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Jinshi leaves the gathering with the taste of bile sour in his throat.
That's really nothing new. Court functions always tend to end the same way: with Jinshi fighting to keep his hackles down and a serene smile on his face while almost every noble, designation be damned, shoots him sidelong glances and wonders just when he'll choose. The fact that they haven't accepted that he won't is the most aggravating part of it all.
No—that's not quite true. Jinshi's made his choice, it's simply that he's chosen the one single mate in the entire empire who is determined not to have him.
In years past, Jinshi would have gone straight to his quarters, where he could pace back and forth in privacy until the scents of the court alphas had cleared from his head. Their pheromones cling like a second layer of skin, one Jinshi wants to scrub painfully from his limbs. Now, he heads instead for his office, because that's where he'll find the only relief he wants to find these days.
When he strides into the room, she's sorting through scraps of paper at his desk. She gives Jinshi a disgruntled look, as if she can't believe he's interrupting her work yet again. The sharp spike of herbs fills his senses, and the scent of annoyed alpha—of this annoyed alpha—is the only thing in the world that can make his shoulders drop their tension and his face relax into something closer to true serenity.
"You needn't worry, Maomao," he says wryly. "I'll stay out of your way."
He keeps his word, crossing to the window where can look out at the palace grounds. Of course, it also keeps Maomao within his peripheral line of sight, where the routine rhythm of her work can wash over him.
After a few moments, once he's settled a little into her scent, she stops what she's doing and finally turns to him.
"Would you like me to lock the door, Master Jinshi?" That title, rather than the more formal your highness, is one of her few concessions to the strange dance of politics and position they've been engaged in since they met—she an alpha, he a prince. It's a bigger question wrapped up in the neat packaging of simple words. What Maomao is really asking is if he wants her to be Maomao the dutiful court servant right now, or if he needs her to be Maomao the Alpha.
She's refused to claim him, even though he's asked, but she never actually refuses him comfort.
"Please," he says politely. He could order her to do it, he knows; with that door unlocked, they're still technically in public, and if Jinshi is an omega, he's also a prince.
But he doesn't really want to be her prince, right now. He doesn't want to give Maomao orders. He never has.
Maomao sighs and sets the papers down on the desk. It isn't an annoyed sigh, nor even a resigned one. He can tell without even needing to look at her face. For Maomao, it's simply an acknowledgement that she'll finish her task later.
It takes only a moment for her to lock the door, another for her to sit on the divan along one wall of the room.
"Well, Master Jinshi," she says once she's sitting down. "I assume you don't have all day."
"No," he says ruefully, and makes his way over to join her. The divan is a little small for him to curl up on, but he manages it, his head in Maomao's lap and his feet pressed against the opposite end. Maomao has pointed out more than once that he could very easily procure a bigger one, but Jinshi kind of likes the tightness of it. "There's another audience the Emperor expects me to attend this afternoon."
Her fingers stroke through his hair—careful enough not to make him unpresentable for his next meeting, but methodically, to scrub the lingering scent of pheromones from its length—and Jinshi feels himself truly relax for the first time since he'd left his chambers that morning. Maomao's scent is all around him, and he presses his face against her thigh to breathe it in.
It's only here, with his prickly little alpha-cat, that he can really let his guard down enough to accept touch like this. It makes him feel a flash of guilt, because it isn't like his brother doesn't protect him, and it isn't that Jinshi doesn't trust him. The alpha Emperor has always defended him, and if anyone were to abuse Jinshi's trust, their lives would be immediately forfeit.
But then, the Emperor has never hidden his desire to make Jinshi his heir, and should Jinshi find a suitable mate amongst the highest echelons of the nation—
There are things his brother wants, and while protecting Jinshi is one of them, if he can manage to achieve that and convince his rebellious brother to take a mate who will secure his standing, he'll gladly do it. Amongst all the alphas of the nation, it's only Maomao who doesn't seem to want to marry him off.
If only she did; if only she would claim him as her own.
Jinshi sighs as he relaxes into her lap. Her fingers trail over the nape of his neck, beneath his hair, and he expects them to continue on—down his back in a long, firm stroke. He's leaning into it already, his hips nearly rising of their own accord in instinctual anticipation of the calming touch.
But instead, Maomao's fingers come to rest over the heat of his pulse at the base of his throat. She doesn't say anything for a long moment, until finally she sighs again.
This time, with this sigh, it sounds like she's come to a decision.
"You asked me once before, Master Jinshi," she says, and she doesn't need to provide any more context. With his breath catching in his throat, Jinshi knows exactly what she means.
There's only one thing she can mean, with her fingers resting there over the throb of his life's blood.
For a moment, he struggles to find the words. He hadn't thought it would be that way—that he could be so stunned by the offer that he couldn't even speak. Maomao's own voice had been so controlled, and so is the press of her fingers. He focuses on them, and they're everything he needs right now to loosen his throat.
"I thought you said it was a bad idea," he says, though that's putting it lightly. She'd used much stronger words than that. Treason had been one of them.
When he twists to look up at her, she looks a little uncomfortable, but she also looks determined.
"I've come to realize it's possibly a worse idea not to," she says bluntly. "A mating claim would give you some peace."
"That doesn't mean you want to," he points out, and that—that's the catch. That's the one thing that's holding him back from grabbing this with both hands.
That's the one thing that had kept him from ordering her to do it months ago.
Maomao sighs, and this time it's almost fond. "When the Emperor finds out I've claimed you, he'll string me up," she says flatly, though that's an exaggeration. He won't, so long as Jinshi is willingly mated to her. It'll throw all of his plans into disarray. He might even be angry. But he would never kill Jinshi's mate. "He won't even let me have my death by poison. I wouldn't be offering if I didn't want it."
Jinshi hesitates, but only for the euphoric moment it takes for her words to sink in. Then, before she can go and do something like think he's changed his mind, he's pushing himself up to sit next to her, brushing his hair out of the way.
"If we return to your chambers, I can prepare an analgesic," she tells him—not an alpha's order, but a suggestion—but he shakes his head.
She sighs again, and he laughs, something like joy bubbling up in his chest.
"You can make me any medicine you want later," he tells her. Right now, he wants to feel it.
Her scowl eases, and she lifts her hand to rub her fingers over his pulse again. She's so much shorter than he is that she has to kneel up on the divan to reach with her mouth. He obligingly leans down a little for her, and her scowl returns.
"Sit up straight," she tells him. "I don't want to miss and hit your artery."
He obeys, and Maomao leans in to press her mouth to his neck. Her lips are warm against his skin, resting there like a kiss, and he finds himself shivering into it.
The bite of her blunt teeth, when it comes, is somehow sharper than anything he's ever felt; it snakes through him like ice and then like fire. He feels his hands come up, but not to push her away.
He wants to cradle her there. He wants to hold onto the keen sting of belonging.
"There," she says pragmatically once she's pulled away, ducking out of his hold. His pulse seems to thunder beneath the skin, within his ears, throughout the entire room. He wonders if Maomao can hear it.
He can already feel the bruises rising, and he reaches up to touch the broken skin.
Maomao frowns. "Stay there," she tells him, and stands, and he's so focused on the blissful feeling of her bite that he can't even try to stop her. "I need to clean it."
As she bustles around, pulling a small bottle of alcohol from her skirts and opening the door to summon for sterile cloths, Jinshi lets himself sink back against the divan.
The taste of bile is long gone, and the scents of other alphas. In their place, he smells only his own ambrosia scent and the sharp, soothing smell of healing things.