Warning: There is female Alpha shenanigans in this one.
The assassin soared towards her like a hawk and then spun around the nearest okala ete tree. She heard the sound of hissing and then a loud riiiip as his cloaked form caught on the tree's protruding spikes.
Well, he had to be a foreigner by that mistake alone.
Her guards hitched bows and arrows and unleashed tens of them at the assassin. She yelled at them to stop when they began damaging the trees with scars and large slashes. The chips of wood laying on the desert floor.
Now she would have to make a trip to Castillo Reviere and offer regrets.
Sliding from tree to tree, she could see the assassin was quick. His limbs stretched and slid as if movement was an extension of his thoughts. The assassin must've thought to run as he slid around the trees and into the shrubberies leading towards the city. Jata Niara rolled her shoulders and then made chase. This is what she gets for wishing she hadn't missed the hunt.
Her hands dug into the sand as the assassin twisted around the shrubberies sliding under the hooded forms of the stunted plants and used the force to twist around closer to the assassin's speed. Between this open forestry and the main inner city, this direction led deeper into the lower city that fell below, closer to the lower shorelines, before raising up into the capital city's marketplace.
The drop between here and the lower city appeared and she increased her running speed as the assassin slowed down. He turned around but noted her speed and jumped off. She grappled to catch the assassin midair but it was too late. Water splashed below in the lower city's shallow waters and the assassin made haste across it, disappearing into the shadowed depths of the city's hunched over buildings.
It wasn't too much longer before her guards appeared. She shouted at them to search the city, but she knew the assassin was long gone. With the rest of the guards, she returned to finish her meeting with her future consort, but a foul taste settled in her mouth. This was an unexpected act that spoke to her instincts that someone had betrayed her.
Her eyes caught that the kajawa with Srinivas and Elijah were gone, as well as the builders, likely out of fear. It would be frustrating if this situation scared off the builders. Hiring more guards might be her only option. Gods. Her omega father would have to be notified and she would never hear the end of it. Then her grandfather would get involved.
It would've been too easy if it was the Empress' Consort or Babatu but the obvious, most guilty party would be Babatu. In all fairness, the man had many enemies and a grand majority of them were foreigners. There was no telling who could have hired the assassin when any one of them would've gladly done so.
In that same hand, Babatu wouldn't have been so forward. It could be just easily someone who hated Babatu and wanted to ruin his chances to hitch along the power of two royal family members instead of only one.
When she returned, the seared meats had just finished roasting. The omega, his future consort, had been tending to it with his chaperone glaring over his shoulder and her own chaperone, just from her wringing hands, was itching with worry but not wanting to embarrass herself.
"I hope it's no bother that I waited," the sweet voice of Noë Cissé spoke. He wore the curved, thick eye lines popular among nobility and the painted blues of flowering plants along the corner shape of his eyes. A sheer covering for light modesty and a lower skirt with the weavings of gold, red, blue, and green. "We had plenty of guards and I feared being unable to reschedule before the ceremony."
Surprise and the widening of her brows must've been clear because the omega giggled in that delicate way high noble omegas did with a hand covering his mouth and his golden armlets covering the entire length of his arms.
Although Babatu had issues with foreigners, his wife was not necessarily a native. Her clan was from far, far up north, between the open lands and the empires. The former origins of the Malahi clan, where their nomadic ancestors traveled south, the Casillas clan was of mixed bloodline between the three empires and never left. One of the omegas of that clan is Babatu Cissé's wife.
The open lands were considered the relatives of all clans but the distinction was small when it involved foreigners.
But such is love.
It conquers even the most irate of women and men.
"It sounds as if your interest is personal," she prodded. "I'm sorry to say I hadn't met your acquaintance before now."
Perhaps this had nothing to do with the Empress Consort at all.
"I listened to your speech after your coming-of-age ceremony," Noë said lightly and then pointed at her necklace. "You spoke so confidently and strongly as you skinned the leopard. I heard later that you sent it to be made into clothing for your omega father."
It was turned into a nightcoat for his omega father when she traversed the gardens, often with her Imperial Mother in tow.
"It's been so many years," she said and then settled in the open seating by her chaperone, ignoring her multiple onceovers for injuries. "I can't possibly hold the same image in your mind as a memory?"
"For a while, I thought the same. It had been years since the arrangement had been discussed but then I saw you again, a few days ago," Noë added softly and then Jata Niara's brows raised again. "You were dressed in traditional clothing that I hadn't seen in quite a long while and it was beautiful. I saw you lit up like a beacon in the marketplace and everyone else disappeared. There was just you and--I mean, I simply thought I would like to meet you, and speak with you, sooner."
She couldn't sense deception in his tone and there was nothing nefarious about his acts of watching her so few times. Perhaps she had even wanted to be seen that day and she winced. A crack of insecurity likely escaped that day leaving a crack to be split open, like now.
The people of this great city usually cared very little about her. They didn't even recognize her in the streets, but they cared so much about those who weren't even blood heirs to the dynasty.
"Then," Jata Niara said as she bit into the meat and took the offered bowl of soup poured by the brimming omega. "Let's speak. I hear there is an academy for omegas on the borders."
"There is!" Noë chatters on as Jata Niara listens on with pretend attentiveness.
All she could think about was who betrayed her and why. What purpose did it provide them? Most of her allies and trusted servants had no allegiances, no rough backstory that may conflict with her own, and certainly no reason to kill.
Except for one.
The conversation led into the night and some of it was worth peering into. Noë had found her but somehow this was her best opportunity for growth. She felt uneasy about lying to him about concubines and who she would choose. Srinivas and Elijah required protection. She didn't trust Noë's clan not to act.
But she would need an obvious omega, as a concubine, so as not to raise suspicions.
Perhaps she would choose at random or allow her Imperial Mother to choose.
Night had fallen, and with only a single guard, on the night of her assassin, no less, she snuck out to the Portyard Dock with only a thin cloak to protect from the cold. Leaving her heavy furs and loud jewelry behind.
It was silent this time of night but raucous laughter sounded from the bar and she made her way towards. When the door opened, the bright candelights illuminated the entire room as if it were still day. She could see some of her recruits, soldiers, and their family members drinking and eating. But through the bar window, nearer to the port, she saw a hooded figure sneaking past. She motioned the guard at her shoulder to leave and go around to meet her while she walks in from the opposite direction as if she were unprepared for an attack. The attacker would surely be confused and caught in the act.
The outside of the bar, unlike the interior, was completely shrouded. Nothing but the lights of the bar, the creaking boards of the port, and squawking birds fading in the distance. She crept behind the tables lining the outside, under the window, and then could see where the figure sat with heavy bags on their person as if they were waiting for a ship to appear. This was an ordinary, albeit dressed suspiciously, person.
She stopped and motioned the guard not to act, but it was too late. Her reflexes kicked in when she saw her guard leave her peripheral view, and she shoved the person off their stoop out of the way of the guard's rogue, reckless swing, clutching them—a much smaller figure than expected—close.
The person trembled in her hold and said, "You? Why?"
It was the familiar face of the foreign omega she had met before.
"It seems you found your way back to the dock," she said, knowing from the other's frightened expression that this wouldn't console him. "I was attacked earlier and thought this was another attempt on my life until I saw your baggage."
She stood up and dusted him off, making sure to snatch her hand away from dusting anywhere that might make him more uncomfortable.
His bottom lip jutted out as he said, "I was trying to take a ship to the border, where there's proper schools for omegas."
She slowly nodded. Her knowledge lacked in the expertise of Carolingian omega rights, but she thought they could also go to school and be educated. She asked him, "There's no school back home?"
"Those are etiquette academies, but they don't teach the sciences or the arts," the omega frowned. "I've wanted to study painting for years now but no one in our empire is willing to teach me. Not even my title or money can help."
She remembered, then, from the promotion ceremony, and asked, "Isn't Commander Casas your father? He should be able to do something."
"He is and he can't," the omega said coldly and Jata Niara was taken aback. "He's spent so much of his life here that he's unaware of how held back my mother has been--we have been. I doubt he even knows the changes the Emperor has done over the years. She was an educator too and went to one of the first, now last, academy for omegas. Her life's wrong all gone in a year. The new Emperor bent under pressure and closed it down. Ever since then, it's been suffocating living in the Carolingian Empire. While here has its issues, omegas can at least have the opportunity to succeed. My mother already loves it here and goes to the library most of the day."
"I understand," Jata Niara said and nodded. His omega father lacked many things but ambition was never one and that has kept him ongoing for most of his life. "He is talented, skilled, intelligent, and bears good instincts but he is blinded by that driven focus, at times. How is your time here then? Like your mother's?"
The omega's smile widened. "I find it just as fascinating, moreso, even. There's so much life and energy that our Empire used to have but--I don't know. Unlike my father, I'm not interested in fixing it. In fact, there is something I wanted to know about, could you follow me to my room?"
Jata Niara hesitated, but the omega's open, questioning eyes drew her in.
Dressing under his cloak again, she followed him back inside the bar and into the room farthest to the left. He pulled out a key and opened the door allowing her to see the warmly decorated cabin with an open, filled chest at the bed and a dresser to the right.
The omega closed the door and slipped off his cloak before rifling around in his chest. He pulled out and uncovered a statue, which looked to Jata Niara like one from the neighboring dynasty, one who found interest in one of her ancestor's embellishing styles. Arms crooked at the sides like a square below its oval head. Circles burnt in its face like jewelry or a mouth but she couldn't tell which. It was carved out of iron and hadn't been damaged by water. When the omega showed the statue, she could tell by its heaviness that it was well-done.
"We were gifted this because it relates to my name," the omega said as he twirled the statue and his eyes were alight with interest. He smiled at her then. "It's called One From The Heavens and my name, Micah, means one who is like the heavens. I couldn't tell why I was drawn to it until I found that out. There's something about the way he sits as if he could never get up, as if his entire life is meant to carry something. And yet isn't wearied by the thought of it. He isn't overwhelmed and calmly holds themself upright."
Jata Niara had been listening but as the omega, as Micah spoke, she caught the waves of flickering lashes and long gazes.
Micah said then, "You keep staring at my lips," and then he tapped his lip. "Is there something wrong with them?"
Was it her imagination that he pulled his bottom lip, ever so slightly, with his tongue peeking out?
He stepped forward and she took a light step back before realizing she made the mistake of making the guard stay close to the first room and out of sight. No one would be interrupting them.
"May I?" he asked.
Jata Niara swallowed. "May you--what?"
He merely tapped his lip again and drew out his tongue more slowly, licking the tip. "I don't know how to ask," he said, and had the audacity to blush.
She decided then that--it wouldn't be the worst idea. Not the worst. Not even close. And then cleared her throat before stepping forward and sliding her hands to wrap around him.
He was smaller than her but not a presumed omega sort of small. Her fingers tucked underneath his shirt and lightly brushed his skin, flush with warmth and well-fed. She couldn't feel a bone or sharp end as Micah's eyes drew on her. Their mouths met and the omega wrapped his arms around her as she nibbled and lapped at his lips until their tongue twisted. His hands already reached into her waist coat as she felt her cock harden and loosen from its sheath with his lips drawing from her like drinking water. He loosened her knotted waistcoat not in practice but out of curiosity as he felt along its fringes and figured it out without her addition. Instead of sliding to his knees, he stepped back and then leaned forward so that she could see the shape of his ass like a small heart.
His tongue flicked against the tip of her cock and she shook as her balls loosened and began to swell. There was little hesitation in his experimental licks as he trailed his tongue up and down the length, wrapping his tongue around it before swallowing her inch by inch. Sitting on his legs comfortably, Jata Niara thumbed his cheek as her cock took shape in his mouth. Her hips slowly thrusting in and out of the warmth until a moan escaped her. The noise sped up his swallowing as he began to suck her in deeper and deeper. Her release pulled out of her and spilled over his lips, where he coughed slightly. He wiped his chin and then stared at the ground with reddened cheeks. She picked him up and trailed long kisses from his collar to his temple with her hand twisting around his wet cock. He groaned in her ear as a leg wrapped around her and she quickened her fist until he came over her hand in a heavy shudder as if he had never come before.
Maybe he hadn't as the force of it left him laying sleepily on her chest. She picked him up and laid him on the bed, wiping her hands clean with some water leftover in a cup and a clean cloth wrapped on the dresser.
She would have Myron reach out.
And ponder on how to explain herself to Roy.