each other. He was not grinning anymore.
“Alain asked me to check on you,” he said. I was glad to hear this. I did have someone looking out for me in this strangeland. I was not left in a tower, forgotten. A sound came from the stairway. Espen looked back at the noise.
“I have to go,” Espen said.
“Thank him for me.”
The next day was not much different. The servant girl came in to bring me food and clothes. She even cleaned my chamberpot. I was again left wondering what I had done to warrant such treatment. Two guards came with her, but they waited outside this time. Maybe I was deemed safe enough to visit.
The days passed quietly. Espen would visit at mealtimes sometimes. There was no rhythm to it. Whenever I heard his voice, I got excited. I felt like I was dying of boredom. He never stayed for long though.
One afternoon was made bearable when something new happened. It was the next time I caught a glimpse of the General. I was sitting in the rocking chair when I heard his voice. I normally did not hear it when people spoke in the courtyard, as I was quite far up. The General, however, was basically shouting. I got curious. I spotted him the moment I looked out the window.
In the middle of the courtyard, the General stood tall. His voice reverberated through the courtyard. The low tones reached me in the tower. I was not quite sure what he was saying, nor did I particularly care, but he spoke louder than when he spoke to me on the steps. His voice held authority, and the promise of war. He was not wearing furs. Even from up there, I could see the outline of his shoulders. An alpha like any other, and yet nothing like the few others I had met. There was something different about him, something that drew me in. Something that made me wonder what it would feel like for a werewolf to use his fangs to mar the skin of my neck. To proclaim me as his. These thoughts left me warm and breathless. How easily I was affected by the General’s voice.
As his speech continued, my skin grew hot. From the tip of my toes on the stone-cold floor, to the palms of my hands on the armrests of the rocking chair, I felt as if lit on fire. And I realised what was happening. I was filled with horror that it was starting in the midst of his speech, that perhaps it was him that affected me so that it came early. I was going into heat when I really should not be. There were parts of me I longed to touch, and I longed to be touched by the alpha in the courtyard. I could no longer deny it, my attraction to him.
I held myself still until I couldn’t, then let out a breathy moan. It was not a particularly loud sound. Nothing too obscene. It was soft, and it rang sweeter than was fitting for someone like me. It was frightening then, that right at that moment, the General paused his speech. I held my breath for a while. A coincidence, but a frightening one nonetheless. I rested my head in my hands on the windowsill. Calming myself, I took deep breaths. Werewolves had superior senses, but nothing so outrageous that they could hear me in that moment. Yet I could not stop myself from testing it out. When Axel stopped speaking, when the soldiers dispersed, when they marched off to god knows where, I tested his hearing. I had to be sure.
I let out another moan. I had been holding myself back for a while, resulting in me letting out a sound that was rather indecent. Bordering on salacious. That was when he looked up. He stared into my window. His eyes met mine. The General had most definitely heard me. It shocked me; it embarrassed me, but it also made me incredibly self-satisfied. Axel was the only one that heard me, and he rewarded my behaviour with a gaze so intense it made me tremble.
Still, mortification mixed with a healthy dose of regret won over the part of me that wanted his attention. I stumbled towards my bed. Linen sheets that would be drenched with sweat soon welcomed me. From the bed I could just see theGeneral marching off with the soldiers, walking right out the castle gates. That was not long before I lost all sense of self, becoming one with my instincts. I could only hope that no alpha would find me in that state. I thanked the General mentally for awarding me no alpha guards or attendants. I hoped the General himself would steer away from me during this time. A whole other part of me desperately wished he would come find me in that tower. I found myself confused, wary and a little uncertain. Those were my final thoughts before I lost consciousness.
Eight nights after meeting the General
With my lucidity at the time, I barely registered that it must have been days since I had succumbed to my heat. I had been awake since the early hours of the morning, and three nights had passed since I saw the General leave the castle. My heat came early. My body betrayed me. I remembered only fragments of those last few days. I hoped no one heard me whining but Espen. Magics don’t scream the way werewolves do. It was a much more intimate, internal process. Less loud and less messy. At least, that was what I had always assumed, since no one had heard me before. The bathwater that was left in the tub smelt too strongly of slick, and I felt dirty even after taking another bath. At least Espen left me new clothes that morning. A lingering sensation in my stomach let me know that I was not fully done with this heat. I distracted myself the only way I could, by sitting in the rocking chair near the barred doors, looking out the window. Rocking back and forth until the warm and desperate feeling of heat subsided.
I saw soldiers marching through the courtyard, looking ragged and tired. They looked almost as bad as I imagined myself to look. Covered only in furs, they carried bows andarrows, and large beasts of prey. It was a view that could only be admired in the Oaklands. The sight of a successful hunt.
A scent caught my attention. One far stronger than the muted scents of the guards in the tower, or even the young alphas that were training on the grounds. It was the scent of wood burning. It was stronger than before. The General was back, and he was close by. Every moment, he drew closer. I could barely contain myself when I heard footsteps down the hall. Whether from excitement or fear or something much worse, I could not tell. The scent got overwhelming and right at my door was the sound of a wolf growling.
The door rattled and rumbled and before I knew it, cracks appeared in the wood. A violent shake broke one of the planks on the door, and it took two more of those before the beam that barred the door must have broken as well, for the door in its entirety fell towards me. If I was seated only just an inch closer to it, there would have been splinters in my hair. Instead, I was seated, frozen in shock, as the man who put me in this tower was standing in the doorframe. This was my first time seeing him up close, and he was more intimidating than I imagined. He was not bigger than most other alpha werewolves, yet much more imposing than most men I had met. It was the way he moved, the fur on his coat, the scar that ran across his eye. It was his catlike eyes searching for mine with a purpose. And it was the worst time for an alpha whose scent I wanted to lose myself in to appear at my door. I betrayed my own mind with the want of my heat. Why did he have to be the only alpha in the castle that made me want to get closer?
The strength he must possess, to rip apart the oak with his bare hands. His hands, of course, were nothing like mine, and could not be harmed by splinters of wood. Where my delicate and pale fingers were frequently plagued by cuts from glass shards, his fingers were calloused and rough. I hadimagined them before, in the throes of my heat, tracing a path from my bellybutton to my flat chest. I hated how much I wanted to feel his hands on me. To be touched in ways too intimate for me to dream up. The presence of an alpha, the limitless imagination that must come with his experience, made me picture unspeakable things. I hated him for it.
He closed in on me. I didn't move away from the rocking chair. I didn't dare move a muscle, frozen like a deer in the face of a wolf. There I sat, waiting, hoping for something I couldn’t quite place. I stopped a noise from moving through my chest towards my throat, signaling my frustration when he stopped in his tracks before any part of his skin landed on mine.
"Have you been good?" he asked. I could do nothing but nod. My senses were screaming at me to please him. And in that moment, I would have done anything for him. A not insignificant part of myself that wanted nothing but to be obedient for an alpha revealed itself to me. It made me want to surrender to the unknown that was sure to follow. I knew that part was made up of the last remnants of the heat that I had succumbed to days before. I knew the scent of it was what drove General Axel to this tower. It drove him to speak to me in this way. I also knew that it meant that for some reason, the General could identify my scent, yet not see me for what I was.
“I know it was hard for you.” His hands were on the armrests of my chair, his body towering over me. “An alpha always knows.” Whether he was speaking about my status as an omega, my unexpected heat, or what I imagined during my more desperate moments, I did not wish to know. I stood up from my chair, trying to meet his eyes, making him take a step back in doing so. I gathered what was left of my sanity and channeled it into defiance.
“How could you know?” I asked. I bit my lip. “What are you, really?” He ignored my question.
“You were in heat,” he said instead, and I took a deep breath. I drowned in his scent for a moment too long. He knew too much to be anything but magic. His scent was too much like a werewolf for him not to be one either. It was confusing and my stomach was twisting in much the same way it had during the heat that should never have come. The General did this to me. He must have. He decreased the distance between us ever so slightly again, until I could see his chest move up and down with each breath that he took. My defiance got stuck in my throat, and the sound I let out instead was high and needy. It made the alpha before me take in a deep breath, that would unmistakably reveal the scent of a desperate omega. “You still are.”
That was the moment that I felt his touch for the first time. His fingers, trailing from my ear down my neck to my collarbones. The touch was soft, but the nails of a werewolf were not. I could not look up at him to meet his eyes, but I could feel his eyes on me. I could scent the heavy musk of an alpha that was trying to make an omega submit. A scent new to me that I instinctually recognised. I wanted nothing but his touch and his undivided attention. But I also wanted nothing to do with him. A man so powerful could lock me up here forever if he so pleased, and have his way with me whenever he wanted. It was not a fate I was keen on, even with the remnants of a heat clouding my judgement. But why would he want me, if he was a wolf?
“I am.” I rocked back in my chair. “So you need to leave.” And he let me go. When I finally met his gaze, his eyes widened. The cloudiness in his gaze made way for clarity. He stepped away from me, and I could breathe again.
