AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Walking home cleared my head. I tried whistling. Tried to sing a ditty I remembered hearing in Spain. And it all tracked back to the look on Trix’s face after her nightmare. So haunted and afraid. Her dreams were the one place we could not protect her. It called forth an ugliness and desire to feel my hands about his throat squeezing the life out of Stimpson’s body.
“Good to see you Colonel.” I looked down at the sound of Polly’s voice. She sniffed me. “You smell of Puck and sex. Does my sister know what you are doing?”
“No.” I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t fuck Puck. Could you really think that of me?”
“Of course not. He is another matter entirely. Come with me. While I don’t think you smell of that… I dislike family smelling of him.” Her nostrils flared. “He has no moral compass.”
“Do you have one?”
“I’ll ignore that. You’ll want to bathe before returning. Bea will be jealous. Pax worse.”
My cheeks felt hot with anger at her presumption my mates would for a moment I’d fuck anyone but them. “You aren’t like any omega. You are more like an alpha.”
She growled, deep and terrifying. “I will never be an alpha. Nor will I be a snivelling omega subject to my heats and slick.”
“Polly…” I reached out and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at me. “Did an alpha hurt you?”
Her eyes flashed. “I would kill any alpha who hurt me.”
I nodded. It was answer enough.
She led me into a small suite of rooms cramped with too much furniture and trunks shoved against the wall and stacked precariously on each other.
“Your loot?” I asked.
“Through here.”
The small bedchamber lacked a window. Everything about it smelt and looked like a nest, which gave me pause. “I can’t go into your nest.”
“It isn’t a nest,” she ground out.
“I won’t. Polly, whatever you might think, this is a nest. I won’t enter it.”
“Fine.” She grabbed the pewter wash basin and jug and banged them on the table in the middle of the room. “Wash the scent off and return to your mates.”
“Who hurt you?” Where the instinct to ask again came from, I didn’t know. But a dread that this woman, who I remembered so well as a cunning, smiling child, had been hurt, sent a chill through me.
“No one hurt me, Jack,” she whispered. “No one hurt me… But that doesn’t mean—”
I pulled her into a hug. She struggled for a bit and then froze. Not relaxing, just staying still—scenting me.
“Polly… Sweet Polly. You don’t need to be strong all the time… You were such a sweet child. Whatever happened, know I shall stand in place of an alpha should you need one.” Her struggles became more violent, but I exerted a mere fraction of my strength to hold her close. “Hush… Just relax and let someone take care of—”
“Get your hands off her.” The words were soft, but full of fury. “If you don’t let her go, you won’t be walking out of this room alive.”
Jude, her perpetual shadow, stood in the door way, his whole body tense, but most importantly a pistol pointed right at me.
“You could miss,” I warned him.
“Let me go, Jack.” Polly put her hands on my chest and gave a little push. She sounded calmer, so I released her.
Jude immediately put the gun down on the table. He grabbed her around her waist and shoved her behind him.
“I can handle myself,” she protested. The air was tense as the two lovers stared each other down.
“Get out of here. Unless you want to join us?” Jude asked without looking at me. “That is what you like, isn’t it? One just isn’t enough.”
I couldn’t tell if the second part of his speech was directed at me or at Polly, who was growling softly at him.
