The Alien Prince’s Omega by Lorelei M. Hart
Hanson
“I don’t understand.”I collapsed onto the couch, my body unable to bear my weight, the adrenalin of Umon’s visit too much. “Any of this.”
“He is gone. He will, as you humans say, tattletale to my First Father about me. My father will not care where I am, only that I am with my rupling.” No part of him looked nervous about that. But then again, it was his father. Why would he be?
I was the one who had the rights to all the nerves building inside of me. “Not that.” My head fell back and I closed my eyes. “I mean I needed to know part of that, but that’s not what I don’t understand.”
“Might I join you?” he asked, and I crooked my finger. He didn’t sit, and my eyes opened to see him just standing there. “I will do you no harm.”
I’d signalled him in a human way and he thought I was ignoring him or worse, denying him. Was that how all of this mess was? Had I missed things this entire time simply because I was human and didn’t understand things he was telling me? “Please join me.”
He sat beside me and I snuggled into him. “I should be mad at you or at the very least sad, but I don’t know… I need this right now.”
His arms came around me, giving me the comfort I sought.
“You really are stunning.” I hadn’t thought about that—it hadn’t mattered what his true form was, at least not enough for me to even consider it. But that had to have weighed heavily on him, hiding his looks from the humans and by default me as well. “I’m glad I saw you today… really saw you.”
“As am I.” He intertwined his fingers with my own. “My people—when we meet our true mate, we just mark them. There is no wooing as is the way of your kind. True mates… we recognize each other and our nature takes over.”
I rotated my body enough to see his face without losing his embrace. “And yet you didn’t mark me?” He hadn’t, my real question much more needy than that. Am I really your true mate? Are you sure? Am I good enough, being the weak human that I am?
“I wanted to mark you from the second I sensed you. But you are human and—”
“And not of your world and weak. I understand.” That my heart was breaking.
“No. No, nothing like that.” He guided me up onto his lap. “It’s because if my true mate was my kind, we would both know exactly what was happening and we would be making the choice. But you—you didn’t know, and if I marked you then or when we joined… you would not be making the choice, I would be making it for you.”
I remembered how pissed I’d been after we made love, and that was without the marking. I’d allowed myself to get all twisted around because I was so afraid of my emotions. Had he marked me… “You’re right. It would not have ended well. But now? I want you to. Mark me as yours, Kagin.”
“What do you know of marking?”
I climbed off his lap and climbed back on, my knees on either side of his hips. “This is better,” I said, meaning my seat. I cupped his cheeks with my hands. “I know the mating of shifters, where they mark each other with teeth and claws. Is that what you would do? Would you bite me?” I nibbled on his bottom lip.
“No.” He swallowed. “I hate to say this, but I need you to get off my lap for a minute.”
I kissed him and climbed off. If he hadn’t sensed the importance of what was coming next, getting off of him would’ve been much more difficult. Being with him, touching him, feeling his breath—that was home.
He took my hand and led me to the refrigerator. “What I am going to show you is not meant to scare you.” He took out the milk and a dish and set it on the counter.
He placed his hand on the milk carton, then pulled it away. “This is plastic.” I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or himself. Kagin reached for a pot in the cupboard and poured some milk into it. “It would have—you’ll see.” He placed the pan on the palm of his hand and the milk inside began to steam and then boil.
“You will explain how that works later?”
“Absolutely, my rupling.” He set it on the stove. “But there is more.” He placed his hands on the hot pan and before I could figure out what he was doing, the milk had formed a huge ice cube.
“And you are showing me this because it has to do with marking me?”
“Yes. Izleen and Zialt are the moons of my people. They are mated, which is why we are izleen and zialt—alpha and omega.” He took my hand and placed it on his shoulder and then placed his hand on mine. “To mark, we call forth the moon after our hearts, in my case, Izleen, and our hand imprints upon you.”
“You burn me?” I asked. “Or do you freeze me?”
“The moons decide, but in either case it is a burn, but your mate doesn’t feel the pain, not if they are a true mate. Or so I have been told.”
“But I won’t be able to mark you.” A sadness started to bubble deep inside of me. “Maybe I could mark you in the ways of the shifters?” I offered.
“Or we can trust the moons to know what they are doing.”
“You would not feel incomplete?” I could never live with myself if I was but half a mate to him.
“I already am complete, just by having you in my life.”
“Mark me, Kagin. Make me yours.”
“I will mark you, but make no mistake, rupling, you have always been mine.”