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“Bea—“
It hit me suddenly. This was real. The two alphas I’d prayed never to see again, and now they were racing towards me. Did they know I was here? Did they care? I put my brush down and sipped at the now tepid tea. Paxton and Fordom! Goddess, and how was I supposed to respond to them? I looked at Mama. Her eyes were sharply observing me, lips pressed together, but otherwise she did not betray what she thought. Mrs Markham, the only living witness to the painful aftermath of my disastrous mating to Jack, was equally serious. There was my answer. We’d not address it. We’d wait and see the lay of the land before proceeding. It grated. But, perhaps, my own desire to charge ahead and confront them was not the safest course of action. Mama hated that Jack had mated me. In one of her angrier moments, she declared he had never been, nor ever would be, good enough for her precious daughter. No matter how I’d pleaded that he was worthy and if I could merely write him a letter… She’d informed me that the most honourable thing he’d ever done was abandon me.
“Go and rest before dinner,” our Mama said, again a little of her alpha voice slipping in. Not a bark, but a reminder of her power over the smallest part of my life.
“Yes, Mama.”
The house was cool, and I luxuriated in it, but still my coat was too much. I pulled it off with some effort. “Damn this thing,” I muttered, but at last had my arms free. But what to do? What to do during the wait? And how long would they be? I paced up and down the length of the library and pondered how best to proceed. My last meeting with both alphas, still so clear in my mind that I could not shake the notion I’d seen them just yesterday. And on top of all this, a fussy feeling. My heat would be here soon. Unlike the few unmated omegas my age, I did not take suppressants. I did not need to. My scent had muted and altered ten years ago when, as a girl, Jack Fordom, my Tod, had mated me. Mated me. I looked up at the ceiling, blinking away tears. It was one thing to think about my mate-bite in a roundabout way, another to actually confront it. There was a reason I had no mirror in my bedroom. I could not look at the proof I was not enough for him. I reached for my cravat, pulled it apart, and laid it over my jacket, which I’d folded over the back of a chair. My hands were remarkably steady when I pulled the shirt aside until I could see the livid scarring in the mirror above the fireplace. Unlike many, the scar was not a circle of faint white markings proclaiming that an alpha had taken me, mated me during my heat. No, I was not so lucky. I could have covered that with powder and continued to wear dresses. No, my mate bite was raised and had formed an almost perfect circle. They called it a Lovers’ Circle or True Bond, but I was living proof that just because an alpha saw you through your heat and mated you… He would not stay. The day after my heat ended, he’d spoken to my parents and left. They told me he had joined the army to seek his fortune and would return when he could provide for me. He was poor with no prospects, unable to pay my omega price or afford to set up his own household independent of his family. My parents had said it was all for the best, and like a dutiful daughter, I’d believed them. Goddess, I should have hated him. But Jack wasn’t the kind of alpha to do something without a meaning. I’d known him since I was a girl, and in that time he’d spent more hours in his head even when we were sitting next to each other. He’d return to me. I’d held on to that for years, before letting the longing fade into the dull ache of disappointed hopes and dreams.
My fingers traced the mark. I had memorised each fraction of a fraction of an inch. And now he was inches and inches closer to returning to my sphere. Would he even remember me? An omega’s scent changed upon receiving a mate bite. An alpha lost interest in other omegas and became obsessed with the omega he’d mated… But perhaps our case had been different. For not once in the last ten years had Jack reached out to me—answered the letters I’d smuggled out of the house. Even when we’d been in London at the same time, he’d never written a letter asking how I was. My other hand went to my stomach as if to better hold everything in.
To make matters worse, it seemed that my mate and Paxton were close. Paxton, who I’d shot in the shoulder. Paxton, who I hated because he wanted to own me—and because a small part of me was curious to know what it would be like to belong to an alpha so determined to claim me.
Two alphas who called forth such different, yet harmonious feelings that had got jumbled the more time passed. Not wanting to think on it longer, I picked up my things and made my way to the hall. The double height room was a testament to the warlike nature of the Orleys. Suits of armour, including one with a bullet hole through the heart, stood guard, while various shields and swords and pikes decorated the walls. I’d found it exhaustingly alpha when I first arrived, but now was amused by the over the top display. I was not even halfway up the stairs when I heard the sound of a carriage on the drive.
Curiosity would always be one of my besetting sins, and like a sailor caught by a siren’s song, I crossed to the door, pushed it open and stepped out into the bright sun in time to see Lord Paxton pull a team of sweating greys to a halt. They stood between the traces of the most beautiful high perched phaeton I’d ever seen. I wanted to laugh. Of course, of course! This alpha would only own beautiful things. Not just paintings, but horses and carriages. And this was the alpha who had wanted to own me as well.
An unwelcome thrill filled me at the knowledge. A twisted kind of pleasure that he desired me when another had rejected me.
“You won?” I called out as he jumped to the ground. He gave me a hard look, his face as cold as the sun was blazing hot.
“Take’m round and see that they are well cared for. Too damned hot for a race,” he told his tiger, who’d been perched behind him. He watched the horses move off before returning his unforgiving gaze upon me. Nothing changed, but he prowled towards me like a wolf cornering a doe. “What? You here? When did you arrive?”
“You won? Answer my question first.” I swallowed on the words. He was such a sight to behold, a tempest needing to break and I would be his target. Oh, but I relished the upcoming confrontation. The first anticipation was nearly overwhelming.
“As you see.” He kept coming closer until he stood one step below me. And still I had to look up at his mercurial eyes, which now had a different light. I was no longer his prey, but his prize. “Are you here to greet me, Vixen?”
“I was headed upstairs…” I inched backwards, curious if he would give chase. Afraid for my self-control that contemplated needling him until he did something deliciously wicked, and I, a mated omega whose estranged mate was mere minutes away. Another step back and another before, quick as lightning, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me closer. Our eyes clashed, and my heart thundered in my chest.
“Yet you came out to greet me…” he purred. I turned my head to escape those silver eyes. His grip tightened beyond the point of pain, and I tried to pull away with a whimper. His other hand shot up and ripped my shirt open, revealing the mate mark I’d been playing with earlier. I’d forgotten it was loose; that he’d be able to see the distinctive scar.
“A Lovers’ Circle? Who? Tell me!” he barked. I flinched. This was an alpha on the point of feral anger. How quickly had his eyes gone from silver to mirrored gold! “You’ve a mate. Who is he? She? Why are you alone? Why haven’t I heard about this? When? After you rejected me?”
“Let me go,” I wrenched myself from his grasp and stumbled back as I lost my balance. “It is none of your business!”
“Wrong. You are my business. Who? Who saw you through a heat? Is that why you refused me? Where was your mate? What mate would allow you, of all omegas you, out of their sight at such a time? A Lovers' Circle no less! Who would abandon you like that?”
I growled. How dare he question my choices?
“You ask too many questions. I won’t tell. It is not…” I stopped at the sound of crunching gravel as a pair of curricles drew up. My sister’s husband and my own mate, laughing at something. To my everlasting shame, I did what I seemed to have become quite proficient at since meeting Lord Benedict Paxton. I turned on my heel and fled into the house.
Pax
A mate?I could not believe the Hartwells could have kept that a secret. Yet all the signs pointed to it, and that was before I’d seen the mark on her mating gland. Suddenly, the day we met made sense—and didn’t. Her heat had come so fast, and yet her scent had been like the warm burn of an excellent brandy, rather than the headily sweet scent that unmated omegas possessed. Granted, it was not brandy she smelt like but a rose garden, heavy and pungent… The combination, however, did not align with what I knew of omegas. Unmated omegas could have surprise heats, but they smelt sweet and enticing. Beatrice had smelled like a mated omega, and too lost in my own instinct to claim her, I’d not noticed. Too lost in my alpha instincts, I’d not noticed…
There was an explanation, but not a palatable one. She had a mate. And one who had abandoned her. Perhaps, like Jack, her mate had died.
More confusing was that Beatrice’s omega desired a pack. Her omega craved more than one mate, and those mates would have to be compatible with each other. Hippolyta’s words now made sense. What had she said? That on my own I was lacking? That Beatrice deserved more than what I alone had to offer?
But a mate? A stranger I would share her with? I growled at the thought.
And how could she hide that from the world? What kind of alpha would abandon their mate? Their omega? It went against all our instincts.
Who was the bastard who’d mated her and left? For her Lovers’ Circle was not fresh, but old. Had her alpha died? Goddess, who was I to ask?
I wanted to torture her until she revealed the bastard’s name, and then I’d hunt him down and ensure he never came near her again. Or her. Goddess, did it matter? They’d left their omega exposed at her most vulnerable time. If she was mine, she’d never be permitted to run wild like that. My word would be law.
I was alpha enough to know my own feelings, and they were ugly and dark. I’d a word for my mood. Jealousy.
