He wanted to get over it himself first.
So he’d stayed away from the duch as best he could, even though the little mouse had, for some reason, been spying on him, and?—
“It’s the duch,” Marl said as he reached the bottom of the ancient, winding stone stairs, Beckett on his heels. He rushed off.
“What?” Beckett caught up in two strides. He had half a foot in height on Marl, who was puffing as they hurried through dark corridors. “What’s wrong with him?”
Back rigid and jaw tight, Marl glared straight ahead and turned towards the ducal chambers.
Shit. “He’s all right, isn’t he? Marl?”
The house was still around them, all the servants except for him and Marl in bed at this time of morning. Barely two o’clock, if Beckett had to guess.
The house was still, but it wasn’t entirely silent.
There was something at the fine edge of Beckett’s hearing. No, it wasn’t a sound. It was a vibration in the air, a sultry heaviness. Like a storm approaching, or the rush of a river breaking a dam upstream. The destruction was coming, and there was no stopping it.
The thing was, Beckett’d had omegas before—well, two—but neither of them had been in heat.
He didn’t realise what that vibration meant, or what his own growing restlessness over the past few days had been about, until it was too late and Marl, the prick, had walked him into it.
“Listen,” Marl said as they stopped outside the duch’s chamber. “I sent word to His Grace in town as soon as I suspected. His Grace will try to get here in time, we both know that, but I can’t stand by and let the duch suffer any more. It came on too quickly. It’s bad, Beckett. If he doesn’t accept a proxy before dawn, I fear he’ll lose his mind. And then so will the master.” Marl grimaced. “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out and squeezing Beckett’s bicep. His hand was cold against Beckett’s bare skin. “I’m sorry to have to ask you, of all people. I need your help, lad, or…we might lose him. His Grace would never forgive me. I would never forgive myself. His Grace sent the duch here to besafe.”
And while Beckett was mean and angry, and he didn’t want to fuck any stupid omega let alone the duch, who had spent nigh on ten days now, sneaking around and peeking at him—ducking behind curtains, gawking out of windows, peering around corners—Beckett wasn’tthatmuch of an arsehole.
An alpha’s rut was nasty but survivable. An unmet heat, if it didn’t outright kill the omega, which was the most likely outcome, would leave them in ruins.
He wasn’t about to let anyone lose their mind or their life for want of a shag. Gods.
Beckett didn’t have to roll right over with no protest, though. “I’m not the only alpha on the estate you can ask. What about Vickers?”
Marl ran a hand through his thinning grey hair. “He’d be kind.” He eyed Beckett as if to say,I’m not sure you will. “But it will cause trouble with his wife.”
Beckett knew that. He grunted. “It’s fine.” No point going on.
“I suppose there’s Dunn?—”
“No,” Beckett said.
Marl shrugged. “He’s an option.”
“He’s eighteen.”
“He’s an alpha.”
“Barely. He doesn’t have the control and you know it. He’seighteen.”
“He’d be a risk, yes. When it comes down to it, a risk is better by far than waiting for His Grace and letting the duch burn.”
Dunn would hurt him. He wouldn’t want to but he’d hurt him, and even then, the odds of him actually being able to knot an omega were slim. Beckett couldn’t stand by and let either of them go through that.
“Shit.” He slumped against the wall and tipped his head back with a hard thud.
“You’ll do it?” Marl asked.
“I will.”
CHAPTER 2
