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“We have cause.”
“None of this,” Pax growled. “No talk of Stimpson in the nest.”
“He’s back,” Jack grumbled, turning into my side, nuzzling the side of my breast. “I can escape your hard words or wisdom.”
Our meal was finger food, and we ate it in the bedroom at a small table arranged by the window. We talked of nothing, of music, of art, of everything but the future, as if by some silent agreement we’d chosen more pleasant topics.
Then it was time to sleep… Again that not-quite-wrongness of my situation began to creep in on me. Years of being out i n society had taught me to mask my expression with something more pleasant. And for an hour perhaps I managed to keep my peace. But the nest was stifling hot, for the window could not be opened and between my mates I felt overheated and desperate for a breath of fresh air.
“What’s to do?” Jack asked. “Does your wound hurt?”
“No. I…” I searched for the right words. “I need… I would prefer to sleep on my own tonight.”
“Not happening Trix,” Jack growled.
“Please.” I begged. “I am not used to… sleeping with others. I would prefer to sleep on my own. I’m not denying you access to my bed or my body or nest. Just that at night when it is time to sleep. Then I would like some space. I get too hot at night and have not been sleeping well since my heat.”
Since we’d returned to the nest, the two of them had crowded me into a corner, hemming me in. The position of their bodies was so obviously protective—no one would be able to touch me without at least one of my mates getting to them first. I wanted to push them away and just gain some room to breathe. I could not understand how it was so easy for them to slip into this new life. Perhaps the alterations were not many. For me, everything was new. The house, the people, the smells, and nest which smelled too clean. I’d always considered myself adaptable, capable of taking on new challenges, but when faced with my mates, my new responsibilities. I gasped. We’d not even discussed who would be in charge of the day to day running of the house. I didn’t know how expensive they were. Did they run up debts with their tailor? Did they live on credit? While I knew that there must be money somewhere, the size of Pax’s estate was a mystery to me.
“How big is your estate? What am I to manage? What will become of my—”
“This is bothering you, omega?” Pax asked. “That is nothing…”
“It is not nothing!” I snapped. “What… I… I am used to running my mother’s household. I can manage her household, but I know nothing of the size of this household or your tastes. Are they expensive? What of your family home? Surely—”
“There is no need to worry about such things tonight.” Pax tucked a lock of hair behind his ear.
“But what happens if you are to be out of Town?”
Jack snagged my arm and pulled me flush to his chest.
“You are my mate. Our omega. You were shot. You could have died. And you truly believe that I or Pax will go out of Town, leaving you exposed and unprotected?”
“I won’t have this argument over and over… You can’t make me a prisoner, Jack,” I snapped. “I’m here. I’ve always been here. You were the one who left.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. His expression didn’t change. He did not appear angry or hurt. Only his scent betrayed how my words had affected him—bitter and sharply medicinal. “Aye, a bitter pill to swallow,” he said, and I watched, alarmed, when his jaw ticked.
“Enough.” Pax snapped. “I expect better of you, Beatrice. Get into your nest. Now.”
“What?”
“I need to speak with Jack. You need to sleep.”
I sat there frozen for a moment. And it was that shock which permitted me to hear voices. I suppressed my instinct to scream and, like a child, pressed my ear to the keyhole.
“Don’t you ever handle our mate like that again.”
“I—I know. I’ll apologise to her after we talk. You said you would tell her. She deserves to know that it wasn’t your fault, that you didn’t leave because you were rejecting her.”
“I left,” Jack growled. “And don’t tell me my business. Now isn’t the time to tell her.”
Their voices were raised, but nothing they said made sense.
“No. It stopped being your business or my business or her business the moment we fucked in the dining room. Since then, it has been our business. I’ll not have my chance at happiness—yours and hers neither—I’ll not have that destroyed because you refuse to tell her the truth. What happens when she discovers that her precious parents aren’t the saints everyone paints them to be? The whole family is a mess. It is a miracle they aren’t more backwards in their views. But her mother? What kind of alpha does that? What kind of omega allows…”
Pax’s voice faded away in time with my heartbeat. What were they talking about?
“They are angry because I won’t let them in my nest. Surely that is all. Mama and Papa… How they raised us was unconventional, to say the least. That is all. And Mama was rude because she was used to be the only alpha in my life. She is protective. She wants the best for us, that is all…”
