Torion released me, circling me in his arms, lodging his knot deep and rubbing it inside of me to extend my ecstasy for endless divine minutes until we were both wrung dry and limp, too tired to sway and work our bodies against the pleasure. It pulsed as we caught our breath, shuddering in time with gasps and sighs until we settled, joined and sweaty and wonderfully weary.
I opened my mouth to speak, something silly and meaningless, just a word or two that he might answer so I could hear his voice again, but he beat me to the impulse.
"Rest for now," he whispered, brushing kisses over my ear and temple and jaw, against the corner of my mouth. "I already know I will need you again tonight."
I snorted, sleepy and pleased at the promise. "You can't be in rut again."
"It doesn't take an alpha's rut to make me want you, witch," Torion answered darkly. "I have to sustain myself to leave on the morrow."
My breath hitched, and I turned my face into my pillow to keep myself from pleading for him to stay.
The days draggedby after Torion's departure. My regular visitors returned, but the hours seemed to triple in length whether I was alone or working. Still, I stubbornly refused to face the solution. I had lived in this cottage for five years, taken on the mantle of the wise woman in the woods. Surrendering the title felt as if I was pretending those years had never had any value, when they had made me a truer version of myself. Gone was the girl who sought only to please the prominent man in her life, first her father and then her beta.
It's Torion who seeks to please you, a sly voice murmured in my thoughts as I returned to the cottage carrying a train of willow reeds to make a new basket. The words slithered through my head, a restless body turning and resettling, waiting.
"For now," I muttered to myself, rounding the corner and stopping in place at the sight of the carriage waiting in front of my cottage, recognizing the crest on the door as the strong Feargus oak.
My heart leapt into my throat, a smile growing on my face at the thought that Torion had returned so soon, until I noticed the driver still waiting atop the carriage bench. Perhaps I was being called back to the keep? Even that wasn't so much a disappointment, for reasons I didn't care to examine in the moment.
A soft murmur of feminine voices reached my ear from inside the cottage, and I paused for a moment, trying to catch words or tone, before placing my willow reeds aside. I brushed the debris from my skirts and headed for the door. The driver, a man I recognized from visiting Torion at the keep stables, spotted me and offered a respectful half bow from his seat.
"Ah, there you are, milady," Maggie offered me in an uncharacteristically formal tone.
It took me a moment of squinting to make out her company, and when I did, I wished I'd spent a little longer righting my appearance. The other woman was impeccably dressed and appeared to be of middle age. She was tall enough that she would have to duck to avoid hitting the low beams that held up my loft.
"May I introduce Mistress Baird. She's the best dressmaker in Cambelton," Maggie continued. "Omega Feargus."
Mistress Baird made a point to give the general surroundings of the cottage a derisive sweep of her gaze before landing on me and delivering an appropriate curtsey. "Omega Feargus. What a…rustic hideaway you have for yourself."
I took a moment to swallow all my stammering confusion, drawing myself up a little straighter. "It suits my purposes when I am alone. I apologize if you've been waiting. I was unaware of any appointment."
Maggie blushed slightly, but she too seemed to be doing her best to appear dignified and composed in front of Mistress Baird. The woman had more of the air of a stern school marm than solicitous dressmaker.
"I took the liberty of arranging it for you, milady," Maggie murmured. "As you were kept so busy before taking your retreat."
I wanted to take Maggie aside and quiz her on what precisely she thought she was doing, arranging me appointments for new clothing, but Mistress Baird's presence was both oppressive and impatient. Better to get the thing done.
"Industrious of you, Maggie. Very well, how should we begin?" I asked the dressmaker.
Mistress Baird perked up at that, snapping a tape measurer between her hands, and the next hour was spent with simple, efficient questions. What fabrics did I like? What cut of collarsdid I prefer, high or low? No, she would make the best choices of colors for me now that she'd seen me. Simple or adorned?
She would never have said so, but I thought perhaps our estimation of each other was repaired by the end of the appointment. I appreciated her directness and what choices she was willing to afford, and I suspected she appreciated that I had quick and ready opinions for each of her questions.
"There will need to be final fittings. Am I to return here, or will I be attending you at the alpha's keep?" Mistress Baird asked.
It only stung a little that she'd referred to it as the alpha's and not mine as well.
"The keep," Maggie was quick to answer, and I did not feel remotely inclined to correct her.
Mistress Baird seemed pleased by this too. No doubt when Maggie had secured her for the work, she'd expected better than to be transported to my little ramshackle cottage.
"I'll await you in the carriage," the dressmaker said, before offering me a deeper curtsey than before and taking her leave.
Maggie and I both waited for my door to swing shut before releasing long sighs.
I slanted her a glare out of the corner of my eye. "What on earth was that for, Mags?"
She crossed her bony arms over her chest and jutted her chin out at me, and I had to stifle the urge to smile. I'd missed Maggie over the past week and a half. "Did you think you'd just carry on being the alpha's omega while dressed in pauper's rags?" Maggie asked, sharp tongued and red cheeked.
