Page 12 of Glass Omega

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 wassomuch 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.

Four

“Are you really sure about that omega?” I asked, rolling away from Edison with a gasp and pushing his seeking mouth away. My skin was covered in a thin layer of sweat as I sat up in his massive four poster bed and reached for my shirt.

“Come back here.” Edison’s arm locked around my waist and he dragged me back across the black bedspread and against his naked body again.

His lips were distracting—just like they always were—and I let myself melt into him briefly as his vanilla scent invaded my senses.

Putting a label on whatever we were doing wasn’t easy. It had started a few years ago after one of the women that Edison favored tried to kill him.

Two bullets in his chest later and Edison swore women off completely… but he still needed to let off steam and we’d been best friends since he and his father pulled me out of squalor when I was nine years old.

It made sense at the time and neither of us spoke much about it. I was his second-in-command and would do anything for him, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to enjoy every second.

“Edi, stop trying to change the subject,” I growled, giving his chin a gentle shove and ignoring the plaintive look in his gold eyes.

Most of the time Edison Keane was a stone cold criminal. He rarely smiled and rarely showed his true self to anyone outside of this house. It made me feel damn special when he acted like this, but at the same time I knew it made me one of his weaknesses. With the other families closing increasingly in on us and the older generation pushing Edison’s boundaries daily, I should have put a stop to this whole affair much earlier.

But instead, I just rolled my eyes and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth, the stubble of his slow-growing beard scratching my lips as I spoke again. “Those eyes will get you nowhere.”

“These eyes get me everywhere,” Edison huffed as he finally surrendered and sat up to put his clothes on. “I couldn’t do what I do without them.”

Gold eyes were the quintessential trait of the Keane family and marked Edison as the last of his kind and as the leader of our little criminal sect. Even his cousin, the next in line if something happened to Edison, didn’t have them.

When I met him there had been more. A father, two uncles, and a great aunt that all had the trait.

They were all gone now, though, and Edison was alone. The last golden eyed Keane. A fucking unicorn in his own right.

“Focus, Edi, what are you going to do about the omega now living in the east wing.”

I was surprised when he put her there. Hardly anyone ever went into that section of the house because it had belonged to Aine Keane and it had been closed up after her death. Then, six months ago, Edison ordered it cleaned out and all of the furniture replaced.

Edison was the only person who went there now to take care of the plethora of houseplants his mother had been obsessed with when she was alive.

Putting Peregrine Chandler in the east wing held a weight that wasn’t lost on me or any of the other household staff who’d watched us walk her through the house in that damn wedding dress of hers.

Edison scrubbed a tired hand over his face and turned to look over his shoulder at me. “I bought her, didn’t I? Why wouldn’t I be serious? I told you I was going to find an omega for us last year.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you were serious.” He’d mentioned it in passing and I just figured he was going through a midlife crisis or something. “Besides, why would she be for us?”

Edison frowned. “Because we’re a pack.”

A snort rippled out of me.

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