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My mate, even if I didn’t carry his mark nor he mine, was dressed with more precision than normal for the hour. As lord of the Hell, he rarely got up before noon and the weak light coming in through the window told me midday was many hours away.
“They want to perform the service today,” he said in that clipped way of his. “Some aristocrat died and the priests have said we either bury Sarah now or they drop her into a pauper’s grave. Fucking terrible timing. But that was Sarah, always disrupting my plans.”
The bastard actually spoke like that in front of Polly. I knew he had cared for Sarah—his caustic tone merely a mask. I knew he wanted to burn the world down until the only titles were endearments or curses. Polly, though, had no experience with Oberon and he deserved the look of disgust that took over her face.
7
Polly
Bile rose in my throat at the callus way Oberon spoke of Sarah. I tried to swallow it down but the twin alpha growls caused my stomach to heave. “I’m going to be unwell,” I managed before turning away and blindly searching for a bucket. Impossible in my cage. I pressed a hand over my mouth and squeezed my eyes closed.
A crash of a porcelain on the floor, the snick of the lock, and then Puck thrust a jug into my hands. I heaved over and over again. First the scant meal with Oberon, then bile, then dry heaving.
“Hush,” the alpha purred.
My soul, broken from the grief of losing Sarah, shattered under his care. An alpha demonstrating more compassion than I could ever remember. Even Jude’s beta kindnesses had been restrained. Not so with Puck. I chanced it and looked at him. It was written all over his face: Puck wanted to touch me. His hands halfway between us, his eyes dark, and his spicy scent bitter with anger.
“If you want to be there, I’ll make it happen,” he growled low. There. He meant at the grave. Omegas were not permitted to attend the grave-side rites. Too emotional according to the priests and priestesses. “You English and that backwards need to shield omegas from death—”
“Puck.” Oberon’s sharp bark had no power. Then he surprised me and thrust a flask into my face. “Drink.”
I sipped and relished the burn that went some way to washing away the taste of vomit.
“The only people in the universe who should be there are us,” Puck snarled over his shoulder at the other alpha. “Denying a last goodbye is a cruelty of your people, not mine. I won’t participate in that show of grief which—”
The breath I held quivered free. I had not thought to go. All the raging against an omega’s place in society and like a meek dormouse I’d prepared to myself to stay in my cage until they returned. Never had I even contemplated Puck or anyone thinking I should go to the gravesite for Sarah’s last rites.
“Please, go for me,” I whispered and clutched the back of his shirt. “If I thought I could…”
I released it almost immediately. I had not willingly touched an alpha unrelated to me in ten years but in my moment of need I had latched on to him, desperate for the assurance an alpha could give.
“I don’t want to leave you here.”
I swayed towards him. Not physically, I still had some control. But my heart—fickle, bruised, and grieving—leant into the embrace of his words. The world it seemed had shrunk to the pair of us. Longing the only emotion afforded to our two lonely souls. “She danced through life,” I reminded him. “She danced through life and when her feet grew weary, she lay in our arms before the music called her back into the swirl of gaiety she’d not give up for the world. That is what she told me.”
“Dancing for her supper that she might feast on us.” He sounded so pained. And goddess I wanted to wrap my arms around him and tell him she lived in our hearts. Just as I had comforted the twins after our father’s death, as I had comforted Bea, I wanted to comfort Puck. An alpha. An alpha who had played no small part in my current captivity. “Come. We can mask your scent, the priest doesn’t need to know. You have every right to be there. My people would never keep you away.”
His people. Oh goddess, in that moment how I wanted to relent and be his people.
“I’ll stay. I’ll stay. Let me pay for the rites, though. Please,” I sounded so weak, pleading with them for the right to pay for her funeral.
“Yes, if you wish it.”
“And this, put this around her neck for me.” I reached for the clasp of the simple coral necklace I’d worn since I’d presented as an omega. Sarah had loved it, for she said my cheeks flushed the same colour when her head was between my legs. My fingers were clumsy, and I struggled with the clasp.
“Turn,” Puck instructed. I did as he asked and held my breath when he brushed my hair aside. Then the merest brush of his fingers against my neck. The faint tug of the beads on my throat as he fiddled with the clasp. Once undone, he pulled it free. “I’ll get it to her.”
I kept my eyes on the back wall of my cage, listened as they locked the door, and then shunted the deadbolt home. They had left the door to the cage itself open.
In the still silence, I heard Sarah’s teasing voice. You? Caged? Oh, Polly, I envy you… I’ve always wanted to be desired so much that I’d be locked up. Do you think—
“No, Sarah. I do not think. I’m too afraid to think. I’m too afraid to feel. I’m too afraid.”
Then what are you? You’re always something, Polly. My queen has feelings. Mainly anger of course. But you should ask your sister if I kissed. Remember how I wanted to gather kisses of all the Hartwell sisters?
“SHUT! UP!” I screamed. “Oh, dear goddess, be silent. Be silent if you cannot be here. I cannot hear your voice and know you are sleeping, cold and alone in the temple. Please, Sarah… don’t haunt me with your joy… It is my fault,” I realised. “It is my fault you got caught up with those bastard alphas. My fault you became his lover. My fault… And I’ll pay for that. My soul will pay for that forever.”
I waited for her to argue. She loved to argue… to get a rise out of me. But the begged for silence dominated my mind. It was like I’d killed her all over again. I buried my face in a pillow and let the tears fall. “I’m so sorry… forgive me…”
