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“And a bath sent up to the Colonel’s room.”
“At once. And Miss Hartwell’s room?”
I narrowed my eyes. Servants always knew your business before you, and there were times when it was not appreciated. And others, well, one could like and dislike their prescience. “Yes. I am sure she would appreciate that.”
“The dinner bell will go soon.”
I took her hint and left. The running of a great house eluded me. No alpha was ever trained in the intricacies. Omegas were. Yet another way our dynamics were forced by society to mate and join. Another reason why I’d considered finding a mate, one who could take on the responsibility.
Beatrice. Beatrice would be that omega. Even if she had stormed out, it would be a fool who thought this was the end. Her scent was the same as when I’d first met her. Her heat was soon, her rationality suppressed and instincts to claim her alphas at the fore.
“Omega, omega, omega…” I scratched a nonexistent itch above my eyebrow. “What to do with you, little Vixen.”
I wandered through the house on the way back to my room. Each portrait of an omega or alpha, looking down on me. Beatific smiles on their faces. I stopped beneath the painting of the last Orley Pack. The duke, with his omega wife. Behind him stood the handsome omega he’d taken as a mate. On her side, the three alphas who’d claimed the duchess. Their joinings had caused a scandal. Looking at them, I saw nothing but an off-kilter balance. More than anything, it gave me hope… Or should, because in this moment I could not find the balance. An omega reckless and quick to judgement, an alpha who hid his emotions with humour. I was driven by some mad need to possess and control those around me.
And the whole world seemed not to care that it had shifted under my feet. I went to the sideboard and poured out a measure, drinking the deep amber liquid without noticing the taste. I poured another glass and threw it back. There was no glory in getting foxed when life must continue without consideration for the little storm raging inside three of the occupants of this great house.
The library door opened. I scented him.
“Jack.”
“I’ll leave you.”
“Where are you going?” I asked putting the empty glass on the tray. I walked over to the silent man whose eyes were puffy. Had he been crying? I’d not think less of him if he had. “Where are you going, Soldier?”
“The pub. Where do you think?”
“No. No longer.” I went toe to toe with him. I might be taller, but he was a soldier in build. He was a fighter. And if he so chose, he would beat me in a fair fight. “Your need to be beat to a bloody pulp ends today. I won’t have it. If you want someone to give you bruises, it will be me. And if I want to mark you up? I’ll do that too.”
His jaw jutted forward, his scent bitter. “What right,” he gritted out. “Don’t say it is because you care. Because if you cared, then you would have stepped in long before… Why now? Why do you care now?”
“There is no now or then. I brought you into my household over a year ago. Would have done it sooner. But why will I not permit you to act like a martyr? Because I have the right now. I’ve fucked you. That makes you mine.”
“Now I know why Trix gets angry at that thought of being your property. Hells, Benedict let me deal with my demons in my own way.”
“Did you become addicted to self flagellation before or after mating her? At least you admit you do it on purpose. Though she doesn’t sacrifice her body…” I growled. Deep and primal and full of feral need to dominate everything in my life. “You will bathe. As little as I like the idea of you smelling like yourself again, I doubt the rest of the company needs to know you smell of me and Beatrice.”
I got Jack into the bath I’d ordered and watched him scrub mine and Beatrice’s scents from his body. I disliked it. I wanted both of them to smell of me, of us. At least, the marks on his body would remain until I could add more.
“Talk to me.” Beatrice’s flight had more than spooked him. He stood shaking, half dressed for the evening, and I worried that he would escape back to the tavern and begin another brawl as he had intended. Now that he was mine though, I’d put a stop to these penance fights where he invited the bruising punches and jabs as a way to assuage his guilt. Beatrice, I now knew, was the nebulous of that seething ocean of repressed anger and sadness.
“She’ll not forgive that.”
“She slept with betas. She told us.”
“I’d be happy for that.” His laugh was bitter. “I’d kill the bastard, but I wouldn’t want her to suffer.”
“Tell me why. Why can she be furious that we’ve shared lovers—think she is nothing but a body to us—, but you are happy she had a beta fuck her through her heat?”
“She was eighteen… I was weak enough to accept what she gave… She’d planned it. We lay in her nest at the end of her heat and she told me how she’d planned on seducing me for months. She told me before as well but I did not believe her…”
“What then?” I couldn’t understand it.
“A printmaker’s son wasn’t good enough for the lofty Hartwells. I was ordered away. Told by her mother I’d be accused of rape. And…”
I held my breath.
“She was pregnant. They never told me. A stillborn son…”
