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“Pol! Pol! Pol!” Tod streaked into the room in nothing but his nightshirt. “Cook wants me to drink fish oil. But I won’t. I won’t.”
I caught him up and strode towards the door. “You’ll do what cook says.”
“Who’s the angry lady?” he asked.
“None of your business.”
“Stop. This is Thaddeus?”
“I don’t answer by that name. Not even aunt Pol calls me that when I’m misbehaving.” He paused. I could feel how his little body became still. “This your mama, aunty?”
I rubbed his back. More to soothe myself than him. “Yes.”
He leant back in my arms to get a good look at my face. “You look alike. I think because I’m so clever I shouldn’t have to have the fish oil.”
“That’s a poor argument,” my mother said. I clenched my jaw rather than remember being his age and having similar standoffs with her about things like fish oil. “You should do as your…your aunt says.”
“I don’t listen to no alpha!” he responded with uninhibited glee. “I’m going to be an omega like aunt Pol and do whatever I want.”
“I—“
“Tod, go and have a spoon of the fish oil like cooks says. I’ll give you something sweet at bedtime if you do.”
He giggled and pressed a sloppy kiss on my cheek before wriggling down and running out the door.
I turned to see my mother exactly as she had been. The only indication she’d just seen her grandchild was a faint colour in her cheek. “Well?”
“He’s very like the twins,” she said at last. “I’m glad your father told me that lie.”
“How dare you?”
“I mean it for the best. That child…” She raised her hand in the vague direction of the door. “He would have been too painful a reminder for your sister. She would never have moved on and made something of herself.”
“Out mother. Dear goddess, do you really not understand? Out before I tell my mates what you have said. Our shared blood alone is what is keeping you alive.”
She hesitated when she came within touching distance. “I went wrong with you,” she sighed. “Somewhere along the way, I went wrong with you. You—”
“Out,” I barked, taking a decided thrill when she flinched. “And if you know what is best for you, make a protracted visit to the continent. For if I hear you are in London within a fortnight, I shall have you shipped to Australia.”
“You dare cut your family to shreds?”
“No. I dare to protect it. Now. I have a nephew who must be forced to eat his vegetables. And that is a damn sight more important than arguing with you.”
And I was surprised to find that I spoke the truth. A lightness came over me and instead of waiting for her to leave, I brushed past her and went to hunt down Cook. I wanted them to make all of Tod’s favourite foods. If our meal tonight was to be all cakes, so be it.
30
Oberon
After a dinner of grape jelly, kedgeree, and host of sweet puddings, Polly dared an overactive Tod that he couldn’t run from the basement to the top of the house and back again five times in twenty minutes. One glance at the adults and he knew himself dismissed but the bribe of a guinea hand him tearing off shouting over his shoulder he could do it ten times.
“Hippolyta. That was ill done. I’ve not interest in having my nephew run in on me while you are on my knot.”
“Oh.” She flushed. “I think I must recover before allowing anyone to knot me. No. I wish to make a proposal. Omegas. I want them to be invited to the Hell.”
“So we are opening the Hell to omegas?” I cooed. “How very generous of you.”
“I’ll not apologise. Not for that or anything I’ve ever said to that woman.” She thrust a finger in my face, which I caught and brought to my lips, giving it a nipping kiss.
