AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Horne, Timms, whoever had a preternatural knowledge for our needs, brought a feast within minutes of ringing the bell. All foods to help an omega and alpha regain their strength after a long heat.
“How long?” I asked quietly.
“Six days,” Timms said equally quietly. “Her family has been by. Shall I send word?”
I nodded, and he slipped out again. Six days. So long? There was no legal requirement for me to keep her, but by now the news that I had taken Viola Hartwell from a private ball and rutted her through her heat would be all over town, if not further. Perhaps not yet to Paris, but it would not be long before Viola’s alpha mother was banging down my door demanding my head.
I stood at the foot of the nest and watched her nibble on a piece of toast, a half-empty teacup nestled by her thigh. For all her begging for food, she had barely touched the porridge or baked egg prepared for her.
“Eat all of it,” I told her. “All of it.”
“The egg is cold,” she wrinkled her nose.
“Omega,” I growled. “You will do as your alpha says.”
She smirked. “Are you my alpha?”
I nearly cursed her for the insolence. I nearly pulled her from the nest to press her up against the windows that overlooked the square to prove to her and to passersby that I was her alpha. But I held back.
“Yes. After the ball, I have every legal right to claim that you are my omega.“
“You are doing this because you want to protect my name?” She asked, her jaw clenched. “Out of… Because you compromised me at Gale’s ball?”
“That is part of it, yes.” I would not lie to her. But how could I tell her that I had been obsessed with her scent from almost the beginning? Before then, I had been drawn to her as Hartwell, my secretary. Even after I’d learnt her lie, I would have done everything to ensure she belonged to none but me. I loved who I remembered her being, back when she had been mine. But my pride prevented me from uttering the words.
“And my deception, what of that? I thought you wanted to end any and all relationships with my family. Isn’t that true, Your Grace?” she asked, all emotion schooled from her face. “I’ve no doubt you returned to town to throw my response to your letter in my face.”
She sucked on her bottom lip, glared at me, managing to look murderous and distressed all at once. Such was the power of violet eyes.
“I received no such letter— just one from your sister. I will do the right thing by you,” I told her through gritted teeth. “Your prank will not change my mind. I saw you through your heat. You are mine. We will marry.”
I had not expected her to move so quickly. She flew across the nest and grabbed the lapels of my dressing gown.
“You do not love me. You wanted nothing to do with me. And now you will marry me? Will you mate me, bind me to you forever, or am I the same as the Countess? A wife and nothing more to you? The omega to give you heirs but never have the security of your bite? You would... No, thank you. I will not submit to that. I would rather be shunned by society than live through the torture of being your wife and nothing more. Is that truly all that you can give me? Can you not find it in your heart to give me more?” she ended in a plea.
In the time since her heat had ended, I had begun to see a vulnerability in Viola that sparked a need to protect and thus overwhelmed my alpha’s feelings for Hartwell—for I had still not quite reconciled them in my head. My love for my secretary remained. I could not deny the ache that I would never again see that dark head bent over a speech she scribbled for me, knowing I’d never give it. Or the way she badgered me to eat properly. And yet, when I looked down on Viola, I knew in my bones that she would be everything and more that I needed. She commanded my soul. She would be my mate… If she ever let me into her nest again.
“I will try. I will try with every fibre of my being to be the alpha, the man you need. I will never stop…”
“Try? You will try,” her voice broke. “Did those months mean nothing to you? Is your pride so wounded, your skin so thin that you do not understand that I am Hartwell? Viola? All are me and I am all.”
“Hush. I will undo this tangle,” I purred. For now, at least, I needed to keep her various names and those memories separate. “Let me try to make you as happy as I know you will make me. I just hope you will not hate me...”
I rested my forehead on hers, breathing in her scent. My body shuddered with desire. Not carnal desire, but the desire of a heart which prayed that I could work some miracle.
“I will make you my wife. I will never leave you vulnerable,” I promised. “No rough breeze shall touch your cheek while you belong to me… As you already belong to me.”
A knock on the door, and Timms’ insistence that I come forced me away from Viola before she could reply. Before she protested her hatred… Or that I had not mated her? I was not sure. I would mate her, but cooler heads would make that decision. I could be a coward in small doses, it seemed. Timms had nothing important to say. Just a note from Florey informing me that he expected an announcement in the Times by tomorrow. I growled at the presumption. But instructed Timms to write it up for my inspection.
Viola would be my duchess, but upon returning to the nest I found her hunting about the piles of clothes for something that was not covered in cum and slick. I scoffed. Her everything, mind, body, and soul, belonged to me. She pulled a chemise over her head. It was ripped and hung lopsided on her body in a manner far more enticing than she perhaps realised. When I asked why she needed clothes, she informed me that she could not return home naked.
“You are home,” I informed her. “This is your nest. You will have no other... Except for the one at Ayleigh. There is a nest there. We will have your next heat in that nest.”
“We are not yet mated. We are not married. There is nothing that requires me to stay with you. Did you mate me? No,” she snarled, baring her neck, taunting me with my civility.
“That is a formality for the law.”
“We are not yet mated,” she shouted. I smiled at the aggravation which coloured her voice and brought a delightful flush to her cheeks.
