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I wanted to protest, for he was distractingly attractive to me, which made me nervous with each passing day. It was only the great amount of work that he insisted I do which kept my stolen glances to the bare minimum.
Almost the second we stepped into the brightly lit room on the first floor, the duke and I were separated. Some unknown alpha led him off, while I floundered in a haze of strange alpha pheromones. As quickly as we were separated, I made up my mind to find him and not leave his side unless he explicitly ordered me away. My decision made, I threaded my way through the alphas until I spied him across a table where dice was the game. Near enough to call out to, I relaxed. My friend.
Yet, as I was about to draw closer, a beta woman dressed in a scandalously low cut gown pressed up against the duke’s arm and trailed her fingers along his back in a well-practised gesture. The feeling in my stomach was not pleasant. Something warred within me, and I unable to determine why I wished I was the one caressing or being caressed. I kept my face still as I watched her attempted seduction. And in that deep meditative space, I missed my name being called.
“Hartwell!” The bark broke through my tangled thoughts.
“Viscountess Gale,” I bowed. Relief unlike I’d ever known flooded my senses at the sight of a familiar face. “Apologies.”
“You seemed lost in thought. What might it be?”
“Do you think that the women and men here practice their seduction in front of a mirror? It seems like their actions are more for those watching than the subject of their... Shall we say caresses?” I spoke carelessly. My words purposefully crude, though I wished them back as soon as I had spoken them. What omega would speak so forthrightly? Even my sisters, who were wild and had kept themselves free of the weight of an alpha—literally, I smirked—would not speak like this.
“Both, young alpha,” came a tinkling laugh. A beta wearing an even more provocatively, her breasts winning the battle with her gown. slipped her arm through mine. “Sarah is my name. What is your pleasure? To watch or to participate?”
“Both,” I said, without any of the natural embarrassment an innocent such as I ought to feel. “I watch these alphas make fools of themselves and learn that I do not wish to be thought a fool.”
“Away with you, pretty thing,” the viscountess shooed. “I wish to talk to this firecracker, not watch her flirt.”
“You know where to find me,” she smiled coyly.
“In my dreams?” I parried. Her green eyes widened, pupils dilated. My own heartbeat harder with my breast, and my nipples tingled with something like desire. She leant close and kissed my mouth. It was soft, warm, and oh so sweet when she slipped her tongue between my lips. For a hundred heartbeats we kissed, slow and teasing, until she left me panting while she ran her lips along my jaw to my ear. Her tongue tracing the sensitive shell until she could take my earlobe between her teeth and bite. I hissed softly. We'd not touched except to kiss. I'd not felt the heat of her body pressed against mine, but my every nerve was on fire. She’d stolen my first kiss—my second, third, and tenth—, and I would gladly repeat the experience if given the chance. She might rob me of a thousand kisses and more, til, as the poet said,no one would be aware of how many kisses there had been, and I would consider myself richer for the experience.
“Your dreams, your bed, wherever, however you want me,” she whispered. “And should you need an escape, I’m a friend to Hippolyta. Our Queen of the High Toby.”
She backed away from me, her little white teeth pressing into her plump bottom lip, before spinning around and snaking her way through the crowd.
“My goodness. Sarah seems enamoured,” an alpha standing next to the viscountess chuckled. A quick glance was enough to tell me he was her son. They shared the same high cheekbones and heavyset eyes. I took him to be in his thirties, not an old man to be sure, but older than the duke who was still focused on his conversation with some alphas I had not been introduced to. The beta still hung on my duke’s arm. I smiled. He did not seem interested in her flashy beauty.
“I fear I am just her mark for the night,” I inclined my head.
“To be the mark of a pretty woman is not such a bad thing,” his mother smiled. I could see her assessing me. “I wonder, when will we see your sister presented? Is she to stay locked up until her debut?”
“What is she like?” the viscountess’ son asked.
I growled low, furious at how… Casually they gossiped about me, about any omega.
“Easy, Fredrick. Hartwell does not like her sisters discussed in public.”
I swallowed down the burning desire to tell her that she had brought them into our discussion. I looked up the moment I had myself under control, and my eyes caught the duke’s. He gave the smallest of nods, an acknowledgement that I had kept my temper. My body slowly began to unwind as I realised I didn’t need to jump to my sisters’ defence. That I could allow them, myself even, to... To what? Be ourselves? Independent of these alphas who wished to admire us, like the jewels I’d spoken to him of earlier. They did not appreciate that the metaphor had changed. We omegas were now steel sharp enough to make them think twice of meddling in our lives. Dammit, he was right about the metaphor—though I’d never tell him.
“Viola goes out with my aunt,” I said evenly. “I believe she goes to small, private parties.”
“So she meets no alphas,” acknowledged the handsome alpha. “You must call me Fredrick. I think we should be friends. Perhaps through your friendship, I will have the good fortune to meet the fair Viola Hartwell, of whom the world has not seen but of whom much is heard.”
His smile was for his mother and not me. I ground my teeth together. It was not hard to see the game they wanted to play. Viola was the scandal-free omega sister. I was the Hartwell sister who was valuable to the alphas. The one whose political pedigree... I frowned at the realisation. There was political power in marrying Viola—Hippolyta had told me as much. The purity of my father’s politics, the increasing need for a leader for the opposition—fresh blood in the party is what my uncle had said the other night. I was the fresh blood. Not as Iris the alpha, but as Viola, the omega who would give her mate children and secure a political legacy, a dynasty. I looked for the duke, suddenly missing his reassuring presence. Around him, I could relax and be myself, rather than constantly worrying someone might guess I was an omega or listen as alphas bought and sold omegas as easily as they laid bets against the bank. Within his sphere, under his watchful gaze, no harm could come to me. To put it plainly, unknowingly, he had stepped into the role of my alpha guardian. The realisation did not alarm me as it should, but his care was too natural so I did not question it.
The duke did not let us stay much longer after my conversations with the Gales, but grabbed my arm and drew me away. He released me only to struggle into my greatcoat as if I were a child.
“I do not like it,” he hissed as we left the disreputable establishment. His hand pressing against my back as he steered us away.
“What don’t you like?” I asked. He’d seemed happy enough earlier.
“Gale and her son. Using you to get to Viola. Apologies. To Miss Hartwell. To use her as a pawn in their political ambitions. They might run with your uncle’s political pack, but because it suits their ambition. Do you truly think Gale wishes to die a viscountess? She looks up. Your sister is merely a pawn in her game.”
He echoed my own thoughts, but I’d hoped he would have a different interpretation of the conversation. He’d set me right before, if only he could do it now.
“Surely the daughter of a more powerful alpha…”
