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We ran down the stairs, arriving in the hall to find utter chaos.
“London!” Mrs Markham cried out still in her nightgown, a wrap gripped in her hands. “What of London?”
“I shall take you to London,” Mrs Hartwell said, a hand on her friend’s back. “Dress. These… These alphas can catch them on the way to Gretna.”
All four of us alphas refused to say more in front of the distraught mother, but it was clear enough. An alpha willing to run off with a beta girl just out of the schoolroom, one who wouldn’t have access to her money until she was five and twenty, could not be trusted. If it had been one of my sisters? Beatrice? I put the dark thoughts out of my mind. Still, we had little to go on but our suspicions.
Jack was better. With his perfect posture, arms folded, and his brow creased as he focused on what a groom had to say, he looked every bit the military hero.
“Seems they got a chaise with two horses at the Red Hawk. He made no secret it was a runaway but… the lady was crying.” Jack rubbed stubble covering his face. “I don’t know what to think. Why would she go, after what happened? And if she went willingly, why cry?”
“We’ll know when we catch them.” Orley said. “I’d go—“
“You’re best here.” I hated admitting that he was in the best place to look after my mate, but his omega was pregnant and therefore took priority. Even my alpha acknowledged the rightness.
My chaise was brought around to the front of the house.
“I’ll drive.” Jack snatched up the reins when I went to take the driver’s spot. “Your arm is stiff.”
I wanted to protest, but he wasn’t wrong. The heat sex called forth aches I didn’t think my age warranted. I moved across the seat giving him space when a shout grabbed our attention.
“Wait! Take me with you!”
We turned to see Beatrice—dressed, thank goodness—running down the steps. Jack leapt down and caught her up in his arms, her legs wrapped around his waist. The kiss he gave her was hard and demanding. He carried her towards the curricle and set her on the seat and pushed her towards me.
“Take me with you,” she pleaded. “Please.”
“No, Vixen. Need you to stay safe for us.”
“Come back to me?”
“Always,” Jack said. “Now kiss Pax so that we can be on our way.”
There weren’t words to convey my thoughts. So I pushed aside the collar of her shirt and sucked down on my bite causing her to moan and clutch me close.
“We’ll be back. You belong to us. Never doubt that we will always put your safety first. Go. We are engaged with the task you set us and must rescue Hero.”
Beatrice
Jack pulledme down from the curricle seat but didn’t let me go. His eyes glinted in the morning light. No longer mirrored gold, their natural colour had returned and I’d forgotten how much I loved his eyes. “I don’t want you to go… But I need you to go,” I admitted.
His face hardened until I didn’t recognise the alpha in front of me. “I didn’t want to leave. It killed me ten years ago when I left. And now I am doing it again… If anything happens…”
“Jack, don’t let regret claw your heart to shreds. It is mine, you see, and I won’t let you break it. No matter how hard you try to beat throughmydefences, I won’t let you break your heart with regrets.”
“Between you and Pax, I’ll never hurt again.” But I heard the creeping uncertainty in his voice.
“We are very protective of what belongs to us. I’ll kill you both if anything happens to you…”
“Goddess, you truly are a menace to society. Stay here. Stay safe,” he warned me with a friendly shake. His hand wrapped around my throat, the pressure immediately soothed me. “Love you, Trix.”
Immediately, or so it felt, he released me and stepped out of reach.
“Jack!” But instead of returning to my arms, saying something, anything, he leapt into Pax’s racing curricle. I let out a small breath of relief when I saw Jack take up the reins—it was plain as a pikestaff that Pax’s shoulder was bothering him—with a grim nod to the groom standing by their heads, my mate urged the horses on.
“Come back,” I whispered, all too conscious that once again I had been left by my mate so soon after receiving his bite. Never once did I doubt they would return. Pax hadn’t made any premature declarations of love, but the heartrendingly earnestness of our bond spoke louder than any words. Our connection ran deeper than any other. We were true mates.
All three of us.
