AGAIN MY HEART: Her Alphas Regret

LEILANI The heavy footfalls of Lady Malcolm’s heels echoed in the kitchen as she marched through the doorway, and her gaze immediately fell on me. “You, Omega, come here,” she called, and I immediately stepped forward. It doesn’t surprise me that she couldn’t be bothered to remember my name even though I’ve been working with her crew for the past three years. I already knew that being an orphan in Eitbjorn inherently makes you invisible. And that I was. I have never been made to feel like I belong in this kingdom nor in my pack. Even though I grew up in that pack, and the only knowledge of home I have is within the boundaries of MoonHill Pack. But can a place still be called home if no one has ever made me feel accepted? The only people who once made MoonHill feel like home were my adoptive parents, who died six years ago. They’ve loved me like I was their own child from the moment they found me, and never made me feel different, even though I looked nothing like them. I looked nothing like the entire population of Eitbjorn. Whilst every Eitbjorn-born citizen could easily pass for human wherever they go, I had very distinct features on me that made it very obvious that some part of me wasn’t human. My mismatched eyes always had people looking at me far longer than a polite minute. One had the color of a pale moonlight solver, and the other was a deep sparkling amethyst. Then came my fiery red hair, that always seemed unruly no matter how much I brushed it, and then was my pointy wolf-like ears, even in human form. Which I often hid with hair, but sometimes it got away from me. Eitbjorn wasn’t my home, and the people here made it so very obvious about how they treated me. Even the kids I grew up with never failed to remind me that I was an outsider. I wished I still had my adoptive parents because they made me feel relatively normal, but I lost that luxury when they died. “Take this to the headmaster…” Lady Malcom’s voice pulled me out of my reverie, and I was nodding and blinking so she wouldn’t realize I had zoned out “…and the headmistress in the ballroom for inspection. Whatever they say, make sure you report back to the head chef. Those pastries will be served to the king’s most distinctive guests at the ball, and they need to be perfect.” “Yes, Ma’am,” I responded, and hurried toward the large tray of pastries, gently picking it up and making my way out of the kitchen. Despite my complaints, working with Lady Malcolm at least provides me with the luxury of one sure meal a day, and the opportunity to save enough money to get me out of this kingdom for good. Losing my adoptive parents left me with no one to care if I ate or not. My pseudo-aunt, who had moved into my parents' home, is more or less a living nightmare, but at least she still lets me sleep there. Most jobs in the capital paid better, but I didn’t have the pass to work in the capital because I am not a citizen of Eitbjorn, and my parents had been denied any chances to get me a national identification number. It was a miracle that Lady Malcolm even hired me. I rounded the corner leading to the ballroom, the tray balanced carefully between my hands, my mind still turning over Lady Malcolm’s instructions. I don’t see the solid wall of a man stepping out from the adjourning corridor at the exact moment I do , until it’s too late. There was no time for me to swerve as I walked straight into him. The tray leaves my hands on impact, pastries and cream scattering everywhere, half of it splattering up the front of what I can already tell, even through my pain, is a very expensive shirt. Gasps rise around us, and my whole body goes hot with mortification as I stumble back a step, starting in horror at the mess I’ve made. My eyes grew wider, staring at the stranger standing there with cream sliding down his collar, utterly still, like he couldn’t quite believe what just happened either. “I’m so sorry,” I nurtured, moving as I snapped out of my stupefied state when I realized I wasn’t paid enough to be able to afford such an expensive shirt. “Here, let me—, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to. I should’ve paid more attention. Let me clean this…” The words tumble out of me before I can think better of them, and I reach for the closest thing I have, the hem of my own top, dabbing frantically at the front of his shirt like that will somehow undo the ruin I’d made to it. I am going to be very screwed if he demands that I buy a new shirt. I moved closer to him, hiking my dress up without a second thought because getting these stains out of his shirt was far more important than… My thoughts came to a screeching halt as the scent of Bergamot and Vanilla hit me. And a sweet, spiced warmth began curling straight through my panic, and settling low in my chest as if it was meant to be there. It was all so sudden, but it felt like the completion some part of me had been seeking. And swallowed a lungful, my wolf Aina stirring as the hem of my dress slipped out of my hand and my palm flattened against his chest. I am pulled out of my momentary state of shock as his hand closes around my wrist. The second his skin touches mine, something snaps into place like an invisible current arcing straight up my arm. The feel of it underneath my skin, the spark was so sharp and so intense that I nearly gasped out loud. My knees went weak as Aina surged forward with a joy so fierce it nearly buckled me where I stood. ‘Mate, Mate. We found our mate, Leila. He’s so dreamy, so handsome,’ Aina sang with joy. ‘You have to look at him, Leila, look at him, so beautiful.’ I looked up on her command, and I had the air almost knocked out of my lungs as I met with the most beautiful electric grey eyes that had locked me in place. For a moment, time seemed to stop as I became enraptured by his startling looks. Are men supposed to be this beautiful? He was handsome in a way that proved ungodly. His beauty was roguishly eccentric, and his rich brown skin glowed like he was borne out of the sun god. “Mate.” The word left my mouth before I realised I had said it out loud. I thought my voice barely qualified as a whisper, it was more breath than sound, but the hallway that was initially silent around us, let out a collective gasp. The man startled, letting go of my hand like I’d burned him, and for one disorienting instant his eyes flashed from grey to crimson, but it was gone as fast as it came, and I almost wondered if I had imagined it. “Don’t touch me!” he gripped in a chilly voice that had me taking a careful step away from him. Albeit one sentence, his words landed colder than the ice creeping up my spine at the sudden absence of his hand. I frowned, and opened my mouth to ask if he’d felt it too, if he was really going to stand there, and pretend that current hadn’t just gone through both of us because I was certain he felt… A hand clamped around my wrist, and yanked me sideways before I could get a single word out. “Are you insane?” The girl dragged me down the corridor with a bruising grip, hissed without stopping until we were well out of earshot. “Do you have any idea who that is?” Her voice trembled, and her eyes danced around with caution as she pulled me through another door. “You don’t go around touching people like that. And you don’t blurt the word ‘Mate,’ to just strangers in a room full of witnesses. What is wrong with you? Do you not value your life? Do you want to be killed? Or Banished?” I was still reeling from the unexpected encounter, and having someone else yell in my face. “But he’s not a stranger, he’s my mate, and I was…” Her dry laugh cut me off as she released my hand. “Are you dumb? Do you even know who that is?” “Who is he?” “That’s the Alpha King,” she sneered at me, like I must’ve lost my mind not to know that the man I’d dumped an entire tray of dessert on is the king. “Alpha King Aesir.” The floor seemed to drop out from under me, and my legs wobbled. The Alpha King of Eitbjorn is my mate? My hands flickered to the door I just came through, and my mind replayed the entire ordeal of the last five minutes. He… That was why he looked at me like I was something he wanted to scrape off his body. Why, he told me not to touch him in that cold voice. I swallowed hard, trying to calm my erratic heart as I tried processing the kind of mess I’d just gotten myself into. I’d heard stories of the king, the Alpha no one in this kingdom dares to look at in the eyes. I’ve heard rumors that claimed he killed his own parents, and walked away from the wreckage, ascending the throne without a single hint of remorse. The rumors claimed the palace had remained empty after the death of the king’s parents because their ghost haunted the halls. They’ve called him cruel, claims that said he was an Alpha cold enough to freeze the marrow in your bones. I’d always assumed the rumors were exaggerated, and I never thought I’d find out firsthand how true it could be. I’d barely found a way to get my thoughts in order when Lady Malcolm walked through the door vibrating with fury. “Get upstairs,” she snapped, throwing a glance over her shoulder like whatever chased her here would materialize over her shoulder. She shoved a cleaning cart in my direction. “Start cleaning the guest wing. And better pray I don’t hear another word of you disrupting the work you were here to do. If I so much as find you within the same breath of His Majesty again, I’ll kill you.”