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That didn’t stop me from clawing at his clothing to try to get to his skin, though.

“Don’t worry,” Emmerich said, backing me away from the stream and my horse and onto a patch of grass that seemed to suddenly grow thicker and softer and high enough to conceal us. “It’s all perfectly normal and natural for fated mates to go into heat and rut at the first sight of each other.”

“Heat?” I asked panting, my body burning with the need to have this alpha possess me in every way. “Rut?”

Emmerich drew in a long breath, like he was drinking in my scent. “You’re not the only one feeling it,” he growled.

The next thing I knew, we were rolling in the grass, grabbing at each other’s clothing in a mad attempt to tear through it and cast it aside.

I wasn’t entirely certain how it happened, but within a surprisingly short amount of time, we were completely naked, our bodies entwined, skin touching everywhere.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” I moaned, flexing my hips to rub my hard cock against him. “This is madness.”

Emmerich laughed seductively. “Yes, it is mate madness,” he said, then bent down to kiss me, then nibble his way along my neck to my shoulder. “It feels wonderful, doesn’t it.”

“Yes!” I called out, partially in answer to his question and partially because he circled a hand around my cock to stroke me into a strong orgasm.

Just like that, I was a helpless, desperate omega in the throes of heat.

I knew that’s what it was, even though I wasn’t due to go into heat for another month or so.

My body and soul were so attuned to the complete stranger whose body covered mine that I couldn’t do anything but gasp and moan and plead for him to use me for his pleasure.

Emmerich seemed to have taken slight leave of his senses as well. His touches and kisses turned aggressive. He grasped and bit instead of stroking and teasing. And when he flipped me to my stomach and pushed my thighs far apart, I knew I was his to take as he pleased.

Take he did. With a ferocity I’d only ever dreamed about in my most erotic fantasies, he lined up and pushed into me.

His cock was thick and demanding, thrusting into me with a pinch of pain that turned quickly into the most ecstatic pleasure I’d ever felt.

He grabbed my hips hard as he pounded deeper and deeper into me, rearranging my insides to accommodate him.

I went limp with joy and pleasure, waves of orgasm sucking me under as my alpha mated with me.

Whatever strength and leadership I felt in the rest of my life vanished as the desperate desire to submit in every way possible to the alpha who possessed me consumed me.

His scent was so strong that I couldn’t imagine anything else.

My body felt as if it was made for his thick cock to bury itself in.

I cried out obscenely as I felt the head of his cock pound against the tight entrance to my womb, and when he punched straight through, his knot swelling and locking us together, I screamed with the unimaginable pleasure I felt at our joining.

My womb clamped around his head, and his guttural cries echoed my screams as he pumped his seed into me.

I could feel it. I could feel the seed filling and expanding my womb. I could feel his huge body lurch forward to encompass me. I could feel his soul entwining with mine. Then I felt a sharp bite on my shoulder, and with a gasp, I lost myself entirely as the two of us became one.

For I don’t know how long, we were nothing but combined pleasure. My body was one massive orgasm of friction, of Emmerich continuing to move in me with his knot and cockhead trapped inside my eager body. It was indescribably wonderful.

I don’t know how long it was until I came back to my senses. When I did, I lay in the cool grass, Emmerich still knotted in me, both of us panting and catching our breaths. Emmerich held me so tenderly that it made me want to cry for joy.

“I…I’m not usually like this,” I said as soon as I could speak.

“Not usually beautiful and sensual and perfect?” Emmerich asked. I could feel him teasing me, not just hear it in the sound of his voice.

I twisted to look at him over my shoulder. “I don’t usually let strange alphas fuck me in a meadow,” I said. I wanted to be serious, but I was just too overjoyed not to smile.

Emmerich chuckled. “I know, my darling,” he said. “It’s because we’re fated mates.”

Fated mates. The idea was wonderful.

And it immediately made me feel guilty .

“You should know that I wasn’t a virgin,” I said, burning with shame. “My father has given several of my heats away to his nobles over the years.”

I felt a blast of fury from Emmerich, but it wasn’t directed at me.

The fact that I could feel his emotions was alarming.

“I wasn’t a virgin either,” he answered. I sensed he was trying to calm himself by confessing about his own life. “I’m hundreds of years old and have had several lovers in those years. One or two were serious.”

I felt a strange sense of upset and embarrassment from him as he said that, like he’d had a relationship that had gone terribly wrong, and he was ashamed of it.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said softly. His knot had gone down and my body pushed him out, so I twisted in order to lay in his arms facing him. “I don’t care what came before, only that we’re together?—”

I stopped. My body felt strange. The heat that had come over me so suddenly was over just as quickly. Omega heats usually lasted three days. The only way they ended early was if the omega conceived.

I gasped and scrambled away, sitting up and pressing a hand to my belly. Something was there. It wasn’t a pregnancy like I knew, but something new and alive was inside me.

“It’s alright,” Emmerich said, sitting with me. “You’re a dragon’s fated mate. Not only does that mean you’ll go into heat the moment we meet, which you did, it means you’ll conceive an egg from our first mating.”

Mouth open in shock, I looked up at him. “An egg?” I asked, my voice a high squeak that wasn’t at all like me. I shook my head and closed my mouth, then said, “I cannot be pregnant. My father would kill me. He would literally kill me.”

Emmerich’s look of amused delight dropped to a concerned frown. “I should have thought of that,” he said, talking mostly to himself.

He frowned at my belly and rubbed the bottom half of his face for a moment. I could feel him working through the problem we’d created.

I could feel him.

“We’ve bonded!” I shouted, eyes going wide.

My father was definitely going to kill me. The moment he found out that an unknown alpha had mated with me, bonded with me, and impregnated me, he would have both of us executed.

Instead of being as upset as I was, Emmerich drew in a steadying breath. “Do you trust me?” he asked, looking straight into my eyes.

I didn’t have much choice, and yet, I did. “I do,” I said, nodding.

Emmerich smiled. He then reached out one of his large hands and placed it over my belly.

A rush of something warm and tingly passed through me. It could only be magic, and it was beautiful. It seemed to travel to every part of me, every cell in my body, including the ones forming into something in my womb.

“There,” Emmerich said at last, pulling his hand away and looking suddenly exhausted.

“There what?” I asked.

Emmerich sent me a mischievous grin. “I’ve paused you.”

“You’ve what?”

He laughed and stood, then pulled me to my feet as well. Without any special gesture or warning, we were both suddenly clothed again.

“I’ve suspended every cell in your body, including the egg growing within you,” he explained.

I blinked rapidly. “What does that mean?”

“It means that you are preserved in the state you are currently in,” he said. “The egg will not grow any more than it already has and your body will not change or age either.”

I gaped at him. “Forever?”

“No,” he said, pulling me into his arms for a reassuring hug. I definitely needed the reassurance. “Until the spell is broken,” he explained. “Until I make it otherwise. It’s the best way for us to proceed.”

“Proceed with what?” I asked, feeling weary and overwhelmed with everything.

“With the overthrow of your father,” he said.

He suddenly had my full attention. I stepped back so I could look into his eyes. “You’re planning on overthrowing my father?” The idea was wonderful, especially if Emmerich intended to take my father’s place.

“It has been known for some time that King Freslik must be deposed and a worthier ruler put in his place,” Emmerich said.

“Who knows this?” I asked. “How will it happen? What can I do to help?”

Emmerich laughed. “The time has not yet come to reveal how it will happen and who will be the new king, but it is coming. The best you can do to help is to return to your brothers and your castle and to wait for me to give you what you need to play your part. Can you do that for me?”

“I can do anything for you,” I said, meaning it genuinely, as strange as it felt to say that. “Just tell me what to do. ”

“For now,” Emmerich said, leaning closer to me and kissing my lips gently, “I need you to go back to your brothers and pretend that none of this happened. I cannot tell you why yet, but you must keep this encounter and the grander plan a secret from them. They each have their own stories to play out, and too much information might interfere with those stories.”

“And…and this…egg inside me?” I asked, placing a hand over my belly, anxious for the baby I knew was waiting there.

Emmerich smiled and placed his hand over mine. “When the time comes, I will release you from the spell that has you paused and we will continue on together in the life that is fated for us.”

I smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

“So do I,” he said, then leaned in to kiss me again. “Now go,” he said, stepping back from me. “It is time we put this tale in motion.”

I couldn’t help but rush back into his arms to kiss Emmerich one last time.

All I wanted was to be with him. I could feel him shrink the bond between us, which I was reluctantly grateful for.

The little I knew about bonds was that it was painful for an alpha and omega to be separated once they were bonded, but I felt like this way, we could each do what we needed to do.

I still hated leaving him to return to my brothers, though.

I knew I would see him again, but I was already looking forward to the time when we wouldn’t have to be parted and when my father was no longer lord and master over my life or the lives of any of the good people of his kingdom.

For the first time in my life, I felt as though good might win.