THE SCENT OF HIM

LACHLAN

He had kept the shirt, even though the intention had been to burn it right after he got out of the haze of his rut.

King Lachlan hadn’t burned the shirt because, for some odd reason, he couldn’t.

He turned it over in his hands in the dim light of his own chambers. The shirt was torn at the collar, stiff in certain places. He had been wearing it when the debt collectors brought an omega into his throne room, and something in him had come apart at the seams.

Lachlan still couldn’t fathom what the hell had happened that evening. What had come over him and made him lose control like that. The days he spent with the omega had been a mindless haze of fucking, barely eating because all his Lycan wanted was to have his cock buried deep between the omega’s walls.

There had to be some sorcery to it. Because how else was he to explain his reasons for not disposing of even the shirt he had worn during his encounter with the omega?

He should’ve gotten rid of it the first night he got a hold of his senses. Should’ve burned it after he was sane enough to retreat to his own palace. But Lachlan had shoved it into the bottom of a drawer, swearing there was a reason for that.

Then he had sworn not to open the drawer again because why would he? But he had opened it anyway, taken the shirt out, and, against his better judgement, pressed the fabric to his nose for a sniff.

And he couldn’t explain his addiction to the scent of that strange gangly omega. Lachlan hadn’t even asked for his name, and didn't bother because he had practically fled the guest room.

That smell of rain-drenched earth, the hint of blooming wisteria still clinging to his shirt from the omega’s scent, had a sweetness to it that had clung to Lachlan’s shirt, refusing to let go.

If the Lycan crown had caught himself sniffing the shirt more than once, no one needed to know about it. It was his secret to keep.

No one needed to know he had done more than sniff the shirt. If he had pressed it against his face and jerked his aching cock to an orgasm that couldn’t compensate for any of the mind-blowing knotting he had with the omega, no one—absolutely no one needed to know this disturbing information except himself.

King Lachlan did hate that he was standing over his drawer, fixating on a shirt that held the scent of an omega he’d also avoided seeing for the past sixteen days. The Lycan King was anything but a coward, but somehow, a gangly, malnourished omega had managed to chase the ruthless Lycan Crown into the corner of his palace.

Lachlan sneered at himself, shoving the shirt back into the drawer, and he slammed it shut harder than he needed to. He paced his bedchamber for a brief moment, wondering what had come over him in such a short time.

“This is not me. I am not this person. I don’t fixate. I am the Lycan king. The most feared Alpha. Why would a tiny omega have me staring at a damn shirt? It’s a fucking fabric with no value. I could procure thousands of them in the blink of an eye.”

He stored profanities, huffing and puffing as he declared to no one in his bedchamber just how mighty a king he was. As if that would change his fixation, as if that would make him dispose of the shirt when it still had that lingering hint of wisteria.

Even as the thought of burning the shirt crossed his mind, Lachlan dashed it that same instant. He stopped pacing to stare at nothing for a moment. His study adjoined his bedchamber, so he crossed into it, dragging both hands back through his hair as if he could physically shake the thought of that omega out of his skull.

He had spent the past three weeks reading every account his family kept of Lycan ruts. There weren’t many because Lycan Alphas weren’t like werewolves, and it didn’t help that his bloodline had been cursed. It also didn’t help that only his bloodline remained of the Lycans, so there wasn’t really much to research.

Most Lycan Alpha ruts happened sparsely, and when it did, it had to be on a powerful full moon. And it was often manageable. What had happened in the throne room that day was unlike anything Lachlan had ever experienced. And the Lycan King had spent the past two weeks and two days trying to figure out what could’ve caused him to lose his senses.

It wasn’t just the fact he had spent a whole week fucking an omega. It was the fact that the Omega’s scent had rewired something in his brain. In all his thirty-four years, he had never experienced anything like that. The fact that his body had responded before his mind even caught up to what was happening, and even now. Weeks clear of that rut haze, he could still feel something in his chest.

It made no sense.

And there was that nagging feeling at the back of his head when he was fucking the omega. The way his gums had itched, and his fangs had craved to sink into the supple flesh of the omega’s neck to mark him.

“Mark him…” Lachlan retorted as he snapped shut the pages he had opened.

Why would he want to mark an omega? A male omega for that matter. Mates were myth; marking the omega would’ve meant he felt something akin to a mate bond.

The Lycan king scoffed because all he felt was lust, alright. He had to convince himself that it was lust because why would the moon goddess suddenly bless him with a mate? He snorted at the thought.

Even this book he had opened had some ridiculous notion. 

~Some omegas had a rarity that could turn any Alpha’s head and made them craze with lust.~ 

~If an Omega was untouched, their scent could ignite a desperation in an unmated Alpha. 

King Lachlan scoffed. The omega couldn’t have been untouched. He was a male omega; they were whores, born to be fucked and used for their holes.

Perhaps it was nothing at all, and he was just being ridiculous trying to understand something carnal. It was a carnal reaction after all that should be normal.

He decided to push the thought out of his mind as he worked through the evening reports. There was a skirmish on the southern border not yet worth troubling himself over; still, he looked into assigning one of his generals to journey over. There was also a request from a border lord for additional men. The light in his office glowed low as he worked, moving his pen over papers.

A knock at the door had him pausing, his attention pulling away from the papers on his desk, and he realised it was late. The knock came a third time, and he answered.

“Your Majesty, your evening tea.” The servant bowed as he carried the serving tray over to the table adjacent to Lachlan’s desk.

“Do you have something else to say, Bassey?” The king asked, seeing as the servant lingered instead of leaving.

“Yes, Your Majesty. I was… Umm…”

“Will you speak plainly or do I have to cut your tongue for wasting my time?” he asked.

“No, no, Your Majesty, forgive me. The guards—I was told to—Well, the omega…”

“What happened to the omega?” The King found his shoulders pulling taut at the thought of his omega being in danger.

Lachlan mentally shook his head. ‘Not my omega.’ 

“The omega requested a chance outside of his room. He wants to see the trees and watch birds and pick flowers.”

Lachlan craned his head, confusion marring his expression. “He wants to see the trees and watch birds?” 

Who on earth wanted to do those things? The king thought to himself.

“Yes, Your Majesty. That is what I was told.”

“You can go.” It wasn’t an answer, nor permission, but Lachlan would think about it because the request made no sense to him.

What kind of omega had been brought into his place? Of all things the omega could seek permission for, it was to watch trees?

The Lycan king frowned, the request making no sense to him as he stood up.

Perhaps I should see him.