"Eat as much as you can stand," he said, and then paused, frowning. "Unless you think you're likely to get sick on my back."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Flying," he explained with a grin. "Do you get carriage sick? It's not the same, but it's the best I can think. Or did Barr ever fly you?—?"
Oh. "I'll be fine," I said, trying not to think of those few moments of flight, so many years ago, when I was dizzy with love. Or perhaps just dizzy with the rush of flying. Had that been part of Malcolm's illusions too?
"It seems easy until you have to do a full day of it," Torion said. "My mother didn't get sick, but she'd spend the next two days in bed with all sorts of aches. Do you ride much?"
Do you want me to eat or answer a dozen questions?I wanted to ask.
"Not since I left for the cottage," I said, carefully stepping around Malcolm's name, my past. "I rode a great deal when I was a girl, however."
Torion nodded and looked thoughtful. "Well, it's a bit like that. I'll do the steering, you just need to keep your seat. Wouldyou like to choose a horse from the stables? Or we could buy you your own. Perhaps there's a young?—"
"Torion," I said, picking up my fork and knife in tight fists. "Tell me one of your plans so I might eat some food."
I immediately regretted the words, the bite in my tone, knowing I'd stepped wrong and been disrespectful. I braced myself for a harsh whisper, a dark scowl, something worse perhaps?
Torion just laughed, loud and easy, not quite booming like I'd remembered his father, but an open and hearty sound that brushed away my nerves.
"You're morethan welcome to take a room here, Feargus," Lord McKinney said, for the third time since we'd sat down at their table to supper with them.
Word must've been traveling fast through Grave Hills because we'd clearly taken the first two betas by surprise with our visit, but by the time we'd circled Torion's territory and reached McKinney, he'd produced his entire family—and the man had managed to get his omegas with three sons over his lifetime, so the family was sizeable—to join us for dinner. It was a noisy affair at the end of a noisy day of people pretending to be pleased for Torion when it was perfectly apparent that they were just happy to have a bit of gossip to share with their neighbors.
I wasn't sure if we'd given them an adequate dose, really. Torion kept me close to his side, grazing his hand over my back or waist or shoulder, and occasionally I'd found myself caught in his stare, receiving a purr in my ear or a brush of his lips over my cheek or the crown of my head.
It had me on edge. Although the edge wasn't…unpleasant.
I hadn't been touched so much, nor spent time with so many people, expected to smile and laugh and respond sweetly, inyears. I was exhausted and wistful, longing for the safety of my cottage well out of anyone else's way, unless they needed me for healing.
"I thank you for the offer, but we're not so far from the keep," Torion said.
His arm came around my shoulders, and instead of feeling oppressive, the weight seemed to steal some of the ragged tension out of me. I was too tired to stiffen or brace myself, so I leaned into Torion's strong frame, using his body to prop myself up.
"But your lady looks as if even a short distance might be too far," Lady McKinney said. She was a simpering girl who'd been batting her lashes at Torion all night, as if trying to tempt him into stealingheraway from her beta too.
I opened my mouth to object, trying and no doubt failing to appear young and hale and full of a stamina that had been sapped out of me on our third flight of the morning, but Torion beat me to answer.
"And she'll rest better in our nest," he said.
Perhaps it was good I was so weary, because I didn't have it in me to startle at the words. Lady McKinney giggled and blushed at the implication.
"A nest so soon? My, Omega Ba—Feargus, you are industrious. Or perhaps this has been something in the making for a time, eh?" Lord McKinney said, silky tone heavy with meaning. "That cottage you've been hiding away in isn't so far from the Feargus keep, is it, now that I think of it?"
I was too slow to catch on, but Torion was quick. "Near to my favorite hunting grounds, in fact," he said.
"Hunting indeed, young man, hunting indeed! And why should she go to waste out there on her own?" Lord McKinney laughed, his eyes bright with excitement.
Ah. Nowherewas gossip. Before the week was out, it was sure to reach every corner of the region that Torion had been wooing me out from under Malcolm for some time. And Torion had planted the seed.
It was a clever lie. I turned my cheek away from their stares, turning exhaustion to shyness and giving myself a moment to smile into Torion's warm shoulder. He was young,boyisheven by beta standards, but he was smart. Not even Malcolm would know if the rumor was false or not.
"We should take our leave," Torion said, and I lifted my chin, not hiding my smile, not caring that I probably looked half in love with him. I was fully in love with the idea of getting somewhere quiet.
"Before your omega is too tired to keep her seat as we fly," I agreed.
Torion's dark eyes flared, and that eager purr rattled in his chest, although I didn't know why that should please him so much.
