Three
E verything felt a bit numb as I sat in the pretty bedroom that they’d led me to upon our arrival and left me by myself.
Night had long since fallen outside, but I couldn’t force myself to get up and move, the events of the day overwhelming me as I stared at the beautiful french doors that led onto a balcony.
There were no bars on the windows, there was no guard outside of my door, but even as pretty as my new cage was, I knew it was still a cage.
I knew that if I was to run out onto the balcony, shimmy down the side of the house and make a run for it that there would be a half-dozen guards on my tail.
That was assuming I could even make it down to the ground without breaking my neck.
Not only that, my stamina still hadn’t quite returned after being sick and even running short distances made me wheeze so a climb down from the little tower I was in was most definitely not in my card.
The only kind of workout I could do these days was swimming—just like I’d done when I was in high school—and I still had noodle-limbs when I was done.
And even if I did make it out, where would I go? Back to Pack Ricci?
Just the thought of that made me realize that maybe my gilded cage wasn’t so bad. It had taken everything in me not to run screaming from the church earlier as the ceremony was taking place. I was wishing for anything to happen other than being married to them.
Not only did my omega instincts hate the way that they smelled, but it kept setting off little alarm bells in my head telling me that I did not want to be their omega. That they weren’t for me.
Then Edison Keane stood up and stopped the ceremony… but did all of that mean that my only other choice was to be Edison Keane’s omega?
The golden-eyed man hadn’t seemed to recognize me the way I had him. I did look completely different from my time in the children’s cancer ward. For one, my hair had grown back and I’d gained weight again. It was also dark that night, it made sense that he didn’t know who I was…
And yet I still felt a little bit disappointed by it.
Edison and Rhodes had made an impression on me four years ago, but it didn’t seem like I’d done the same for them.
Flopping back onto the bed, I shifted uncomfortably in the wedding dress I still wore. The boning of the corseted top was starting to chafe against my sides with every move I made and I was half-tempted just to take the whole damn thing off and wrap myself up in the bedspread. But even as I thought about it, I knew I’d rather be buried in this damned dress rather than wait for someone to come while I was naked.
As I considered the pros and cons of meeting my fate head on and naked, I never got the chance to come to a decision because someone knocked on the door.
“Are you decent, dearie?” a woman’s voice asked before the door opened to reveal an older woman dressed in what looked like a gray housekeeper’s outfit. She had a pile of clothing over one arm and when she saw me she frowned. “Are you still in that dreadful thing, sweetheart? You can just dress down to your knickers, no one but me will come in here. Boss’s orders.”
My face warmed and I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“Why ever not?” the woman asked, putting a hand on her hip.
I didn’t want to have to say it, but I was going to need to in order to get the clothes she’d brought that were clearly for me. “Because I’m not wearing any underwear.”
That had been my mother’s idea this morning.
“Those alphas aren’t going to want anything between you and them once they get you alone, Peregrine, it irritated your father on our wedding day and I just want what’s best for you,” she’d simpered as she put away the white panties and bra that the bridal shop had provided to go with the dress.
I didn’t tell her that there were probably many things Pack Ricci would rather do than to immediately dive underneath my skirts. Like taxes. Or going to the DMV.
“You walked down the aisle commando? In a Catholic church?” The woman seemed scandalized as she crossed herself.
“I wasn’t exactly given a choice,” I muttered, accepting the pile of clothing from the woman who immediately gestured for me to turn around.
I’d been poked and prodded all day by the hairstylist, makeup artist, assistants getting me ready, so I wanted nothing more than to get out of the monstrosity that was my wedding dress on my own… but the pearl buttons down the back were definitely going to make that hard.
With a sigh, I turned and let her undo me from my lace and tulle prison, letting out a relieved gasp when the scratchy material slithered down my body and sat around my calves like a giant fluffy cloud.
“Oh my,” the woman said with a sigh as she no doubt saw the angry red marks on my pale ribs and back. There was a beat of silence before she finally held her hand out to help me step away from the thing.
I began to dress, pulling on the shirt and leggings that she’d brought for me. Turning my nose, I sniffed the material, a little worried that it belonged to someone and it would set my now-hair-trigger instincts off. Ever since I’d gotten back my health and the chemo and radiation weren’t messing with my hormones anymore, it was like I was going through the omega change all over again.
Going through what amounted to a second puberty sucked all kinds of ass.
Not that I’d really even gone through it the first time. It made me territorial, irritable, and altogether a mess as my first heat was fast approaching and wearing someone else’s—especially another woman’s—clothing was very high on the list of things that I didn’t want to do.
Right next to getting married to Pack Ricci.
But the clothing smelled like nothing, as if it had just come from the store.
“They’re brand new,” the woman told me as she gathered the wedding dress up in her arms. “What would you like me to do with the dress, love?”
“Burn it for all I care,” I told her absentmindedly as I picked at the hem of the shirt.
The woman began to make her way back to the door and I realized that she’d never introduced herself. “What is your name, anyway?”
“Oona. I’ve been with the boys since they were little and now I take care of the estate,” she told me, the wrinkles around her eyes deepening as she smiled. “I’ll let you rest for tonight and then I’ll give you a tour of the place in the morning.”
I wanted to keep her in the room with me, but the woman was already ducking out and shutting the door behind her.
There was no click of a lock, and for a moment I was sure my ears must have been playing tricks on me. They had to have locked it—they literally kidnapped me only a few hours ago.
After I was sure Oona was gone, I got up from where I was perched on the bed and crept as quietly over to the door as possible, wincing when a floorboard creaked underfoot. Then, slowly, I turned the fancy doorknob, and much to my surprise, the door opened easily.
The room was in a separate wing of the house, different from the sprawling, almost rustic feeling that the main section gave off. Stairs wound down from the door, leading to the ground floor that had a sunroom filled to the brim with plants. As far as I knew, the only thing in this section of the house was the sunroom and the bedroom I was currently standing in.
“It’s a weird, random tower,” I whispered into the darkness.
Closing the door, I leaned against it and tried to parse out my feelings.
I’d been kidnapped from my wedding day, and yet I didn’t feel overly scared about it, nor did I have the desire to run away right back into the arms of Pack Ricci.
But that didn’t change the fact that Edison Keane had taken me with the intention of making me his.
Somewhere deep down, in the very recesses of my instincts, that thought thrilled me.
“Crazy,” I muttered to myself as I crawled underneath the sheets and buried my face in the pillow.
The innate urge to rip all of the bedding off of the mattress and rearrange it to my liking filled me and I forced myself to lie still.
Nesting was still a foreign concept to me. The hospital had provided me with the materials when I stayed there, but I never really felt the need to do it before. But in the past few months as my hormones returned I found myself wanting my space to feel more comfortable.
Unfortunately, my beta parents never understood that desire and I was scolded for letting what they called my ‘animal compulsions’ get the better of me.
I lay for another moment before I finally gave in with an aggravated sigh and sat up.
The duvet that they’d given me was like a fluffy cloud and I quickly peeled it off of the bed along with the flat, top sheet, leaving the fitted sheet on the mattress as I tried to figure out the best way to arrange them.
A quick perusal of the closet told me that no one had lived in this room as there wasn’t even old clothing to add to the nest to bulk it up.
Eyeing the headboard, I made some quick decisions as I hooked one end of the flat sheet behind it, knotting it so that it would stay in place as I pulled on the other end to make a sort-of tent over the mattress.
Gathering the duvet in my arms again, I dove underneath the flat sheet and gathered the fluffy material around me.
And it was so much better.
With a contented sigh, I finally let the warmth from the duvet and the closeness of the material walls around me lull me off into a surprisingly dreamless sleep.