Beckett moved to the huge inlaid chest of drawers across the room, pausing when the duch gasped and scrambled back to press against the headboard. Beckett’s glower probably didn’t help, but he wasn’t here to exchange pleasantries. His Grace could deal with it.
He poured a glass of water from the carafe that stood on a silver tray and crossed back to the bed, bringing the carafe with him.
The omega had bunched up all the covers remaining on the mattress and dragged them around him, all the way up to his sharp little nose. He peeked over the top.
Beckett knew that he made an imposing figure, even when he wasn’t barefoot and bare-chested with his unbuttoned breeches hanging on his hips. The omega’s breathing picked up as he approached. Beckett smirked.
He stopped smirking when the omega hunched down in his protective nest and pulled a pillow over his head.
The urgency Beckett had felt outside, the driving need to get through the door, to find the omega and sate it, had eased. The omega’s urgency had, too. They probably had a few moreminutes of calm before it would begin to rise again. Once it took full hold, neither of them would have any sense left.
Beckett thought thathewould, actually.
The omega would be writhing and desperate, begging and pleading.
Beckett, who liked alphas, who loved Jack, wouldn’t lose himself as completely. He refused to.
He took his breeches off and sat on the side of the mattress, set the glass on the small table with a firm click, and yanked the omega’s pillow away without ceremony.
The omega fought to keep it, which made Beckett smile—almost. He couldn’t win. Beckett twitched it out of his grasp, then leaned over and pulled down the covers.
The omega fought that, too, but only so far. He gave a half-hearted slap at Beckett’s hands, then snatched his own hands back and clasped them at his chest, knuckles white.
Beckett stared at him.
The omega didn’t meet his eyes. His chest rose and fell quickly, and his sore-looking lips parted as he shuffled uncomfortably on his arse and moaned. He covered his face.
Beckett caught one of his hands and curled it around the glass of water, nudging it up to his mouth.
The omega sipped cautiously, then greedily, then ended up spilling it down his chest as he gulped at it, both hands clutching the glass now, shaking.
Beckett frowned, took the empty glass off him, and refilled it. Only halfway; too much would make him vomit it back up, and Beckett didn’t want to have to deal with that, as well.
Once the duch had downed the second glass, the urgency was coming back. Beckett quickly assessed him and the mess he’d made of the bed. Might as well get the coverlet clear, he reasoned, else it would get ruined. It took some tugging to get itoff the duch, who clung to it and gave a little wail when Beckett twitched it out of his grasp.
And then there he was, laid bare. He’d been dragged to the edge of the mattress, clinging stubbornly to the coverlet as Beckett hauled it towards him, and now he was on his knees, quivering, in front of Beckett.
Beckett raked him with a quick glance—light muscle tone, no body hair to speak of, slender thighs and a sweet little shaft—before he reached out and knocked the omega’s shoulder gently, tipping him over.
He followed him to the mattress, crawling over him and smiling as the omega scuttled backwards. He didn’t get far. He didn’t have anywhere to go.
Beckett caught a thigh in his hand and pulled the omega flat under him.
The omega’s breath was coming fast and high, edged with a whine. He wasn’t trying to get away anymore. He was writhing subtly against the mattress, rolling his body up. Beckett would fall on him any minute. He wouldn’t be able to stop it, any more than the duch could.
Cold hands against his face shocked him. The omega was cupping his cheeks.
Beckett looked at him properly for the first time, rather than as an alpha scanning a prospective omega.
Than as the omega who had stolen his beloved.
There were faint lines around his grey eyes, and fainter grooves either side of his plush mouth. His lips trembled. “Please don’t be angry with me. I didn’t know this could happen. Don’t make it hurt.”
Beckett leaned down and licked over the omega’s mouth.
Of course he wouldn’t make it hurt.
He was going to make the omega scream for more.
