“My Lord, you’ve been summoned to the family mansion.” My head of household, a stern and highly efficient female, spoke from the doorway of my office.

“My mother?” I asked. Mother sent for me often. If she was lonely, or bored, or wanted to discuss the latest female she hoped to parade before me. Always scheming, my dear mother, hoping the right female would come along and awaken my dormant cock, inspire me to be more. She believed a mate would force me to increase my interest in politics and the family finances. I was in no hurry to be dragged around by the balls, crawling after a female. And in no mood to entertain my mother today.

“No, my lord. Your father. The traitor has been caught and detained. He has ordered you to come at once.”

The traitor? Caught? No wonder they called me. The two of them had been stressed and bothered—understandably—by the weight of the investigation on the Jax family. They thought us traitors. Zel, fuck, Zel had been one. I’d grown up with him, his father a guard for my grandfather. We’d gone to school together, been best friends. Until we’d grown apart. So far apart that he’d gone down a dark path, a path that led to his attempt at kidnapping the princess. And it had occurred right after I’d been seen talking with her at the royal reception, which only fueled the Optimus unit’s interest in us.

The traitor had been found. Thank fuck. I set the crystalline drink glass down on my desk and grabbed my coat. The air at this altitude was cold.

Dancing with the princess at the reception had made two things abundantly clear. One, Celene’s daughter was highly intelligent, not the uninformed, spoiled twit I’d been expecting.

And two? She knew a lot more about what was going on in Mytikas than she let on. And she was doing everything in her power to protect the identities of the other two females, both of royal blood if the spire lights were any indication—who had arrived on Alera with her.

Princess Trinity was a step—or ten—ahead of me, and I didn’t like that feeling. Not one bit. For despite what my mother believed, I’d been running the family estate for several years now. My father, not wanting to lose face in front of his beloved, pretended, and fed her bits of information that I provided to him. As I lived in my own apartment closer to the city center, it was easy for us to keep up the charade. My mother always worried overmuch about status, and money, and power. Best if she believed everything was going as it always had. That her mate was taking care of her, was still a competent, ambitious male.

He was old, he said. Tired. He wanted nothing more than to spend time with his expensive and exotic pets, drink a bit of wine, and fuck his mate. The last, I didn’t even want to think about. But he doted on her, and I had to respect at least that. This whole mess was wearing on all of us and I was glad to know it just might be over.

Especially since I’d agreed to accept the responsibility for the family. I had no mate, and my cock, after all these years, countless parties, and what felt like an infinite number of females paraded before me—had yet to be awakened. My mate nowhere to be found.

Things used to be quiet. Simple. At least until three spires randomly lit up the Mytikas sky just a short time ago. All of Alera probably thought the same thing I had, that our lives had changed overnight.

For most, the arrival of Princess Trinity gave hope, curiosity and even eagerness for the future. But for some, the lighting of the spires made decades of scheming and maneuvering for power suddenly irrelevant. The fights between the warring houses interested in taking over Queen Celene’s reign had gone suspiciously quiet. Just a week ago, the royal guard, including Princess Trinity’s mate, Leoron Turaya, had fought off another incursion into the sacred city.

Each time, the attacks on the capital city had been carried out by mercenaries carrying no banner. They were notorious for brutality in battle, and taking their own lives rather than surrender. I had spoken to my father’s own men, those who had fought beside the royal guard in the last battle, and they all said the same thing.

The mercenaries never talked. They fought to the death, or they vanished into the night. No injured men were left behind. Only the dead. And dead warriors told no tales.

I strode out to the street and slid into the seat of the EMV waiting to take me to my parents’ mansion. The Jax household had always been loyal to the crown. For thousands of years, we had served the bloodline of the ancients. So, too, had the other families. But they had yet to realize they had no fight left to win. Not with three new spires lighting the Aleran sky.

But the Jax household had plenty of fight at the moment. Not for the crown, but for a different reason entirely. There was a mole among us and we wanted to know who it was. A traitor willing to destroy the age-old name and the honor associated with the Jax family name. That made me want the EMV to move faster, to find out about this traitor they’d captured first hand.

When the princess first arrived, a group of Jax guards had been trusted to keep her, and her mystery companions, safe. All of the Jax guards had been killed, except Zel, who’d been seriously injured and in need of a ReGen pod for healing. Our most valuable and well-loved consort, Cassander, had been injured as well.

We’d believed the attack had come from someone outside the family, a group of assassins hired to kill our men.

But the night of the princess’s reception, we’d discovered a much more disturbing truth. It had been Zel who had been part of an ambush to kill Princess Trinity and the two females she’d transported with. When he hadn’t succeeded, Zel, the bastard, had kidnapped the royal from her own welcome reception.

Wearing a Jax family crest.

If he weren’t dead, I would kill him myself. Slowly.

Thankfully, Princess Trinity had been saved. Zel had been killed. While I wasn’t sorry to see him dead, I did wish I could interrogate him. Even though we’d grown up together, known each other almost like brothers, I didn’t know him now. I’d wanted to find out who he’d worked for. It was obvious now he’d just been a pawn. Not too intelligent. Highly disposable.

Without knowing who was leading the evil faction against Queen Celene’s daughter, the princess was not safe. The tension within the walls of the family mansion was incredible. Were all of the Jax family foes of the royal family? Did we wish them harm? Death? Those were the questions tossed about in the Aleran press.

No fucking way, but words weren’t enough to prove our innocence. With our honor tarnished, nothing less than the traitor’s head on a platter would prove our innocence. I was eager to see it done and had spent more time than usual with my parents. I had my own responsibilities, handling the financial fallout of our family’s newly tarnished name. I could not afford to hide in my apartment. There was too much at stake for my anxiety ridden mother, or my doting but irresponsible father to handle this fiasco alone.

There was another reason for my frequent presence in the Jax mansion these past few days. Someone within the household stirred something in me. A scent lingered in the air, something I could only describe as hypnotic in nature, tantalized my senses in almost every room. My cock stirred. Not fully awakened, but… no longer fully dormant either. I was in an agony of inertia.

It happened for the first time several days ago when I stood in the empty dining room. I’d eaten meals there my entire life and my cock never thickened, never swelled in my pants. Arousal became an instant hunger in me, as if I were hungry, but not for the food I knew would be served later in the day, but instead, for a female’s wet, willing pussy.

What the fuck had been wrong with me? A female was meant to awaken me, and only one at that. My mate.

I’d had to excuse myself, seek the privacy of my old bedroom to open up my pants to alleviate the growing ache in my balls, to see for the first time how my cock was now like a club, thickly-veined and broad-headed. Eager. I’d stroked it, felt the powerful pulse of desire that coursed through me at the contact, but it had been unfulfilled.

The arousal had faded. I had begun to wonder if, after reaching nearly thirty years with no mate, my body had simply gone mad. For there was no mate to be found, only that scent. Elusive. I caught the barest whisper of it here and there.

I felt as if I were hunting a ghost. Or, worse, losing my mind.

And so I’d been curious to know the answer. Eager to find the one who had awakened me. Every time I searched my childhood home, I could only hope to breathe in that elusive, addictive scent.

And in the days since, I’d grown frustrated—my cock only grew harder each time I caught the scent—my body more and more eager to fuck. To mate. To satisfy the female who’d been mysteriously taunting me.

The EMV came to a stop at the mansion’s entrance and I stepped from the vehicle into the cold air, my cock once again as it had always been, asleep. But there was a newfound eagerness in my steps as I...