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It had taken far more effort to be cold and unfeeling than I wanted to admit. Too easily I’d lost the high ground, falling into old habits. Speaking my every thought without a care in the world, because with him I was safe.
Then he’d kissed me! I could still feel the press of his lips against mine. How dare he elicit softer feelings that begged for his touch and scent? My mate… The one who’d left me without a word. Goddess give me strength against that alpha… or I might kill him with my bare hands.
“Tod.” The pet name I’d given him so long ago left my lips—too soft and full of longing for my liking.
Ten Years Ago.
Edinburgh
I’d lied to Mama and Papa, telling them I suffered from pre-heat cramps. I did not tell them why I wanted to stay home—and alone—encouraging them to give the servants the day off. I wanted them out just for today. By tonight it wouldn’t matter if the entire world sat in the drawing room. I would have succeeded. My mate gland pulsed on my neck, begging for an alpha’s bite, my skin near burning on my body, my brow damp with sweat. All in anticipation for when the clock struck three.
I stood by the large north-facing window in our little drawing room, watched the people passing by, and waited until I saw my quarry.
John Fordom. Dark and beautiful John—my Tod—, whose face and hands filled my sketch pads. My feverish obsession had started with my last heat when I’d seen him lifting a roll of newsprint on his own. My omega had fluttered and my heat had arrived a month early. I’d read the stories. I knew what it meant. He was my alpha. The one who’d be my mate. At seventeen I was too young, even in the throes of my last heat, I recognised that. But I was eighteen now. A woman and omega ready to be claimed.
A year I’d waited, watched, considered… Held back, even. Still as infatuated with him as a hero out of a gothic novel, quiet and majestic. A man of few words or book learning—I had more than enough of that for the pair of us. And what of good books when he was an alpha? Strong, and full of alpha anger that needed the use of fists to soothe his tortured soul. But instinct urged me to see past that, to discover what made this alpha, of all the others I’d met, cause my mate gland to throb and itch. So I’d observed with an artist’s eye. He was close to perfection. His features were regular to the keenest eye—though one side of his mouth curved up minutely more than the other. A sardonic smirk was about as part of his physiology as his knot. My sex clenched at the thought of it. But his personality! Dear Goddess, that called to me. His introspection hid a sharp and decisive mind. Years growing up the son of a beta printmaker had left their mark. Had he been raised in an alpha-omega household or pack, his confidence would know no bounds. It had shocked all when he’d presented as an alpha. Still he retained that deference around other alphas, that grated, because he was as powerful as them. Stronger than most, with the convictions and instinct of the most perfect alphas. Once I was his and he was mine, then things would change. No one would look down on him.
Then the way his hair curled in the rain because he kept it shorter than was fashionable. I’d run my fingers through it once, just to test my theory that it was soft as silk. The hypothesis had been correct. That afternoon gave me the first hint he might desire me as much as I did him. He’d caught my wrist, pulling my hand away, but I hardly noticed because the look in his eyes held me captive. Dark eyes made darker, our mingled scents warming my being, causing my breasts to tingle, and my breath to catch. “No, Trix. Bad omega.” Those four words undid me. They sounded like a rejection, they felt like a seduction.
“I’m a good girl,” I’d responded.
“Then you won’t touch strange alphas.”
“You aren’t a stranger, Tod.” He’d grunted something. What, I do not know, because I’d jumped away from him. My sister Polly stood in the door, her lips pressed together and her cheeks flushed.
The determined knock on the door brought me out of the memory, and I rushed to open it. My alpha stood on the other side, his clothes as precise as he always was when he visited our home. So handsome, so mine. At times like this, I longed to be an alpha and he an omega so that I might be the one claiming. I’d have done it long ago, because I knew if I had an alpha’s longings, nothing would stand in my way. The good sense I had to wait until I was eighteen to seduce him would have been brushed aside in favour of marking him in the most permanent way possible.
“You came.” I reached for his hand and linked our fingers together. How I had longed to touch him in such an intimate manner! This was the simplest, most chaste physical contact I desired, but it sent a thrill of anticipation through my being. He did not speak words. His eyes, however, spoke volumes as they dilated and the colour glinted, hinted at mirrored gold. My alpha was going to rut me—his physiology and scent could not lie. He craved me, and my heart soared. “You came for me.”
“What… Trix.” He looked over my shoulder trying to see past me. “Where is your father? I’ve the books…”
“They are all gone,” I smiled. My alpha! He was here! He would claim me, mate me! “Come in! My heat… I want you to mate me.”
He stood, frozen, before me. A growl began deep in his chest. “No. You don’t want me to mate you. You are a child. You don’t know what you want.”
Goddess, he turned me into a puddle of slick as I watched his handsome face go from polite to the keen, near feral readiness of an alpha near a fertile omega. This was the difference between a schoolgirl’s romantic crush and a woman’s love. I pressed my legs together trying to find a little friction, stimulation, anything.
“I know what I want,alpha,” I panted as my fingers tugged at our joined hands, pulling him further into the hall. “For more than a year. You, alpha. I didn’t know precisely what it was ‘til I saw you last summer, and it triggered my heat. I want you for my alpha. I’m not stupid. I was very sane when I made this decision. I’ve had a year to go over it in my mind. I choose you.”
I waited eagerly for his response.
“Why won’t you say anything?” I fretted. “What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said through gritted teeth. “Take the books—“
“Stay! Please! My heat…”
“Trix, you are too young. If… I should talk to your parents.”
My stupid body contracted with a wave of painful cramps. I whimpered.
“Dammit,” he growled and kicked the door closed. “Are you sure? Trix, you can’t take this back.”
“Please.”
His eyes searched mine and whatever he found must have answered his questions for in the next moment his lips were on mine, his hands gripping my waist only to stroke up and cup my breasts. I sobbed in relief. Sobbed at the release of having him touch me in the way that I wanted. In ways I didn’t know I wanted. Who could have known how heavenly it felt to have him hold my breasts?
Hands on my hips, he followed my kisses as I backed towards my bedroom where I’d been building a nest for the past few months—all in preparation for this moment. If I’d started earlier than necessary, what did it matter? I’d needed to be prepared for any eventuality. I would be rutted in my nest by this alpha.
