2. Graeme
Graeme
I was hiding.
It was childish, and I knew that, but still.
Going to parties was tedious, and I would have preferred to gargle glass.
I knew if I could avoid being where I was supposed to be for another twenty minutes, I could send a courier with a note telling my host I had been, unfortunately and quite thoroughly, detained, so I had left my office early and gone home.
Now I just had to hope that Kat, my personal assistant and bodyguard, was not as tenacious as she typically was about making sure I didn’t miss an opportunity to offer for an omega who caught my eye.
Of course, to do that I had to show up at excruciatingly uncomfortable social gatherings where I felt more like a sacrificial lamb than the alpha I was.
Every three months, all across the country, one of the rich and powerful lupine families in every city hosted what was called a gathering, but everyone knew it to be an omega party, where omegas were presented.
It had to be as insufferable for them as it was for me, and I could state, unequivocally, that the practice was untenable.
They were complete and utter horror shows of vapid conversation where, somehow, the champagne was always warm and time moved at a glacial speed.
I’d never been to one where I didn’t pause as the overly-coiffed, perfumed, and swaddled-in-couture creatures were paraded up to me and wonder why they all looked malnourished and in need of sustenance.
“That’s because they’re all looking for a bonding,” my sister-in-law, Georgiana—Gigi—had apprised me with a knowing nod and a smirk over dinner the night before.
Being an alpha herself, she’d been through it as well.
“Believe me, I remember when I had to stand in front of all those preening peacocks myself. All omegas give me hives.”
Her husband, my brother, Stone, snorted out a laugh.
“Come on,” she snapped at him, one of her gorgeous copper color brows lifting, “don’t you remember what’s his name, Dabney—what was it?”
“Gilroy,” my brother and I said at the same time.
“Yes, Dabney Gilroy,” she echoed with a shudder, “with the handkerchief and the mascara and that perfume that used to make me sneeze.”
“You like mascara,” Stone reminded her with a salacious grin. “You’ve had me in lip gloss and mascara and some very scary eyeliner many times.”
I heard her breath catch as she responded to a memory combined with his pheromones and the smile that made his eyes glint. “Yes,” she murmured, swallowing hard, “I have.”
The things they did in their bedroom were not, I was certain, for the faint of heart, and I didn’t need to know. I gagged at my end of the table. Loudly.
She cleared her throat, sat up straight, and scowled. “You look stunning when I make you up, and of course I like it on me, but Stone, there are roses in the garden with more fortitude than that man ever thought of having.”
He shrugged in agreement.
“And when you dress up and let me take things off you––”
“I will vomit,” I threatened her, and my brother, the ass, snickered.
She grunted. “You know, someone told me once that the omegas don’t eat the entire day before those stupid parties. The grayish pallor is supposed to be attractive.”
“Why?” Stone asked her.
“From what I gathered, the alpha is supposed to feel like if they claimed that certain omega, then they could provide for them so they’d never go hungry again.”
“How very Gone with the Wind ,” he groaned. “That’s practically primeval. What kind of thinking is that?”
“It’s how they’re raised,” she reminded him. “From the time they’re very young, they’re made to feel small and helpless. They’re groomed to be on the hunt for an alpha to make them whole.”
Stone shivered, returning to his meal. “Just watching that debacle always gave me the creeps.”
I put up my hands in a gesture of agreement.
Gigi gasped suddenly, startling both me and my brother. “Oh dear God, I’m so sorry.”
I glanced at Stone, who shrugged, clearly just as confused as I was by her outburst.
“I…I spoke out of turn, when your dear, departed mother was an omega herself,” she rushed out, her silverware clattering noisily to her plate as she shoved her chair back and leapt to her feet, turning toward my brother. “Stone, I––”
“Stop,” he urged her gently, holding out his hand, which she grasped quickly. “My mother being an omega has absolutely no bearing on this conversation at all.”
She grimaced as she lifted her welling blue eyes to me. “Graeme, I never meant to insinuate that she was less than or––”
“Yes, dear, I know,” I soothed her. “It didn’t even cross my mind to think of her.”
She nodded fast rather than trusting her voice and a few long, stray auburn curls came loose from her messy bun.
Stone got up then, retrieved his wife’s napkin from the floor, leaned in and kissed her on the temple, then the cheek, and whispered something in her ear that allowed her to take a breath.
“Gigi,” I crooned, “love, I know your heart.”
“You do?” she whispered roughly, still on the verge of breaking down.
“Of course I do,” I assured her.
She sniffled once and then lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, regaining her composure before wiping under each eye with a quick flick of her fingers.
Retaking her seat, she accepted her napkin from her husband, placing it back in her lap before raising her crystal goblet and taking a sip of sparkling water.
“Look at me, please,” Stone murmured, his tone coaxing.
Slowly, she gave my brother her attention.
“Darling, I don’t remember anything about my mother. Do you understand?”
She nodded and I noted how pale she looked.
“Your mother is the only one I’ve ever known, and I’m thrilled she adores me so completely that I’ve basically eclipsed you, both your brothers, and your sister.”
He was teasing, laying it on thick, and it had the desired effect as she chuckled and then smiled, the devotion obvious in her gaze. “She does love you dearly and thinks of you as one of her own. God help the others when they bring home mates.”
He waggled his eyebrows at her, and when he reached over, cupping her cheek, I watched as she leaned into his touch, her sigh deep as she released all the tension of the last few moments.
“Now, tell me what you were going to say,” I insisted, taking a sip of the Merlot we’d paired with our beef bourguignon. If we were all home for dinner, we ate together. It was one of the best parts, in my estimation, of us living under the same roof.
She cleared her throat softly. “I was going to remind you that things are different for you. You’re the cyne , you have to either find a mate––”
“Which, let’s face it,” Stone said, wincing, “at this point probably isn’t in the cards.”
“Stop that,” Gigi scolded him. “That’s a terrible thing to––”
“But true,” Stone reminded her.
“It is,” I agreed.
“Yes, but––”
“Finish,” I ordered her, then gestured at my brother. “Ignore the rabble.”
She hmphed in his general direction and returned her focus to me. “As you have not found your fated beta or gamma, it’s in your best interest to bond with an omega you meet at one of these horrible parties.”
“In my best interest?” I eyed her, one eyebrow lifted.
“Fine. In the best interest of the family,” she amended.
That was more like it.
“We both know that even if Stone had never found me, or technically, if I’d never found him, being unmated wouldn’t be a problem for him or the house of Davenport or the Estate of Wakefield and Muir, because he’s not the heir.
But for you…” She trailed off, biting her bottom lip, giving me a look of sympathy. “You don’t have a choice.”
She wasn’t wrong. My grandfather, during his last trip to Chicago, had put me on notice.
Thirty-four was pushing the envelope of acceptability.
All the other cynes , meaning alphas who led holts , were already married with children.
I was the only alpha he knew of who hadn’t tied the knot.
I was sure I could look up others around the world who were just as unattached as I was, but in our circle, I was currently the odd man out.
It didn’t help that his peers and subordinates constantly brought it up to him.
“It’s too bad Stone wasn’t born first,” I muttered irritably. “This would all be moot.”
Stone grinned at me. “I would have made a terrible alpha, Graeme. I don’t have your patience or your care for the estate and the people, and trying to make heads or tails of that investment portfolio of yours is––” He thought a moment and then turned to his wife for help.
“Impossible,” she offered instead of trying to come up with something clever. “You’re the brains, Graeme. We’re simply your scrappy backup.”
“Oh yes, scrappy backup,” Stone agreed, chuckling. “I like that.”
She beamed at him, as smitten as she’d been from the beginning, and he smiled in return, the love tangible and warm between them.
I was equal parts happy for and jealous of my brother. Stone, being second born, as well as being a beta, was able to not only pick who he wanted but had never, ever had his choices be the concern of the entire family, both immediate and extended.
We lost our father young. I was four and Stone was two, and my mother was far more fragile than anyone could have ever imagined, even as omegas went.
It was true an omega suffered difficulties beyond grief if they lost their alpha, but Fiona Davenport was dangerously delicate.
After Graeme Davenport the fourth died, she fell quickly into the bottle, then turned to pills, and was dead a scant three months later.
I didn’t remember grieving her; she had never been particularly attentive and was often absent.
If I concentrated, I could recall what I thought was the sound of her singing, but I was never certain if that was an actual memory or something I’d been told.