Page 23 of First
“I get breakfast?” I tilt my head. “Is that standard practice?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is it part of the whole Right thing, feeding an Omega after ripping them from the arms of their mate?”
“I wouldn’t know, as the general has never claimed the Right before yesterday.”
“First time for anything, hmm?” I wink at the man, who appears willing to risk a clog to flush me down the sealing system.
“The general often has Omegas spend the night with him, though,” he adds. “And yes, he does offer them a meal afterward.”
I’m not sure why my stomach drops at hearing that, and I don’t care to investigate the matter. “What a gentleman. I’m Sofia, by the way.” I hold out my hand and try not to laugh at the way he turns his nose up at me. “And as a person who is clearly aware of social mores, I assume you’ll tell me your name any second now…?”
“Bastian,” he says after a long pause, looking like he ate something sour. “I serve the general as his seneschal.”
Have I heard this name before? Yes. Recently. Very recently. But the memory is fuzzy, and I cannot place it. “Nice to meet you, Bastian.”
“I wish I could say the same, Lady Larsen. Follow me, please. And,” he adds, letting his eyes fall to my torso, “I will expect you to return the tunic and pants you stole from the general’s closet. “
I look down at the too-big clothes I have to practically beg to stay on my body and wonder why on earth I would want to steal them. Still, I try to match his gravity. “I shall strive not to disappoint you, Bastian.”
We wind through a handful of austere corridors that have nothing of the opulence I know from House Larsen. At the end of them is a dining room, and Gabriel sits at table inside it. He’s on a bench and not at the head. The moment we appear at the entrance, he glances up and turns off the holo blueprint he’s studying. There are a handful of dirty plates scattered around him, hinting that others were present but recently left. When he gestures for me to take a seat across from him, I ignore the leap in my heart and brush past Bastian. As I do, a whiff of something familiar hits my nose.
I halt.
“The deputy commander,” I murmur, halting in my tracks.
“Excuse me?”
“You smell like the Alpha woman who escorted me here last night. The deputy commander. Are you her Omega?”
His eyes widen. “I thought cold Omegas were supposed to be as bad as Betas when it comes to scents.”
“Yeah. We usually are.” In my experience, at least, I’ve never been able to tell things such as who was mated to whom before today. It’s weird, and I’d dedicate some time to wonderingwhy, but Bastian leaves, and I have no choice but to go sit in front of Gabriel.
The morning light slips inside through another window, caressing the handsome, sharp features of his face, painting his hair silver-white, transporting me to last night’s dream against my will. Today he’s not wearing his armor, and yet he manages to look even more imposing than usual. Perhaps because the illusion that his bulk might be caused by something other than muscles is completely shattered.
“You look good in military blue, Lady Larsen.”
I glance down at the shirt, which reaches nearly to my knees. I don’t lookgood. I look tired and disheveled and probably foolish, too. “Everyone here really loves calling me that, huh?”
“It’s your new title.”
“And your new favorite insult.”
He turns his head away, like maybe he hopes that I won’t catch the smile on his lips. I let him think whatever he wants as I glance at the breads and jams laid out in front of me, the basket of pastries, the coffee steaming from the mug.
I usually roll out of bed late and scarf down a protein unit on my way to work. Every night, I take tea with Lady Larsen, and usually there is an assortment of sweet treats to go with it, but this is just too much luxury for me. “I’m not sure I’ve done anything to earn this spread, General.”
“Oh,” he says cryptically, “you certainly did.”
I tilt my head. Study the way he studies me. “Why were you called away last night?”
“Eat.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing to concern you. You didn’t have dinner last night—eat.”
