“Apart from the good fucking he’s going to get on the regular,” Beckett said, “he can still have every last bit of that lovely future you’ve planned for him. If he wants it, that is. Did you ever ask him his opinion on it?”
“No. I haven’t had much contact with him in recent years. And the last time, before I took him from Dalbryn…well. You’re not the only one in this room who has been unkind to him. I did it for a reason, but that is no excuse. Even so, he agreed to marry me. I told him I’d keep him safe. Arden trusted me to keep him safe.”
His cheeks didn’t heat at that. No amount of embarrassment could stand against the cold shame that crackled through him.
Jack made a soft noise. “Beckett, you may have been cruel about it, but you didn’t do anything he didn’t want, you have to understand that.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I asked. I made very sure.”
“I still hurt him.”
“You did,” Jack said mildly. And then, not so mildly, “Badly enough that his one request of me, the only request he’s evermade, was to let him leave.” He tilted his upper body a fraction towards Beckett and said in a confiding tone, “I am very angry about that.”
Beckett got a glimpse, then, of the powerful man his lover truly was, and how dangerous he would be to cross. Jack’s face was a blank mask but his eyes burned.
“Mostly at me, however,” Jack continued, and broke their stare down. Thank fuck. After a moment of silence, he said abruptly, “His brother, Lassit, is an alpha. As is his brother, Aloys, and his sister, Dahli. Syl is the only beta in the family, and furious about it. Arden is the only omega.”
Beckett’s eyes widened. “Uh...”
“Indeed,” Jack said. “There’s a very good reason that families don’t, in general, have mixed designation children. It’s unusual enough to have a beta with alpha siblings. But Arden…” He shrugged. “I comfort myself with the knowledge that my Arden simply didn’t notice things.”
“How much older are the alphas?”
“Lassit is the same age as me, Aloys a year or two younger. Dahli is your age. You actually know Dahli.”
“I do?”
“She sent you here.”
“What? That was Arden’ssister?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. Glad I didn’t shag her when I had the chance,” Beckett said, and enjoyed Jack’s surprised choke.
The brief moment of humour faded. “Lassit and I were friends once.” The smile that twisted Jack’s face was anything but friendly. “More than I was friends with Arden. At least at first. My grandmother’s estate adjoins Dalbryn Hall, Arden’s family seat. I used to spend time there as a child during the summer, when my father got fed up with me and sent me off. Which happened a fair bit.”
“Terror as a child, were you?” Beckett said.
“Ask Mrs Foley one day. Ask Marl.”
“Marl probably won’t speak to me again. Least not for chitchat. He’s, uh. I was a bit difficult about seeing to Arden.”
“Yes,” Jack said. “I heard.”
Beckett firmed his jaw. “I’ve ain’t never come across someone like the duch,” he said, “not that it’s any excuse. Couldn’t think anyone would let themselves hurt so much to spare anyone else, is all.”
“No?” Jack gazed at him levelly. “You would. In a heartbeat.”
Beckett shrugged. For Jack? Yeah. Wasn’t the same, though.
“I’ve kept watch over Arden for a long time now. Since before he even presented. I had a sense that he wouldn’t be a beta. I started off with bribing a maid when I was about…oh, seventeen, I think? I placed a couple of my own servants there a few years after that, not that Lassit knew. Arden’s father suspected that I was keeping tabs on him. Lord Dalbryn and his wife were more than happy to put their heads in the sand about Lassit.”
“Hang on.” Beckett grinned. “You been spyin’ on that little duch for’owmany years?” He kicked out lightly at Jack’s ankle where it rested close to his.
Jack rolled his eyes at Beckett’s deliberately taunting tone, and no doubt at himself. “Twenty years.”
