Zelda had stayed up all night, reading book after book, searching high and low for an idea, an elixir, anything that could help her present earlier.

And she had found one.

In the book Medicines and Natural Remedies, Zelda had quickly found a recipe for a concoction that would likely aid in her mission.

An elixir that was said to force a heat if she was Omega, do nothing if she was Beta, and rut if she was Alpha. She knew there was still a chance it wouldn't do anything due to her current state, but she was determined to find the ingredients.

Now to leave the castle. She began thinking of all the ways she would escape, slightly thankful for the fact that Link was still off duty and unable to come find her. Her previous guards always had trouble finding her numerous hiding spots, while Link had easily memorised her patterns and often beat her to the places she had intended to go.

She grabbed a satchel and a cloak and quickly made her way out of her bedroom, sneaking under the guise of night and her sleeping guard and, quite quickly, made it out of the castle unseen by the staff and Royal Guards alike.


Link was quickly awakened by the deafening sounds of alarm bells going off in the courtyard.

I haven't heard those in forever, he nostalgically thought back to the last time he'd heard them. Three years eh? Too long. She'd been hiding in the stables to escape devotions when he had found her that morning. Wait. As if on queue, his mind came back to the present, the bells ringing louder and reminding him of their meaning.

Zelda was missing.

A hurried knock on the door rushed him out of bed, a discarded shirt thrown on hastily. He quickly threw open the door to see the Captain standing there, clearly out of breath as if he'd ran the perimeter of the castle in the last ten minutes. His hair was strewn everywhere, beret in his hands and his face red as he panted loudly.

"Sir?" He realised that the Captain likely had run the entire perimeter.

"You're experienced with this, where would Princess Zelda be hiding?" Each word was rushed, an attempted breath between each word.

"What day is it?" Link asked, still groggy from his sleep. He hadn't slept too well and found himself quite tired as he had been kept awake by the growing need in his groin.

"Thursday."

Link took a minute to think. "Have you checked the stable?" The captain nodded. "Is her horse there?" He shook his head.

"No. Her mare isn't anywhere." The captain finally stood straight, realising that Link was grabbing a cloak and something from the desk.

Link was suddenly wide awake. "I'm going to look for her."

"You're not going anywhere Link! You're not allowed!" The captain warned him sternly, watching as the knight took an emergency suppressant and injected it without hesitation into his leg. "Link, I'm serious." He likely wouldn't be able to stop him no matter how hard he tried. Be it the door or the window, he couldn't guard both at the same time.

He watched Link open a jar of cream, haphazardly applying it to his neck and wrists and throwing the reclosed jar onto the table.

"Get out of my way." Link quickly shoved past Barnabus and ran down the hall, captain on his heel.

"Link! You can't leave the grounds! Not while you're in a rut."

"You're welcome to come with me if you want! Stop me from doing something stupid if it happens!" The two men quickly arrived at the Royal stable and saw that Storm, the Princess' trusty steed, was in fact missing along with the bridle and saddle.

Link quickly untied Epona's restraints and mounted bareback, his hand taking a small handful of her mane before dashing off, leaving the captain and shouts behind.

Flowers… Look for Flowers and Fruitcake... He inhaled deeply and sensed her faint smell ahead. There, he flexed his thighs and rode Epona into a canter, following the trail. This was perhaps the only time Link appreciated his designation. His sense of smell was keener than everyone else's, so finding his lost charge was always a breeze.

He passed the guards at the gate faster than he ever had, their questioning glances shot towards each other and shrugs as they opened the gate for him without a single word.

He quickly found that he was now riding outside of the castle grounds and towards the fields of West Hyrule, thankfully bypassing Castle Town entirely. Why'd you go so far…? He continued following the trail as it got stronger. He noted that he began focusing more, the scents of the flora of the area mixing with Zelda's. He briefly wondered just how far back the Captain was. He knew the man's dislike for bareback riding so he knew that Barnabus had likely saddled his horse.

Soon enough, he spotted her crouched in a field collecting some things and placing them into her satchel. Really Zelda? He cursed to himself as he dismounted and caught up to the Princess.

And then he felt it again. A very painful erection had quickly formed in his pants and he struggled to pull his coat down in an attempt to cover it. He cursed himself for enjoying her scent more than he was supposed to.

Hearing him approach through the tall grasses, Zelda looked behind herself and saw Link running to her, a second horse not too far back. "Link? What are you doing out here?" Really, he wasn't surprised at her reaction. He knew he wasn't supposed to be there, but oh well. His mind went straight to Zelda once again.

"I could ask you the same." He retorted back. "Mind telling me why the entire castle is looking for you?"

Zelda blushed a bit before looking back at her satchel. Link looked at the small bag and could immediately tell its contents. Blue nightshade and peppers? He raised a brow at the Princess. "What are you making?" He asked suspiciously, eyeing the pack horribly hidden behind her.

"Don't worry about it." She quickly whispered as the captain reached them. Seeing the hand extended out, she hastily passed it to him to conceal.

Time to worry about it. He groaned. Why had she done something so stupid? "You could have just waited for me to come with you."

"It couldn't wait, I'm sorry." Zelda shot him her pleading eyes along with a very light pout.

Good job, you hurt the Princess. Bad Alpha. Link mentally slapped himself before sighing and whistling for Epona. "Let's just get back to the castle." He told her, his eyes softening.

"Are you ok? " She inquired about his current state, knowing he wasn't a fan of it.

"I'll feel better when we're back at the castle, alright? Don't worry about me." He led her back to Storm, staying two paces behind her. He couldn't help but watch her pick up the pace, jogging away while his eyes drifted down to her riding pants, feeling some form of gratitude that they left nothing to the imagination.

He intently stared at every thigh muscle tensing, her legs accentuated by the unintentional sway of her hips with every step she took. It wasn't a secret that her legs were quite muscular from her years of riding Storm; anyone who'd ever gone riding knew it required endurance and strength to keep yourself on a saddle, and the Princess very much enjoyed this particular activity.

Before he could even stop himself, he was already thinking of ways he could test this endurance of hers, especially in the ways it would have her beneath him, calling his name in the lewdest of tones.

Slowly clenching his sweating hands and wiping them against his trousers, he could feel an itch forming, a kind of need that could only be satiated by heat, entirely different from the current early-summer's heat.

He wondered for how long he'd been standing there, staring at his charge, when he finally snapped out of the fog his brain had conjured when a strong hand fell on his shoulder and squeezed. Hard.

"You will stay behind me." His tone was serious, unwavering, and closed to negotiations.

"Sir?"

"I can almost smell what you're thinking and I highly recommend you stop immediately." He finally stepped away and moved to their own mares. Link remained quiet as the Captain mounted first and watched with a glare that could have challenged the Princess' in her early days with him.

Link sighed and looked to the sky, the sun hanging high above his head.

Had it not been morning when they'd left? It had to have passed midday now, no way it was still morning. He groaned, knowing that the suppressant he'd taken before leaving had likely worn off and it was clearly showing if his superior was telling him to stay behind him and not move.

It was a torturous ride back to the castle, Link's mind switching between staring at Zelda''s assets and admiring the divine curves the woman had, and imagining what said-curves might look like uncovered, and then being brought back to reality when he'd realise for the tenth time that the Captain was glaring at him everytime he drifted off.

With every time he noticed the Captain's icy glare, a heavy wave of pheromones would hit him in the face, bringing him back to reality. He wondered quietly if the captain was getting tired of sending warning spikes to him every few minutes, it was becoming almost excessive with how much he was doing it, but Link understood.

It was effective, he gave it that much.

He wasn't sure if it was born out of habit or the tingling in his nerves, but he forced himself to resist the urge to ride up to her and stay beside her, heeding the captain's warning from earlier until they arrived at the castle.


Link made sure to discreetly pass Zelda her satchel when they tacked their horses in the stable before being escorted back to his room by the captain. His mind wandered as the captain scolded him for being reckless.

Due to having his mind wander elsewhere, he was somewhat happy to admit that he had ignored the scolding from the Captain.

He was currently busy thinking about his Princess, undressed in all of her glory, and hadn't let his thoughts allow space for anything else since they'd returned to the castle. Her ass was the only thing he let himself think of.

He was sure it was evident, but he wondered if the captain was aware that he had paid attention to exactly two words of the entire rant and that he wasn't in the present mentally.

Why wouldn't he rather think of the sexy Princess who slept a few doors down from his, on all fours, skin burning against his?

"And stay in your room until this is all done, you hear me?" Link nodded robotically to the words, fantasising about his charge on all fours. Link gladly entered his room and locked the door before the Captain said another word.

His jacket and pants were rapidly discarded before he headed to the washroom to continue his ritualistic unhornying of himself. He twisted the knobs of the bathtub to the coldest setting, retracting his hand quickly from the freezing water. That might do it. After a minute or so, he turned the knob off and slowly dipped himself into icy water, his body screaming at him to get out and stop.

He quickly noticed that, while the water was freezing him to the bone, it did nothing for his mind that had wandered off ages ago.

Images of Princess Zelda in the nude continued to dance around his mind, his brain quite content in supplying all the details he had never seen of his own eyes, and he continued to think of the various ways he would take the Princess if he was ever given the chance to be with her.


Her plan had been a success. Mostly.

She'd picked up what she needed, albeit in small amounts, but she had gotten them.

She was amazed at how little the rest of the Guard knew how to find her. They'd really resorted to pulling Link out of his mandatory confinement to come find her, even if it meant breaking protocol. She did wonder what that might have done to him, giving him that small bit of freedom in that state.

She thought back to what she'd read in the books the other night about the sexual natures of Alphas.

The way he was kept far from her on the ride back to the castle by the Captain did not escape her, it felt bizarre for her knight not to be riding next to her now and she had taken notice immediately.

Was it for protocol reasons? In case he tried to do anything? Or if the Captain knew he wanted to do something more?

Another thought slipped in and she nearly dropped her satchel.

Had she accidentally slapped a target onto her back for future advances on his part? While the idea itself wasn't bad, it was the manner she had done it that horrified her, even if it was accidental.

If what the books she had read was anything to go by; if she wasn't already in his brain, she was surely going to be his sole focus for the next few days.

She could feel her face burn at the implication that he was likely pleasuring himself to thoughts of her in various states of undress. And he would likely be doing so for the remainder of his rut, she reminded herself.

She knew she couldn't do anything about it now, the damage was done, but she did wish she could have made the progress herself in a much more controlled environment rather than when he could barely contain himself to begin with.

Oh well, she shrugged and took out her beakers, small burner and her ingredients. She took a hold of the discarded book on her bed and flipped to the bookmarked page, opening the first recipe she had marked.

Spicy pepper seeds... She took a small knife and carefully cut the small pepper open, extracting what she needed and placing it beside her in a small dish.

As she continued extracting from her small batch of peppers, her mind wandered back to the afternoon before. Would it have the desired effect on her? Would it legitimately show her what she was meant to be? Would she finally present?

She eventually moved onto the nightshade, careful not to get any on her clothes. She needed to extract the pollen and she knew that nightshade, despite its many flowers per bunch, unfortunately never produced very much to begin with so Zelda was forced to work with what little she was able to pick on her small excursion outside of the castle.

There was no way she'd be able to grab a second batch if she screwed up or dropped what she had, the Captain would simply fetch Link again and they'd find her immediately if she somehow managed to find her way out now that the guards were on high alert.

Link.

She remembered the looks he'd given her on their way back from Zora's Domain and her face began turning pink. She could still clearly see his half-lidded eyes studying her every move, this being so much more obvious when she had seen him earlier that day. She could still feel the burning gaze on her from when she had mounted Storm to return to the castle.

She slowly took a deep breath and put the knife down and the flowers back on their plate. Focus. She reminded herself, grabbing one of the peppers once again to use a less fragile ingredient in case her focus threw her off and she ruined something.

She couldn't get the piercing blues out of her head; they stuck to her in a fiercely predatory way, yet her mind didn't feel like running. It didn't feel like hiding. It wanted her to be seen by those eyes. She wanted that gaze to stay on her forever. She wanted to chase the suspicion that he'd never let her go if he caught her.

It was a thrill she'd never known.

Perhaps the thrill of a bad decision?

No. That didn't feel like a bad idea.

She sighed, knowing that focus would never stay in her brain while she thought of her knight. She calculated the ratios needed for the elixir she was preparing with the ingredients she had already prepped and placed them in order, ready to be used in the morning, and retired to bed.


And that's another one! Let's go! I hope you're all enjoying this ride as much as I am, feel free to tell me what you think in the reviews, I read em all!