I restrained my sigh as the older man turned to the door.
"Good riddance to you, Brigid Grant," he called back.
She turned toward me at the insult, face too blank to be unaffected.I let my low growl echo across the stones of the hall.
I took in the state of the room. There were five other betas, and only one left with Malcolm Barr, both northerners. Barr had been obnoxiously loyal to my father, but the other man had often been a dissenting opinion, arguing against the few reforms my father raised. Seeing them together told me enough of my suspicions of Barr.
"Wait here," I told the other men, two of whom looked wary but nodded. The third, an old competitor of my father's, settled into a chair with an amused expression.
Brigid responded to the slightest nudge of my fingers on her back, and we turned up the stairs together as if we were of one mind. My father's office was at the end of the far wing, underneath his old suite. I took her there, closing the door behind us, pausing in place at the sight of one of my mother's colorful shawls still draped over the back of my father's chair. I should've buried it with him, but I was grateful to see it here now. I'd mourned her loss too, although my own feelings seemed pale in the wake of my father's grief.
"You didn't think that through," Brigid said, pulling away from me at last, turning to face me. She stood with the sun at her back, igniting her hair, outlining her slender frame. I didn't understand the immense force of her allure, but it rang down to my bones all the same.
"I did," I said, leaving out that I'd decided against it until the sudden impulse that struck while seeing her at Malcolm's mercy.
She turned her face, lifting her chin, putting that strong nose in profile. "Then you should know I'm not barren."
I took in a deep breath. "I've no intention of—" Now that we were alone, I could explain the clause in the contract.
Brigid folded her arms in front of her and shook her head. "You can't claim me in front of them like that and then set me loose. It's one thing to wield your power to take what you want, and quite another to do it solely to spite a beta."
I raised an eyebrow. "That's what I've done, though."
Her lips twisted in a bitter frown. "That's what they suspect, but you'll make them sure of it if you turn around and find another omega after dropping me. I can give you a son. I made sure Malcolm Barr's home was the most hospitable in all the Hills, including your father's keep. I'm a good omega. The only way they'll ever forgive you, ever trust and respect you, is if they believe you claimed me because youwantedto."
I fought my smile. She'd called herself a good omega, but I was fairly sure that direct speech would've persuaded most of Grave Hill's betas to keep her out of their homes.
"But I want daughters," she continued, stiffening to raise herself taller. I leaned back against my father's desk, crossing my ankles in front of me, and watched her eyes flick to my bare chest. "I want to raise my children. If I agree to stay as your omega?—"
Don't laugh, Torion.
"—you'll promise not to toss me out, cut me from their lives. And the cottage will go to the girls."
"By my count, we're having three children?" I asked, unable to resist teasing the woman.
"At least," she answered baldly.
I understood the cause of the heat in my loins at her answer. Brigid Grant was an attractive woman with a scent I wantedto bathe in, and she was asking—no, demanding—to be bred. Plentifully.
I'd expected—and slightly dreaded—the prospect of choosing an omega. Ronson Cadogan had avoided choosing his own for decades, afraid of showing favor to the wrong family too soon in his reign. It'd bit him in the ass, making him look weak and indecisive. I wouldn't make that mistake, but I understood his reticence. He had one now, at last, and I wondered if she'd bossed him into it the way this woman was doing with me.
Because Brigid was right—I'd look both an idiot and a petty ruler if I yanked an omega out from one of the men who'd fought me for position as alpha, and then turned around and claimed an entirely different woman.
Especially when this one was strong, confident, and powerfully appealing.
"This is what you want?" I asked.
Brigid let out a sound that was meant to be a laugh, and in it I heard all the nerves, the fear she'd hidden so well. "I wanted my cottage, my life there, the peace I thought I'd been promised when Malcolm let me leave his house. But you aren't the only one he'll take this out on. I need your protection. And you needme."
I should've been ashamed of the truth that she spelled out so clearly. Instead, I was itching to reach for her, to draw her against me and coax her into telling me again how many children she wanted me to give her.
The promise of a son was a dangerous offer from an omega. Birthing a dragon's wings could cost a woman her life, and for all I knew, Barr had been telling the truth and she was lying to me.
I didn't particularly care. The fun was in the effort of production, and it was a prospect I'd let myself entertain last night before I'd fallen asleep.
"Then you are mine, Omega Feargus," I declared.
She blinked at that, going pale, and then flushed. Her arms dropped to her sides, stunned, as if it was all occurring to her at once too. If Barr had hurt her in the past, or she showed any qualms in being intimate, I would find another solution, I realized. I wanted the bossy little queen in my bed, but I wouldn't drag a desperate woman looking for safety there.
