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BEATRICE
My sister senther own carriage and Jude to collect me. The large beta helped me into the carriage, then slumped against the back facing seat. He seemed disinclined to talk until the carriage rocked to a halt in front of a narrow wrought-iron gate belonging to a house I knew all too well.
“She doesn’t like people staying at her house.” Jude interpreted my thoughts.
“I’m not people. I’m her sister,” I said with some asperity, too astounded that Hippolyta’s house was the one the Markhams had built, where I had stayed after my first heat with Jack. I did not want to stay in the carriage a moment longer. I wanted and feared to enter the square brick building at the end of the long gravel walk. I reached for the door but Jude grabbed my wrist, preventing me from leaving. “I think you’d—”
“Don’t care what you think. She’ll be staying there for the duration of your stay, which means I’m not there to protect her.”
“What?” I blinked in confusion.
“You think she lets me stay near her when she is at the omega house? Goddess, she hasn’t told you. Fine. But I don’t like her going a day without someone looking after her and she won’t even let betas in the place we are going.”
I frowned at his phrasing. He spoke as if he wasn’t a beta. Perhaps he just meant he was her bodyguard.
“Unhand me, sir. I would like to get out.”
With a muttered curse, Jude let me go and pushed open the door, let down the steps and held my hand like a true gentleman to help me out.
“This is as far as I can go.” He sounded pained and even furious that he could not go further. “She…” he looked up at the facade and cursed again in a language I recognised as German. “She doesn’t understand—”
“Jude?” He looked down at me. So, so tall for a beta. I always forgot, unless we were close and I could smell him, that he was in fact a beta. “Jude… Hippolyta is… I should not say this perhaps, but I think you care for my sister a little more than her bodyguard and, ah, lover? No need to answer. Everyone, do you hear me? Everyone deserves to have someone who wants to help carry those burdens big and small. Do not hope for anything with my sister. She shut herself off a long time ago. I do not know what happened, but something must have.”
Jude made a choked sound, his nostrils flaring, and I could swear his teeth ground together. I reached out and took his hands in mine, petting them like I might a child. It was clear he was in love with her, but it would not happen. At least, not how he wanted. He might be a beta and therefore not a perceived threat, but loneliness was an ingrained habit for Polly at this point.
“Jude.” We both turned to see my sister standing on the other side of the gate. Her face was like a thundercloud. “Why are you touching my sister? Sister, why are you touching my,” she glared at Jude. “My servant.”
Jude pulled away. I worried he was humiliated, because she had called him servant to hurt him, I was sure of it. But instead he prowled to the gate and matched her stare for stare. “Don’t push me. I’ve kept my word. But only because I choose to.”
My heart thundered in my chest, waiting for her outburst, for her to unleash her temper. No, Polly surprised me and just gave him a stiff little nod.
“Beatrice, your mates no doubt expect a letter informing them you arrived safely. If you are quick, there is paper and pen in the hall. I’m sure Jude will be happy to take it to them.”
I nearly ran to the house and through the open door. I didn’t take the time to think about the onslaught of omega scents, instead I scrambled for paper and pen and ink. The note finished, I ran back to hand it to Jude.
They stood, not quite touching… No, they were touching. One of her hands was wrapped around his thumb. I had an immediate flashback to our childhood when, as a little girl, she’d clung to our father like that. She trusted Jude. The knowledge broke my heart when it should have healed it. I trusted Jude. My mates did as well, and yet knowing my sister trusted him, filled me with a strange foreboding.
I handed my letter and watched fascinated as Jude gave Polly one last lingering look before leaving.
“Come sister.” Polly led me back into the house. Nothing had moved in the ten years, all the furniture and fabrics the same, though faded and threadbare in places. She led me straight to a small book room where she pushed me none too gently into a chair. “I must warn you never to speak of what you see here.”
“What—”
“I help omegas.”
“I can certainly smell omegas.”
“If I hear that an omega is in danger, I removed them from their home. Bring them here. Help them… and eventually they move on.”
“How many?” I asked.
“Five, ten… I—”
“Hippolyta, how many.”
“Seven… Most of them are happy with an alpha… Two are here now… Though you will not see them. For their own safety.”
“Polly!”
“No. I will not budge on this. One is recovering and in no fit state to see anyone. He was how I learnt about heats being forced. The second… I trust you, but she is a child, wild and romantic. She is thirteen, her first heat, and wanted to elope to the Americas with an alpha who was older than your mate.” She pressed her lips together.
“You are their saviour then.” But I didn’t believe it. Not entirely. For certain, my sister was right to save these omegas, but to what end with the child? What fate could an omega who’d gone through such a horrible experience as a forced heat have? Would they ever permit an alpha to touch them? I pressed my fingers to my temples, already wishing for the simpler times when the only complication in my life was convincing Pax to let me nap on my own. “Very well… Hopefully I’ll be home quickly, that you—and your guests—can return to normal.”
“Best of sisters.” Polly wrapped her arms around my shoulders, hugging me. It was an awkward angle, but I tugged her closer. “I hope you go home as well. To those alphas who love you so well.”
