12. Graeme
Graeme
A s a cyne , there were things I had the authority to do.
For example, I could demand, by virtue of my title alone, that another alpha make any member of their holt —or if there was no holt , then their family—accessible to me.
Only a cyne of equal power, with the same wealth and resources, could decline my request. As Jerome Mills, Bridget’s father, was merely an alpha, I appeared at his front door with Wade and Avery and demanded an audience with his children, as was my right.
Detective Massey, who insisted I call him Wade, was amazed that Mr. Mills could neither turn us away nor demand that we return in possession of a warrant. He was, however, within his rights to remain during the questioning, though he was not permitted to interrupt or interfere in the interview.
After both women dressed, they came into the library to speak with us. When Mr. Mills declined his right to stay, to listen and offer emotional support to his first-born daughter, Bridget, and his second-born, Saoirse, both omegas, I was appalled.
“What the hell?” Wade asked the man’s retreating back as he closed the library door, leaving us alone with them. “Don’t they need a chaperone or something?”
“I appreciate your concern for my reputation, Detective,” Bridget told Wade, smiling at him sadly, “but the fact is, if Mr. Davenport were inappropriate with either my sister or myself, that would be a boon for my father, as not just an alpha, but a cyne , would have to offer for our contracts.”
Wade moved to sit down in front of Bridget on a heavy, ornately carved coffee table. “I think that’s messed up, Miss Mills.”
“Bridget, please.”
“Bridget,” he repeated. “Could you please tell us––”
“If you would hold that thought one moment, Detective,” she imparted sweetly before she grabbed one of the throw pillows beside her and flung it at Avery’s head.
“We’re friends, you asshole!” Bridget snarled at my mate, rising and quickly slipping around Wade, closing the distance between herself and Avery, lifting her hand as though to strike him.
I was about to interfere.
“You hit me, and I will hit you right fuckin’ back,” he snapped at Bridget, crossing his arms, glowering at her. “And you know I will.”
She crossed her arms, mirroring him, staring daggers.
He pointed at Saoirse. “Nice dye job.”
Bridget’s eyes widened in the anger I could feel rippling around her. “You think that was my idea?”
Saoirse screamed then, standing up, hands clenched into fists, stomping around Wade as well, moving behind the couch so she could pace, and shrieked at my mate, “Avery, it’s my turn!”
“Sit your ass down,” Bridget demanded, spinning to face Saoirse but not moving away from Avery. “This is all your fault!”
Saoirse lifted her fists and screamed again, whipping around the couch, ready to charge over to her sister.
“You will sit. Now,” I commanded, compelling her with the strength in my voice and releasing just a trace of my pheromones.
Saoirse dropped into the closest chair, the one near the end of the coffee table, shivering with rage over her inability to defy me, her wolf submitting to my rank and power.
“What the hell?” Wade breathed out, glancing at Avery, who gave him a slight shake of his head.
“It’s fine,” Avery promised his partner before retuning his attention to Bridget. “You need to come clean right fuckin’ now so I can protect you.”
She pressed her lips together tight, as though she wanted to talk to him but was afraid to. She was visibly forcing herself to hold in the words she wanted to share.
“Listen to me,” he urged her, “I know, sure as I’m standing here, that you have never gone to an alpha to have them put you in a mock heat, so what the hell, Bridge?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it, and then opened it again, like a fish gulping for air on dry land.
“It’s not fair!” Saoirse cried, clearly distraught as she hid her face in her hands and began to sob. “It’s my turn, Avery. You know it is. It’s time, and it’s not fair, and I’m sick of it!”
Wade stood up and looked, amazingly, to me and not Avery for answers. “Catch me up, please. He’s total shit at explaining anything lupine related.”
I cleared my throat. “When there is more than one unbonded omega in a family, the firstborn must secure a bonding before the second, or subsequent children, may do so.”
Wade thought a moment. “So Bridget has to get married before Saoirse can.”
“Yes.” There was no reason to correct him, to clarify that omegas didn’t get married, they were bonded…though here was Avery, for whom that rule did not apply.
“So your sister wanted to jump the line,” Wade stated as he crossed the room to stand in front of Bridget, “and she was gonna do it by having Remy Talmadge put her into a fake heat.”
“Yes,” Bridget rasped, her eyes filling as she stared at the detective, reaching for him before she could stop herself.
He took her hand in both of his and stared into her welling eyes. “Tell us what you did,” he prodded her gently.
Quick shuddering breath. “I sent my bodyguard to put the fear of God into Remy Talmadge, and to make sure he stayed away from any girls with platinum hair.”
Wade eased her closer to him, glancing at Avery, who was nodding. The pieces came together quickly after that.
Lucas Grant, Bridget’s loyal bodyguard, whom I had never met—but was assured by both Avery and Bridget was built like a brick wall—was the man bouncing my cousin off the sidewalk.
He had delivered Bridget’s threat with his fists, and on the night of the murder, had gone with Bridget to Remy’s house to look for Saoirse after Bridget received a call from her mother reporting that her youngest had snuck out.
Lucas finished with Remy, grabbed Saoirse, her platinum curls dyed black, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her to the car, where he stuffed her into the back seat with her sister.
The two of them had screamed at each other all the way home, and then Lucas had locked Saoirse in her room before he spent the rest of the night calming Bridget down.
“There’s surveillance footage of our house you can look at,” Bridget informed Wade.
“And it’s all time-stamped. Our neighbors have cameras too, if you need more evidence, but none of us killed Trent Highmore.
We had no reason to. Saoirse never got in the house, I had no idea Highmore was even there, and I can promise you Lucas didn’t either. ”
“Where is Lucas?” Avery asked her.
She made a tsking noise of disapproval. “He needed a little extra cash this month to cover his brother Ray’s gambling debts, so he’s providing security at a sampling party downtown.”
When Avery turned to look at his partner, probably to explain what that was, he must have noticed my disgusted expression. “Find sampling parties morally reprehensible, do you?” he baited me.
“Perhaps instead of trying to get a rise out of me, you might want to illuminate what a sampling party is for your partner.”
I got a grunt before he turned to Wade. “Some omegas who debuted two or more years ago attend sampling parties, sex parties for alphas where everyone’s allowed to screw without benefit of a contractual obligation.”
“Wait now,” Wade growled. “We were talking about this yesterday, or whenever the fuck it was at this point, and you said that an omega can’t have sex with an alpha unless the alpha signs a contract first.”
“That’s the law, yes,” Avery explained.
“Then what?”
“Between two consenting people, in secret, in a private setting, the law can be broken,” I summed up.
Wade gestured at me. “Which I get, but a sampling party is a lot of people, in a lot of rooms, with, I assume, private security, so how does that even work?”
“It’s by invitation only, so they have a head count and then hire however many people they need, based on that number.”
“You should go to those,” Saoirse yelled at her sister, banging her fist on the arm of the chair. “You should go and whore yourself out and secure a fucking match!”
“Saoirse,” Avery began, trying to soothe her. “You don’t mean what you’re––”
“She’s been out twelve fucking years, Avery! How has she not made a match in twelve fucking years ?”
I thought about Avery, who was thirty-two now, who had made his debut two years before Bridget, and his friend Linden, who I suspected was the same age as Avery.
The richer, more beautiful, more desirable the omega, the longer it seemed to take to find a perfect match, as many of their families wanted to wait and see if there was a wealthier alpha just around the corner.
Some were bonded quickly, of course. I’d seen beautiful male and female omegas debut at eighteen and bond in their first year.
Over the years, though, I’d seen a change.
Alphas were waiting longer and longer to bond with omegas if they didn’t find a true mate in a beta or gamma.
Some, like me, were pushed to attend the parties because of our place in lupine society.
It was necessary to produce an heir, to find an omega to make a home.
But for non- cynes or alphas who weren’t heads of extended families, those who were enjoying living their lives and being young and free, there was no hurry.
As a result, more and more omegas were struggling.
Many didn’t have families who could support them indefinitely, so were thrown out into the workplace or, worse, the street, with no skills, as they’d been raised solely to be parents and homemakers.
Of the lupines who were sex workers, the largest percentage of them were omegas who’d never been bonded.