Page 5 of Excess

“It’s not very authentic, I know,” Ms Dara said with a wry smile. Perhaps the look on my face had been projecting my thoughts. “It looked like this when I moved in—I wouldn’t have chosen to remove so many of the original features.”

“You didn’t see anything you liked better when you were house hunting?” It wasn’t like there was a shortage of obscenely expensive historical homes in this part of town.

Ms Dara’s smile tightened a fraction before she fixed her perfectly pleasant expression back in place. “I didn’t choose it. But I have no complaints. Obviously. It’s a lovely home. I’m very grateful to live here.”

I wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince with that statement. She showed me to the space before quietly excusing herself to take a call. The butler with the judgemental hawk eyes reappeared to stare at me while I measured and photographed the area. He did it under the guise of polishing a side table, but he seemed oddly invested in shining one spot.

Ignoring his disapproving gasp, I knocked on the door to Ms Dara’s office on my way out, poking my head in when she called for me to open it.

That ought to give the butler a conniption.

“I’m done here. If you’re happy to proceed, then I’ll be back in a couple of days to rip out the more recent plasterwork and get the space ready. It’d be helpful to have the surrounding hallway area cleared of furniture before then.”

“That won’t be a problem. I’ll have Graeme see to it immediately.”

Of course she would.

I grunted out some kind of acknowledgement before making for the front door. For some reason, everything about this project felt like it was going to be a challenge, which made absolutely no sense considering how incredibly basic it was. The area was small, and I was recreating an arched lath and plaster ceiling directly from the original plans, which required a lot less brainpower than reimagining it from scratch.

It must have been her.

Something about Inika Dara spelled trouble for me, and I had no interest in delving deeper to discover what that was.

I had the distinct feeling I might not like what I found.

I steeled myself to walk in the front door when I got home, already feeling the vibrating tension of alpha aggression radiating from inside the house.

We shouldn’t live together.

Objectively, three grown alphas living under the same roof was a bad idea—we were territorial by nature, and our instincts demanded we push out any competition for resources.

But even if we’d all been cool-headed betas, it would have been a bad idea because we drove each other insane.

The first thing I heard when I opened the front door was Freya’s sweet little voice of reason, and it broke my fucking heart. She was five. It wasn’t her responsibility to mediate between full-grown adults.

“Everyone, just take a breath. Daddy, take a breath. See? Like this.”

This wasn’t her job. We were failing her.

“What’s the problem now?” I grumbled, stomping into the kitchen.

Freya turned her exasperated gaze on me, both hands on her hips just like my mother used to do when standing her ground against rowdy alphas. “No shoes in the house, Uncle Blake.”

I grumbled out an apology, trudging back to the front door to remove my work boots. As the resident omega, Freya set the rules on that sort of thing, and I needed to be better at following them.

“Right. What are you fighting about, then?” I asked, re-entering the too-small kitchen in my socks.

“Grandad wants to go down to the pub with Lewis and Jasper tonight,” Freya said, calm and logical, as she always was. Leo and I hadn’t sounded like that at five. We had been little assholes who got sent home from school for swearing.

“Alright.” I looked between the three of them, trying to figure out what the problem was. Dad was at the pub most nights, probably to get away from the house and the abundance of tension that filled it.

“But Dad wants him to babysit,” Freya said exasperatedly, looking at me like I was the problem now.

“I see.” I watched Leo closely as he suddenly seemed very interested in washing the breakfast dishes he’d had all day to do. “Somewhere you need to be, Leo?”

He shot me a glare over his shoulder, pressing his lips together. He’d never admit in front of Freya that he wanted to go and fight in the illegal underground ring where he made the bulk of his money nowadays. But she wasn’t a dumb kid. She’d picked up on the fact that whenever he wanted Grandad to babysit, he appeared at breakfast the next morning looking like he’d been through a meat grinder.

“We’ve got that thing, remember?” Leo asked, still scowling at me.

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