Page 35 of Omega's Virtue: Part Two (The Hartwell Sisters Saga 3)

I wrapped my arms around myself, desperate for some comfort. The kind an alpha could give me.

I couldn’t sleep and when I did, my dreams were fitful. Once again, I was on the small boat that had taken us across the channel. The wind and rain howling around me and my mates standing on the deck of the ship just alongside us. I stood at the railing, calling out to them. And while they looked, while they held out their hands, they made no move to save me from the sinking ship. And behind me a leering Stimpson, my gun in his hand.

“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” Stimpson screamed over and over and over again. I clawed at the darkness that bled into the scene. A nightmare, I knew it. I knew it, the way that I knew if I woke I’d find my mates.

“No!”

“You’re safe,” the lips pressed to mine. “Hush, mate. Hush, omega.”

I whimpered, turning my head to sniff at Pax’s scent. Jack covered my back, his purr reverberating through me.

“Trix? Trix?”

Warm arms wrapped around me. Familiar scents anchoring me into reality. The storm of my dream fading away and my mates in my nest.

“I don’t want her sleeping on her own again.”

“Nightmares,” Jack sighed. “She had them as a child. Bogarts and kelpies.”

“She shouldn’t be having them at all.”

“Pax…” the warning growl in Jack’s voice provoked a little whimper. I didn’t want them fighting in my nest. I just wanted to feel their warm bodies and to stay awake. To know that they would keep the nightmare away. “Awake, omega?”

“Yes.”

“Then try to go back to sleep.”

I woke up feeling too hot, yet too cold. If my mates had been with me, I’d been decidedly too hot and hemmed in, but without their comforting presence I was equally lost and open to an attack of nerves.

A look at my beautiful stained glass window had a riot of emotions. Gratitude that Pax had created the most perfect nest. Even if it had been designed for any omega, I knew it was mine. If I could have designed a nest, I still would not have come up with a more perfect space than what I lay in now.

Pushing myself onto my hands and knees, I crawled to the still closed door and leveraged myself up. My side ached less now, but standing after lying in my nest still brought pain. I wanted to look at the wound, which, like my mate bites, had scarred. An unpleasant reminder of how my recklessness had nearly got me killed. If I’d been as thoughtful about my plans as Viola or prescient as Polly, none of this would have happened. I would have been satisfied with rescuing Hero and not considered going back to kill Stimpson.

Kill. My alphas knew at least part of my murderous intentions, but I’d withheld the dark truth. That some feral frenzy had stoked my blood and caused thoughts so dark and dangerous that I now wondered if I had been possessed by some demon.

Deep breaths. Deep, long breaths calmed my nerves so that at last, I could leave my nest and face my alphas.

Pushing aside the blankets, I slipped the night-rail I’d made of one of each of Pax’s and Jack’s shirts—however crooked the stitches I loved it best—over my head and opened the door between my nest and the bedroom where Pax and Jack slept. The curtains were partially drawn, and I drew them back, half expecting the two large alphas to wake. Their breathing remained steady, as did their scents, which teased my senses. I crossed to the door and wandered about the quiet house until I came upon a house-servant going about some business or other.

“Madam! My Lady!” the beta gasped.

“Apologies, I realise we have yet to meet. I was wondering if some tea… and my Queen Anne’s Lace tea could be brought to the bedroom.” I bit my lip. “Drinking chocolate, too if there is any, that along with some toast, I’d be most grateful.”

“Right away, my Lady.”

She disappeared before I could correct her. I was not a lady. Then I remembered. I was. I had married a lord and was now a lady.

With a little reluctance I returned to our rooms. The impulse to explore Pax’s collection could wait until he could be my guide. I wanted to watch my mates as they woke. Or see their faces when I entered from the main door.

My alphas were still asleep, and I wondered what had tired them out—perhaps even the strongest alphas could feel the exhaustion of the night before. I’d felt terror beyond my wildest imaginings. Not for myself, but my mates who lacked any control.

“Mi’lady?” the same maid called through the door. I opened it for her and put a finger to my lips, asking that she be quiet. “There was no drinking chocolate, but cook says there shall be by luncheon should you want it.”

“Thank you.” I indicated she should put her burden down on the small table I’d moved close to the bed.

I sipped the scalding hot tea, a smile tugging at my lips at the two alphas who slept like the dead, sheets kicked aside during the night, Pax’s fingertips, just within touch of Jack, occasionally flexed, brushing against my mate’s back as he needed to know, even in his sleep, that Jack was there. That he wasn’t going anywhere. I collected my sketchbook and a stick of charcoal from my trunk and began to commit them to paper, as I had countless times before. But never in the flesh or in such a peaceful moment. Even in my wildest imaginings, I could never have known that watching two sleeping men would soothe my soul. Another large sip of tea so that I could balance the delicate porcelain in my lap without fearing it would tip over.

In such a repose, I would have sat all the day and counted the time well spent, except that my lovers, my mates, must stir and disrupt my gentle contemplation of their forms.

“What o’clock is’t?” Jack mumbled into the pillow he’d doubled over. He rolled onto his back, pinning Pax’s arm, and stretched like a giant cat, flexing his muscles and making me feel hot all over. If a man could empty his balls, surely an omega could be empty of slick after last night’s lovemaking. Yet still, I felt my body respond to his. I set my implements aside and shuffled to my knees, my hands running up their legs, before slowly dragging the sheets down, down, down until their nakedness was revealed. This was what I wanted to capture. The perfection of two sleeping alphas, their cocks hard, and knots partially formed. Those powerful thighs as well deserved an artist’s knowing eyes. Their chests and lips and the way that the muscles of their stomachs looked carved from marble.

“Gone eleven,” I said, distracted by the rise and fall of their chests, marvelling that men of flesh and blood could look like the deities of Ancient times. I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. “Perhaps you would like me to ring for some more tea?”

“Trix?” Jack’s voice croaked a little, but it was Pax who sat up abruptly one of his long arms reaching across the space to grab one of my ankles and pull me up the length of the bed until I was flat on my back, my nightgown rucked around my waist, pussy exposed to his hungry gaze. I stared up into his mercurial eyes, blown black with desire.

“Well… looks like we shall be having breakfast in bed,” my alpha growled, trailing a finger through my slick coated slit.

I whimpered. “Please…”

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