11. Chapter 11
11
Esta looked so small in Ruck’s bed, and I wished I’d insisted she recuperate in my room instead. Her white blonde hair still carried a pink tinge from where blood stained the soft strands. Ruck cleaned the wound well, but my worry wouldn’t abate. When I’d finally arrived at the house, it had taken everything in me not to crush her into my chest. My heart still galloped, not believing she was safe. When Bram told me the news, Oliver and I set the horses at a punishing pace back to the house. Oliver was almost as feverishly terrified as I was. Those brief moments were some of the most panicked of my life.
All I could imagine was Esta being taken from me. Esta, dead .
It was a stupid prank, but my wife had been hurt. Her pale eyes were red around the rim, and the scratch on her nose looked like a smudge of dirt. It would have been adorable, if not for the reminder of the harm that had befallen her. She’d valiantly defended Bram, her tender heart not able to handle the way his lip wobbled with regret. But I’d banished him to the barn. He could sleep out there and think about what he’d done.
My thoughts were cut short as Esta tried to swing herself out of bed. I pressed a hand to her shoulder, forcing her to stop. “You need to rest, Esta,” I said, mystified at her urgency.
She rubbed at her forehead with a grimace, and a pang of helplessness echoed through my body. My insides were tangled knots, frayed by the intense need to tend to my wife.
My wife. Mine.
My fingers itched to wrap around her waist, swaddle her in blankets, and ensure she never got hurt again. A harsh breath shuddered out of me.
“I need some tea, I-I’m thirsty.”
I’d curled into a cramped wooden chair and slept in fits last night. Not willing to leave Esta’s side. Even Ruck and Oliver slept downstairs rather than in the barn. We were all frozen with fear for Esta. Logically, I could understand it wasn’t serious. Head wounds bled excessively.
There was work to be done, but my feet refused to budge. They were heavy iron welded to the floor.
I couldn’t leave Esta.
“Water is the only thing you need, and rest.” I scolded her. The pressure of my hand encouraged her to sink into bed. Tension stiffened her fragile body, and I wondered if it was because she was in her nightgown still. Perhaps my presence embarrassed her. But after a beat, she wriggled against the cushions, pulling the covers up to her neck.
The tremulous smile she offered made my heart ache. “I suppose I should rest. Anything to help my sore head.” Her tone was conciliatory and demure. It made me hesitate. I narrowed my eyes at her sudden docility, but then I chastised myself. Esta had taken a tumble and was healing. Of course, she would seem different from usual.
My gaze flitted to her sweet lips, the ones I tasted and now craved. My body tightened in response to the memory, the warm velvet of her kiss. The way she wriggled against me, desperate for more. I wanted to give it to her. I never thought I would ever care about someone the way I did Esta. She was underneath my skin, and I welcomed her occupation.
I wanted us to be husband and wife in every sense of the word.
Did she want that as well?
I slapped my hand on my thigh and took a few steps back. I let out a slow breath, trying to shake off the desire for Esta in my bed.
What kind of beast was I? I breathed deeply, and the heat under my skin churned like a waterfall.
“I’ll check on you throughout the day, and I won’t go far,” I promised, and she answered with a watery smile. “These can come with me downstairs, out of your hair.” I gathered up the pile of clothes Esta left on her bed. Some of them woven in the bedspread.
An expression flickered over her face as I took the dirty clothes, gone before I could interpret it. Perhaps dismay, but that didn’t make sense. Most of them belonged to Ruck and Oliver. My feet dragged, hoping she would protest.
Ask me to stay. Let me care for you.
I strained to hear her soft voice as I tripped down the stairs. But it didn’t come, and I leaned against the door outside, breathing through the disappointment. A thread wrapped around my heart, and it led right back inside.
To Esta.
“Are you ready to go?” Ruck and Oliver loitered just beyond the porch.
I didn’t answer, thrown back into the panic of yesterday as the wind smacked dust into my face. Yesterday changed everything. I’d been almost blinded in my haste to get to Esta. The squeeze around my heart had overwhelmed.
I’d been behind bars when my father passed away. Dragged to Breton City and forgotten in one of the filthy cells they used to hold Designated. Winter never seemed so bleak. The bite of the cold crept deep into my body, nestled in the marrow of my bones.
I gave up hope of ever being free.
Losing my father sapped what will I had. It had been the same when my mother passed away. All the warmth in the house went with her. A blizzard roared my grief, for I housed no energy to dispel it. I was numb by the time the soil thawed, and we could lay her to rest.
How many years had I lived like that?
My heart on ice, trapped within a storm that had long melted.
It wasn’t until Esta arrived that the thick, icy walls were breached. Her sweet smile caused the first crack. I hadn’t even realized. Not until the gap burst open and my chest became a furnace. I thought it lust. Esta was a beautiful woman, but when Bram told me what happened, I knew it was more.
I had fallen in love.
My mail-order bride thawed my numbed heart, and I was desperate to tell her.
“Hale? Are you ready?” My brother prodded, but I ignored him and turned on my heel.
I strode into the house, only to spot a glimpse of Esta’s crisp, white nightgown. She was in the kitchen, her small hands wrapped around a mug. Steam curled off whatever liquid was inside. The bitter acridness of her tea hit the back of my throat, but underneath, something made my stomach coil with heat. It was a wisp, like a dollop of silky cream. My mouth filled with saliva.
“What are you doing?” My question startled Esta, and her shoulders hugged her ears, a squeal escaping her lips.
The mug careened onto the floor, exploding into shards and scalding water. It splashed up onto her bare feet, blooming red like a warning flag. I didn’t heed it, nor could I understand the intense look of devastation on Esta’s face as the tea spilled out across the floor. Her hand collared her throat as I tossed my hat onto the bench and stalked closer.
“I just wanted tea,” she whispered, but it was a lie. Her gaze darted to the door, and she curled in on herself. A puddle surrounded her feet now, pink with the kiss of its scalding liquid. I couldn’t help but step closer. I leaned in as confusion rattled around in my chest.
“Why are you so insistent about this tea?” I tried to sweeten my gravelly voice, and her lower lash line glistened with a surprising show of emotion.
How lovely she was. Her neck bobbed, and the nervous movement drew me in. The skin was so smooth there, long and pale like a lily. Her pulse fluttered like a butterfly, and I couldn’t stop myself. I sank my nose into the slight movement, soaked up her soft warmth. It would be so easy to sink my teeth, dig into the tender flesh, lap at the bruises that would bloom. My tongue darted out. I expected salt and lemon. Esta’s scent was so mild it needed searching for. But it wasn’t tartness embedded in her skin, but syrup.
Peach infused, golden syrup, thick and decadent.
It rolled through every part of me. My toes curled in my boots. I groaned against her, fingers convulsed around her waist. She whimpered, leaning backward as if to thwart me.
“That scent,” I muttered, jamming my nose back into the silky cream of her neck. I shook as I pressed a kiss, licking my lips to chase the strange, alluring scent that bloomed there. My lips tingled, and I shook my head, bewildered by my actions.
“Please, please, Hale, release me,” Esta said, fingers digging under my iron grip. My head snapped up, and I saw her dilated pupils, wondered if mine were the same.
“Why do you smell so good? The scent is unlike anything I’ve ever known before, except…” the warmth in my tone disappeared, leaving the sharp sting of realization. I stumbled, the mug shards crunched under my boots.
My wife became a stranger.
Her chest heaved a strangled breath. She knew, just like I did, where the scent was coming from. It was her. Which meant she’d lied to me from the start.
She was everything I hated. A temptress sent to destroy families and steal logic.
An omega.
“Hale.” She pleaded, her hand raised in no-man’s land between us.
“You’re an omega,” I accused, and her lower lip wobbled, and she retreated. Her bare feet landed on the jagged shards of the cup. Her cry of pain snagged like a barbed hook on my insides.
She didn’t need to confirm it. Her decadent scent filled the room, burnt with anxiety.
How prettily she deceived, and how close I’d been to falling for it.
She was exactly like all her brethren. Soft curves designed to bring an alpha to their knees, to keep them mindless and use them. They brought nothing but destruction. And I nursed one in my home. I’d almost given her my heart. But a blizzard swept in, howling rage rattled my ribcage and frosted over my aching heart.
“Please, Hale.” Esta cried as she wrapped her arms around herself as if it might shield her from the punishment I would rain down on her.
“Get your things. I won’t stay wed to a lying, scheming omega.” My voice shook with a hot red rage.
“What is going on?” Oliver said as he and Ruck pushed into the kitchen.
I couldn’t speak except to sneer, and her scent did the rest. Ruck’s pupils dilated, and he sagged against the doorframe. Oliver shook his head, staring in wonderment at the snake I’d married.
“Don’t turn your manipulative gaze on them,” I warned and jammed my finger in the direction of the stairs. “Pack so I can rid myself of you.”
Oliver’s thick eyebrows wrinkled together as he swept past me and whisked Esta onto the bench. “Your feet,” he murmured, lifting them with a wince. There were several shards of the cup embedded into the sole of her foot. “I need to get these out.”
Oliver looked at me as if I would help. Years of pent-up resentment turned the blood in my veins black with bitterness.
“Do it quickly. The sooner she can leave, the better,” I snapped, folding my arms over my chest.
“Hale, you’ve gone mad.” Ruck bumped me with his shoulder in his haste to get to Esta’s side. He touched her with tenderness, and it made my stomach drop to my feet.
Look at her . Twisting all of us around her cursed finger .
“She’s a liar. A deceiver.” I hissed through the haze of red in my vision. “An omega.”
“Hale—” Esta turned her wiles on like a lantern. But her light was a lie. It would lead me into the pit of darkness, and I might never recover.
“Mr. Hartlock. I won’t have my name on your filthy lips,” I spat, scorching her with my gaze. My stomach tossed unsteadily from the impact of her betrayal. “You used this to addle our brains.” I snatched up the tea, knuckles white around the container. There was barely anything but dust in the bottom.
Oliver hunched over her tiny feet, pulling out the shards while Ruck held her steady.
“No,” Esta cried and whimpered. Pathetic. “I-It’s a suppressant mix. It stops my true scent. It was only supposed to be for my train trip to protect myself. But you despise omegas so much that I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t let you send me back. I—” she tried to continue, but I laughed in her white, pinched face.
“Your efforts mean nothing to me, omega . I loathe your kind, and that will never change. I want you out of my house. Now.”
My lungs expanded with jagged agony at the way she almost thwarted me. I should have known she was too good to be true. I wrenched open the oven grate and tossed the tea on the smoldering flames. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth as I spun around, my glare a mask over the pulsing pain in my chest.
“Her feet are cut to bits, not to mention her head.” Ruck tried to placate me. “You can’t send her anywhere in this condition.”
“Oh, I can, and I intend to.” I sneered at the beautiful evil shrinking in front of me.
Ruck’s mouth dropped open, and Oliver let out a low, vicious growl. “No,” the big redhead shook his head.
“Mr. Hartlock. I am not trying to trick you into anything. I’ve fallen in love with this place, with…I care so much for you, Hale.” Her desperate gulp echoed in the room. “I answered your ad because I was desperate.”
“And how were you going to explain your nature when we bedded each other, Esta? There isn’t a tea to explain how you would have taken my knot.”
Her shapely lips fell open with confusion. She was bruised and battered on the outside, as I was on the inside.
This perfect omega had no idea what I was talking about. What was hidden underneath her skirts. Wide hips, sweet lips, and no fucking clue she could have a town of alphas braying for her attention. Or was that a lie as well?
I’d never met an omega who didn’t wield their scent like a spear, striking it through the heart of whoever they set their sights on. It didn’t matter if that alpha was married, if that alpha had a family or didn’t want them in return. They were greedy, selfish creatures who took, took and took until everything was left in tattered ribbons around them.
“I don’t know--” she stumbled over my words, cheeks flushed like strawberry-tinted cream.
The back of my throat tickled as if parched, but I knew the only thing that would curb the thirst would be drinking from between her thighs. Her well of slick would make me weak, make my thoughts race, and mind melt away. I snarled against the desire, moving to the door.
“Your daddy never told you the reason omegas are treasured? It’s got nothing to do with your personality and everything to do with what’s between your legs,” I mocked.
Esta’s cheeks flamed scarlet red. She had no notion of what went on between husband and wife. Thank gods I discovered her lies before I bedded her. I hated omegas, but I feared them even more. For the mystical power of their bodies, hypnotic and irresistible.
An echo of the time I lost control jangled through my mind. Of gnashing my teeth like a beast with only one sole purpose.
To fuck.
To sink my throbbing cock into the welcoming heat of an omega.
A monster who didn’t stop until Ruck split my jaw half open and sent me careening into the ground. I scrubbed the scar on my jaw, a permanent reminder of how dangerous omegas could be.
I was dizzy from Esta’s heady, sensual scent and the realization I almost came close to being shackled to the real monster. Her duplicity wouldn’t go unpunished.
“Hale, you’re going too far.” Ruck massaged Esta’s bowed shoulders. Oliver pressed a cloth to her sliced feet as he shot me a look of pure disappointment.
I scoffed under my breath. Her unmarred trunk, fine clothes, and floundering skills all made sense now. What a dense fool I’d been to believe her. But that was the danger of omegas. They sank their claws into you. Esta hadn’t even needed her scent to do it, but now it filled the room, and the force of it frightened me. Her head lolled like her neck couldn’t hold up the weight. I gripped the doorway to stop myself from going to her.
“As soon as you’ve healed, you’ll leave the ranch. I can’t stay married to someone like you.” I declared, and I ignored the stab of regret as Esta leaned forward, clutching her stomach.
“Hale, stop.” Oliver protested, and his hands turned to fists before he uncurled them and returned to Esta. She’d already turned them against me. Nausea rolled through my stomach.
Everything was a lie. Every sweet look, soft touch, and kiss.
No wonder she’d thrown herself into my arms. Omegas were insatiable. I couldn’t believe she hid it for so long. My head throbbed, confused and furious at myself.
“I have no place to go, and I can’t return until I know I’ll be safe from–safe to return. But I can send a letter to my sister…” Esta stumbled as my glare deepened. My hands clenched into fists, and I willed my face to become carefully blank.
“You will leave the moment your sister sends word or in a month,” I countered. “That is more than enough time for her to realize her life is likely better off without you.”
The thread anchored around my heart dug into the tender edges as Esta dropped her face in her hands. A low sob followed me as I stormed out of the kitchen. The front door slammed behind me. I didn’t care that she was upset. Or that she had nowhere to go. The thought of Esta lost in the wildlands flashed into my mind, and I crushed it up and stomped it to the ground.
My boots tripped in the dirt.
I didn’t care at all.
I couldn’t.
My heart was in a shell of ice once more, cold, numb, and unfeeling.