Page 9 of Omega's Dream (The Hartwell Sisters Saga 4)

“Oh?” The one word begged for my fist to connect with the arched nose. It would look better broken and bleeding. “And how can I help Hippolyta Hartwell, the queen of the high toby?”

“Stimpson is holding her for ransom. He’ll do worse than kill her if he isn’t paid. I don’t care what you believe. I know… you know I am right.”

My sister’s mates shifted behind me.

“Foolish girl,” he laughed. “If he wants money, he won’t harm her… or worse. You are being emotional, omega.”

“No!” I let my bark loose. I’d not be accused of some assumed omega weakness when alphas were as like to fly off the handle with the least provocation. Oberon grinned for a fraction of a second before schooling his features once more. He’d caught me—an emotional omega. “Oberon,” I began, prepared to make it clear I was no mild-mannered omega for him to dismiss.

“My queen, he won’t kill her. Perhaps carve her up a bit, cut off a finger, but he won’t get money if he kills her.” He smirked at the alphas behind me. Taunting them with his knowledge was a weak attempt. I was the one in charge not the over grown knot-heads behind me. But his words confirmed my worst fears. He might not have orchestrated Beatrice’s abduction, but he knew the details of it

How dare he sit so casually considering he was meant to care for the small child I’d forcibly rescued? “And if it were your sister, Oberon?” I challenged. “Would you be so full of mirth then?”

The stillness enveloping Oberon this time was not some affectation. No, I could watch with perverse satisfaction as he learnt I knew of Sophia and knew enough to use her name in a time like this. “You have made your point. Fear not, Paxton. Fordom. He won’t get that far. When did he ask to meet?”

“Tomorrow night,” Jack growled. “Vauxhall Gardens.”

“Easy enough,” Puck came to life, stretching his body as if was about to spar with Jack in this office. “Doubt he’ll bring her. He ain’t an idiot… Well, no more an idiot than he’s already proven. Slippery little eel. Wish you’d let me kill him the last time he was here.”

“I’d rather the money,” Oberon replied as if we discussed whether port was superior to a good French brandy. “Very well. I will rescue your sister on the condition that you stand collateral, my dear sweet queen.”

I dipped my chin. I’d expected to trade myself for Beatrice. Why else would I have refused Jude? His fury wouldn’t have served. A beta ranting and raving in a room of alphas and an apex omega would have achieved nothing. No doubt when I told him of this later, he’d lecture me. A warmth spread through me at the knowledge it was a beta not one of these alphas who would be holding me in his arms.

“One Hartwell for another.” Oberon pointed a long finger with a heavy gold signet ring in my direction. “You’ll take the place of the fifteen thousand pounds he owes me. And you, Paxton and Fordom, can pay the interest of two thousand… A Hartwell omega’s price.”

“No,” Fordom said. “I’ll find a way to do it without paying you.”

“No offence, Colonel, but I know where he might be keeping her and I doubt you’ve the self-control to keep him alive long enough long enough to find it if you agree to meet him at Vauxhall. Clever of him to not have a way for you to agree. Don’t you think?”

The goddess had smiled on me. All the possibilities flooded my senses. Shifts in scents. Oberon could read an opponent—a necessary accomplishment for a whore master and gambler—and knew the stakes would be hard to resist. Jack would fight through any pain to rescue my sister. Paxton pay any price. And I would move heaven and earth to save my sister. I blinked at each of them. Seeing and not seeing these alphas. Two loved my sister. Two wanted the chance to claim they owned the queen of the high toby. The omega who refused alphas.

“I’ll do it. And pay the two thousand from my own pocket.”

Oberon leant forward, his scent thick, a smugness settling about him. My eyes, I belatedly realised would appear mirrored-gold. He had wanted to see me like this. And for whatever reason, I wanted to see his and Puck’s eyes to mirror mine.

“Very well.” Drexler sat back. “Puck arrange it.”

“This way.” Puck ushered the alphas out the door.

“You stay Hippolyta Hartwell,” Oberon invited me to stay even while malicious glee seeped into the words.

For once, I controlled my emotions. Paxton places a hand on my elbow, pulling my attention away from the devilish alpha.

“Will you be alright?” he asked.

Rather than answer such a risible question, I sank into the chair placed in front of Oberon’s desk and arranged my skirts as if I was the queen preparing to receive court.

“She has powerful friends,” Paxton reminded the others.

“Why do you think he wants her?” Puck laughed. “Come on, then…”

The door clicked closed but there was no indication we were locked in. I took a moment to look around the office. It was a smallish chamber lit by a few candles on a desk covered with papers and pens and bottles of ink. The one thing that drew my attention was the plain door in one wall. It was a poorly disguised to look like the wall, a slim dado rail cutting through it, intended for servants but no servants had access to the key which would open it. For through that door was Oberon and Puck’s lair.

“You manipulated them for your own ends. They must take responsibility if—” I cut myself off before my temper got he better of me. “Honourless.”

He shrugged. “I survive on my wits and exploiting the vices of others… A thing we have in common. I live in anticipation when you show your hand. You’d not have come here, so perfectly brazen, if you did not have an ace up your sleeve.”

My lips twitched. I didn’t want to like our conversation. More I hated how my omega preened that an alpha, that this alpha knew us to be wily and clever.

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