Omega’s Gambit by Flora Quincy
Syon
A few moments after leaving Viola at the house on Weymouth Street.
I had nearly committed a rape.Not of her body but her soul. I’d nearly, in my fury, bitten her mating gland. No matter that it would not take since she was not in heat. Thank Goddess, she had broken through the feral anger and pulled me back into myself. I might eventually move past her deception, but I would never have forgiven myself if I’d mated her against her will. And Goddess, but the fact she was an omega made it all the more baffling that I’d been able to hold back at all. She’d felt so good in my arms, smelt so good, and I hated her for it.
Except it was not hate.
She claimed I’d repudiated her, but the knife cut both ways.
* * *
Viola. Not an alpha but Viola! A woman, an omega, who I’d spent an afternoon with and… Almost, I realised, almost I had known. The afternoon in her aunt’s drawing room, something about that enchanting omega called to me. I’d known her yet not known her. I had. More fool me for not recognising one I professed to love. I’d spent months with her and never known. What kind of alpha did that make me? A pathetic one. To think I’d have discovered the ruse if I’d given into my instincts after our duel and rutted her in the duchess’s nest.
“Viola…” Her name as sweet as her scent came easily even as the fury at the deception bubbled to the surface. Did I want to rip her head off or rip off her gown? Both. Both were darkly appealing. I could punish her in the most intimate way possible. Bring her to the brink of sexual bliss over and over again and then leave her begging and confused for more.
Could I? Her scent would spike, her slick would gather, and what alpha could refuse that?
Viola of violets and vanilla. The owner of the first scent I’d experienced in nearly a decade.
But why? Why had the foolish, headstrong omega taken such a risk? No matter what I had said to her, I did not hate her. My pride was in tatters. But that was between us. Her twin stripping had been for Lady Clare who, it seemed, had fallen in love with Viola, thinking her to be an alpha. I’d found myself in the centre of a farce, but at least in the eyes of the public, not a subject for ridicule. I’d hazard the guess that only Viola and her sister knew the whole truth—Goddess how similar they looked. As they’d stood next to each other, I recognised Iris from the night she’d been with her friend. Damn. I wanted to drag Viola to the duchess’s nest and punish her. Show exactly how an alpha dealt with recalcitrant omegas.
First, to Ayleigh to cool my temper. Then I’d return, and we would talk.
I jumped from the carriage and barked at Horne to have everything made ready to leave London for a couple of weeks. I’d stay at Ayleigh, shoot, prepare the house for when it was time for Viola’s first heat. My feet were restless and carried me into the library. On the sideboard stood a decanter I kept for guests and for the first time in my life, I poured myself a small glass. Perhaps the alcohol would soothe my raw nerves. My first sip confirmed all my previously held beliefs the stuff was rank and only fools drank it. I spit what I hadn’t swallowed back into the glass and banged the whole onto the table. It shattered and I noticed I’d cut myself.
“Dammit,” I pulled out a handkerchief and bound it around my hand.
A noise in the hall had my head turning towards the door. A scowling Paxton pushed his way into the library with a smiling Fordom trailing behind him.
“What brings you here?” I snapped. “I’m off as soon as my carriage is brought round.”
“We ran into Caroline Wilson. It seems you left Kellingham House with Miss Viola Hartwell,” Fordom smirked. “Congratulations are in order... That was a rather spectacular way to claim your secretary. But why aren’t you with her? Or do you go to Ayleigh first?”
“How long have you known that my secretary was Viola Hartwell?” I interrupted. I was in no mood for his frivolity or the reminder of how I’d abandoned her on her uncle’s doorstep.
Paxton grimaced. “Do not be angry with her until you’ve heard her reasons... I’m sure she has told—”
“Oh, I am angry with her, angry beyond measure. I am more like to kill you, the real Iris, and her uncle too, for letting an omega, one fresh from the country and untouched virgin, undertake so dangerous a prank. Anything could have happened to her!”
“Angry at me!” Paxton recoiled as if slapped. Pure confusion covering his face. “I tried—“
“You knew,” I growled. “You knew, yet you continued to let her spend time with an unmated alpha. Alone. You...”
“I didn’t have much choice,” he snapped. “I am as angry with myself as I could be. But she would not listen, and I supposed you knew your own business.”
“How long?”
“I met the real Iris at a boxing match in February. There is not much difference between them. She is perhaps a bit broader in the shoulder. But one thing they do not share is their eyes. Iris Hartwell’s are brown. And Viola’s are—well, you know better than any, they are as unusual as the lady is herself.”
“I’m going to tie her to that damned nest,” I snarled. “Why? Give me one good reason why you let her put herself in so much danger.”
“I don’t know her motives. I assumed political,” Fordom shrugged. He had a hand on Paxton’s arm, physically restraining the larger alpha, who’d recovered from his shock and was on the verge of making the mistake of challenging me in my own house.
“At your dinner party, I pulled her aside to lecture her. Then you appeared before I could send her home,” Paxton shook his head. “How could you not know?”
“Did you? Until you met the real Iris, did you know?” I threw back.
“No. But I wasn’t spending every day with her.”
“She masked her smell. And I,” I looked to the ceiling realising how easy it had been to trick me. “I lost my sense of smell ten years ago, which she didn’t know until recently. Dammit, but she pretended to be herself to woo the countess for me. A farce. She played me for a fool.”
“Orley, do not think you are the only one,” Fordom interjected. His usually carefree attitude gone. “Beatrice cares nothing for her personal safety. She chases one thrill after another, heedless of her dynamic. So your Hartwell is savvy enough to attempt to protect herself with a false alpha scent. I presume you will be making her your mate and duchess?”
I gave him a stiff nod. “She is already my mate. I’m not so stupid as to let her—“
I froze. I had not made Viola my mate—she’d not been in the thrall of her heat. Too furious, too embarrassed that I had been made a fool. My pride… I shook my head. I had left her.
“Relax, Orley,” Paxton took his own advice and shook Fordom off. “As Jack said, Her future Grace has a much better sense of her own safety than her sister. I think we can agree the Miss Hartwells are a menace to society?”
I had not felt any sympathy for the other two alphas until that point. But it seemed they had been dealing with Beatrice far longer than I had been entangled with Viola. “Get out of here,” I growled. “Go catch yourself a Hartwell of your own.”
“Horne,” I shouted. “We stop by Weymouth Street.”
I was going to claim my omega and bring her with me to Ayleigh, whether she willed it or not.
* * *
“She will not see you,” Iris snarled. “Whatever you did, it was enough… You made my sister cry!”
I snarled at the younger alpha. Viola had twice the spirit and all the blood lust. “I will see her. She is mine.”
“I won’t let…”
“Let?” my fury made my voice drop to a deadly stillness. “Let? You presume to decide what I do with my property.”
“Viola isn’t property! No omega is.”
“She is my jewel. I will not let you lock her up. I will have her shine. Now get out of my way this instant before I—“
“Orley! Get out of here, Iris,” Viola’s aunt pushed her niece aside. She scowled but knew to go.
“Mrs Florey,” I bowed.
She looked me up and down with a sneer. And I saw Viola in her disdain.
“Leave her alone. She… She does not need you. No omega needs an alpha. Do not think I will permit you to force yourself on her. I won’t let that happen. Not to her. Never to her.”
“She is mine.”
“Only if she wants to be.”
I clenched my jaw unable to argue with her. Viola my violet-eyed secretary was her person. Regardless of her dynamic, because of her dynamic, she deserved more than my feral need to rut her into heat.
“I’m gone to Ayleigh. If she wishes to see me, send her there.”
“Arrogant ass!” the omega screamed and slammed the door in my face.
* * *
I drank on the journey to Ayleigh—the stuff was foul but it drove away some of my darker thoughts. On arriving at the one place I’d called home, I fell into my bed and woke only to drink again. I wanted to chase away every dream of Viola. Not just the ones of an intimate nature with her hand on my cock. Her lips wrapped around it as I fucked her mouth. I wanted to erase the memories of her, dark curls catching the light as she bent over letters, or more likely one of her speeches.
On the third day, Timms insisted on pushing back the curtains. I squinted in the light, he was holding something out to me as if it would cure all my ills.
“What is this Timms?” I asked.
“Why... It is the omega’s gown which you kept in the duchess’ nest,” my valet hedged. “The one Your Grace has been spending so much time with. We, that is Horne and myself, thought it might give you some peace of mind to have something of hers near while you must be separated. We sent a parcel of your unwashed shirts to Weymouth Street for the omega…”
The delicate fabric of Viola’s gown still gave off the faintest hints of her scent and I damned my servants to hell and back for thinking this would bring me comfort. I’d not be admitted to her company again. Her scent would only drive me mad, not bring comfort as the beta had hoped.
“Burn it,” I snapped. “That lady is not what you assume her to be.”
“But we thought—“
“Do I pay you to think, Timms?” I barked. The beta tipped his head to the side in submission.
“Yes, I mean no, Your Grace. Right away, your Grace.”
“Forgive me. I am a bear. In no way fit company for anyone.”
I almost didn’t let go when he came forward to take the gown from me and I watched in awe the way he handled the garment as if it were made of spider webs and he dare not let a single thread break. I put the dress out of my mind. I could not fixate so entirely on her who invaded every moment of my day with an insidious seduction that with each breath I fell deeper under her spell. Memories of her cursed me with another night of tossing and turning as violet eyes and dark hair curling around a long neck.
The next morning I wrote to Viola informing her of a permanent end to our relationship. I wanted no obligations or formal ties between us when I returned home and claimed her, courted her in earnest. I’d let her free if that is what she wished. I did not write that if another alpha so much as touched her hand in greeting I’d kidnap her and make her mine regardless of her feelings on the topic. She would understand in the end. She had to. But I kept that resolution to myself. If not, I would retire to the country forever and give up on finding a mate or wife. I would look into finding some alpha cousin, no matter how distant, to take my place. Or let the title fall extinct. The legacy no longer mattered to me.
I stared listlessly out across the lawns when an express arrived from London. A letter from Iris—though I would only know for the signature since the handwriting resembled a child’s attempt to write. What could she have to say, when my own letter could not have reached Viola yet? Still, I was more anxious to hear from my… I was not even sure what to call her now. But where a name should be was only an ache and anger at the universe for denying me what was mine.
Sir,
I write for there are rumours concerning my sister Viola’s name concerning you and the events of the previous week. I realise any connection between our families must be terminated but I write to assure you that any scandal will be scotched. I will not permit my sister’s name to be raked through the mud.
Against my better judgement, I also must inform you that Viola has been unwell. I ask you to keep her in your thoughts. Perhaps when you return you could grant her some of your time. For there are things you must know but which only she can tell you.
Your servant
Iris Hartwell
Viola, unwell? I remembered her face as I thrust her from the carriage. How pale she had looked. How she had begged me, apologised, screamed. I’d driven her to her bed. No, I could not flatter myself that I’d such power over her. Some cold… It had to be some trifling cold. But a cold had killed my grandmother. I cursed myself for caring when it would have been so much better to wipe her from my mind. Everything that I had sought to avoid? I was one of those pathetic alphas driven mad by an omega.
* * *
I waited a day before impatience gripped me and I ordered the carriage, with word that I would return to London that day and expected the house prepared to receive me by that evening.
The sky was just turning pink and purple when a shot rang out. The coach lurched to a halt, and I was startled from a light doze.
“Hands up and hand over the goods,” a crude accent cut through the stillness that followed the commotion of highwaymen stopping the progress of one of the most powerful aristocrats in all of the Islands of Great Britain and Ireland. I swore, furious that anything would stop my progress. I wished to reach London before nightfall. So I might speak with Viola before she spent another night anywhere but with me.
I did not move, but the rapport of my pistol rang loud and the aspiring thief fell back, dead. A shout went up, and I leant out the window and in a minute the other pistol in my possession went off, killing yet another of the men who so dared to hold up a carriage on the King’s Highway.
“Pretty friend, you’ve now injured one of my men and killed the other. That is enough,” the woman’s voice was polished but full of bite. I heard the familiar click telling me a pistol was ready to blow my brains out.
“Do I know you?” I asked, sitting back against the squabs. The light in the carriage was strong enough to reveal a small woman wearing a black loo mask never her face. She looked as if she was on her way to a masquerade, a ruby ballgown covered by a matching domino with diamonds at her throat and dangling from her ears. Her hair looked red, and there was something almost familiar in the shape of her mouth and chin.
“We’ve not met formally,” the feminine voice laughed. “I’d hoped to meet you under better circumstances. But you’ve gone and made my little sister cry. Now you have the chance to beg for your life from Hippolyta Hartwell, Queen of the High Toby. Consider it an honour.”
Hippolyta. The only thing I could remember of her was Viola describing her as a cat dissatisfied with wherever she found herself. I’d no love of cats, they made me sneeze.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to consider that if I kill you it will hurt my sister. But if you make her cry again, I shall take pleasure in making you a meal for worms.”
“You’re mad,” I shook my head. She was an omega. So much smaller than I, but I knew fear when she levelled her pistol at me.
“Most likely. Perhaps you should just consider this a dream.”
“Nightmare, more like.”
“As your fancy takes you,” she laughed. “I must leave you or be late for my night’s revelries. But I am glad to have made your acquaintance. And should thank you for killing John. He was bad for business. Always wanting to shoot people. Guns are ever so loud and messy. One of the reasons I always wear red. Have a pleasant journey. The roads are good.”
I waited until the sound of horses retreated before stepping out of the carriage.
“How’s it?” I called to John Coachman.
“I’m winged, Your Grace,” came the reply. “But nothing to stop us. Can give—“
“I’ll take the reins.”
“Tis’ a four you aren’t familiar with,” the old man admonished as I jumped up to see how bad “winged” was.
“And you don’t trust me with them? We’ve got light, and the postboys ain’t scared. Eh, lads?” I said. The postboys affirmed that they were right as rain.
The anticipation for a fight had brought the world into focus. I had heard Hippolyta’s warning. I’d made a mistake with Viola. Fool. Arrogant fool to have left things unresolved.
Damned fool to have left London. To have allowed her out of my sight even for a moment.
* * *
Hippolyta had lied. The roads had been muddy, and it had taken us far longer to arrive than I’d wanted.
On entering my house, Horne gasped on seeing me covered in mud from the road. Horne sent a footman running to prepare a bath. I waved him off. It did not matter how I looked when I claimed Viola.
“Find out where I might find Viola Hartwell,” I barked, and a lackey left the house at a sprint.
The man must have wings on his heels for he was back in moments, panting out the information that Viola was at a ball hosted by Viscountess Gale. I growled, furious that my future mate and wife was anywhere near that slippery eel. I didn’t bother asking if I had an invitation, I was an unmarried and unmated duke. No hostess would deny me.
I arrived so late that Gale, her omega wife-mate and their beta husband were no longer greeting their guests. I found my omega hostess, a rail thing woman with an oddly plump face. She pressed her lips together and shook her head in the negative when I questioned her about Viola. But of a sudden, I saw Viola dressed in one of the simplest gowns, silk the same colour as her skin, throwing her unpowdered hair into sharp relief. Every fibre of my being responded to her and a fit of possessive anger flared at the sight of her dancing with another man. He was not familiar to me and by his bearing, no match for my Viola. I did not trust myself if it had been an alpha, but this beta was nothing to me.
But Viola, sweet Viola, summoned me like Circe. I carelessly brushed past my hostess in my eagerness to reach my omega’s side. For seeing her here, even knowing how things had ended, I knew no doubt. She was mine. She drew me like a lodestone through people I neither cared for nor sought to know, until I stood on the edge of the dancing, biding my time until the music finished. And while I waited, I scanned the other alphas to see if there were any who might try and take my place at her side. I growled at the sight of several alphas following her progress down the dance. By no means the most graceful dancer, Viola radiated a regal beauty that drew the eye.
The music had not ended, but I was already moving towards them. There was a deep, if dark, pleasure when Viola saw me. Brave girl, I thought, for she stood her ground and did not look away. At this distance, I could not say if she was unwell. But that chin! Raised and firmed. That assured me that her spirit was not broken. She had fire still.
“Your Grace,” she asked, looking between me and her boring suitor. It was hard to mistake the way the younger man gazed on her. I would not begrudge him those glances. “Did you come to dance? I’m afraid my dance card is full for the evening.”
I smiled down into her arresting eyes. As Iris had written, she did not look well. Her normally clear complexion was sallow, and dark circles under her eyes made me frown with dissatisfaction. She was not taking care of herself. Omegas needed to take care of themselves, be taken care of, before their heats. “I am no dancer. Come walk with me instead.”
“Miss Hartwell?” the man asked.
“It’s fine. I would be happy to join you, Your Grace.”
I placed her hand on my arm and covered it proprietarily, glaring at the stranger until he left.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. “Syon, please, I implore you. No scandal, Syon. I could not… Yell at me another time. Not here… If my letter angered you…”
I grunted. She misunderstood the situation, but a part of me was soothed that she recognised, bowed to my power over the situation.
“Iris says you are unwell,” I replied. People stared at us. Let them. This merely confirmed our connection. “I dislike… Hartwell, you should not be out in society if you are feeling unwell.”
“I… I had a fever,” she said, looking about nervously. I glanced down at her pale face. Then bent closer than was appropriate—but damn the tabbies—to better catch her scent. There was no illness but a hint of… She’d been in heat. I growled at the thought she had suffered through a heat with no alpha to care for her. For me to see her through it. I wanted to tell her so. In a crowded ballroom, while the polite world watched us, I was more concerned with lecturing her about never going into heat again without me there to rut her through it. More concerned with that than making things right between us. Because there was no forgetting the letter I’d written or what had passed between us.
I swallowed the inappropriate words. The question, demanding why I had not been summoned to rut her. This was not the place. This was not the time. So we walked slowly through the ballroom, acknowledging acquaintances and not speaking to each other.
“Do you and Iris get mistaken often?” I asked as we passed another smiling gentleman who’d met Hartwell at my house.
“Only if I were to wear her clothes… and the light is too poor to see our eyes are not the same,” she laughed bitterly but managed a smile and a slight nod of her head as we passed a couple, who acknowledged her with a wave. “She is an alpha after all. It would be a challenge to confuse anyone.”
“But you did it. Not just with me,” I pressed. While I could only expect the sisters to be close, I did not know how far she had taken Iris into her confidence. “If anyone… You pulled it off. You did with me. With everyone.”
“It was easier when we were children,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Before we presented.”
“Is Iris here?”
Our conversation felt oddly pedestrian as we weaved through the masses of people.
“No. She left town and returned to Oxford.”
“Then,” I paused. If I wanted to make her mine correctly, I needed to speak with her mother or I could follow instinct and claim her without permission. However, I must not do that in a ballroom without causing the kind of scandal she wanted to avoid. “Miss Hartwell, please do me the honour of having a quiet word. It is… There is something we must speak of. I recognise we did not part on good terms… A moment of your time.”
“Is there something wrong? The pamphlet that got published yesterday about the bill? Hippolyta was at fault. I told her not to meddle,” she said, her whole attention on me, her hand clutching my arm. “Sy— Your Grace. Yes. If you... We should find somewhere for me to explain. Your name won’t be dragged through the muck because of my actions.”
I did not correct her. I knew nothing about any pamphlets. Rather, I needed to know if my chances with Viola were destroyed by the letter I’d written. If she read it, if she… I looked down and saw a strange flush that did not look healthy spreading across her face and chest.
“Are you quite alright?” I asked. She’d been unwell. What if she had not recovered? I’d kill them all for forcing her to come to the ball when she was not fully well.
“Enough. I am too hot.”
“Find us somewhere,” I commanded. She led us to the library, and I held the door open while she slipped in.
“You are familiar with the house,” I remarked.
“The Viscountess is a friend.” She put a hand on her mating gland, pressing down on it as if it bothered her. “She… You do not care for my rambling. Her son is planning to stand in the next election. They hope I will… Never mind, it will not interest you. She says she wants to help with the Omega Right’s Property Act.”
“Gale wishes you to marry her son, doesn’t she? Didn’t I warn you to stay far away from him? I know I did, so don’t… You are a hellion,” I growled and wrapped my hands around her shoulders. Not enough, I must cradle her against my chest, a hand holding her head to the place above my heart.
“I would never!” she gasped and struggled to get away, but I would not let her. “Why are you growling at me? I did nothing wrong. You are the one who sought me out. Make up your mind. Do you wish to growl at me, or never see me again?”
“I am sorry,” I purred. “I know you wouldn’t go near that reprobate.”
“Syon, I don’t feel too well,” she closed her eyes as if the soft candlelight was too much. I purred for her, pulling her closer still that she might feel the deep reverberations in her very bones.
“You called me Syon.”
“You asked me to,” she sounded petulant. “And just now I called you many things but you would not respond. Are you angry about the pamphlets? Hippolyta—”
“I know nothing about the pamphlets. I just arrived in town. Do not worry yourself,” I reassured her. I wanted to keep her talking. I wanted to forget everything but how her body melded with mine. Difficult conversations could happen later. I had my Viola, nothing else mattered. “Your sister’s handwriting is nothing compared to yours,” I teased.
“Her handwriting is chicken scratch! Not that of a gentlewoman! But we believe it is because they forced her to write with her right hand instead of her left as Papa allowed me. I speak of nothing. I beg your pardon. My thoughts are all over the place.” A fluttering hand was pressed to a trembling mouth that appeared desperate to speak more if it weren’t being physically restricted.
But her scent! It spiralled and thickened. Ripe and decadent.
I growled with purpose now. Here before me was forbidden fruit I yearned to taste. I’d done so unknowingly. My alpha purred with satisfaction, but I forced myself to reject the instinct to fuck Viola in this place. To draw forth more of that sweet scent. To provoke her into releasing her slick. But no matter how tempting it was to pull down her gown and suck on her breasts, her clit, until she mewled in pleading, tortured desire. I needed to get her to the duchess’s nest first.
“We must leave, Viola. We must leave now before I am no longer in control.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sweet innocent. You smell divine. Precious above all things. But I am only an alpha and the—”
A growl was ripped from me as she let out a mewl of distress. Her scent, however, remained sweet, and I knew slick must be dripping from her hot, innocent cunt. The predator that lurked beneath the surface took on a new interest.
“I cannot,” I said even as I pulled her closer, rocking my aching cock into her in a feeble attempt to assuage the need I felt. “Goddess, I want you. But I cannot… Not here.”
I groaned into her hair.
“You hate me” she shook her head. “You said in your letter! You said you would give me up.”
“I was angry.”
“I am angry,” she snapped and tugged at the low neck of her gown. Her skin was feverish. Surely, surely she could not be going into heat? Everything pointed to her having recently finished a heat. It would be madness to think she would risk...
“Omega, when was your last heat?” I barked. All thoughts of a proper courting period replaced by the very real possibility that this delicate flower was about to bloom before my eyes and at a ball in a strange alpha’s house.
“A week ago.”
Everything pointed to there being some problem. Her scent was too rich for her to have finished her heat.
“I took suppressants,” she moaned in distress. “How was I meant to come to the ball without them? They insisted I come…”
“Fool girl,” I barked. She swayed towards me giving off the soft omega purr in hopes of soothing my temper. “Suppressants cannot be trusted. And if you work against nature, nature will only find its way. Why? Why did they force you to come, knowing your heat could come on you at any point?”