Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Violet
“Can I see my mates?” I ask. It still feels strange to think of them as mates. For so long, they have been merely my travel companions… ones I coveted, and who, unbeknownst to me, coveted me too.
Darrion shakes his head.
My brows pull together. “Why? Are they too busy lugging rocks or chopping wood for you?”
His lips tighten. He looks very much the displeased male. “They are indisposed.”
“Indisposed how?”
He exhales heavily. “Rafe is… resting. And Lark went with them.”
“Lark left? Without telling me? How could you let him?!” Also, why did he stumble over the resting part regarding Rafe?
They have been working them to the point of exhaustion, and I don’t trust this sudden determination that Rafe must rest. My fury burns through every scrap of hesitation I have left.
I march right up to Darrion and jab him in the chest.
“You have bony little fingers,” he observes, curling his hand around mine, stroking his thumb over the back of my hand. “He is fine… They are all fine. Already on their way back.”
That knocks the bluster right out of me.
“Now,” he continues, “you are shivering. You may wait for them in your nest. Or you may wait in Atlas’s study.”
“I can go to his study? Even without him there?”
“That is what I said, is it not?”
“Fine, then. I want to go to his study.”
He gives me a perplexed look, then sweeps his arm out for me to precede him.
“I… uh… do you want your jacket back?”
“No.”
Well. That was blunt. Like he is annoyed at me for even asking. His jacket is practically smothering me and will drag along the stone floor when I walk. But if he doesn’t mind it getting scuffed and dirty, who am I to argue?
We head inside and take the corridor leading to Atlas’s study. Although Darrion said Lark was fine, I’m still worried. What if he’s injured? Darrion does not strike me as the kind of man who troubles himself with such details.
“What about Rafe?” I ask. “What’s happening to him that he is resting? And were… were any of the others hurt?”
A small smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “No. None of them was unduly hurt.”
This does not offer much greater comfort. I want to press further, but we’re already at the door to Atlas’s study. It feels strange entering without knocking, but Darrion turns the handle and pushes the doors open, then steps aside for me to go first.
Atlas’s scent lingers in the air. Darrion follows me in and closes the door behind us. The room feels suddenly smaller when his wings snap open and rise behind him in two giant brown fans.
He scowls like their arrival annoys him. Then mutters a curse under his breath, and they snap folded in against his back.
My eyes become glued to them. I force myself to look away, toward the shelves lined with books and strange devices.
It’s not as though I get a lot of time to look around when I’m here with Atlas.
I’m usually looking at him… more specifically his cock while kneeling at his feet.
No, don’t think about that now. “I didn’t think I’d be allowed in here. ”
“You are allowed anywhere you choose,” he says.
My head snaps back toward him.
“You are not owned, little omega. You are chosen. And you may choose in return,” he said. Only I spoke true when I said I did not trust him. “Why? I’m naught but a servant.”
His chuckle is low and husky. “Playing coy again, Violet?”
My temper flares. “He treats me like a servant. Bringing him food. Kneeling on the floor while he eats.”
“If you think he asks every servant to kneel at his feet, or that he spreads them out upon his desk and watches their cunt drip for him, then you are far more naive than I presumed.”
My cheeks burn. “He does not do that with the others?” I want to swallow my own words and the insecurity they reveal.
He looks amused now. “No. He assuredly does not.”
Now I’m unsettled. Even though I sort of knew. Hoped…
Gods, where did the hope part come from? He has turned me into a hussy… a bigger hussy, I reflect, my cheeks getting even hotter. I’m already obsessed with Atlas—with Darrion too, after he watched—and just being in this room makes my pussy grow wet.
Darrion lifts one brow like my thoughts are written on my damn face.
I turn away, seeing a long couch that rests before the wall of bookcases, plump and inviting in deep burgundy velvet.
My feet carry me toward it and away from Darrion’s probing look.
Yet his scent follows me, for I still wear his jacket.
I cannot bear to take it off, although it is not even cold here.
I trail my fingers over the velvet on the arm of the couch, finding it soft and warm beneath my touch. I’m not sleeping much of late. The urge to curl up and rest hits me hard.
I glance back to find Darrion watching me like the predator he is.
“Go ahead,” he says. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Several plump cushions are scattered, and my fingers itch to touch them. After so many years denying my nesting urges, a surge of righteousness grips me. And why shouldn’t I touch them?
Before I register what I’m doing, I’ve plumped one to my liking and curled on my side around it, coat drawn up to my shoulders.
The room smells of Atlas.
The coat of Darrion.
And, just faintly, a little of Fenix lingers too.
I breathe it all in.
Darrion
She curls around the cushion like a little forest creature making a nest, buried under my jacket, breathing deeply like she enjoys my scent against her skin—or Atlas’s. And, perhaps, Fenix’s too, for the room carries a faint trace of him as well.
Those are not the only scents on her—her mates’ lingers too, hardly surprising, given all the rutting they do.
I scowl. My wings flare again before I can stop them.
“For the love of the Goddess! What are you doing?”
“Presenting,” Darkan says, as though this is fucking obvious. “Aldric has gotten a head start. We must likewise set out our stall. Our feathers are more lustrous than his and look particularly fetching in this lamplight.”
Fetching in this lamplight? What the fuck?! Who is this imposter in my mind? Darkan is battle-hardy and the least emotionally nuanced being I have ever met.
“She cannot even see when she has her eyes closed!” I point out.
I will them to at least fold against my back, but the feathers twitch along the edges, reacting to her presence despite my irritation. She has been in this room for less than a minute, and already the air is too warm.
This was a mistake. She shouldn’t be here alone with me. It was bad enough on the upper entry with the wind beating against us and carrying some of her scent away. But here, enclosed, with no chance of someone happening upon us…
I rub absently at the center of my chest, still feeling the impression of where her bony little finger poked.
She sighs, nestling deeper into the velvet couch and my jacket.
“She likes our scent,” Darkan informs me.
My grunt is derogatory. She brings change. Change is not always good. I never thought I’d be bothered if Atlas took a mate, beyond the fact that it meant I could choose one too, if I wished. Certainly, I never expected to be caught up in it myself, nor did I envision something as complex as this.
Small. Fragile. Vulnerable in a way that rouses protectiveness and hunger in equal measure.
I drag my gaze away, jaw tightening.
“You’re staring,” she says.
So, she is faking sleep, it would seem. I smirk. “It is my right to watch you.” Only now I’m thinking about watching her through the viewing windows when her mates take her… and about her draped over Atlas’s desk like an offering, slick dripping…
My wings flex again.
Darkan hums his approval beneath my skin. “Offer her our jacket to layer with her other things in her nest…”
My grin is broad, thinking about Lark and Rafe getting all riled up when they find something of mine. “If you like my jacket, feel free to keep it for your nest.”
Her eyes pop open to peer up at me. She doesn’t answer, but her fingers tighten over the collar just a touch.