Page 41 of Want It All
He turned to face me, his expression a mask of misery. ‘I think he did it on purpose,’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘Who did what on purpose?’
‘Tris,’ he answered. ‘Tristan. I think he wanted Rose to slick.’
Ihatedthewords,even as I said them. I hated that I was here, in Byron’s room – trying to make sense of what had happened – behind my alpha’s back.
Dance with Rose, Tristan had murmured into my ear, pushing me gently towards the dance floor.It’s okay with me if you want to kiss her.
We’d never really discussed the boundaries of our relationship before Banksia – we’d never needed to – and I’d resisted, frowning back at him.I know you’d like to, he’d said, smiling at me indulgently, relaxed.
And Ididwant to. Had wanted to for days,weeks, even. Tristan knew how much she’d been occupying my thoughts. And while I’d wanted to talk about expectations and limits first, Rose had also beenright there, and I’d been immediately caught up in how she felt beneath my hands and how sweet her tongue was when it flicked inside my mouth.
The moment I’d caught a hint of scent in the air – a sweetness I knew, somewhere deep inside, could only be hers – Tristan haddragged me from the First Year Library, all the way to our room, and pulled me into bed before my brain could clear enough to wonder about it. Why had he said that, and without warning? Not justwhy– butwhy now?
My alpha didn’t doanythingby chance. The only impulsiveness he ever showed was with spur-of-the-moment present buying; everything else he did was meticulously planned, calculated, careful.
Sowhyhad he encouraged me to kiss Rose?
‘You think TristanwantedRose to slick?’ Byron repeated carefully. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because he told me to dance with her, and said it was okay if I kissed her. Because heknowsI can’t keep my fucking hands off her.’ I looked up, meeting his gaze. ‘And because he knows what omegas are like.’
Byron had clearly been doingsomethingbefore I’d pounded on his door. His cheeks were flushed, his grey eyes heavy, and he’d sprayed so much canceller that my nose twitched. He looked delicious, so eminently fuckable, and his apartment smelled sodevourablethat it almost distracted me from my confusion and hurt.
He looked back at me evenly. ‘I know you’re not a beta, Seb.’
‘Then youknowhow bad this is,’ I said. ‘You know that Tristan wasn’t just risking Rose’s safety.’
He’d risked mine, too.
Byron frowned. ‘He got there at the same time I did. I noticed him pulling you away.’
I worried at my bottom lip. That was true; Tristan’s eyes had been on Rose and me the whole time we’d danced, and he’d dragged me from the library just as Byron had carried Rose away. I could put his quick reflexes down to instinct – or consider the possibility that he’d known what would happen and had planned for it.
I clicked my tongue. I’d trusted Tristan implicitly for six years. He had never done a single thing that had made me question his motives, or his dedication to me. I knew that he loved me. I knew that he’d kill for me, die for me.
It was possible he’d never risked my safety at all.
But I also knew that he could be single-minded. And I knew he’d do anything to keep me safe – including hurt other people.
I sank down on Byron’s couch without invitation. His room was nice, though different to ours. Tristan’s living spaces always looked as if he’d taken part of his family’s manor house with him, no matter where he was. My idea of decor was books, plants, and more books, and together, it worked.
Byron’s space was less cluttered, though his bookshelves were still stuffed to overflowing. The walls were hung with framed prints, mostly black and white line drawings. One of the bedroom doors was shut; through the other, I could see a green coverlet spread across a low bed, and a huge Aubrey Beardsley print – a scene fromLe Morte d’Arthur– hanging above it.
I wasn’t going to get a closer look, obviously. But I wanted to. Byron’s scent made me want to knoweverything, to gather and hoard all the pieces of him that he hid, to examine them all with care, noting every smooth stretch, every rough edge.
I pushed the thought away before it could veer into dangerous territory. Tristan’s permission didn’t extend to Byron. Rose was different; she wasn’t a threat to Tristan’s dominance, not like Byron could be. That shit didn’t matter to me – alphas could be fucking fools sometimes – but it would matter to Tristan. He needed to be at the top of the food chain, always, and I suspected that Byron’s calm facade hid strength for days.
‘How can I help?’ he said gently.
I shivered. He was good, this alpha; too good, almost. He knew the right way to speak to an omega, careful to always phrase hiswords in a way that acknowledged we had different needs to the other designations without making us feel weak for it.
I should have been worried to know that he’d realised my greatest secret. Instead, it was arelief. I didn’t have to pretend with him any longer. I’d still need to be careful, but now I had a second person I could be myself with.
‘I just needed a sounding board, I think,’ I answered. Byron didn’t need to know that, if anything, this visit had confused things further: he didn’t need to know that salted fucking caramel would be haunting my dreams.
Growing up with a super-dominant alpha mother, I was used to alphas calling the shots, and their omega following behind. I’d been fantasising about a pack foryears, always assuming that, if it ever happened, it would be Tristan who found the other members.
