Chapter 2
BECKETT
“Have you had an omega before?” Marl asked.
Beckett looked at him incredulously. “Course I have.”
“Of course.” Marl shook his head.
Beckett was twenty-seven. He’d sampled every flavour of partner he cared to. He’d made a proper survey, just to be sure where his tastes lay. He’d tried out men and women, alphas, betas, and omegas. One after the other. All combinations.
He landed on alpha men, as he’d always known he would.
Sometimes, he wished it was different.
After all, anyone would have been a better choice for him to fall for than an alpha duke, forever out of reach.
“Beckett—” Marl began, determination clear in the set of his jaw.
Nope. He didn’t want to hear it. “It’s fine,” Beckett said.
Marl ploughed on. “I know that you and His Grace—”
He didn’t want to hear it. “Am I fucking the duch or not?” he demanded, being deliberately crude about it to stop Marl from feeling sorry for him, right to his face.
Marl fixed Beckett with a frosty glare.
“Sir,” Beckett added, and bared his teeth. “Am I fucking the duch or not, sir?”
“You’re lucky I can’t fire you,” Marl said calmly.
“Yeah? You’re lucky I’ve agreed to do this, or Ja—His Grace—would do a lot worse than fire you if he got back home to find you’d let his pretty little duch die on your watch.”
Marl paled.
“For godssake,” Beckett said, and shook the aggression from his rigid muscles. “I apologise. I don’t know what’s got into me.”
They both knew full well it was the pheromones and the sounds of distress coming through the door that had got into him.
Beckett was already losing control and he wasn’t even in the room yet.
Marl clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s get it done. Be as kind as you can. It’s…” Marl winced. “It’s his first heat, as I understand it.”
Beckett gaped. “You’re shitting me.”
“No, I’m not. Sadly. Also, it’s his first time.”
“His what?”
“First time. At all.”
“But…? He’s married.”
He was married to Jack.
“They didn’t have any time together before His Grace was pulled away by the Council.” Marl frowned. “I assumed His Grace explained it in his letter?”
Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. The letter was stuffed at the bottom of Beckett’s personal trunk along with Jack’s other letters, and his mam’s brooch. All the things Beckett didn’t want. The things he couldn’t let go.
“You telling me that not only am I servicing the duch through his heat, I’m popping his cherry?”
“Can I assume you’ve done that before, also?” Marl asked, a hint of sarcasm in his voice this time.
“No.”
Marl blinked. Hadn’t been expecting that, had he?
“Only cherry I ever popped was my own,” Beckett said, a little wild at the thought of it. “Does he want this? Does he even know?”
Marl stared at his shoes and nodded. “I talked with him.”
“Well?” Beckett waited until Marl met his eyes again.
It took a moment, during which Beckett had to fight to stay standing outside the room when inside the omega was moaning in pain.
In need. “Does he want it? I ain’t settin’ foot inside that room unless I know as I won’t be doin’ something he don’t want. ”
“He’ll accept you.”
Not good enough. Beckett turned to leave.
“He said yes,” Marl said hurriedly. “I…gods. The poor boy didn’t know the first thing about it, Beckett. He thought he could wait until Jack got back.”
“Wait? He’ll burn out if he waits!”
“We know that. Now, after the most uncomfortable conversation I’ve ever had in my life, the duch knows it, too. He’s not any happier about it than you are, but you won’t be doing anything he doesn’t want. I gave him the choice. He chose you.”
They both flinched at the pained, choked-off scream from inside the duch’s chamber.
Marl’s reaction stopped there. Marl was a beta.
Beckett was an alpha, and Beckett threw himself against the door, a deep snarl ripped from his throat.
“Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. If you’d just…Beckett. Beckett, you have to let me get the key—”
A small part of Beckett was aware of Marl trying to shuffle him aside and unlock the door, but an omega had cried out in need, and Beckett was answering. Beckett was attempting to break his way through the door to get at him.
He had enough sense left to allow Marl to shove him an inch to the side, Marl’s boots skidding on the floor with the effort as he heaved and pushed and scrabbled about to get the key in the lock and turn it, and then Beckett burst into the room.
“Be kind. It’s not his fault, Beckett. Please, be kind.”
Marl’s words rolled off him. Beckett stood, trembling, on the threshold.
“His name is Arden.”
The door closed behind him and the lock snicked shut. Beckett growled at being locked in like a beast, though he didn’t protest it or take his eyes off the bed.
That’s what he was now, wasn’t it? A beast—a stud—brought here to knot an omega silly enough to go into heat and not even know about it until it was too late to send for the man who should be here.
Beckett’s man.
He heaved in deep breaths, his lungs filling with the scent of this stranger who had shattered his most secret dreams.
The stranger who had waltzed in and taken everything that Beckett refused to admit he wanted until it was too late.
Arden.
Marl was right. It wasn’t the duch’s fault.
Didn’t change a thing, though, did it?
The curtains were open. The windows were shut. Most likely to save the rest of the estate from hearing their omega duch’s wails when the time came for his alpha to knot him.
An alpha, Beckett corrected immediately. Not his alpha.
He did not belong to this omega.
He was here for a job, like any other. That’s all it was. A job. Like carrying luggage up to a guest’s room, or bringing in the tea tray.
It was just another job. He was doing this for Jack.
The moon had been out earlier that night, full and fat in a cloudless indigo sky. It was hiding now. Rain ticked softly against the thick glass and the only light in the room came from the small oil lamp beside the omega’s bed.
The duch—his name is Arden—the duch was facedown on the bed, the heavy coverlet spilling to the floor in a rich fall of silk, or satin, or whatever the fancy fabric was that shone in the soft light and probably cost more than Beckett could earn in his lifetime.
He was trembling with the effort not to move.
Beckett tipped his head to one side, nostrils flaring and jaw tightening as he surveyed the man.
He was small.
When Beckett was on top of him, you wouldn’t be able to even see him. The erection that had been straining Beckett’s breeches since he’d heard the omega’s cries swelled further.
Beckett unfastened his breeches and gave a small groan of relief. The duch must have heard, even through the whining pants he was making, because he froze.
Beckett waited to see what he’d do.
Nothing, apparently.
The duch held himself as still as if he was one of the marble statues in the Long Gallery, or one of Jack’s noble ancestors in any of the fine paintings that lined the corridors throughout the house.
Not for long, though. That was the whole problem with him going into heat, wasn’t it? He couldn’t be still, not even if he wanted to. His body was in control. His body wanted to move.
His body, Beckett thought, wanted to be pinned down.
It wanted Beckett to pin it down.
The duch exhaled a little moan. His hands fisted in the sheets and he used the grip to drag his hips over the rucked-up bedding.
His neck arched as he pressed his forehead to the mattress.
He’d knocked the pillows off. Beckett crossed the room to lean down and pick one up.
He tossed it onto the mattress beside the duch’s head.
The duch froze again.
They both knew that he was aware Beckett was in the room. Even if he hadn’t heard anything, he’d be able to smell alpha pheromones in the air as much as Beckett could smell omega. His despairing cries had changed tone anyway. He’d drawn an alpha here.
Now all he had to do was get his hole filled.
Beckett glared down at him.
He was pale, his back and limbs smooth and tinted a soft pink by the glow of the lamp.
His hair was a muted russet; it was overly long, a mop of loose curls inappropriate for a man of his high status.
Beckett’s hair was a straight, plain, mahogany brown, tied back in a queue as suited a footman.
At least, it would have been tied back if he hadn’t been dug out of bed in the middle of the night.
He was still glaring down at the duch when the omega turned his face to the side. He breathed in dry, wheezing pants. His lips were chapped, and he blinked at Beckett through a spill of that unruly hair.
Beckett reached down and flicked it out of his eyes.
The duch blinked at him again, and his face drained of what little colour he’d had to start with. His pupils dilated, leaving nothing but thin rings of slate grey.
Beckett crossed his arms over his brawny chest and stared at the omega.
He hadn’t seen him close up until now. He’d seen him from the doorway of the morning parlour, once, when Beckett had answered the bell because none of the other footmen were around to pass the job off to.
The duch had ordered a second pot of tea, and looked like he was going to faint about it.
He was, Beckett realised with astonishment, older than Beckett.
Beckett couldn’t tell how old. He’d never been good at ages. He wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the duch was over thirty. Closer to Jack’s age than to Beckett’s.
Jack could have any fresh new omega he wanted, and he went out and shackled himself to this pale, weak, ageing little thing?
His thoughts must have shown on his face, because the duch’s cheeks got some colour back. It was painful, watching him try to gather himself.
Beckett moved to the huge inlaid chest of drawers across the room, pausing when the duch gasped and scrambled back to press against the headboard. Beckett’s glower probably didn’t help, but he wasn’t here to exchange pleasantries. His Grace could deal with it.
He poured a glass of water from the carafe that stood on a silver tray and crossed back to the bed, bringing the carafe with him.
The omega had bunched up all the covers remaining on the mattress and dragged them around him, all the way up to his sharp little nose. He peeked over the top.
Beckett knew that he made an imposing figure, even when he wasn’t barefoot and bare-chested with his unbuttoned breeches hanging on his hips. The omega’s breathing picked up as he approached. Beckett smirked.
He stopped smirking when the omega hunched down in his protective nest and pulled a pillow over his head.
The urgency Beckett had felt outside, the driving need to get through the door, to find the omega and sate it, had eased.
The omega’s urgency had, too. They probably had a few more minutes of calm before it would begin to rise again.
Once it took full hold, neither of them would have any sense left.
Beckett thought that he would, actually.
The omega would be writhing and desperate, begging and pleading.
Beckett, who liked alphas, who loved Jack, wouldn’t lose himself as completely. He refused to.
He took his breeches off and sat on the side of the mattress, set the glass on the small table with a firm click, and yanked the omega’s pillow away without ceremony.
The omega fought to keep it, which made Beckett smile—almost. He couldn’t win. Beckett twitched it out of his grasp, then leaned over and pulled down the covers.
The omega fought that, too, but only so far. He gave a half-hearted slap at Beckett’s hands, then snatched his own hands back and clasped them at his chest, knuckles white.
Beckett stared at him.
The omega didn’t meet his eyes. His chest rose and fell quickly, and his sore-looking lips parted as he shuffled uncomfortably on his arse and moaned. He covered his face.
Beckett caught one of his hands and curled it around the glass of water, nudging it up to his mouth.
The omega sipped cautiously, then greedily, then ended up spilling it down his chest as he gulped at it, both hands clutching the glass now, shaking.
Beckett frowned, took the empty glass off him, and refilled it. Only halfway; too much would make him vomit it back up, and Beckett didn’t want to have to deal with that, as well.
Once the duch had downed the second glass, the urgency was coming back.
Beckett quickly assessed him and the mess he’d made of the bed.
Might as well get the coverlet clear, he reasoned, else it would get ruined.
It took some tugging to get it off the duch, who clung to it and gave a little wail when Beckett twitched it out of his grasp.
And then there he was, laid bare. He’d been dragged to the edge of the mattress, clinging stubbornly to the coverlet as Beckett hauled it towards him, and now he was on his knees, quivering, in front of Beckett.
Beckett raked him with a quick glance—light muscle tone, no body hair to speak of, slender thighs and a sweet little shaft—before he reached out and knocked the omega’s shoulder gently, tipping him over.
He followed him to the mattress, crawling over him and smiling as the omega scuttled backwards. He didn’t get far. He didn’t have anywhere to go.
Beckett caught a thigh in his hand and pulled the omega flat under him.
The omega’s breath was coming fast and high, edged with a whine. He wasn’t trying to get away anymore. He was writhing subtly against the mattress, rolling his body up. Beckett would fall on him any minute. He wouldn’t be able to stop it, any more than the duch could.
Cold hands against his face shocked him. The omega was cupping his cheeks.
Beckett looked at him properly for the first time, rather than as an alpha scanning a prospective omega.
Than as the omega who had stolen his beloved.
There were faint lines around his grey eyes, and fainter grooves either side of his plush mouth. His lips trembled. “Please don’t be angry with me. I didn’t know this could happen. Don’t make it hurt.”
Beckett leaned down and licked over the omega’s mouth.
Of course he wouldn’t make it hurt.
He was going to make the omega scream for more.