Guard the Crown: The Royal Alphas

by H Q Kingsley

  But then the anger cut through those sappy thoughts, reminding me that he’d just up and disappeared without telling anyone where he was going just weeks after he’d been drugged and almost kidnapped.

  “Where the hell have you been?” I demanded, finally breaking the silence. “I’ve been looking for you all morning. You can’t just wander off like that!”

  “I...I’m sorry,” Zyke replied, eyes immediately going to the leaf-covered ground. “I just...I wanted to try shifting again. Last night made me realize it’s been a long time, and I just wanted to try it.”

  “All morning?”

  “I lost track of time,” he said softly.

  “You can’t just run off, Zyke! It’s fucking dangerous, don’t you know that? Anything could have happened to you, and I didn’t know where the hell you were. I can’t protect you if I can’t find you.”

  He nodded, seeming to droop even more while I yelled at him. “I’m sorry,” he said again, meek and barely above a whisper.

  My anger bled out of me then. I didn’t want to be another person shouting at him, making him feel bad. He was safe, and that was what mattered.

  “It’s okay,” I said, taking another step closer to him. “I was just worried, you know? I went to check on you this morning, and you weren’t there. No note, nothing. And no one knew where you were.”

  “Were you worried you were going to get fired?” His voice was still that meek little half-whisper, and I frowned.

  “No, I was worried because I don’t think I could forgive myself if something happened to you,” I said. I sighed and took another step forward. “I care about you, Zyke.”

  His eyes shot up to meet mine, and then he came forward, meeting me in the middle. For a moment, neither of us said anything. He just stood there, looking at me, and all I could do was look back, taking in his face, his eyes, how soft his mouth looked.

  It was impossible to ignore how much I wanted him when he was that close. When I could smell him, the memory of the night before was flashing through my head, taking the place of all those shitty images of him being hurt.

  I knew I shouldn’t say anything. I was supposed to keep my mouth shut and take him back inside. Tell his brothers I’d found him, for all they’d care.

  But when I opened my mouth, the truth came spilling out.

  “I...really want to kiss you right now, but I don’t think that’s allowed.”

  His eyes went wider if that was possible, and they darted down to my mouth before he licked his lips, which was pretty unfair, all things considered. Zyke didn’t even know what he was doing to me.

  “I’ve never been kissed before,” he admitted.

  I wasn’t surprised, but it still gave me pause, and I took a step back, putting distance between us once again.

  “I’m sorry,” Zyke said. He said that too often.

  “What are you sorry for?”

  He lifted his shoulders in a shrug, his eyes going back down to the ground now that the moment had passed. “I know it’s weird. For me to be nineteen and to never have kissed anyone before.”

  “It’s not weird,” I told him.

  Zyke snorted. “If you believed that, then you wouldn’t have jumped away from me just now.”

  The last thing I wanted was for the beautiful prince to think I didn’t want him, and I sighed, rubbing a hand over my face. What a morning it had already been.

  “It’s got nothing to do with that, Zyke,” I said. “I don’t think you’re weird. It’s just that if you’ve never kissed anyone, then you’ve probably never really been with anyone either. You know what I mean.” Zyke flushed. “I’m just trying really hard to resist the urge to throw your legs over my shoulder and fuck you into the dirt right now because you deserve better than that for your first time.”

  His face went even redder, but he finally looked up at me again. “O-o-oh. U-um…” He squirmed under my gaze, shifting his bear to cover a little bit more of his body, and I wondered if he was hard again behind it.

  “S-so….What happens now, then?” he asked softly.

  That was a good ass question. It would have been smarter to leave it alone. To say it couldn’t happen. But I had never been that smart.

  “Now, you let me take you to dinner,” I said. “And then I’ll kiss you properly. Like you deserve. With all our clothes on, even.”

  He laughed, and it was such a beautiful sound that I almost forgot myself.

  I cleared my throat. “We should definitely get you inside and get you dressed though before I change my mind about what’s proper.”

  I anxiously fidgeted with my blazer as I looked myself over in the mirror. I hadn’t been dressed up like that in...well, ever. The total and complete truth was that I hadn’t ever really been on a date, either. It was going to be a first for Zyke and I both.

  I’d gotten together with Chase when I was so young, we’d never really romanced each other exactly. And in our on-again-off-again cycle, sure, I’d been with other men, but I’d never actually dated any of them. I’d never taken them to dinner and tried to hold a conversation, and I was starting to get a little nervous that I might not actually be very good at it.

  Zyke was shy and gentle, but he was also smart as hell, and I’d barely made it through a mediocre education system. And what if I talked about Chase? Or war? Or some crazy mood-killing bullshit that made him uncomfortable.

  I gave myself another once over, and instead of feeling more confident in my jacket and tie, I felt like a fraud. I felt like I was playing dress-up, and he was going to see right through it.

  Fuck.

  I pulled in a deep breath, urging myself not to go for the bottle in my bottom drawer. I wanted to be clear-headed for this. If I screwed it up, I’d screw it up because I was too dumb or too bitter for him, not because I was a drunken fool.

  I straightened and gave my reflection a nod.

  You can do this.

  “I can do this,” I repeated.

  10

  Zyke

  My heart was beating so hard that I could feel it pulsing in my throat as I got myself dressed.

  I'd never been on a date before, and honestly, I’d never thought I’d be asked on one, especially not by someone like Omar.

  Omar was the kind of guy someone like my brothers would date. Someone equally as gorgeous and strong as them. Not me. I was the weird one. The one who, at best, faded into the background, and at worst, was ridiculed and mocked openly. People didn't like me. They thought I was a freak, an outsider, even though this was my home.

  But Omar, who knew all of that, still had asked me out. He still wanted to kiss me. And apparently 'fuck me into the dirt,' which...gods. I couldn't stop thinking about that.

  I'd seen him naked. I knew what his cock looked like, and every time I thought about him pinning me down and going through with those words, my own cock got hard in my pants.

  But I had to make myself calm down. I was not going to come in my pants again. Not tonight.

  Tonight was going to be special.

  I looked at myself in the mirror, frowning at my reflection. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn't see whatever it was that Omar saw in me.

  I was still just...me.

  Short, skinny, weird little me.

  But when he looked at me, I felt like I was more than that. Like I was worthy of being wanted because he wanted me. It was a new feeling, and I was still getting used to it, but it was nice to feel something other than hurt and ashamed for once.

  Omar could probably have anyone he wanted, after all. He was gorgeous and looked like he was chiseled by the gods and sent to Earth to be perfect down here with all of us mere mortals.

  I still couldn't believe someone had broken his heart. I still couldn't believe that, after all of that, he had picked me.

  I needed to get a handle on myself. I was such a weird mixture of aroused and nervous, and it made me so jumpy. Every time I heard something in the hall, I figured it was Omar, and I wanted t
o shout that I wasn't ready yet.

  I was dressed in what I assumed was date attire. All of the people in the books I read and the shows I saw on TV looked nice when they went out. Suits and blazers and dresses and pearls.

  I was a prince, and my wardrobe was expansive, even though I usually just wore jeans and a sweater to try and disappear into the background.

  I'd picked out a suit in a dark blue color, hoping that was the right thing. It fit well, but that wasn't really saying much. There wasn't really anything about me to show off.

  I was still just me but in a suit.

  Omar hadn't said where we were going, just that it would be someplace nice. All I knew was that we were going to have dinner… and I knew that after dinner, we would kiss.

  That part was stuck in my head, too.

  I wanted to kiss Omar. Probably since the moment he'd walked into my life, naked and unashamed, I'd wanted to kiss him.

  But I didn't have any experience. I didn't know how to kiss. My books made it sound easy, but they weren’t exactly instruction manuals.

  Omar had probably kissed loads of people. He'd been in love once, and he'd kissed that person plenty, I was sure. It would be impossible to be with him and not want to kiss him.

  He deserved all the kisses he wanted, and I was worried that I wasn't going to measure up.

  He was clearly doing this for me because he'd said I deserved it, but what if it was all one big disappointment? What if I kissed him or he kissed me and it was just bad? And then he never wanted to do it again?

  Gods. I dragged my hands down my face and let out a breath, trying not to spiral out of control about it.

  And then Omar knocked on the door.

  I bit my lip and glanced back at the mirror again. I was as ready as I was ever going to be, and five more minutes wasn't going to change anything.

  “Come in,” I called.

  The door opened, and Omar came walking in, and really, it just wasn't fair.

  He was so handsome, dressed in all black. His pants were pressed, and he had on a black jacket that hugged his waist and showed off how broad his shoulders were.

  The black made him look darker, more mysterious, and my mouth almost watered from how good it all looked on him.

  I could already feel a blush rising to my cheeks.

  When I finally glanced up at Omar's face, he was looking right back at me. His eyes were dark, and there was a look on his face that I'd never seen directed at me by anyone but him.

  It was want, pure and simple. Either I was getting better at reading him, or he didn't care if I knew he wanted me.

  I'd never thought anyone would ever have eyes for me like that, and it took my breath away for a long moment while we just looked at each other.

  After a bit, Omar seemed to shake himself, and he smiled warmly. “You look great,” he said. He glanced over to Teddy, who had been promptly dressed an hour before me. “So, does he,” he offered, and I wondered if he knew just how much that meant. That he didn’t just ignore my quirks, he indulged them. He made me feel like maybe I wasn’t so weird after all.

  “Are the two of you ready to go?” Omar asked, offering me his arm.

  I took a deep breath and clutched onto his arm probably too tightly. “Y-yeah. Y-yes. We’re ready.”

  I grabbed Teddy, letting Omar lead us forward and down to the garage.

  Without prompting, I got behind the wheel of the car, cranking it up easily and turning to smile at Omar. He was smiling right back at me, and he put a hand on my shoulder, squeezing lightly.

  His touch was electric, and it made my heart race in my chest.

  “Good job,” he said. “I'll tell you where to go.”

  It wasn't a long drive, but I felt like I could feel his hand there the whole time, even after he'd moved it. The heat of it, the praise he seemed to always be full of. I loved it all so much.

  He'd picked a nice restaurant just outside the gates of the capital. It wasn't fancy enough that my father or brothers would have picked it, but it was a long, long way from the bar he'd taken me to before.

  He'd even made a reservation, and it was under his name instead of mine.

  That didn't stop people from staring, of course.

  Whenever I went out for any length of time, no matter the reason, people stared. They saw me—the weird, black sheep of the family—and they watched my every move, looking for something to ridicule.

  We were shown to our table, which was near the back, and even there, people kept watching. I felt their eyes on me, my clothes, and Teddy in his tux, but strangely enough, I didn't care.

  Omar's hand was on the small of my back as we walked, guiding me forward, and that was all I could think about. I could smell his clean, woodsy scent under his cologne, and I focused on that, letting everything else drop away.

  No one else in the restaurant mattered, anyway. It might as well have been just the two of us, wrapped up in our own little world.

  It had been like that a few nights ago when we were sitting on the hood of the car and he'd told me he liked when I looked at him. And when he was running through the woods with me clinging to his back.

  I liked it so much, being able to ignore everything else going on around me.

  “This is a nice place,” I said, glancing around the restaurant.

  He shrugged, grinning a little. “Nicer than most places I've ever been to,”" he said. “But probably not nice enough for a prince, still.”

  “It's nice enough for me,” I told him. “I'm just happy to be here with you.”" I could feel my face heating up as I sat there smiling at him like an idiot.

  When he smiled back at me, I felt my chest tighten. Was this even real? Was someone that fucking gorgeous really out on a date with me?

  Our waiter stopped at our table, reminding me that Omar and I weren’t the only two people in existence.

  The waiter glanced at me, giving me that look that most people did before he ignored me. He turned his attention to Omar, directing all of his questions to the person of relevance at the table.

  “What can I get you to drink, sir?” he asked Omar, fluttering long, dark eyelashes at him and making me want to disappear into my seat.

  “Just water for me,” Omar said, leaning to glance at me, but the waiter leaned over the table into his view.

  “You sure? We have a divine house red. On me,” he offered, and I shrank a little more into my seat.

  “Yes, I said just water. I’m not drinking tonight,” Omar said evenly.

  “That’s too bad. Handsome guy like you deserves a good red.”

  I could feel my face burning as I watched the waiter flirt with my date. I couldn’t blame him, and I wouldn’t blame Omar if he ditched me for him. He was tall and lanky in a modelesque kind of way. Certainly more attractive than I was.

  “I said, I’m good,” Omar repeated, his face harder, and the waiter straightened a little by his tone.

  “Oh, okay.”

  “I’m sure my date might like to tell you what he’s drinking,” Omar said, keeping that same aggressive tone.

  “Oh,” the waiter said again, turning to me with a stunned look on his face. “Um, did you want...um…”

  “Just water for me, too,” I said softly, feeling just as stunned as he looked.

  The waiter nodded and moved away from our table.

  “T-thank you,” I finally said to Omar.

  “For what?” he asked, his perfect brows pulling together in genuine confusion.

  “For making him pay attention to me.”

  “You’re a prince. People should pay attention to you.”

  “I’m not that kind of prince,” I squeaked. “Plus, I thought you weren’t into all of the royalty stuff.”

  Omar smiled at me, and I melted in my seat. “I’m not, but you deserve to be treated like royalty.”

  I grinned and my cheeks warmed, making me drop my gaze. “No, I don’t.”

  Omar reached across the table and his thick,
long finger curled under my chin, lifting my head so that my eyes met his. “Yes, you do.”

  He leaned in, and my breathing picked up. My heart raced in my chest, and my face was so hot, I was worried I might start sweating. Was this it? Was he going to kiss me?

  His eyes seemed to be tracing my lips, and he leaned in a little bit more before he stopped, pulling back and settling back into his seat.

  He cleared his throat. “So, uh, what are you reading?” Omar asked. He sounded different, and he was sitting differently. It wasn’t that same stoic, ramrod straight posture that I was used to. No, it was more...fidgety. Was he nervous? Could that be possible? That I made someone like him nervous?

  “Oh, um, just a little light political science.” I shrugged. “Our kingdom is destined to fall if we keep going this way. And it will fall violently. Belaria was just a preview. I feel like if I can just prove it to my father, that we’re in a cycle that won’t end well for us that…” I trailed off, realizing that conversations about death and coups probably weren’t good date discourse.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly.

  Omar shook his head. “For what?”

  “I don’t know. Not being a good date.”

  Omar laughed, and I relished in the sound.

  “You know,” he started. “All night I was worried I wouldn’t be a good date for you.”

  I blinked in disbelief. “Uh...what?”

  Omar scratched his head. “You’re so smart. You read ‘a little light political science’ in your spare time. I’m not even sure I know what political science is.” He sighed. “You’re brilliant, and I thought maybe you’d get bored with me.”

  My mouth fell halfway down my chest. “I...I…”

  I closed my mouth when the waiter drifted back over with a fresh pitcher of water.

  “Are you ready to order?” he asked, seemingly having forgotten that I was there again and only directing his question to Omar.

  “Um,” Omar’s face scrunched as he looked down at the menu. “I actually don’t know what any of this shit is.” He looked over me. “I’ll get whatever you get.”