Page 61 of Omega's Dream (The Hartwell Sisters Saga 4)

Oh, the child’s wail brought out some maternal instinct I never knew existed. “Tod, come here.”

He rushed into the room, ready to fling himself into my arms but at the sight, perhaps my scent, he stopped. “You aren’t hurting are you?”

“Only a little. Perfectly natural. Your uncles will take care of me.” A bald-faced lie. I’d no intention to let those alphas near me but people believed that omegas needed alphas and the thought of worrying him made it easy to say the words. His little nod, when his face still looked so uncertain, made me smile. Until three oppressive scents began threatened all my composure. Oberon, flanked by Puck and Jude, stood behind him.

“That’s right, Tod. We’ll take care of her.” Puck’s deep purr made my head spin. Did he have to sound so good? So very alpha?

“Waw-kay!”

“Okay? What gibberish.” I felt hysterical.

“Waw. Kay.” He emphasised each syllable. “It means ‘yes’, aunt Pol. In Uncle Puck’s language.”

I turned so fast to look at Puck for confirmation that I over balanced and found myself caught up in Jude’s arms. Goddess, his scent was more potent than any alcohol. “Steady there,” he whispered.

“I can stand on my own,” I growled, wriggling in Jude’s arms but he held firm–to the great amusement of the little urchin who grinned like a maniac.

“Get gone, Tod. We’ll see you in a few days,” Oberon charged. Tod, for once not arguing, gave us a little salute and then dashed out of the room. “Now, Hippolyta. You shouldn’t fib or make promises you don’t intend to keep.”

“I didn’t want to alarm him.” I threw an elbow at Jude but it hit nothing but hard, unforgiving muscle.

Three immovable objects converged in front of me, blocking all the exists. I considered the open window but there was no safe escape in that quarter.

“I will be going to my room now.”

Stomping through the halls, the alphas prowling behind me, their arousal choking the air.

“You don’t need to follow me,” I barked. They kept on. A respectful distance behind me. A irritating itch impossible to scratch when I was dressed in layers of cotton and silk. Needing the comfort of my cage, I picked up my pace, almost running up the stairs to my little room. The door stood open, not as I had left it and already I could catch the scents of the alphas. I whirled on them. My body thrumming. No. I was a storm. Wild and angry and determined to destroy. “You went into my… My space. When?”

“Yes. While you ate a steak for breakfast,” Puck purred. A deep rumbling sound that played along my senses and was more potent than his touch. His kiss, I remembered that and still his purr had more power over my core, which cramped with the need to be filled. “Go on.”

Oh, to have the strength to deny them and find some dark closet to be one of the living dead until this hell had ended. But I knew better. Had been foolish enough to live through a heat and goddess I could not do that again.

“There are toys for you,” Oberon spoke next. “Beautiful ones I commissioned just for you.”

He was a fool to think he could still taunt me, and with more grace than I thought myself capable during my heat, I curtsied to him.

“Go in.” Jude. I closed my eyes, remembered a past heat. His hands on my skin as he guided me to my bed while we battled for supremacy in an all-consuming kiss.

Too much. I spun away, lost my balance, and in overcompensating crashed into my room.

Fresh nesting materials. I baulked at the sight of bed linen and pillows and a spare feather mattresses covering the floor in front of my cage. To one side—fragrant and fascinating—clothes the smelled of the alphas.

“I don’t nest,” I protested. Hells, I’d not tried to nest since my first failed attempts as a girl. The dissatisfaction at the way the fabrics did not smell right, did not feel right, did not make me feel safe in the way papa claimed they would. “Perhaps you’ll get better at it. It is natural to want to nest,” he’d said only for me to reject the nesting instinct every heat.

Even through the growing fog of my heat, I longed for my home, the apartment I had shared with Jude. The amassed bedding. My sister’s mate had once refused to enter the space, claiming it was a nest and should be treated as such.

“We’ll do it, omega,” Jude’s soft rumble had me turning inward. Could I hate myself for wanting his comforting, familiar presence? Could I give in just for this heat? “Come, Pol. Sit.” His hands, so strong and firm, settled on my shoulders and with barely any force he guided me to sit on one of the mattresses that filled the room. I sunk into the soft down. “Tell us if we do it wrong.”

There was no chance I could tell them how to make a nest when I hardly understood what it would look like. Despite the heat of the fever, I began shivering and the nesting materials transformed into ropes, binding me to a fate I had rejected. Yet, no matter that I ordered my body to leave, I couldn’t. I couldn’t because what was out in that hall was far more terrifying than the cage or the nest they wanted me to make. “I can’t do this. I can’t.”

“Which is why we are here,” Jude whispered in my ear before sucking on my earlobe. He moved away before I could tell him off for the presumption.

“Just do the work,” I mumbled. I didn’t want to admit that he knew what I liked. That he had spent more time in my bed than out of it. That when I had been at Omega House, he had slept there so that when I returned it would be filled to his scent. “Jude… he knows.”

“There you go.” Puck kissed my temple. “And what should Oberon do, petals?”

The alpha appeared before me. His harsh face filled my vision. The firm set of his mouth worried me. Was something wrong? Was Tod hurt? No. If Tod was hurt, he would be caring for him. The boy would always come first for all of us. I tugged at the collar of my gown. “I don’t know…”

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