Chapter 2
two
“Where have you been?”
My aunt sounds as tired as I feel. Which is really saying something, because I’ve been up since five a.m. and these thrifted Doc Martins finally bit a blister into the back of my heel on my four-mile walk home.
Not to mention the nice slice through the center of my palm. Courtesy of the smashed crystal I cleaned off the princes’ dining room floor.
Oh, and that last errand Dair sent me out on after he spotted me crouched under the antique table, scraping shards into my dustpan.
I’m trying my best not to recall the look on his face when I turned my head and saw him—looming on the threshold to the rest of their wing, leaning on the arched opening with a hard smirk and flashing black eyes.
“I have special guests coming,” he’d said, all loose shoulders and smug amusement. “But it seems I’m all out of the necessary protection. You wouldn’t mind running up to the market in town and fetching more for me, would you, little dove?”
I tried not to notice the way his signature black vest hung open around his lanky frame. Or how he’d unfastened one too many pearly buttons on his collared shirt. And especially not the way the silk fabric was juuuuust thin enough to hint at the black ink painted across his pecs…
No wonder I wound up agreeing to his horribly rude, completely inappropriate request. Despite my torn-up feet.
As humiliating and painful as that task was, the worst part about Dair and his rude demands always comes later. When I find myself thinking about them all the way home.
Four miles is a fair bit of time to mull. Or, really, try to talk myself out of mulling.
Still, it’s impossible not to wonder: Who are these women? Where does he meet them? What does he do to them?
And why on Earth did he come on to me that night if he has better options at his beck and call?
All my curiosities are… embarrassing, but fine. Annoying, but not hurtful.
No.
Hurtful is wondering about Ash.
If he gets women from the same circles. How he sneaks them in and out without anyone noticing. Why he’s so meticulous about cleaning up after himself in this one regard.
As stupid as it is (truly very stupid), I hate to consider it.
Which is why I often fling my thoughts over to the baron as quickly as I can.
Not that it’s a chore. Lord Sebastian Burns is, undoubtedly, the most attractive man in the country. Possibly the world.
And that isn’t just me romanticizing. He’s actually won contests . Been published at the top of international Hottest Men Alive lists.
I never need to wonder where he meets the women he entertains. Sebastian is easily the most social alpha in their pack—he attends every event, looks gorgeous in any attire, and plays every gentleman’s sport imaginable, to boot.
Thinking about the way he looks in his polo gear, fresh off a victory high—his blond hair sweat-misted and perfect lips spread in a grin—makes my lower abdomen all quivery.
Even now.
Even here .
I wince at myself, focusing on the small twin bed beside mine. Months ago, it belonged to my mother. It was where she languished for years, drifting in and out of consciousness while her health deteriorated.
My father died when I was too young to remember him. As an omega, losing her alpha mate was the worst thing that could have happened to Mama. It’s still hard for me to understand since I’m a beta and I don’t experience the same biological impulses; but many doctors over the years tried to explain it to me.
The bond sickness my mother battled is almost always fatal. It usually isn’t so tragic, as most omegas who lose their bonded alpha mates tend to be elderly. My poor mother, though, dealt with steadily diminished health for nearly two decades before she finally found peace.
About five years ago, things got so bad she started needing help with her work. Two years after that, she had to stop working entirely.
That all happened during my final year of college. I dropped out and moved home to replace her income at the manor with my own. My aunt, Matilda, used to make the majority of our money—but the worse Mama got, the more help she required. Aunt Matilda eventually wound up staying home, too.
It left me paying the rent, but I never minded hard work and keeping busy.
The final year of Mama’s illness was the worst. She barely ever woke up, and when she did, she usually mumbled incoherently for my father. Those were the times I most wished I’d had a chance to know him, even for a little while—any story I could have told my mother might have helped.
In the end, her death felt like a mercy. She so clearly needed to be with him… I’d been praying she would find her way to peace for a long time, wishing on stars that my parents might make their way back to each other in some other realm.
I may have breathed a sigh of relief to know my mother wasn’t suffering anymore, but it was short-lived. Years of advanced medical care created quite a mountain of bills—and when my mother passed, they all fell to me.
Matilda still isn’t happy I’ve gone from paying all the rent to only being able to afford half. She comes to stand in the doorway of my bedroom, throwing her hands on her hips. “I thought you said you were working late tonight.”
Considering most of the other maids finish before five and it’s nearly eleven p.m., I did. Instead of arguing, I mumble something about earning time-and-a-half all week. Gracie texted a few hours ago to tell me the king and queen have decided to throw a big party and they’ll need extra help leading up to it.
Matilda harrumphs, somewhat mollified. “Between that and the mending your mother’s former clients dropped off this week, you should be able to cover our rent and your medical bills this month. By the way, the receipt for your portion of the groceries is on the counter. And I left a smoothie for you in the fridge.”
My aunt believes in nothing so much as she believes in the healing power of a green smoothie. She’s been making them every day, for everyone in the house, for as long as I can remember.
Extra protein for my scrawny self. Green tea and ginger to keep my cousins trim. We’re all betas so, according to my aunt, we “need all the help we can get” attracting suitors.
Well, I don’t really want any suitors. And the idea of drinking liquefied kale isn’t necessarily my favorite . But it’s food I don’t have to prepare or clean up, and it’s healthy.
I thank her and nod, keeping my eyes down. Out of my periphery, I catch her gray eyes glinting as they sweep over the one piece of furniture in my room—a worn dresser with Mama’s urn on it. Aunt Matilda blinks, her drawn features narrowing.
Before she can speak again, her daughters trounce into the apartment, mid-argument.
“It was fucking pathetic,” Caitlin sneers. “You could have at least pretended you have some dignity.”
“He won’t know it was me calling him,” Claire flings back, her face every bit as angular as her mother and sister’s, especially while twisted in amusement. “Didn’t you notice I used your phone?”
Caitlin screeches. “You little bitch!”
“Girls, girls,” Matilda chuckles as if their bickering is endearing, somehow. To her, I suppose it might be. They all have the same cutting sense of humor—one I’m not quite sharp enough to keep up with.
“We only came home to change,” Claire announces. “We’re meeting some guys at the pub.”
They don’t invite me, but that’s fine; I can barely keep myself upright at this point. Still, after my cousins saunter to their room and emerge looking like glamorous twenty-somethings, watching them leave has silly tears rising in my throat.
Matilda waves them out, then turns to me with a new gleam in her gaze. “I’m also going out to meet a gentleman friend,” she announces. Something sly slides into her expression. “I was wondering if I might be able to borrow your necklace. You know—the heart one?”
My hand automatically flies to my chest, where the locket sits under my work uniform. Instead of grabbing it, I force myself to lay my palm flat against my sternum, hoping I haven’t given too much away.
“W-why?”
I might not be as cunning and calculated as my aunt or her daughters, but I have noticed that all of my mother’s jewelry has steadily gone missing over the past few years. Every piece but the one she gifted me on my sixteenth birthday. A necklace my father once gave to her.
…and the same one Asher untangled from my hair the day he kissed me for the first time.
It’s the one and only item I’ve managed to save for myself. I suspect Matilda sold everything else of value—not that the thin silver chain and slender locket would fetch much money. They have far more sentimental value than anything else.
Matilda notices the way I guard the chain around my neck, her gray eyes gleaming with avarice. “I just think it would look good with my outfit.”
Her red dress seems fancier than my simple locket, but I find myself starting to unclasp the necklace anyway. A pound at the door startles us both, and she gasps, whirling to look at herself in the mirror she keeps hanging in the hallway.
“I haven’t even finished my hair,” she snaps, bustling out of my room. Relief bursts the bubble of panic strangling me when she scoops up her purse and pauses to clip her dirty-blonde hair back.
The man waiting for her looks like her type—dressed in a suit, smiling widely.
Wearing a wedding band.
She likes married men, she once told me after half a bottle of wine, because they’re always the most willing to pay handsomely for a woman’s silence. Since she’s made dating advantageously into a career of sorts, the preference for guys who need to keep her quiet about their extracurricular activities makes a horrible sort of sense.
As the front door slams shut, a sob sneaks into my throat. Then another. Until I’m standing in our dark, empty hallway, fisting the charm around my neck and crying for no reason.
But it doesn’t matter how tired I am or how shaky I’ve felt all day. Aunt Matilda was right—the mending needs to be done if I want to pay our rent this month.
Besides, I doubt I’ll be sleeping well tonight, anyway. No matter how depleted my body feels, as soon as I lie down and close my eyes, Dair’s dark smirk will float to the top of my brain.
Followed by Sebastian’s friendly, oblivious grin when I got back with the duke’s “protection.” How he waved to me from their couch, utterly unbothered by the noises coming from Dair’s bedroom as he watched me hang the bag of condoms on the polished brass handle, knock briskly, and scurry off as fast as I could.
And even if— if —I can somehow stop cringing over all of that … it won’t matter. Because my last thought will always be Asher.
Ash .
And tonight? I won’t be able to stop reliving the way he had to march off to face his father.
Like a man walking to the gallows.
Remembering the hollow, grim look on his face, I turn on the oven and hunt for a pincushion. I’ll keep myself busy , I decide. And do everything I can to help where I’m able .
Slumping into the old metal chair under the galley kitchen’s only window, I turn to look down at the street. Our neighborhood used to be ramshackle in a charming sort of way—but as the years go on, the signs of disrepair have slowly overtaken whatever historic ambiance the worn brick roads and stooped row houses once had.
Now, it all looks as exhausted as the rest of us.
I feel it in my bones today. A familiar slither of fear snakes around my stomach, tickling the base of my lungs until they pinch. A hard tremble judders through me, leaving my fingers too shaky to thread Mama’s needle.
Shutting my eyes, I exhale slowly, repeating what every one of the village’s free clinic doctors have told me for years.
Just health anxiety.
Perfect specimen of a beta.
Extremely fit and resilient.
And, my favorite: The only thing that’s wrong with you is your head, girl .
Well, I can’t exactly argue with that. Talking to birds and rodents is my favorite hobby, and I routinely fantasize about a guy who doesn’t even remember spending three summers with me a million years ago.
Who’s also, you know.
The literal prince .
With another wince, I force a hard exhale and ignore the seethe in my middle. The lightness that spins through the back of my skull and the spots that dance across my vision.
I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. This is just anxiety, and it will pass .
Needing a distraction, I lift my chin and peer up at the inky sky. My gaze snags on the first star it stumbles over—a low, shining pinprick in the dark velvet fabric overhead.
I stare, imagining there really is a vast universe of light stretched beyond that one small speck of brightness. Focusing on the way it seems to wink at me and how the blurs dotting my vision fade away the longer I look.
Remembering far too much.
“Did you make a wish,” he’d asked, closer than he normally stood.
“No, silly!” I laughed softly. “You can only make a wish on the first star you see. Otherwise, it’s bad luck.”
Ash’s mouth softened into a warm curve that matched his gold-green eyes. “Says who, goose?”
I’d waved my hands at the heavens with an eye-roll. “You know—the universe!”
That earned me one of his secret smiles—where his eyes shimmered with mirth while his lips somehow got sterner. “Mm. Well. If the universe says so.”
And his… his hand, so very tentative as it settled under my elbow. When I didn’t move—didn’t dare even breathe , for fear he would stop—he stepped closer. Almost flush against my back.
Bending to put us cheek-to-cheek, scanning the sky. “Which one did you spot first? We’ll both wish on it.”
I shook slightly as his deep murmur sank into my shoulders, stammering a reply. “B-but then you’ll have bad luck.”
“ Your wish will come true, though,” he’d hummed, earnest as ever. “So it will be worth it.”
What did I wish for that day? Whatever it was, I’m sure it didn’t come true.
But is that any reason not to try again?
Mama would’ve said no, so I let my eyes fall shut for one more moment. And wish all over again.