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“I’m not asking, little bird.” The disdain for Jude had fled and in its place a firm command. “You must understand the degree of pain he was in. What he was putting himself through, the risk he took in stopping the alpha’s bane.”
“How did you know I needed tending?” She asked suddenly.
“Passing here your scent was strong.” Oberon replied. “But it was Jude who warned us you might want some relief. That was you’re close to your time.”
I would not question his decision to withhold the knowledge that we knew she had somehow snuck out of her cage to see him—had smelled her in his room. Perhaps Oberon wanted catch her in the act. Most likely it was just Moth leaving the bolt undone and then locking it when she returned.
“Very well.”
We moved back, allowing Polly to escape her cage and pull on one of my old dressing gowns which I’d brought with me. As I pulled on breeches and a shirt, I felt the alpha satisfaction of seeing her burying her face into the collar. She wrinkled her nose but did not shrug out of it. Just belted it tight around her waist before sailing out of her room in her normal, queenly way. At the stairs she stumbled and when I caught her by the elbow, she scattered my wits by leaning into me. Unconscious I believed, for it wasn’t until we reached the landing that her eyes flashed for a hard second before I let her free.
She moved forward in a daze. Hands shaking by her sides. I’d not let her do this on her own. I’d not scare her off by pushing my luck either. So I twined the cord of the dressing gown between my fingers.
With every step, Jude’s howling became wilder, more animal.
But it was only as we stepped into the attic room that the full impact of Jude’s detoxing became clear. His size was something to behold, and even though we’d restrained him, he thrashed against the manacles. As a beta he’d been huge but as the poison left his body and his humours realigned, a denseness of his muscles began to make him more alpha. Even his scent had changed. Beneath the sweat and bitterness, Jude smelled of oiled leather.
“I’ll kill them. I’ll rend them limb from limb if they touched you!” he roared, his muscles bulging with a final, hard wrenching motion he pulled the pin free from the wall, and like a drunkard he lurched towards Polly.
“Jude, no. They did not touch me.” She said, sounding irritated even while she backed into my chest, her whole body trembling. And I shouldn’t care, but dammit it was the first time she’d touched me of her own free will. But what struck me was our mingled scents. No wonder he threatened us. Alpha and omega pheromones filled my nostrils and I sucked in another breath.
In his rage he had not heard or did not believe or perhaps he did not care about the truth.
He wasn’t within touching distance when he took a wild swing that sent him stumbling forward. But he righted himself in the next step and turned his wrathful gaze on me.
“You hurt her,” he snarled, and it was not so hard to imagine that he aimed his words at himself rather me or Oberon. “You should not have touched her!”
That fierceness took a turn when he stepped closer and the moonlight cut across his face. His eyes were mirrored. Not quite an alpha’s mirrored gold but near it. His true nature clawing to get free and attack anyone he perceived to be a danger to his mate, for there was no doubt in my mind. Jude believed Polly was his mate.
“Jude. You behaviour is insupportable,” she snapped. “Stop this madness at once.”
“Dammit.” I thrust Polly aside when she did not move and squared up to Jude. Fists ready, my thought was to protect her. No matter that she might be some rare, valuable apex omega who could go into her own feral rage. She was significantly smaller than the rest of us and the quarters were close. “Fool! You’ll hurt her. If you want to attempt a punch, let’s do it where Pol won’t be at risk.”
“Let him come at you,” Oberon jeered. “Jude here is still undetermined if he wants to be beaten to a pulp, his manly pride crushed beneath her heel, or if he wants to beg for forgiveness.”
“All three,” the giant alpha growled. Without warning, he spun away from me and charged Oberon, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him into the wall with a sickening thud. “But first, I shall destroy you for hurting her.”
14
Polly
Ifelt rather than heard the scream I made when Jude turned and attacked Oberon.
Their movements stuttered to a standstill. Jude’s hand tightening around Oberon’s throat, Puck’s fist drawing back, reading to break Jude’s jaw, and Oberon’s face turning an ugly shade of puce not unlike the bruise on my cheek.
Then, Conny behind me. I turned my head and saw her crowded against the wall. Her hands raised, trembling to her face, her mouth open in a scream I could not hear, and legs kicking out as she tried to get away from the alphas who appeared determined to kill each other.
I raised a hand to let her know all was well. I’d help her. Protect her from the three brutes, each twice my size. The goddess had cursed me but I would bend my freakish nature to my will and use it to protect her and any other my omega deemed in danger.
As the change took over, the soft ringing in my ears distorted the sound around me. Like when you were underwater and someone tried to speak with you. So I could not make out the insults they hurled, the profanities they uttered, or threats. Nothing but a muffled cacophony.
I slipped beneath Jude’s arm, inserting my body between him and Oberon. Too swiftly, too smoothly for them to notice until I raised my knee, catching Jude in the groin and then the arch of Oberon’s bare foot. They dropped each other and reared back. Jude bending over and Oberon cursing. I shot out an elbow, digging it into Oberon’s side before pushing into Jude, who lost his balance and toppled to the ground.
The world picked up speed causing me to stumble back inside my body, a weak, mortal sack of flesh that felt unnatural in the moments that followed one of my… attacks. For once that word, which I’d hated as a child felt right. I’d attacked two alphas. Put myself in harm’s way and not to protect an omega but to prevent two alphas, two alphas from hurting each other. Why? My mind screamed and clawed for answers.
“Goddess.” Puck stood to the side, his face slack as he took in the sight of two alphas felled by a diminutive omega, naked but for a man’s dressing gown. His, I realised. I wanted to shed it like a snake shed its skin but the thought of being naked in a room full of alpha idiocy meant the garment would stay on.
Both Jude and Oberon at least had the good sense to stay off each other. Thank the goddess for her lesser miracles.
