Chapter 9
ARDEN
Arden slammed the door of his bedchamber shut and leaned against it, legs trembling.
Good gods. What a time he was having of it. Married not quite two weeks ago. And then, all at once, his first heat, first kiss, first f—
No. He wasn’t going to call it a fuck, even though that’s what it was to Beckett.
Even though seeing to Arden had been just another tiresome part of his job.
Slightly more effortful than handing someone down from a carriage, carrying luggage, or waiting woodenly at the back of the room during dinner ready to attend to a guest, but in the end, no more meaningful.
Arden was a romantic soul, however.
First time making love, he told himself fiercely. That’s what it was.
He could call it what he liked.
He straightened, wincing at the twinge in his inner thighs and the dull, grinding ache at the base of his spine.
Vigorous love.
He tottered over to his bed and stood staring at it.
The covers were in disarray. At this time of day, a maid would normally have been in long since to straighten them, to light the fire, to bring him a ewer of warm water if he cared to wash, or to call the footmen with their buckets for a bath if he cared to soak.
He groaned at the thought of it.
Yes. Yes, he wanted to soak.
He reached out a hand and touched the bed tentatively, as if it might turn on him, and bite. Or as if the covers could wind around him like vines and draw him in, draw him down, hold him captive while Beckett did things to him.
Exciting, delicious things.
Arden blinked and passed a hand over his forehead. He was sweating lightly. Of course he was. He’d just sprinted from Jack’s bedchamber like a fool.
It was fine.
He drifted to the head of the bed, trailing his fingers along the edge of the mattress as he went. If he closed his eyes, he could picture it. How he and Beckett must have looked to Jack.
Him, writhing and panting, scratching and begging beneath the beautiful, muscular Beckett.
Poor Jack, to have to witness such a thing.
Arden was a terrible husband. He’d planned to be such a good one, too.
Sighing, he perched his sore rump on the edge of the mattress.
The sheets couldn’t possibly hold the heat of last night, meaning that the warmth he felt shimmering around him must be coming from him alone.
He tucked a hand under his buttock and hummed.
Yes, he was hot there. No wonder. Beckett had slammed into him at the end.
He’d tried, Arden thought, to keep it sweet and gentle.
He still held Arden down and positively pummelled his arse.
Arden smiled faintly with wonder. When he registered the tacky, unfamiliar…unpleasantness…under his fingers along with the heat, the smile fell away.
He glanced down at his naked body—oh gods, he was naked! He’d been running through the corridors naked!—and reeled.
His pallid skin was littered with marks. A rough red patch here on his chest, a small flowering bruise there on his hip.
He remembered Beckett sliding down the bed and fitting his big, hard hands around Arden’s waist, arching him up to Beckett’s hungry mouth so he could lick and suck over Arden’s quivering abdomen.
He remembered Beckett pinching the skin of Arden’s inner thighs between his teeth and biting down.
And Arden had arched even harder, straining for it even as he’d shoved his hands boldly into Beckett’s thick spill of dark hair, so lovely against Arden’s skin, and held him there, begging for more. Beckett had laughed.
Red patches, bruises, a hectic blotchy flush that still hadn’t faded, and…
…and that….
…that stuff.
Streaked over his belly, his thighs. Arden launched to his feet, both hands went to his behind, and he felt more of it.
Everywhere.
He was covered in it.
…was it his? Was it from him?
Or was it Beckett’s?
Beckett had groaned as he climaxed deep inside Arden’s greedy body, knotted in there, and pulsing.
It must have l-leaked out.
And the…on his front. At least some of it must be—yes. Arden had thrown his head back and sobbed as his abdomen clenched in brutal, fast pulses and his small shaft, usually so quiet and unassuming, barely even noticed between his legs, had flung the stuff everywhere.
Arden looked desperately at himself, then the bed, then himself again, his eyes widening.
Everywhere.
He rushed over to the bell pull to call for clean bedding and hot water and grabbed the richly embroidered fabric.
He paused.
Anyone who came in would know what he’d done here.
They’d talk about him.
He swallowed hard.
They all knew already, didn’t they? All of Avendene. They knew.
It wasn’t fair.
No one had told him anything about omegas, or about what it meant to be one, other than sending Clarke away in case Arden went into heat for him. Until yesterday, Arden hadn’t even known what heat meant.
He’d thought it was a flirty mood.
Not a clawing, all-consuming need to mate. Certainly not one that could murder him if he didn’t do something about it.
Arden dithered, his outraged sense of privacy warring with a yearning to be clean and comfortable.
Someone would have to come in eventually, he reasoned.
His bedding must be changed, and the evidence of last night taken away for a good laundering. There was no getting away from it.
Arden gave the bell pull a determined yank. And then recalled that he was naked, squeaked, and hunted around for his robe.
He spotted it draped over the chair that stood before the bay window, and hauled it on just as someone tapped politely at the door, and pushed it open.
Arden finished belting his robe and dropped his hands to his sides, attempting to look both nonchalant and ducal. Which was a waste of time, as he was neither. He tried.
It was Marl.
Arden stared at him in horror and clutched the fabric of his voluminous robe high at his throat. The butler shouldn’t be answering calls to the bedchamber, surely? It was a footman’s job. He wasn’t prepared for this!
Marl bowed and waited for Arden to speak. His sharp gaze flicked around the room, taking stock. He performed a similar subtle assessment of Arden.
Damage. He was looking for damage.
He thought Beckett had hurt him.
Indignation on Beckett’s behalf welled. Arden dropped the defensive hand at his throat and stood tall, making it clear that he was quite well, thank you very much.
He couldn’t pull off nonchalant and ducal, but he rather hoped he was managing to project calm.
“I should like,” Arden quavered, “to have a bath.”
“Your Grace.” Marl inclined his head. “Shall I have some refreshments sent up with the water, or will you be joining His Grace downstairs?”
“Up here, please.”
Marl departed and Arden rushed about, doing his best to straighten the bed. He made it up even though he knew he was supposed to leave that sort of thing for the maid, then he perched on the chair and stared across the room at it, gripping his hands together on his lap.
When another knock came at the door, he was in the middle of stripping the bed entirely. There’d been no point making it. The linens had to be changed, obviously, and—
“Your Grace, why don’t you have a little sit down and let me do that?” Magda said at his shoulder, making Arden jump. He hadn’t heard her enter. She stood beside him, smiling gently. Behind her, two footmen came in carting the water.
Arden reacted without thinking, stepping to put her between him and the two hulking betas, like a coward.
He flushed, and he stayed where he was.
Coward.
“Come along, now.” Magda waited until the footmen had vanished into the adjoining bathing chamber before she put a firm hand on his elbow and guided him over to the window.
“Cook’s sent you up some fresh rolls and a lovely big pot of chocolate.
” She gestured at the tray sitting on a small table beside the chair.
“That’ll restore your spirits right quick, see if it don’t. ”
Arden was clutching a pillow in a compressed wad against his chest. One of the footmen, Yatt, emerged from the bathing chamber and slid him a quick glance as he carried an empty bucket across the room.
It took everything in Arden not to cringe at the interest he saw in the man’s face.
It wasn’t sexual, he didn’t think—not that he was any kind of expert in understanding when someone looked at him with that sort of interest—but it was filled with curiosity.
Magda extracted Arden’s pillow, sat him down, and instructed him to pour himself a nice cup.
“Go on, do. You like your chocolate.” She bustled over to the bed, keeping up a stream of chatter as she efficiently finished stripping it and made it up with clean linens from the basket that she’d brought with her.
Arden knew what she was doing.
She was keeping him distracted while the footmen brought a second load of water in, carting their buckets into the bathing chamber, where a quite decadently huge copper bath sat in the middle of an exquisite mosaic floor.
Yatt sent her a nod as he left, and Arden correctly surmised it was a sign that the bath was ready for him, because she loaded up her basket with the stripped sheets and asked him if he wanted her to attend him at his bath.
He blinked at her over the rim of his cup. It was his third. “I beg your pardon?”
“Would you like me to help you with your bath, Your Grace?” she said again.
“I…no?”
“P’raps to help you get in?”
Arden stared at her, uncomprehending.
“Your arse, Your Grace,” she said. “Might twinge a bit when you try to get a leg over.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said faintly. “Thank you, Magda.”
She looked unconvinced but dropped him a quick curtsy and bustled out with her brimming basket.
Arden knew what it was like to feel humiliated. His siblings had made sure of that over the years.
But this took the biscuit.
He finished the last of the chocolate, pushed to his feet, and smothered a yelp. Oh. Twinging didn’t begin to cover it. He set the cup on the tray and headed for the bathing chamber.
Steam wreathed up from the surface of the tub. If he’d had even a little more energy, he’d have launched himself across the room and plunged in, it looked so inviting. He contented himself with a swift and purposeful walk.
Tiny steps, though.
Arden slipped the robe off his shoulders and dropped it on top of the small cabinet that stood beside the bath, taking in deep, appreciative breaths of the fragrant steam. It wasn’t a floral scent. It was minty, and somewhat astringent. Presumably, it had healing properties.
All over again, Arden was almost floored with mortification when he realised that one of the footmen must have added some oil.
He clapped a hand over his mouth to hold back the horrified giggles at the thought of one of the big men stoically unstoppering a vial of oil that Mrs Foley or, worse, Marl had pressed upon him, and pouring it in once they were done filling the bath.
The whole surface of the water had an iridescent sheen to it. Oh, gods.
He’d probably mixed it in, too.
Arden leaned down and dipped a hand into the water. It was scalding.
Perfect.
He cautiously lifted a leg, and sucked in a sharp breath.
“Sore, sweetheart?” Jack said from the doorway.
Arden’s hands flew to cover his groin and he hunched over, as if that would make him appear any less naked. “Don’t look!” he said once he managed to get his voice to work.
By then, Jack had already had ample time to get an eyeful, and ample time to cross the room, his boots loud on the mosaic floor.
“Why not?” he murmured, standing close. “I’ve seen you naked already. I enjoy looking at you. My pretty little husband.”
Arden’s face flamed. “Please don’t,” he whispered.
Jack obligingly stared up at the ceiling. “I would very much like to look at you, Arden,” he said. “Won’t you let me?”
Arden had never felt so exposed and awkward in his entire life. He hadn’t worried about it as much last night. Beckett had been there to draw the eye, after all. Who would waste time looking at Arden when Beckett was around in all his powerful, muscled glory?
“No,” he said quietly, wondering if it even mattered.
“But how am I supposed to help you into your bath if I can’t look at you?” Jack said in a teasing, mock-complaining tone.
Arden said, “You’re not. And you don’t have to help me. I am perfectly capable of—oh, fuck.”
Jack coughed out a laugh at Arden’s impassioned curse.
He’d lifted a leg, intending to sling it over the side, and get into the bath that he was quite, quite desperate for at this point, but he couldn’t for the life of him get his muscles to oblige.
He managed to wallop his ankle on the side of the tub, not even close to clearing the edge, and that was it.
He yelped when Jack hummed, scooped him up and off his feet, and deposited him in the tub.
All without looking at him.
He kept his eyes very firmly on the ceiling, which was why Arden almost got deposited on the other side of the tub rather than in it.
Arden’s yelp became a low, throbbing moan of relief as the warm water closed over his sore body.
“Arden, please,” Jack said, his voice rough. “Let me look at you.”
Arden scooted cautiously around, drew his knees up to his chest, and wrapped his arms around his shins to hide the pertinent bits. “Very well. If…if you must.”
“I must,” Jack said, dark eyes coming straight to Arden’s face and locking with his.
He smiled. “There you are.” Jack’s big chest expanded in a sigh.
“How are you feeling?” His gaze dropped from Arden’s to take a quick inventory of what he could see.
Just as Marl had, except Arden didn’t have the robe to shield him.
Arden tightened his arms around his shins. “A little tired,” he said.
“Not too sore?”
Arden dropped his forehead to his knees, cheeks scorching with heat. “Jack,” he whined, and gasped when Jack’s big warm hand curled over his exposed nape and rested there.
“Arden,” Jack said in the exact same tone of voice, meant to tease.
Arden snorted, then sighed and turned to rest his cheek on his knees instead, peeking out at Jack through a curtain of hair that was frizzing in the steam.
Jack was already smiling, watching him.
They regarded each other in silence.