Divine. Bellona considered her mind the hub of her strategy and the driving force of all her action.

Piquant. Ahead of a parade of omegas begging for her attention, her nose had taken control.

Delicious. A scent like no others had stolen the room from her. 

Rich. The pheromones leaking from a tiny, trembling rabbit promised her unmatched pleasure. 

Undeniable. And she would not deny herself.

There had been a plan. Not a particularly complex one. Pick an omega at random from the group and be done with the charade of coupling for the sake of posterity and power dispersal. Bellona knew how to claim power. She had won a war, her first, and this was what she was subjected to on her return. Special dress and drapery and a steward dictating events she must attend for the enjoyment of the Empire’s nobles. She wanted a mate, of course, but all the fanfare and fuss when she could be holding territory or organising her troops… It was maddening.

Despite her passion at the war table, her place was beside her parents’ thrones. She was First Princess and she could not swap her crown for a helmet… all the time. On this occasion, there was no room to wriggle free. She had stood on the dais and listened to her father’s speeches of prosperity for their future and the importance of a strong bloodline knowing damn well that she had no intention of scrutinising any of the omegas to be brought forth. A mate was a mate and if her pups were anything like her, they would be plenty strong.

It had taken a great deal of restraint to keep her tail from sweeping the floor in bored swipes, to stand to attention while her maps and reports awaited high in the north-most tower, to pretend any of this was worth the gold that had been spent to put on such a parade. There had been reams of parchment inked with information about those they expected to present. Titles and acres of land and gold reserves. As if Bellona needed some omega’s family to bolster her own. 

And then the double doors that hid the reception chamber had opened to reveal more than just stone and torches. A flood of omegas had rushed in desperate to be noticed. Bellona had let her eyes roam them without catching or stuttering. The last slipped in, joining the procession in a plain dress of pale green that hung from her like a sack she might find stacked in the cellars. Still, her womanly curves were visible despite the shapeless cloth, revealing her as older than the others in her cohort. She had no jewellery in her peony-pink hair or on her pale skin. Snow white rabbit ears stood to attention, ill at ease, betraying her lack of courage. None of that bewitched Bellona, though. It was the scent. The scent of pure pleasure. It fizzled over her mind like a caress, it stung her fingertips in scolding for not having that lovely creature within them, it led her forwards like a leash until she and the rabbit were but a step apart and those long ears had fallen back in distress.

Up close it was clear she was not only low-born, but a herbivore.  A tiny little thing. In the last coherent thought Bellona remembered having in that throne room, she had enjoyed the realisation that she had every right to choose this omega despite how furious it would make her parents. And making her parents furious was its own reward.

Muscle memory jerked her backwards, narrowly missing the end of Adela’s wooden sword. Caught in her reminiscing, Bellona steadied and brought her concentration to the present. Adela smirked, noticing the shift, and charged her.

Bellona shot a foot out in a straight kick that would have sent her through the air only Adela dropped to one knee and shot up, grabbing Bellona’s hips and attempting to lurch her down to the ground. Foolish. Bellona was far too big for that move to work unless Adela could surprise her. She had dropped her training sword in the scuffle so Bellona tossed her own away and hunched to get a hold on Adela’s neck. 

They had wrestled for so many years it was almost pointless to practice together. When Adela’s spotted tail wrapped Bellona’s ankle, waiting for her to shift her weight to the opposite side so she could be swept to the floor, Bellona’s body responded through instinct over actual thought. She let herself sink, forcing the fight to the ground with herself on top.

Adela, familiar with the fight to break free of being squashed by her First Princess, turned snow leopard to snake in the way she squirmed free in a spin that gave them both a break from the pressure. Bellona moved to close it immediately.

Too slow. That was what Adela had that offset her smaller stature: agility. She slid backwards on knee and heel, snatching up her sword and rocking back up to standing. Bellona leant to the side, refusing to take her eyes off her as she retrieved her own fake weapon.

“Not your usual strength today,” Adela goaded.

Bellona growled, swinging tight but swift. Their swords met again and again, nothing like the reverberation of real steel. Finally, she knocked the wood from Adela’s hand. Disarmed and at the mercy of the splinter pointed at her, Adela forfeited and they both relaxed into their panting. 

“Something is off with you,” Adela commented. This time she sounded concerned rather than antagonistic. And out of breath.

“Tired,” suggested Einey. “She looks tired.” She tossed a water skin that Bellona grabbed from the air.

Bellona and Adela meandered to the rest bench, wiping at their faces.

Tandri chuckled from his seat unlacing his soft leather training boots. “You know you’re not to touch that bride of yours until after your vows,” he chastised her, tutting before chuckling again. “But I commend the little rabbit for being able to run you ragged.”

Bellona grunted, “I haven’t.” Not for lack of urge. Breathing in the same chamber as Yui was suffocating when she could do none of what her omega scent commanded. And it usually demanded that Bellona fold her like linen. She took a deliberately long drink. Let the nosey warriors wait.

Scratching the skin tags of his neck, earned over thousands of hours of grappling in the mud pit, Tandri pointed a disbelieving look to the others. “All I’ll say more is that if your heir appears sooner than nine moons from the ceremony…”

The women laughed. Bellona did not join them. She would not defend herself either, the words she spoke were the truth. There was no one the First Princess answered to. On military matters, her own father stood aside for her opinion. That was, since she returned from the mountains. She had defied orders once, and they had won the war for it.

“Back to work,” Bellona snarled. “We have an hour left of training time.”

Her personal guard (not that she needed guarding but it let her best, hand-picked soldiers be at her beck and call at all times) rose without hesitation at the order. She would show them tired. She would spar every one of them back to back until she alone stood tall. 

―ǁ―