Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Abel
My ears prick up at footsteps approaching. They are not the heavy tread of a soldier doing his rounds. No, these are light and sneaky.
A slow smile spreads across my lips. And then I let it fade as darker thoughts bombard my mind.
Female.
Beta.
Fertile.
The breeding scent assaults my nose with the accuracy of a seasoned bowman. My cock hardens and lengthens behind my serviceable guard’s pants and starts leaking copious amounts of pre-cum in anticipation of the rutting that will follow.
The night is cold, the wind sharp where it whistles over the western battlements, carrying the smoke of the keep’s fires below.
It is a lonely post, this one—a squat tower at the top of a winding stair, far from the barracks and the bustle of the great hall.
Guards grumble when the duty roster puts them here.
I volunteer for it.
There was a time when I partook willingly of any lassies who snuck up here with mischief on their minds.
Some come for an alpha’s cock, and some for a beta guard they have their eye on.
There has never been a shortage of eager lasses, nor willing guardsmen—whether they be betas or alphas—happy to put smiles on their faces.
And besides, so long as it would not cause trouble with their mates or husbands, I understood the role I played.
I was a curiosity in some cases and a fantasy in others.
It’s not exactly an arduous task now, is it, if the night is quiet, and the lass is willing, and you leave her all soft and contented from your attentions.
If there is no harm or foul to a third party, I could not see the trouble in it.
Of course, some beseeched me for my knot.
They begged so sweetly for it in the throes of passion.
It takes a steady alpha to do what is right.
I never once gave them my knot. Even the experienced ones who had been with alphas before and claimed they could take it—and maybe they could.
Knotting is the only way to get a woman with child.
I never wanted my bastard passed off as another man’s babe.
Nor to find myself mated for reasons of a quick fuck, and because I could not keep my head or my knot where it needed to be—outside of their hot, needy cunts.
For many years, I held to that rule. Through lasses who wept for it and lasses who demanded it like queens. My knot belonged to no one, and I was content for it to stay that way.
But everything changed about two years ago. The rules went out the window and I knotted a lass for the very first time.
I think of that night often, for the memory has teeth. Tonight especially—the way she trembled, and the way she didn’t. The sounds she made. The moment my restraint, years in the forging, snapped like green wood.
After all my years of resisting, one might think I would regret it.
The truth?
Not once, not ever.
Her steps falter. The spicy feminine scent carries more potently upon the breeze.
And beneath the ripe swell of her fertile scent is something else.
Something familiar that no other lass carries.
Every woman who ever climbed those steps smelled of curiosity or nerves or simple lust. She smells like none of them.
Unique.
She pauses just out of sight, close enough that she will be picking up on my alpha pheromones, even though her senses are not close to those of an alpha or an omega.
Pah. Omegas are rarer than a two-dicked man.
Well, mayhap not quite that rare, but I am splitting hairs.
There was a time when I thought I wanted an omega—it is every alpha’s aspiration at some time or another.
The older, more mature alphas of the community would smile like they knew something I didn’t when I voiced this opinion.
Now that I think about it, it was always the ones happily mated to a beta lass or two.
They said an alpha always knew when he had found his one, and whether she was omega or beta, above or below him in station, mattered not.
I didn’t believe them at the time, but let’s just say that the happenings of two years ago changed my mind.
My eyes are trained upon the corner where she will emerge.
That’s my good girl. Take the steps. Show yourself.
I hear the faintest little huff of breath and a soft scuffle, almost like she’s shuffling from foot to foot, building up the courage.
She has come this far before. Thrice now, by my count, over these past weeks—soft footsteps on the lower stair, a pause, a long silence, and then her retreat. Each time, I let her go and stood the rest of my watch aching and cursing myself for a fool. A smarter man would have gone down after her.
Or maybe this is the right of it, letting it play out on her terms… making her surrender all the sweeter when it finally comes, as I sense it will tonight.
Her fertile scent is potent. She is at her peak. Ready to be bred. It’s been just over two years since I last planted a whelp in her belly.
The babe is walking now. How I love to watch him in the yard by the well, fat-fisted and stumbling, dark-haired like his mother. Like me too, though you’d not spot my features in his small face yet—he has the makings of an alpha for sure.
Thoughts bombard my mind, pure alpha and full of wicked intentions.
My dick leaks a heady blob of pre-cum that sends a shudder down my spine.
My hands tremble faintly in anticipation of putting them on her full hips…
her tits, gods, they are a nice handful now.
If I do my job right, in about nine months, they will be full of milk.
She is ready. Tonight there will be no turning back.
I’m more than willing. I am fully fucking invested.
Your poor little beta pussy is going to be sore by the time I’m done with you. Now take the steps, woman. Bring my pussy to me.