“What are youdoing?”
They came up to me with stars in their eyes, spirits high.
“Come, come, come out with us, pretty Omega. Look what we have.”
Laughing, they drew me down the hall where there was a comfortable chair, and a big, tantalizingly blank art easel and canvas for each of us.
I tasted Alpha want and need, swirling all around me, but this couldn’t be true. . .how could they be courting me. . .
Alexei and Theo weren’t touching me, but it was still the most erotic thing I’d ever done, to take a seat between them, to feel the paintbrush vibrating with excitement.
“If you won’t come upstairs,” Alexei whispered in my ear. “We’ll come down to you.”
We began to paint together, and my fingers couldn’t help it, starting to outline Koval Manor again, this time in winter.
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be into this,” I said shyly.
“We are,” Theo said softly. “I think you might be–surprised how much we have in common.”
We painted in between conversations, and I realized they were gently trying to see how I felt, if I was all right after the rejection.
Was my heart too much on my sleeve? Were the softly drawn lines of Koval Manor in winter, the ice-skating figures illuminated with the soft fairy lights, betraying how much I loved the Duke’s home?
“It looks beautiful,” Alexei said. “You’ve taken such good care of it.”
“I didn’t do much, really.”
“I see what you did. And I want it to be appreciated.”
“Thank you, then,” I said, my cheeks pink with pleasure.
“There was one visit a couple of years ago,” the Duke added after a moment, “when it was the Egg Hunt and you’d put two little eggs on our pillows. Carved wooden ones, and when they broke open, there were treats in them. Coffee-flavoredchocolates and tiny sponge cakes and licorice that tasted like lemon drops. So yes, Jessabella. What you do has never gone unnoticed.”
Someonehadappreciated those little treats after all! I had always wondered if visitors maybe found them childish, but now I had my answer.
“Cookie?” Theo asked, handing me a soft chocolate chip one. Our fingers brushed by as I took it from him, sweet and hot on my tongue. “Time for us to return the favor.”
He winked, and his eyes were such a warm and melty brown that I let them draw me into conversation, forgetting for a moment everything that had happened.
Too easy. It was too easy to laugh, to banter back and forth with them, sink into their energy and attentions.
But I had been burned before. It was only my Omega’s biological urges that sought Alpha scents, right? I had to be cautious.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
Their scents all crowded in next to each other, cinnamon-sweet and deep and homey.
“We would love to be considered as your future Pack,” Theo said in a low voice.
I looked wonderingly at him. “But–you know I’m 40, right?” and I couldn’t keep a tart tone from my voice. “I should probably be looking for Alphas my own age.”
Theo seemed to pale under his tan, but Alexei gave me that engaging, golden grin.
“But you haven’t considered thebenefitsof a younger Pack. More energy. More stamina. Ability to keep up with all the babies we could have.”
“Better knees than Edgar,” he added roguishly.
“You’re in the prime of your life,” Theo put in. “You deserve Alphas with our level of devotion.”
