Page 64 of Excess

It was either going to be the best decision I’d ever made, or the worst. Maia answered on the first ring, her voice thick with relief when I said I was on my way as she assured me she’d call the agency and arrange for the support crew to meet me at the house.

Presumably, in normal circumstances, this would have all been set up with more notice, but I doubted they were going to say no to Inika Dara. There were definitely perks to her privilege.

Leo was more calm and focused than I’d seen him in years as he drove me to Mayfair. He didn’t push me to talk about anything I didn’t want to talk about, which I appreciated, but he did offer me some surprisingly insightful tips about omegas in heat that I shouldn’t have been surprised by—he’d once been a mated alpha, after all—but I was.

It helped my brain stay on track. I could get Inika through these next five days—it would be a fucking honour to do so—but what happened on the other side of it was still very much a mystery. It sounded like my family was on board with me taking a mate, which I honestly hadn’t expected them to be for some reason.

But that didn’t clear all of the obstacles in our way. We still were who we were. The dire distance between our social classes still existed. We were two people from very different worlds who had a fucking incredible amount of sexual chemistry. But was that enough in real life? To actually build something together?

And then there’d been that conversation with her dad that I’d tried not to overhear, but had caught every word of anyway. It almost sounded like Inika was ready to give up some aspects of her lifestyle, if it meant that she had both freedom and privacy.

Those things I could offer her.

Maybe all hope wasn’t lost then?

Focus, Blake. Just get her through her heat.

“Alright,” Leo said, yanking up the hand brake as we stopped outside of Inika’s home. “This is all you. Don’t worry about anything else—we’ve got it taken care of. Just… well, be a good alpha.”

I nodded once. “Thank you for the pep talk, I guess.”

Leo smiled wryly. “I owe you a few. Go on. Good luck.”

The moment I approached the front door, it was all a whirlwind. Stern-faced, mated alphas in dark scrubs frog-marched me into the reception room, grilling me on my willingness to be there.

A tired, nervous-looking beta who I assumed was Maia would occasionally appear in the doorway, watching for a while before vanishing somewhere else—presumably to check on Inika.

“What do I have to do to get this moving?” I barked. “I want to see Inika.”

“Nearly done,” Gerardo—who seemed to be the team leader said. “Do you understand that the muzzle can only be unlocked by one of us? When you need food or a break, you can leave the nest and one of us will remove it for you. It will be secured in place again before you return to the nest. Understood?”

“I understand,” I replied impatiently. “Is someone asking Inika all these questions? I don’t know for certain that she actually wants me here.”

I thought I might die if she didn’t.

“You’ll know,” Gerardo said drily, setting a leather case on the table and opening it up. “She is… instinct-driven at this point. A conversation wouldn’t be productive, but she will certainly be able to let you know her opinion of you.”

“Is she in her nest?”

Gerardo shook his head, pulling out an elaborate leather contraption that had to be the muzzle. “Generally, we wouldn’t have agreed to providing assistance to an unknown alpha that the client hadn’t even mentioned with basically no notice. However, Ms Dara is… well, she’s showing signs of distress. She won’t enter the nest at all.”

Two of the alphas grabbed me by the arms, yanking me back as I made to head for the hallway.

“Muzzle on first,” Gerardo said patiently, holding it out as he approached, careful not to trigger an aggressive response in me.

It was black, and made of a thick leather that I didn’t particularly want wrapped around my face, but I’d do whatever I needed to do to get to Inika. A padded bit went between my teeth, while straps were secured in three spots behind my head—above the ears, below the ears, and behind the neck. It clicked into place as they locked it, and I supposed that I could take comfort in the fact that it definitely wasn’t going to slip off by accident in the heat of the moment.

The leather bit between my teeth had a faintly bitter taste—just enough to discourage me from chomping down on it whenever the urge to bite struck. It was a primitive design in some ways, but it was incredibly effective.

“Come on, then. Let’s see if you pass the omega’s inspection.”

Chapter 20

BLAKE

The only reason I hadn’t smelled Inika from downstairs was that the ventilation system had been ramped up to its maximum setting. It meant the house was cold, but also that fresh air was being cycled through from outside constantly, not giving her scent a single second to linger.

But once we were upstairs, within a few feet of her… The scent of her perfume was undeniable. Not just her regular perfume, either.

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