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“Where is this cloister of yours located, omega?” Sebastian asked.
The omega under his arm shivered. Possibly with cold, as he had no doublet or jerkin and his hose had worn quite thin. Cloisters were sponsored by the local dragon. In this case, Harbert. Sebastian had never heard he was a parsimonious sort, but dragons could be deceiving. This would all need to be reported to Father. He wanted to make a bid for head of the council in the next century or so, and any bit of information regarding the finances of another dragon would be useful.
“Not much farther, my lord,” said the omega. “It’s just after the bend in the road.”
Sebastian grunted his acknowledgment.
“You cannot go around purloining omegas,” his brother, Alistair, bleated in his ear like a troublesome insect. “It isn’t done. Especially since you’re not sanctioned!”
“Write Geoffrey and have him make arrangements. My finances are not an embarrassment to the family.”
“Have you gone utterly mad?” shouted Alistair, ignoring the dig at his paltry hoard. “Since when did you want to try for a clutch? We’re on a journey, Sebastian. This is no time to set up your nursery with random omegas.”
The young omega he held stiffened and Sebastian tightened his grip so he wouldn’t fall.
A clutch had honestly not occurred to Sebastian. He just knew, when he’d seen the omega, a feeling of rightness that he’d never before experienced. This man was not in any way random. He was Sebastian’s. He felt it in his scales.
Alistair was not so convinced. “Why don’t you express your interest to the cloister and they can hold on to him until we return? That seems like a reasonable option.”
Sebastian stopped and Alistair, too busy spouting nonsense to pay attention, walked into his back. Not that Sebastian was in any way discomforted. Alistair, runt of the clutch, was as likely to knock Sebastian over as a goose feather to fell a mighty elm.
“No,” Sebastian said, scowling at his brother. “The omega comes with me.”
Alistair sighed deeply. “Fine, brother. Don’t listen to my advice. I see reasoning with you is quite useless.”
Sebastian grunted and began walking toward what had to be the cloister Peregrine had mentioned. The one run by the matron with the strange-sounding name. It was a wattle and daub half-timbered structure comprised of three stories with a large barn behind. The fenced-in pasture contained both cows and horses. All looked to be better cared for than the omega he clutched to him.
Sebastian began to grind his teeth.
A frumpy woman of late middle age flew out of the cloister’s front entrance and started screeching in a way that was even more annoying than Alistair. “Peregrine! You lazy, evil omega. What have you done now?”
Sebastian put down the barrel of fish with a thump at the matron’s feet, just barely missing the toes of her soft shoes. He then gently put down his omega. He cupped the boy’s face in one hand and looked into eyes the same delicate blue of harebells. “Do not move,” he admonished. “I’ve little time today to chase down an omega. Do not run from me.”
The pale blue eyes scrutinized him. Coming to some sort of internal conclusion, the omega nodded his head once in assent.
That settled, Sebastian turned to see the matron closing in on his omega.
“Peregrine!” she cawed. “I swear, this time it will be a week with no supper. What have you done, you miserable creature?”
Beside him, the omega quivered but said nothing in his defense.
“I say,” Alistair began, sounding like an injured peacock. “There’s no need for—”
Speaking in his very halting Frisian, Sebastian interrupted his brother’s squawking. “The omega is mine. Have the paperwork drawn up and forwarded to Geoffrey Drake in Richmond.”
The beta matron’s jaw fell open unattractively, then she dropped into a deep curtsy. “Sir,” she said, switching to English. “My lord, I humbly beg your pardon on behalf of the omega. He has long been a thorn in my side. You can’t mean you wish to contract with the creature. He is the get of a Disgrace and therefore a Disgrace himself. We have much better omegas with spotless lineages. Why don’t I show you them instead?”
Beside him, Peregrine stiffened up like a poker. Sebastian looked down and saw bright scarlet shame color his ears.
It made Sebastian want to destroy something—something like the miserable excuse for a cloister—pulling it down brick by brick and beam by beam until nothing was left but rubble.
He sighed. Alas, there was no time.
“The omega is mine. That is the end of it. My father and brother will take care of whatever legalities exist. Have the omega’s things packed in a trunk and brought down. We are leaving with the morning tide.”
Alistair clutched at his long hair. “This is madness, and somehow I will be to blame for it. Mark my words, Sebastian. Father will hold me responsible for you absconding with a Pedigree omega, and a Disgrace at that. What can you be thinking?”
Thinking had no part in the matter. It rarely did. Sebastian trusted his instincts, and they had told him the omega belonged to him. That was the beginning and end of it.
