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Viola
I pushedout the door to find Horne and Timms standing to the side. I frowned at them. “If it had been His Grace finding you listening at keyholes…”
I let the reality of their indiscretion hang in the air. Syon would have roared at them if he’d been the one to discover servants, no matter their place in his household, listening in.
“We were concerned for your well being,” Horne’s dignity wrapped about him. “A bath—“
“Baths,” I emphasised, afraid they’d only heat enough water for one. An irrational fear, but my nerves were stretched thin and the last thing I wanted was even a sliver of confusion to creep into the minds of servants. Ones I must trust. “A bath for His Grace and one for myself.”
“At once. I shall see to it myself,” Timms bowed and turned. There would be a chaos of whispers and questions amongst the staff. How could there not be? It was barely noon. The night after the first dinner Syon had hosted in years. And directly following a screaming match between us. They probably wondered why I wasn’t being tossed out the street—alphas had been known to do more for less. Or why a doctor had not been called to care for my wounds. I rubbed my arms at the thought of fighting off a sawbones. Then the question of preparing two baths. Surely that would cause as much comment for such a luxury. But better than if one bath had been ordered and we had shared it.
I found my way to the bedroom I’d used for the past few weeks and shook my head at the familiarity of it all. The unfashionably heavy fabrics hanging about the bed. The even older furniture. It was hard to believe that the house had been designed and built only thirty years before. I turned and caught my reflection in the mirror. My hair curled wildly about my flushed face. My eyes though… Fear. It must be fear, for to contemplate any other emotion would be admitting too much. I could claim to be afraid of Syon when he raged. I should be afraid of him. But instead, his temper pricked me. I wanted… I wanted him to prove that he was the alpha for me. “The,” not “an”. The definite article, not the indefinite article, for he was the only one that mattered. The one whose dominance I craved. My alpha. Not some other omega, who would quake and hide from him. But for me! I who had faced him, fenced with him. The omega who didn’t cower or tremble with fear. No. I would not do that. I had been taught better. I became lost in my thoughts for what seemed like hours. People passed on the street, carriages came and went, and my thoughts revolved ever deeper and yet unsatisfactorily around the problem of Syon. Syon, the man and alpha, rather than the duke. The one who had saved me from my tête-à-tête with Lord Paxton. The one who barked at me this morning. I pressed the heels of my hands to my temples and cursed all men and alphas. But the person I cursed longest and most fluently was myself.
“And that is the truth of it,” I muttered. “You love him.”
“Your bath is ready, Miss,” Timms said. “If you need anything, do not hesitate to call.”
I gave an absent nod and waited for him to leave before reaching for my ruined cravat. I discarded each piece of clothing onto the bed until I stood naked. Stripped of every material protection. I was too tired in my body and soul to worry about the recklessness of my current nudity. Too reckless to care when my hand brushed against the dark curls covering my sex. Too reckless as I slipped my fingers between the folds and found the gathered slick. I felt no humiliation at my arousal. Syon had worked me over whilst we had battled and then scented me, giving over his aggression in favour of a different kind of dominance. One I should not have desired, but with every passing day, I wondered what it would be like. Not to hide my dynamic but to stand before him like this. Perhaps not so naked. But certainly as myself, as an omega.
Impossible. He would never forgive me. He’d proved today that even the smallest challenge to his alpha would result in irrational retribution. Swords before words. He’d never hear me out if the truth were discovered.
The bath’s steam scented with lavender and rose filled my lungs with an altogether less intoxicating smell. With each inhalation, I relaxed. I washed my body but soon I focused less on becoming clean and more on the pleasure I could draw with each pass of hands over skin. My nipples tightened, and I closed my fingers around one, giving it a hard pinch while the other pressed down on the little bud between my thighs. My breath caught as the need humming through my body began to harmonise with my practised touches. I had touched myself before—how else could I get through a heat unattended by an alpha?—but never had I had someone to imagine playing with my body. Now all I could picture was Syon looming over me, his body hard and hot. The outline of his cock, pressing against his breeches. When I’d been on my back, it had drawn my gaze like a lodestone. I’d wanted to see his knot which his tight breeches could not hide. Whoever he wanted—Olivia, or possibly even Viola—I could take that look in his eyes and turn it into fantasy. My slender omega fingers would never be enough but I did my best. Scratching and pinching my nipples, rubbing at the little button of heaven between my slick folds. Even in the bath, I knew I’d produced more the slick than in any previous heat.
“Syon!” I gasped as I imagined his hands taking the place of mine. I did not think he would be rough. No, not Syon. His fingers would work hard and steady, focused on driving me towards a cliff of bliss before yanking the reins and keeping me hanging on the precipice. He would torture me like that for hours. My breath came in short pants at the thought of him in the bath with me. Leaning against the solid plains of muscle rather than the tub. Caged in his arms, his giant cock pressing into my back. Bigger than any dildo I had used during heats. And the knot at his base beginning to swell until it plugged me. I might only have anatomical drawings and the erotic etchings Beatrice had given me as a gift after my first heat, but my imagination ran wild. The knot would grow, and as his fingers edged my orgasm I would reach behind and massage the base. If he teased me, gave me no relief, I would have him suffer the same. We would go on like that until he lost all patience and would spin me around. I would be facing him, my breasts against his chest. My eyes flew open staring blindly at the ceiling as I worked my fingers faster between my legs. Abandoning my breasts, I shoved two fingers into my slit. Pressing deep but never as good as the real thing—my instinctual knowledge that I needed a knot to truly satisfy me. I forced a third finger, but still it was not enough. In my fantasy, Syon worked me, tested my opening on his knot which he wanted, needed to shove deep into my tight, slick sex. Testing, stretching me until a sudden thrust, and we were tied together.
I bit my lip as my orgasm crashed upon me, my back arching sharply as my walls grasped for a fullness that wasn’t there. An unfamiliar drowsiness came upon me. Normally I would be dissatisfied, fretting over the unknown feeling of an alpha’s knot. I knew the difference though— the fantasy my mind had concocted had a face, it had a name. My body recognised that an alpha was responsible for my slick. Tears pricked my eyes in frustration.
* * *
After dressing, I stood at the head of the stairs, on the point of fleeing, but my resolve cracked, shattered. I closed my eyes and turned around to hunt him down. Everything demanded that I see Syon before I left. He could not force his knot into me, but I could look at him, even if just for a moment. I followed his scent to his bedroom, a place I’d never been to before. He’d not closed the door, and I used that excuse to push my way in. His back was to me, and he was naked as the day he was born. I’d never seen a naked man. To say I became enthralled by the powerful muscles that covered every line of his body would be an understatement. I longed to run my hands and tongue along every inch of his sweaty skin, taste him, feel his weight, knowing I could not break free on my own.
“I think that she is opening to the notion of a husband,” I told Syon’s back.
“You will leave for the afternoon.”
”Syon,” I stepped into the room but stopped when he spun to look at me. His eyes were black with arousal and his mate stain like an oak leaf stood out on his sharply muscled abdomen. I swallowed at the sight, unsure where I should focus my gaze. He had his stiff cock in one hand and jerked it up his length, rubbing his thumb over the flared head, spreading the pearl precum before running it down to where his knot had begun to swell. I gulped at the sheer size of it. After what I had done in the bath, my need had grown to a fever pitch. The unmistakable sensation of slick gathering between my thighs at his heightened scent. My omega desires clamoured for more, and my hands (I knew) still carried the faint whiff of my own arousal. A part of me wanted to raise my hands to his nose, taunt him with that smell and expose my sham. But then I also felt a thrill of the deception. It was an ugly thought, but something about his nose blindness made this little meeting almost a figure of our joint imaginations.
“Foolish Puss… know your destiny then. Come here. Kneel at my feet, Hartwell,” he ordered—a purring, seductive command more powerful than if he’d barked at me.
I teetered on the point of refusing him, but my baser needs carried me closer until I knelt at his feet. Up close, the smell of him was even more heady and addictive. His expression did not change, but he began to jack his cock with harsher strokes, using more of the liquid that seeped from the tip to ease his way. His movements hypnotised me. I did not know how long I knelt at his feet like a supplicant. I dared not touch for fear the spell would break. I watched entranced when he directed his cock at me and with a series of grunts painted my face with his seed. I felt it warm on my skin; so much more of it than I thought possible.
With deliberate movements, Syon used his cock to smear my face with his spend. Rubbing it on my lips, my cheeks. And I? I nearly fainted with lust for the scent was overpowering. Only a hand on his powerful thigh kept me upright. I craved it. I wanted it, but as much as that I needed him to mark me with his scent like this. People must know that he’d claimed me like this.
“Lick,” he commanded, bringing his fingers to my lips. Goddess, the taste! Unlike anything I’d tasted before. Almost like the taste of my own slick but stronger, salty and smooth.
“All of it,” he said and used his fingers to gather what I had missed and feed it to me. When he was satisfied, he turned and picked up a damp cloth, which he used to tenderly clean my face. I wanted to complain he should leave it—Iwantedto smell like him—, but this moment was his, I knew that. Whatever my desire, he needed this.
“You should leave now,” his voice was tight, forcibly controlled as he gripped his unsatisfied knot.
I stood, moved away, fully aware of the dangers of staying a moment longer. “I’ll be back tomorrow then.”
“Puss… Hartwell,” Syon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he met my violet eyes with his dark ones but it was as if we spoke different languages for I could not understand what he was trying to convey without words. He huffed out a breath. “You need to know—“
“You don’t need to explain,” I stuttered and struggled to my feet. “Natural. We agreed. After the kiss… We agreed.”
Then, like a courtier, I backed out of the room unwilling to miss a moment of his heated gaze. On reaching the head of the stairs and began to descend, my hand gripping the bannister and carefully placing each foot in front of the other. My chest fluttered at the sound of something above me. Would he storm down and drag me into his arms in hope of finding an omega’s scent still lingering on my skin? Would I give in? Would I push him away? Did I possess the requisite strength to deny him? Between each too loud heartbeat, my ears strained for the sound of that familiar step. Was that itch the weight of his gaze on me? Could I turn around and run back up to confess everything to him? And what were my feelings and thoughts, versus those of my omega dynamic responding to the nearness of an alpha? At the bottom of the steps, Horne stepped forward with my overcoat and tricorn hat in hand. He froze when I was close enough for him to smell me. How could he not? Syon’s scent coated me like a warm blanket, comforting and… I felt safe knowing that the world could smell him on me.
“He is in a mood. He’s not used to so many guests. Don’t take it to heart,” Horne told me as he helped me into my greatcoat. “Take care of yourself, for it is cold out. I wish you would permit me to order a chair or carriage for you.”
