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“By the Goddess, I’m so…” I stood at his side uncertain if such a strong alpha would accept comfort. Then his words struck me. “They didn’t tell you?”
“She said she wrote a letter, but I never received it.”
I growled. “It should not have been her responsibility alone. They should have told you! I’ll… I’ll kill that bitch.”
“Pax. Don’t let that alpha hot headedness get in the way. Beatrice loves her mother. Thinks she hung the moon. And that viper could turn her against us as easily as breathing. Why else would I have stayed away? Even at nineteen, you cannot imagine I was a coward, can you? No, I was a coward. I knew I was unworthy. If I’d stayed… An estrangement between Beatrice and her family would have been more damaging than if—“
“You sell yourself short. Beatrice is an intelligent woman. An omega with more guts and wits than any I’ve met. She—“
There was a knock at the door which cut off whatever he’d been about to say.
“It’s me! Open up.”
We shared a look. She’d come to us. I was almost too proud to acknowledge the spark of hope I felt.
Jack hesitated half a second less than I, and I watched, suspended in anticipation, as he opened the door. Beatrice balanced on the threshold, her hair long and wet hanging over one shoulder while her shirt fell away to reveal the Lovers' Circle. Did she know what that did to an alpha?
“Can we speak?” She asked, hands twisting before her, scent bitter, but her eyes were filled with something far warmer.
I glanced at the ceiling, sighed, as I knew I would every day this omega was in my life. For trust her, Beatrice Jane Hartwell, to storm into an alpha’s room—an alpha she’d just fucked—without any consideration for her safety.
She’d be on our knots, rutted into her heat if she stepped over that threshold. Talk could come later.
Jack
She stoodin the door looking up at me with the same determination as ten years ago. And half-fool that I was, I stood aside. Pax’d made me talk about the past, which lowered my mood. The larger part of me knew her presence could only be a good thing. Beatrice’s temper flared hot, but she’d reacted so viscerally to learning Pax and I’d shared lovers that I did not know what to think. How had we missed telling her? Or her suspecting? Or Orley and Viola telling her? Goddess, her bitch of a mother could have told her and I’d not be surprised.
For a moment I saw the hesitation. The flash of awareness as she caught the scent of two alphas who had recently knotted her. Our pheromones hung like a heavy cloud in the room, almost suffocating the woman in front of me. But, brave girl that she was, she stepped into the room. I closed the door with a click.
“Why are you here?”
“What do you want?”
Pax and I spoke over each other. The omega who’d done more reckless things in her life than face two alphas alone in a room suddenly looked nervous. Her eyes darted about before landing on the portrait that hung on the fall wall. She crossed and reached out to straighten the frame.
“Why am I here? It is quite simple. I was going through my trunk.”
“You are not going anywhere,” I barked.
“Oh, let me finish!” Her nostrils flared. Her hands clutched something. When she saw me looking, her hand turned over and in her grasp was a crumpled piece of paper. “I’m telling this backwards. Starting at the beginning. While I was in the bath, the maid came to say another bath had been ordered. And I knew you’d ordered it.” She pointed an accusing finger at Pax. “You ordered a bath for me because I didn’t order a second. And I don’t think Jack would because he wouldn’t want me to lose our scents. I knew I must find them—you. Explain that I’d reacted too quick. That the beginnings of my heat made me territorial and angry about, to be honest with the Goddess, everything. That there had been so much time lost. I am so late because I had to go through my things for something clean to wear because I needed to change as what I first put on wasn’t appropriate for dinner. It is why I look such a mess and the dinner bell has sounded. Cravats crushed into balls, my coats would be creased if I slammed the lid. I picked up a chemise and smoothed the material. I threw all of it into a closet I am turning into a nest. Do you see? I half ran to Pax’s room because it was closest. Finding it empty I continued down the hall to where I knew from scent Jack was staying. And now I am here.”
I looked at my friend and lover, his eyes flashing mirrored gold, and swallowed down whatever words jumbled about in my head. A nest. Goddess, she was preparing a nest.
“You are very much here. You came here. You came for us.” Pax purred. “To tell us you are building a nest.”
“I came to apologise.” She smoothed her hair back into a simple cue and tied it with a velvet ribbon, the paper still notched between her fingers like it was the most precious thing in the world. The oddly soothing, domestic action made me smile. Pax reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair, but she batted him away, solely focused on her purpose. Restraining her beautiful hair.
“We must talk.” She insisted. Her eyes flickered between us as we prowled closer and closer until I could feel the heat of her body, smell the gentle soap she used, and underneath that, elfwort and pine—she’d not been able to scrub us away. “I was… I was hasty. And a hypocrite of the worst kind. I slept with betas. Well, a beta. I never—”
“Trix. Later.” I grabbed her wrist, bringing it to my lips. The little gasp, the sweeter scent, and widening of her eyes, told me everything.
“Goddess,” she whispered. “No. Not later.”
She tugged away but I held firm—I’d not let her go this time. “Why does my heat make my head go so fuzzy? I’m near thirty and I sound like a petulant child. This really won’t do. I can’t just let this—“
“If we talk now, it will lead to us knotting you. Do you understand?” I took her face in my hands.
“I won’t have this miscommunication—“
